The Puzzle Room
Barbara Boehm Miller
Jenny lifted the bulging file, held her arm straight out to measure its heft, and then set it down on the desk, tidying the edges, squaring up the papers to create a solid neat brick. If anyone were watching, and decidedly no one was because Jenny was alone, felt all by herself in the office, that person would take note no doubt of her officious air and quiet professionalism.
“I am the authority here,” she whispered. Authority Jenny at the ready, at her post, burning to create positive change. She stood up, a motion so fast she didn’t know she was going to do it, swishing a rush of blood to her head—making her dizzy with possibility.
The tab on the manila folder bore a striking resemblance to a dangling piece of bologna. Jenny flopped into her chair, smashed her face sideways on the desk, and flicked the tab back and forth.
A sound reached her then, before anyone else would have heard it, a noise, a voice, like something that could tunnel through rock. Only Amanda (Call-Me-Mandy) Jack, Director of Alternative Education Options, produced those sugar-and-flint tones.
“We refer to the girls, or young ladies I should say, as “agents,” as in they are the agents of their own transformation,” Mandy said. The man with her, a potential donor no doubt, held open the one of the twin glass doors to the office suite so that Mandy could pass through first. A gentlemen, thought Jenny.
“Our office here in D.C. is the central nerve center of the operation, and from here we oversee five residential facilities in rural Virginia.” The day was hot, high-summer humid. Jenny noticed and liked how the outside air, more like water, still clung to Mr. Donor’s beard. Jenny picked up the plastic cup she filled at the water fountain a few times a day and stared into the bottom of it, dreading their approach, wishing she could be somewhere else, look like someone else. Jenny’s tan cotton pants had been through the clothes dryer too many times and now rose a good two inches above her ankles when she sat in her chair. She planned to buy a new pair, better clothes all around, when she lost even a bit of weight. Her egregious sneakers were glaring white in some spots, grubby with old dirt in others; Jenny had forgotten to change back into her better-looking black leather flats when she returned from lunch.
Mandy rattled up to Jenny’s desk, gold bangles clinking, high heels pounding the carpeted hall: beautiful and composed, icy and delicious. She swept her arm in Jenny’s general direction. “And this is Jenny,” she said, “one of our licensed clinical social workers, one of our troops slogging through the trenches.” Mandy’s mouth crinkled into a tight accordion on the “slogging.” She inventoried Jenny’s ugly clothes, her messy ponytail, and the wadded tissues scattered around her desk. Jenny was still holding one when she went to shake Mr. Donor’s hand.
He took Jenny’s fingers and smiled with suave noblesse oblige; Jenny wished to pat his plump dark whiskers and made herself stop wishing it. “Hellotherenicetomeetyou…” The words balled up and stuck together in Jenny’s mouth. She needed to be clear. “Hello!” Jenny yelled. His facial hair reminded her of sleek otter. “Hello,” she whispered.
Mr. Donor nodded. “Yes, it’s very nice to meet you, too,” he said. What must it be like, wondered Jenny, to have such a beautiful voice, so ready and available for all situations – to have full possession of the blank geniality of the privileged? She would never know.
Mandy cleared her throat, and flashed her smile—magnetically tinged with the certain knowledge that all eyes were on her, a beauty-queen stage persona that she could never abandon. In fact, Mandy kept one small, discreet photo of herself as second runner up in the Miss Idaho pageant on her bookshelf. Jenny had seen it many times.
“Why don’t we continue this way?” Mandy led Mr. Donor down the hall, and if Jenny moved fast enough, in an instant she could twine her arms around his throat and press her face into the base of his neck. “Take me with you.”
Farther and farther away, Jenny could hear Mandy plying Mr. Donor with the right words. “I’m especially interested in showing you the Puzzle Room. We have one of these at each of the residential facilities to help the young agents deal with their feelings in a constructive way. And we just installed one here in our main office because we also understand that our employees are doing difficult work—some just heartbreaking stuff—and that they also need, and deserve, a cognitive refresher.”
