by Ana Good
“God, I never thought of that.”
“Of course not, because you’re a drug addict. All you ever think about is yourself.”
30. Liar, Liar
Betty stared at a blank sheet of paper. She stabbed the sheet several times with the point of her pen before casting the paper aside. “I don’t think my pot use has hurt anyone,” she huffed toward Dirk. “I just use the stuff to relax. Makes me more pleasant. Helps everyone. Marijuana is only illegal because the Republicans don’t own the pot fields of Mexico or Afghanistan. If the Bush family owned pot fields, the stuff would be sold at the candy counter at Walmart.”
Dirk shrugged. “Why you here, then?”
Betty ground her teeth. “Never you mind. What do you have listed on your paper?”
Without waiting for a response, Betty grabbed Dirk’s paper, which Dirk had rolled into a tube and been using like a paper kazoo to hum out the theme song to The L Word while waiting for Betty to finish her side of the assignment.
Betty was surprised to find Dirk’s sheet neatly filled in.
Dirk spoke. “Well, first off, there’s my mom, Sheila. My using ’roids has hurt her the most, I think.”
“How?”
“Mostly because she trusted me. I told her we’d be okay, me and Thumper. I promised her I could handle the Olympic pressure. She never would have let us start using the ’roids. I really let her down.”
“Touching,” said Betty.
Dirk ran a hand across her hair. “Yeah … it kinda is.” Dirk paced the room, stopping by the window. Below, in the side yard, she could see her sister, Thumper, practicing on her snowboard. “My sister. I really hurt her. I told her it was okay. I knew it wasn’t. She begged me to stop a long time ago but I kept her going.”
“Why?”
Dirk turned toward Betty, arms tight against her chest. She worked her jaw silently.
“Why?” Betty repeated.
Dirk rubbed her hands across her face. “I wanted to win. I needed to win.”
“That simple?”
“Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but it’s that simple.”
“You realize you turned yourself and your sister into freaks.”
“Don’t see it that way.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Okay, so you know you both look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
“Give me a break.” Dirk balled up her sheet of paper and tossed it over her shoulder into the trash can. “I’m a lot better-looking than him.”
“But you are a freak.”
“I dunno.” Dirk stopped to study her profile in the mirror. Her jeans hung low, exposing the hollows of her hips. “I kinda like the way I look,” she announced as she bent and peeled off her T-shirt in one swift jerk. She turned to face Betty, the afternoon sun glinting off her finely muscled chest. Her jeans rode low, exposing the top white band of tighty-whiteys, not some girly version but the real thing with a slit fly and a built-in double-reinforced pouch, known in the garment trade as “the trophy shelf.”
Betty swallowed hard. “You look like a boy.”
“Feel like a boy,” Dirk sniffled. “Always have.”
Betty was starting to feel uncomfortable now. “Put your clothes on, okay?”
“Why?” Dirk grinned. “You getting hot? Hey, how about I take my pants off?” She slid one hand along her zipper, peeling back just enough cloth to reveal …
“That’s enough!” cried Betty. She covered her eyes with her hands. “I don’t want to see it.”
“See what?”
“It!” she shrieked. “Whatever you keep in your pants.”
“Are you afraid of me?” Dirk advanced.
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not. Answer my question.”
“I think it’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong?”
“This transsexual stuff.”
“Why?”
“You’re a woman.”
“Never said I wasn’t. But who says a woman can only look one way? I mean, look at you. A lot of people would say you don’t look like a woman.”
Betty puffed up. “What do I look like?”
Dirk stepped back. “A dyke.”
“A dyke is a woman.”
Dirk shook her head. “Not according to a lot of people.”
Betty raised one hand. “Stop right there. That’s enough personal stuff. Do what you like. What do I care?”
“Okay,” said Dirk with a shrug. “What do you want to talk about?”
“This assignment. This stupid thing about listing how our addiction has harmed the people we love.”
