Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

George shook off his glove, tilted his head back, and pinched his nose. He walked away from the dumpster, dragging the plastic trash bin behind him. He passed the poster of Karen Quilt without looking at it.

According to the menu, the cafeteria was serving chicken parmesan. George was pretty sure it was just a fried chicken patty with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, but he also wasn’t sure what actual chicken parmesan was supposed to be. With the spaghetti, a pair of rolls, and a trip to the salad bar it made for a solid lunch.

He found a table with an abandoned newspaper and paged through the news. More on the President’s visit to Los Angeles. A sidebar about the First Lady talking to police and schoolchildren. As he finished his chicken patty, he found a short article in the entertainment section. Karen Quilt had been spotted with a mystery man outside her hotel. It was two paragraphs long, one of which was her bio. There weren’t any pictures. George wondered if the President had suppressed them somehow.

Either the lettuce or tomatoes had gone bad. He wasn’t sure which. He pushed the salad to one side and split a roll with his fingers.

Someone cleared their throat. He looked up and saw a young woman sitting across from him. Her dark hair was braided into a tight ponytail.

She wasn’t sitting at the table. She was in a wheelchair. It was the crazy girl.

“Hey,” Madelyn said. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”

He ignored her and let his eyes drift back to the newspaper.

She peered at it upside down. Her finger darted out to tap the Karen Quilt article. “I saw that online,” she said. “Was that you? Did you go talk to her?”

Her hand was pale under the cafeteria’s harsh fluorescent light. He could see dark veins under the flesh and faint bruises under her fingernails. Part of him tried to insist a living girl’s hand couldn’t look like that.

“Please leave me alone,” said George.

Her eyes went wide. “What?”

“Go away.”

Madelyn looked down at the article again. “Didn’t she know you? She had to know you.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. Then he killed another few seconds by having a sip of milk. It was on the edge of spoiling, and the tang of it made his nose wrinkle. Something was wrong with one of the cafeteria coolers.

“George,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“I am not part of this,” he said. “Whatever fantasy world you’re making up, leave me out of it.”

He might as well have slapped her. “What did you say?”

He flipped the newspaper shut. It wasn’t as dramatic as slamming a book. “You,” he said, “are crazy. You need to talk to a therapist or a psychiatrist or someone. And I’d appreciate it if you would just leave me alone in the meantime.”

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened,” he said. “I’m just not going to play this game with you anymore.”

“Game?”

“All this superhero nonsense.”

“You are a hero,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m just a guy,” he said. “Just a regular guy trying to do his duty as a citizen of this great country.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Please,” he said, “just leave me alone.” He lowered his eyes to the newspaper and set his hands flat on the table. He could feel his veins pulsing in his temple. She was giving him a headache.

He could see her in his peripheral vision. Her head was bowed, and he thought she might be trembling. He wasn’t sure what kind of outburst could result from that. He could guess a few possible ones.

Instead, her pale hand reached out again. It came to rest on the front-page headline. The one about the President.

“Did he talk to you?”

He shoveled another mouthful of salad into his mouth. It tasted foul. The lettuce was slimy and the tomato was acidic. He forced himself to chew it.

She tapped the picture of President Smith. “George, did he talk to you? Did he ask you anything? It’s important.”

“George!” called someone else. Kathy, the crazy girl’s roommate. “Hey, how are you?”

He pushed his fork through another lettuce leaf, but he couldn’t eat it. His stomach was churning after the last mouthful. On the plus side, his nausea was overwhelming his headache.

Kathy stopped a few feet from the table. “Are you guys fighting about something?”

George shook his head.

Madelyn ignored her. “Smith gets into your head,” she told George. “I told you, it’s what he does. If he talked to you, we’re back to square one here.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Kathy. “Sorry.” She gave a meek wave and walked away.

Madelyn opened her mouth and the Nextel cut her off with a chirp. “George,” called Jarvis. He sounded tired.

He wrested the phone off his belt without looking at Madelyn. “Yeah, boss.”

“Where are you right now?”

He shot a glance at her. “Lunch.”

“Finish up and come on back to the office.”

“Did you want me to deal with that broken mirror?”

“I put Mark on it. Come back to the office.”

George loaded his tray. He thought about taking the newspaper, too, but Madelyn still had her hand on it. He stood up. “You need to get some help,” he said.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

He felt her eyes on him as he dropped off his tray and left. He tried not to think about her. His nausea was gone, but his head was pounding again.

“I think I need to give you a couple of days off,” said Jarvis. “Just ’til this all calms down.”

It was a kick in the gut, even though he’d felt it coming. “No,” he said. “Come on, Jarvis, you can’t.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a choice.”

“I did what you said,” George told him. He wondered if someone had seen him talking to Madelyn. “What happened?”

“That bitch from HR came looking for you. The lawyers wrote up some sort of disclaimer for you to sign, something to show parents. I said you were over working