Jenny picked up her metal trash can and held it to the side of her desk, using her other hand to sweep away the signs of her heartbreak, the used tissue balls, some of them dried and crackly with old snot and tears, and some of them fresh and liquid. More phone calls had to be made, but Jenny sat down in her chair and placed her forehead flat on the desk, her arms hanging at the sides, resting. Mandy was busy with Mr. Donor, and the other trench sloggers were at lunch or on appointments. No one could see or comment on her posture of defeat, or question her unoptimistic exhaustion.
“Impressive, Ms. Jack, very impressive,” Jenny heard Mr. Donor say before Mandy closed the door to the Puzzle Room behind his back.
Jenny sat up and stared at her desk phone, one hand splayed on the cover of the file, the only neat thing on her desk. She had to call back Mother of Amber to stop her from following up on her threat to go over Jenny’s head and take her complaints to Jenny’s supervisor, even though Mother of Amber didn’t know the name of Jenny’s boss or any of the staff at the Green Meadow Residential Facility and hadn’t bothered to learn the philosophy behind the treatment—meaning that she would essentially need Jenny’s assistance to complain about Jenny, and Jenny realized that she would probably help Mother of Amber even in this.
Jenny pulled a new handful of tissues from the box and wiped her nose. Her face felt swollen, making her dream of being home alone, at peace, crying and eating Chinese food in the dark, but Jenny knew that if she left her post, her personal trench, Mandy would be furious and curious to know why Jenny had stopped slogging for even a second.
Jenny opened the cover of the file folder, fluttering the papers inside, the individual pieces, chronicling the story of Amber. Jenny knew it all by heart: the progress reports, the counselor statements, the clinical notes, the intake forms, the court records, and, stretching further back in time all the way down to the bottom of the folder, the incomplete middle-school transcripts, the detailed juvenile criminal record, the list of unpaid damages, the witness statements, and Amber’s own words. The file was a catalog, a Sears and Roebuck, where every document held a story piece.
Amber couldn’t pass the sixth grade. The health and sexuality teacher told her if she couldn’t be mature in class then she could spend the time in the principal’s office. Amber suggested that the teacher didn’t get laid often enough to know what she was talking about. Amber hated the ugly yellow of her bedroom walls and sleeping under the sloping Cape Cod ceiling with the crazy pitch, so she left and was located three days later dreaming in the cool, blue room of a 30-year-old male friend. For a while after that, she apparently wrote letters to that same man. Excerpt from a highlighted portion labeled as a court exhibit: I still can’t believe that you got sent to jail, like this was some big deal. That really sucks. I know I would go fucking crazy if anybody ever tried to lock me up. Also, I was pregnant and had to have an abortion. I was really sad and cried all the time. There was no medical record or documentation of any kind indicating a pregnancy.
Then, on June 16, Amber got into a physical altercation with a classmate. She gave a big girl a hard, two-handed shove, apparently for no reason other than the fact that she was blocking Amber’s way on the baseball field during gym class. According to one of the witness statements, Amber said “move your fat ass.” The big girl had about 40 pounds and 4 inches to her advantage, and when she pushed back, Amber fell hard on the ground and landed on the freshly drawn base line; the white powder sprayed all over the back of her black jeans. “Keep your hands off of me, retard,” Big Girl replied and then she laughed. And then everyone standing around laughed too, and Amber jumped up and reached out her fingers, like she was going to leap on Big Girl and claw her soft vulnerable eyes. “She looked like a crazy Halloween cat or something,” one of the bystanders was quoted as saying.
Big Girl simply caught Amber by the throat and pushed her back down on the ground. “And stay down there this time.” Big Girl pinned Amber into the dirt with one of her wide sweating knees. Amber struggled and kicked, her hair swishing in the lime and dust. “Struggle all you want; there’s nothing you can do.”
Amber screamed with such intensity, it was like an animal howl. “Nooooooooooo!” The knot of girls took a collective step backward. In the recorded words of another of the classmates watching: “Man, she was so crazy. I never heard anybody yell like that. She kind of reminded of that guy from Univision: you know, the one who says ‘gooooooooooool’ at the soccer games.”
The sound drew the gym teacher’s attention, and she jogged over from her spot near third base.
Big Girl stood up and adjusted her batting helmet. She turned her back on Amber; that was her mistake. Amber sprang up and grabbed one of the baseball bats and swung as hard as she could and smashed Big Girl across the back and head. A crunching sound and then Big Girl fell to the ground on her side. Amber flung the bat away and stomped on Big Girl’s rib cage with both feet. “You want to tell me again there’s nothing I can do about it? Huh? What do you have to say now?”