“Okay. You read my sheet. My mom is coming this weekend. I intend to apologize to her, and to Thumper. Who are you apologizing to? You got a wife, right?”
“A partner, yes. Alice.”
“Alice sent you here?”
Betty puffed up. “Alice and I reached a consensus. We decided it would be good if I took a little break from the pot. I came here to show her I am not an addict.”
Dirk bent and sniffed Betty’s wild tumble of hair. “You’d be lying, then,” she whispered hoarsely into Betty’s ear.
“I beg your pardon.” Betty shoved Dirk aside.
“You haven’t stopped smoking pot. You reek of the stuff.”
Betty ruffled her hair. “Just sweating out the old stuff.”
Dirk plopped down in a rocking chair. “That’s just it. You hit the old nail on the head. The thing I hate the most about being an addict.”
“What? What are you jabbering about now, freak-girl?”
“The lying. I hate the lying I’ve done to everyone these last few years. My mom. Thumper. My teammates. The Olympic Committee. Everyone. That’s why I came here. To show them they can trust me again.”
Dirk strolled out of the room, leaving Betty alone in the mounting darkness, the anemic winter sunlight retreating fast now. The yard outside the farmhouse was quiet, marred with the long flat swatches Dirk’s twin had cut across the slopes that bled downward onto a frozen pasture.
Betty picked up her unmarked sheet of paper. She double clicked the cartridge on her pen and began to write furiously: “Dear Alice: My addiction to pot has hurt us. Mostly it has hurt you.” Just as abruptly Betty stopped writing. She wadded the paper and threw it against the door just as Storm popped in.
“Hey!” cried Storm. “That meant for me?”
“Sorry,” mumbled Betty, who was still irked by Dirk’s unwelcome insight into her nature.
“Babe has called an emergency meeting,” announced Storm. “Downstairs. Pronto.”
31. We Are Family
Babe stood in the center of the group and chugged a long drink from her bottle of vitamin water. Then another chug. Everyone was sitting on the edge of their cushions, eager to learn why Babe had called an emergency meeting. Each member of the group was wondering which one of them had fucked up.
Poppy was biting her fingernails, hoping it wasn’t her.
Dylan slumped down, wishing she didn’t have a baggie of E stuffed in the watch pocket of her jeans.
Betty was glad she’d stuffed her stash in the roll band on her oversized cotton granny panties rather than leave it in her room where any nosy person might easily find it. She was no fool. This place was filthy with addicts. No way she’d trust these women to keep their paws off her stash.
Babe cleared her throat.
The silence intensified.
“I suppose you’re all wondering why I called this late-night meeting?”
Murmurs.
Bunny spoke up. It was lights-out time and she’d already slathered her face with pink nighttime rejuvenator cream. Her lips danced inside a tight pink mask. “I need my beauty sleep,” she whined. “Can we get this over with? Pleeease!”
Babe strolled the interior of the circle. “As you all know, tomorrow is the day your family members will be arriving.”
“Yeah,” said Dylan with a smirk. “Thanks bunches for
that.”
Babe continued. “There are a few ground rules. First, you will each have a two-hour private session with your family members. Only you, your family, and myself will be present for these meetings.”
“Jolly!” piped Poppy.
“Everyone must attend their family meeting,” continued Babe. She stopped and glared at Dylan. “And I do mean everyone. If any of you go AWOL, you will be tossed from the program instantly. No second chances. No do-overs. And remember, for some of you this means I will have to inform the court of my professional decision to terminate treatment. Understood?” Babe stopped in front of Candice.
“Of course I understand,” said Candice crisply.
“Good.”
“Now, before you go to bed tonight, are there any questions?”
No one said anything for the longest time. Storm spoke at last. Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “What if you don’t have family?”
“In your case,” said Babe, “your agent will be coming.”
“Why her?” moaned Storm.
“She’s paying for your stay. Claims it’s part of your contract. If you don’t test sober, Storm, you won’t be allowed to return to work. Your agent has a huge stake in seeing you sober.”