A few things worked in Amber’s favor that day:
1. Big Girl didn’t die;
2. The batting helmet prevented Big Girl from getting brain damage;
3. Big Girl slumped on her side, meaning Amber couldn’t keep her balance well enough to
actually jump up and down on Big Girl;
4. None of Big Girl’s broken ribs punctured any of her organs, or at least not any major ones;
and
5. Big Girl’s backbone was a clean break, and she would walk again, eventually.
Jenny closed the file, wishing she hadn’t started thinking about what Amber had done to that other girl. The idea of someone stomping on another person made Jenny’s mouth go dry. Jenny could feel the crunch of bone under foot, the sickening sensation of rage beyond the no-return point, the terror of holding nothing back. The pictures circulated on a repeating loop, clear and precise as a movie.
Strong, hot sun poured through the window. “Stop it; stop it, stop it,” Jenny warned herself. “I can turn this around,” she said louder, the empty stillness eating up the words. She would call Mother of Amber and explain to her that Amber’s accounts of being held captive were the fabrications of an angry, adolescent mind. Jenny would take the time to really and truly educate Mother of Amber about the Green Meadow philosophy —and that would stop her from demanding that Jenny do something, or else. Jenny flexed her fingers opened and closed, open and closed, and picked up the telephone. Ring, ring. “Hello, this is Jenny from the Green Meadow Farm Group.”
“Yeah, well.” No hello, just sulky resignation from the start. “I was just about to call you again.” Jenny heard the snick of a cigarette lighter and Mother of Amber taking a deep breath.
“Great,” Jenny said because projecting cheerful optimism was important. “So, I was thinking about our last conversation, and I know you had some concerns about Green Meadow being a good fit for Amber.” No crying this time. Stay professional. Jenny imagined Mandy’s mouth painted frosty pink with lipstick.
“Look. Cut the shit, Jennifer. Just cut it. My girl says they lock her up for hours if she doesn’t say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ fast enough. And I’d have half a mind to call the goddamn police if I thought they would actually do anything about it.”
Jenny cleared her throat. “Right, okay.” She coughed again and fumbled her hand in her empty tissue box. “Let me assure you once again that no one is holding Amber against her will. The thing is… our treatment plan provides young women with opportunities to handle their emotions in a constructive way. For example, one of the unique features…”
“Shut the fuck up, Jennifer. I don’t want to hear this bullshit psycho babble. I want you to tell me why my daughter is being held prisoner and what you’re going to do about it.” Mother of Amber’s breath revved up to gale force.
Jenny swallowed and wiped her forehead with a pad of Post-It notes. “Let me assure you that...”
“No!” Mother of Amber screamed, and Jenny froze like one of the girls on the playing field. “Look,” Mother of Amber continued; her voice straining, splintering, and finally breaking. “You know, you all think my kid is just some horrible person, but she’s not.” Jenny could hear the clotted tears in Mother of Amber’s voice and felt hot pinpricks under her own eyelids.
“She is a good kid. I swear to God I don’t know what makes her so mad. She is not just some case file.” Mother of Amber sniffed and coughed, choking. Probably on her own pain, thought Jenny.
Jenny tore two Post-It notes off the pad and held one under each eye to catch her tears. “I’m not saying she is, and I wish...”
“No. You just be quiet now and listen to me.” Mother of Amber exhaled. “Like two years ago, we went to my brother’s house near Erie, and we were way out in the middle of nowhere because he has this farm, right? And there’s this horrible thunder-and-lightning storm, and I’m worried we might even get a tornado or something, so I go to check on Amber, and she’s really scared and curled up in a tight little ball in her bed. ‘Mommy,’ she whispers. ‘I heard this metal crunching noise, and I had a dream that I was being ripped apart in this big machine.’ She sounded so afraid, you know? So, I reminded her it wasn’t real. ‘Come sleep with me,’ she says. Just when you think your kid doesn’t want you around anymore, all of a sudden you realize that she still needs you and that you’re Mommy. So, we snuggled up together in the little bed, and I wrapped my arms around her, and she was happy. See what I’m saying?” Sobs hitched in Mother of Amber’s throat.
The sincerity of her tears made Jenny cry in earnest, and she crumpled her twin Post-It notes and wiped her face with them. Jenny could see what Mother of Amber was saying, could picture the narrow twin bed with an iron frame and an old-fashioned chenille bedspread that was probably worn in certain patches. The storm wind blew, and a tree branch slammed against the window. Amber’s hair was still damp from her nighttime shower, and Jenny could smell the soft fruits of the hair conditioner she had used and could imagine what Amber had felt: the warm safety of being protected, the faint heartbeat of her mother, and experienced too Mother of Amber’s deep sense of satisfaction at being able to give her daughter exactly what she needed. At that moment, Mother of Amber knew what it meant to be competent and strong.
Jenny and Mother of Amber listened to each other and to themselves cry for a few more moments. “So,” Mother of Amber said, “see, that’s what I’m saying. She’s just looking for some love and understanding, and you people have her locked up in some room. And I’m just not going to let that happen.”
Jenny wiped her nose on the sleeve of her pink button-down Oxford shirt, leaving a wet smear. Mother of Amber had tricked her somehow by making Jenny her ally, her empathetic friend, as a means to an end—to get Jenny on her side, to convince her to make everything right when in fact nothing was wrong.
“For the last time,” said Jenny, her voice rising a notch, “no one is holding Amber against her will.” Jenny closed her eyes, while a swirl of images and words roared through her brain. “And, you know what else? Maybe if you bothered to learn anything at all about our therapeutic approach, we could actually have a useful conversation,” Jenny screeched.
“That’s it. You transfer me to your supervisor right now. Do you think you can manage that, Jennifer?”
Mother of Amber panted like a dog, an angry dog. Her outraged indignation rimmed with its disagreeable air of sanctimony pissed off Jenny more than anything she could remember at that exact moment.
“My name is Jenny—just Jenny. It’s not short for anything.” Jenny wanted to be clear on that point. “And you know what, you lazy, uninvolved witch, if you want to talk to my supervisor so bad, just fucking Google her name and phone number and leave me out of it.” Jenny slammed down the phone; her heart raced with adrenaline, making her so giddy and relieved that she started to giggle.
Jenny heard a light clacking noise—the sound of Mandy’s beautiful fingernails tapping the chunky blue necklace that fell like a rain of tears around her neck. Jenny swiveled in her chair and saw Mandy and Mr. Donor standing there. Judging by Mandy’s expression, she had heard at least the last part of the conversation; so had the very important Mr. Donor whose face shone light pink with embarrassment. He took a demure step away from Jenny’s desk to study one of the framed prints on the wall, hands clasped behind his back.
Mandy’s mouth was slightly open, her tongue stuck to her upper lip: the first time Jenny had ever seen her speechless. Jenny knew she should say something, explain away this situation, but instead she did nothing, and the three of them stood frozen in those poses, waiting it seemed for one of them to somehow break the spell of silence. At last Mr. Donor turned around and smiled first at Jenny and then at Mandy.
“Jenny, it was very nice to meet you, and, Ms. Jack, thank you very much for the tour. I’m sure we’ll be in touch. The exit is this way?” Jenny wanted to take his hand and walk out the door with him.
“Yes, of course,” Mandy said, snapping her composure back in place. “You know,” she said to Mr. Donor, “this is a perfect example, and a perfectly understandable one, of the incredible stress that our front-line workers encounter.” Mandy smiled at Mr. Donor.
Mandy held her unflinching smile until the door closed behind Mr. Donor, and then she turned to Jenny. “That was certainly quite an outburst.”
Jenny couldn’t reliably read Mandy’s tone or expression, but she knew that Mandy would never tolerate being embarrassed. “Mandy, I’m so sorry. The thing is… this case is a tough one because Mother of Amber…”
“Who?” Mandy looked confused. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” Mandy pulled an infinitesimal shred of lint from the sleeve of her jacket. “Jenny,” she said, “I really think some time in the Puzzle Room will provide you with the cognitive refresher you need to do your work.”
As you might imagine, the Puzzle Room is filled with puzzles to engage the human mind and distract it from stress and worry—a way of letting emotions rest until they are less raw and demanding. “You need a break, Jenny.” Mandy said and closed the door behind Jenny, leaving her alone in the Puzzle Room.