“I realize that!” wailed Storm, “but you said family. She’s not family. What am I supposed to work out in therapy with her?”
“Same as with family. You’ll start by apologizing for all the ways your addiction has affected her life. You’ll commit to getting sober and staying sober. Most of all you’ll have to convince her why on earth she should trust you to get straight and stay that way.”
“Yucka poodle!” cried Bunny. “Does that mean I have to do all that with Daddy?” Her face mask tightened.
“Yes,” said Babe. “You’ll have to do the same with your father.”
“But Daddy doesn’t care!” pouted Bunny.
“He must or he wouldn’t have sent you here.”
“Don’t be naive,” said Bunny as she tucked a stray lock of blonde hair into her blue satin night turban. “Daddy’s a politician. He sent me here because rehab is in. Chic. Americans love fucked-up rich people in rehab. His election team did a poll. The poll results said it would make him look more approachable, more human, if they showed he had a family member who struggled with addiction.”
“No shit?” whistled Dylan. “You’re here merely as a political ploy?”
“What?” frowned Bunny, her face mask cracking. “You thought I had a real problem? You’re joking, right?”
Babe raised her hand. “Bunny, I know you’re scared. Everyone is scared.”
“I’m not scared!” whined Bunny.
“Are too,” said Dylan.
“Not!”
“Enough!” cried Babe. “Those are the ground rules. Everyone must participate in family weekend. It will be your chance to talk to your family members and try to make things right with them. And girls …” Every set of eyes were tacked to Babe’s lips. “Try like hell not to fuck this up, okay?”
32. The Petersons’ Cat
Unable to sleep, Nan was up at dawn Saturday morning. She went straight to the tiny corner desk, turned on a desk lamp, and began to write furiously.
Dylan sat up in the twin bed across the way from Nan and rubbed her eyes. “What’s up?” she mumbled.
“Making notes,” said Nan.
“Notes? What? Are you kidding me? We have a test?” Dylan swept a mop of hair from her eyes. She stretched out on top of the down comforter but didn’t attempt to get out of bed. She wasn’t wearing pajamas, just the same white ribbed wife-beater and torn black jeans she’d had on for days now. “Got any fags?” she asked Nan.
Nan glanced up. “Yes, I do. But you can’t smoke in here. You know that.” Nan had watched as the dark circles under Dylan’s eyes had grown deeper each day. In the dim light of morning, she looked like a skinny football player with a bad haircut, and black war paint smudged under her eyes. “Kid, I hate to tell you this, but you look like hell.”
“Fuck off! You’re not my mother.”
“Thank God for that,” muttered Nan.
Dylan swung out of bed. “Can I have a cigarette, Mommy? Pretty please? I promise I’ll take it outside to smoke.”
“Help yourself, girlfriend.” Nan tossed Dylan an unopened pack of Dunhills from the pocket of her robe.
Dylan caught the pack midair. “Pay later. Okay?”
Nan stopped writing. “No money. All I want is for you to listen to this.”
“Huh?” Dylan crossed the room to stand by Nan and squint at the paper she’d been writing on.
“It’s my apology. To my partner, Birge. I want to get it right. Listen to it for me?”
“Sure,” said Dylan as she plopped her ass down on the edge of the desk where Nan was working. “I’m awake. Go ahead and yak at me.”
Nan cleared her throat twice before beginning. “My dearest, darling life partner, Birge —”
Dylan held up a hand. “Whoa!”
“What?” asked Nan. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Kinda precious, don’t you think?”
Nan bit a cheek. “You think it should sound more casual?”
“How long you been with this chick?”
“About thirty years.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking more casual would probably be good.” Dylan rolled her eyes. “I mean, that thing sounds like your will.” Unable to light a cigarette, her lungs aching, Dylan plucked up a pencil and chewed the eraser tip. “Continue.”
“Okay. Birge, darling?”
“Better.” Dylan twirled the pencil in the air like a baton.