A flat wooden table with a half-worked jigsaw puzzle spread over the surface occupied the center space. Jenny wondered who had pieced it together, created the bucolic setting with the red barn in the background and lazy munching horses. The scene was frozen in time, much like the unsolved Rubik’s cube on the stand under the window. The shelves hold rows of soft booklets arranged by type: crosswords, Sudoku, word searches, Caribbean brain teasers… Jenny got bored leafing through them all and pulled out a collection of anagrams.
She took a black ballpoint pen from the jar on the window sill. Jenny flipped to the first page of the booklet and clicked the pen’s button a few times. The solutions eluded her, and the jumbled letters jumped on the page in a manic dance of confusion, smeared and blurred by a fresh batch of tears. She pressed the tip of the pen on the inside cover and drew a solid, dark line and wrote “MANDY JACK IS A WHORE,” carving the letters deep enough to raise ridges on the back side of the sheet.
Jenny laughed quietly to herself, feeling better. And then she noticed the purple, unobtrusive camera eye on the ceiling. They could probably see what she had written. Jenny slapped the book closed and stuffed it to the far back of the shelf. Maybe no one had been watching at just that moment, but the hairs on the back of Jenny’s neck crackled with the certainty that such an assessment was incorrect. Jenny considered writing a complimentary statement on the inside cover of a crossword book to cancel out her other words. “Mandy Jack is so pretty.” “That donor will give us lots of money because he wants to sleep with you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Jenny whispered and pounded both temples with the sides of her closed fists. She forced herself to stop and drop her hands to her sides. The idea bloomed full blown in her mind that the best way to win back Mandy was to show in exuberant detail how positive an experience the Puzzle Room was. Maybe Mandy really did believe that Jenny’s aberrant behavior could be cured with a cognitive refresher.
Jenny picked up the Rubik’s cube and studied its colored layers, concentrating on getting it right. Jenny’s hunch that she could solve the Rubik’s cube now, today, so many years from junior high, had no actual basis. She switched to a simple word search, turning the pages slowly. Finding the words was more difficult than Jenny imagined, and finally, she resorted to going through each line in a slow, careful way, touching her pen tip on every letter until senseless chains resolved themselves into words. The work was slow, but Jenny kept at it, determined to make things right with Mandy. Time passed, how much Jenny couldn’t know because there was no clock to use as a gauge. And unbelievably, unexpectedly, Jenny did become absorbed in her task, and a pain and stress she hadn’t felt until it released from her back and shoulders evaporated.
Jenny shook her head in wonder and smiled at the surprising effectiveness of the Puzzle Room; all of the sudden, she wanted to talk to Mother of Amber again, to convey her firsthand experience of the salubrious effect of a calm, controlled environment. Jenny closed the word search booklet with a quiet flap. She also needed to talk with Mandy and set things right, to drop a stable anchor on her continued employment. Jenny stood up and walked to the door. She turned the knob.
The door didn’t open.
Jenny tried rattling it because sometimes doors could be tricky. That didn’t work, so Jenny knocked on the door and then pounded on it and kicked it. None of her actions had any impact. A small sliver of unease snaked its way down Jenny’s spine. For all she knew, the room was soundproof; it had the same acoustic ceiling tiles as her cousin’s homemade music studio. When Jenny made that connection, the real panic set in. She was convinced that no one could hear her so she paced back and forth, hoping that, at the very least, Mandy would come back to reprimand her. Sweat stained the armpits of her blouse. Jenny waved her hands in front of the camera and mouthed “help me, please.” No one did.
Jenny reasoned that Mandy wanted to see Jenny endure and benefit from more therapy, so Jenny sat down at the table and worked at the jigsaw puzzle, humming a soundless tune to stay calm. She concentrated on the pieces like a true performer, turning them around and around in her fingers, as if she were considering all angles. Jenny twiddled puzzle pieces for at least a half hour by her estimation, but still Mandy didn’t appear. So, Jenny picked up the Rubik’s cube and started spinning. When she moved one colored square into place, another or even two others were dislodged. It made no goddamn sense to her, just like it hadn’t in the seventh grade. Jenny threw the Rubik’s cube against the wall. Hard. There was a thud and a cracking noise.