“Birge, darling. I am an alcoholic. You know that, though. You’ve probably known that for quite some time and had no way to tell me. Perhaps you were afraid to tell me. Maybe that thing I did to the Petersons’ cat last Christmas worried you —”
“What the hell did you do to the Petersons’ cat?”
“Never you mind. I was drunk.”
“Do you kill that cat?”
“Worse.”
“Torture?” croaked Dylan. “You, Ms. Clean and Squeaky of Wall Street?”
Nan narrowed her eyes. “I’ve done worse than kill a cat in my time.”
“You hide it well.”
“Everyone on Wall Street does the same. We’re just a bunch of well-spoken thugs with great wardrobes. Never give your money to a professional broker or financial planner to handle. Especially if they are Ivy League educated.”
“No worries there.” Dylan smirked.
“Yes, I imagine what money you have you snort.”
“That was mean.”
“Sorry, but you started the insults, not me.”
Dylan raked a hand through her hair. “I just wanted to know about the Petersons’ damned cat.”
“Forget about it.” Nan continued reading aloud. “I am grateful you left me in this place. I am working at getting sober. And you know how hard I work. I will do this for me. For us. I love you, Birge. Please give me the chance to demonstrate this to you once again.”
“Sounds decent.”
“Not too dry?”
“For me, yes, but your girl, she’s button-down, yes?”
“If by button-down you mean well-educated and successful, yes.”
“She’ll lap up that sorry shit, then.”
Nan eyed Dylan as she tossed the pencil around as if it were a hot potato. “Have you ever had a relationship?”
“I have them all the time.”
“Longer than a week?”
“Why are you picking on me?” Dylan looked hurt. “I’m, like, barely thirty. It’s different these days, being a dyke. You old farts fondled each other’s nipple once, then boom, you were mated for life!”
Nan leaned back in her chair. “Some of us old farts don’t just fondle. We fuck. You think your generation invented fucking?”
Dylan found herself with no comeback.
Nan broke the awkwar
d silence. “You want me to listen to your apology letter?”
“I’m not apologizing.”
“Who’s your family? Parents?”
“Dead and rotten. I got no one.”
“You have to have someone. We all do. Girlfriend? Grandmother?”
Dylan sprang up and stalked across the room. “Trust me. It’s like the Petersons’ cat,” she tossed over her shoulder on the way to the toilet. “You don’t even want to know.”
33. Candy Unwrapped
Candice Antwerp stood at the window in her room and peered cautiously out the slit between the sheer white curtains. Daybreak had barely begun to spread across the frosty pasture yet the doctor had been staring out the window in the same position for over an hour. Her face seemed transfixed. Frozen.
“You’ve been standing there since, like, yesterday,” complained Bunny, who was sitting at the vanity combing out her hair. “You in a trance, or what?”
Candice turned to face Bunny.
“God, you look awful!” squealed Bunny. She tossed the surgeon a tiny blue tube of French under-eye lightener.
Catching the tube, Candice squinted as she read the label. She made a face as she tossed the tube onto the bed. “This stuff is a temporary fix. You ought to come to my clinic. I could tighten your eyes. You’d look thirty again,” promised the surgeon as she crossed the room to stand behind Bunny.
Bunny was in reality a very attractive woman. Amazing bone structure. She just needed everything yanked up a bit. A little nip. A lot of tuck. Clients like Bunny made Candice look good because no matter what operation the surgeon performed, nature had given her an almost perfect canvas. Virtually no way she could mess it up. Even stoned out of her head on downers, Dr. Antwerp couldn’t make a woman like Bunny look anything but breathtakingly beautiful.
Bunny turned to face Candice. “Why are you staring out that window?” she asked again as she slapped cream onto her cheeks, then wiped it off with an obscene amount of facial tissue.
Candice shrugged. “Nervous, I guess.”
“Nervous? You? About what?”
Candice hesitated, then, remembering Poppy’s advice that she open up more, decided to go ahead and take Bunny into her confidence. “My parents.”