“Serves you right, fucker,” she whispered.
Jenny tore the cover off a book of Chinese word slappers and wrote “I AM BEING HELD AGAINST MY WILL. PLEASE CONTACT THE NECESSARY AUTHORITIES.” She held the sign over her head, showing the big wet patches under her arms. Jenny stared up at the back of her sign and the purple rim of the camera’s eyes just visible like a rising sun, and hopped up and down: a bouncing, human exclamation point punctuating her terror and desperation.
A few minutes later, Mandy opened the door. “What is going on in here?” she demanded.
Jenny dropped her sign on the table and lowered her arms. “You locked me in here,” Jenny said.
“Really? Is that right?” Mandy jiggled the door knob. “We’ll have to get maintenance to take a look at that.”
“Amber’s mother tried to tell me what was going on, and I wouldn’t listen to her. Nope. I told her that no one was holding her daughter prisoner. She wanted me to help her, and I told her she didn’t understand the way things work. I…”
Mandy help up her hand a few inches from Jenny’s face. “Just stop right there before you get yourself worked up again. No one is holding Amber prisoner or detaining her against her will. Her commitment at Green Meadow Farm is strictly voluntary. Her mother could pull her out of there at any time and take her home, but she’s not willing to do that because the truth of the matter is she can’t handle her own daughter. Your job is to make her comfortable with that choice, to help her understand that our approach is the only way for her daughter to succeed.” Mandy paused. Jenny replayed her conversations with Mother of Amber, who had never talked about bringing Amber home, never looked forward with anticipation, only backward with longing.
Jenny could feel a drop of sweat rolling down her temple. “You still can’t lock her up, and you can’t do it to me either. That’s just not right. I’m…”
“You’re what? You know, Jenny, just like Amber, your presence here is strictly voluntary. If you want to create a conspiracy over a routine maintenance issue in a new construction, be my guest, and, if you want to look for another job, you can try that too.” Mandy smiled.
The prospect of finding another job seemed far-fetched to Jenny. Mandy would never give her a recommendation or, worse still, would only say kind things when she explained Jenny’s persistent difficulties. Likewise, Jenny couldn’t imagine dressing herself in the crisp, attractive clothes she would need for an interview or being able to corral her wandering thoughts long enough to answer the questions being asked.
Jenny stared at Mandy. She really is so beautiful, thought Jenny, wanting to believe that the locked door had been a misunderstanding.
“Go home, Jenny. And then I want you to come to my office first thing tomorrow morning so we can create some strategies for future success.”
The sunshine caused a white, hot glare to bounce off the sidewalk, nearly blinding Jenny as she stood outside. The heat felt good after hours of chilled office air, even as her skin began to prickle with small beads of sweat. Jenny closed her eyes and raised her face to the sky. She thought of Amber, wondered what she was doing right then. Was she in the Puzzle Room at that very moment? Would they let her out to eat dinner and shower before lights out? All Mother of Amber had to do, thought Jenny, was pull her daughter out of there, but she hadn’t done that, and Jenny knew that she probably never would.
Jenny turned and started walking. Amber was only fifteen, and, if her mother didn’t bring her home, she would probably only leave the Green Meadow facility when she became an adult in three years. Jenny thought about the half-worked jigsaw puzzle on the table where she had been locked up: the barn, the horses, the long green blades of grass tipped with yellow—did Amber see something like that when she looked out the window? If the opportunity ever presented itself, Jenny knew, with full certainty, that Amber would escape. She would run as hard and fast as she could, through the tall grass, trying to make it to the woods and maybe out to the main road, heedless of the trees closing behind her and the impractical shoes she wore.
The city spread out around Jenny. People flooded the sidewalks and jammed the crosswalks. Jenny’s hair had become a messy bundle that stuck to the back of her neck. She stopped to rework it into a cool, neat ponytail—and kept walking.
Barbara Boehm Miller is an emerging writer and a graduate of the Master of Arts in Writing Program at the John Hopkins University. Her work has previously appeared in Gemini Magazine. She currently holds a position as a senior diplomatic translator of Romance languages and has published several translations, primarily in the field of children’s rights. She lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband and twin daughters.