We Can't Be Friends

by Cyndy Etler

  “Awesome, because my youth group is doing this not-Halloween costume party. You want to come?”

  “Um, yeah, okay. Okay, yeah!”

  The wind from the cheerleaders huffing out the door is almost enough to make Whitney’s hair move. Almost.

  So…Jack chose Whitney, not a cheerleader. So…some guys must like sweet more than sour.

  At meetings, too, I’m suddenly popular. Meetings in the rich towns, even! My plan is working: now that I have my license, I can strategically force my mother to let me use her car to get to the cool meetings.

  What really works is program-speak. And pulling out the M-word, which I save for special occasions. So I go, “Mom, doesn’t Al-Anon tell you to let your addict meet their own needs? I need a CoDa meeting for my recovery. Shouldn’t I drive myself, so you don’t have to help me?”

  Bingo. It’s me, Madonna, and the Merritt Parkway, windows down and pedal to the metal. Holy fuck, am I glad I didn’t suicide.

  • • •

  I’ve been dreaming of attending the Westport YP meeting, because I’ve heard rumors that actual young people go to it. Teenagers! In recovery! It’s a super-miracle that I even get to go tonight because, of course, it meets on Saturday nights. But for once, my mother’s boyfriends are all busy. And I’ll have to send them thank-you notes, because there’s not one but two sober boys at the Westport YP meeting. And both of them come over and talk to me! How am I suddenly living a Sweet Valley High book?

  The first guy, John, is a Deadhead, legit. Anybody can wear a tie-dye and some string bracelets, but only a true Deadhead will put their scuzzy, long-toenail feet in Tevas and go out in public. When I tell John I can’t really make it to this meeting because I live out in Monroe, he goes, “I could be your chariot.” He says that to me. Cyndy Etler.

  The other guy, Aaron, is more of a surfer. He has lion-mane hair and a Ron Jon tank top. When I tell him I can’t come back to this meeting he goes, “Yeah, I live up in Middletown. They won’t be seeing me again, either.” You can tell who’s sweet and who’s sour. But how come sour is shaped like He-Man and sweet is shaped like Grimace?

  The three of us hang out, talking in the church parking lot until midnight. My mother is going to kill me. But Saturday night with two sober boys? No pressure to do things I don’t want to, like with Jo’s friends before Straight? Totally worth it. Hundred percent.

  9

  JULY 1988

  ONE YEAR AND FOUR MONTHS OUT

  Okay, I really need to get my own car. I’ve gotta be able to get down to the good meetings without my mother padlocking me. I need to be able to do things, like go to Connie’s apartment, so she can help with my Smith College essay.

  It’s a given I’m going to Smith, I know that. It’s destiny. I’ll find which professor’s office was my father’s, and his ghost will meet me there, and we’ll talk. He’ll answer the questions I’ve been asking him in my head my whole life. He’ll finally love me, or his ghost will, and that will fix everything. I’ll be fixed. But even with destiny, you’ve gotta do some legwork. My legwork is writing this application essay. I need to make sure it’s perfect, and Connie said she could help.

  Connie’s the one from CoDa I told you about, who drives the beat-up Jeep. She’s also a fairy godmother, like Bitsy. She hugged me after a meeting one time, and I told her she smelled frigging awesome. Next time I see her, she gets this big smile and pulls something wrapped in tissue out of her bag. A gift. For me. Instead of tearing it open, I try to be all ladylike, loosening the tape and folding back the tissue. And good thing, because what’s inside is a heart-shaped glass bottle.

  “‘Crabtree and Evelyn Venetian Violet Flower Water,’” I read out loud. “Oh my God, it’s delicious! Just the words: ‘Flower Water.’ I don’t even care how it smells!”

  “You are a writer,” Connie says back, the most delicious words ever. “Now you’ll smell like one too.”

  Connie did that for me before I went to OA and lost weight. She liked me even back then. But it turns out driving a Jeep isn’t the coolest thing about her. Get this: she’s a real, live writer. It’s her job to write. Every day you can read her writing in the newspaper. My heart goes all speedy thinking about it.

  Today will be the only time I’ll complain about having my mother’s car, promise. But today, I wish I didn’t have my mother’s car. Because if I didn’t, I would’ve gotten to ride with Connie in her Jeep to her apartment. Instead, I follow her. But at least, since I’m not sitting next to her, I can scream when I see where she lives.

  It’s that huge Addams Family Victorian, right by the highway entrance in Norwalk. The one we drove by every day before we moved in with Jacque. I used to dream of living in that house, and now—what the fuck?—Connie does! She has the top floor as her apartment. The kitchen has slanted ceilings, and some of the windows are at the ends of their own little mini-hallways. It’s all hers—she doesn’t have kids or a husband or even a cat. It’s just Connie, her apartment, and her writing.

  I get to choose from twelve kinds of herbal tea, and Connie brings it to me in a red-and-white teacup on an actual saucer. There’s a baby spoon in the red-and-white sugar bowl, and it kills me to not use it. The mangled Sweet’N Low I pull out of my pocket just isn’t the same. I iron out the creases with a thumbnail as she reads my Smith essay.

  “It’s powerful,” she says when she’s done. “I can see why your father’s dying before you could talk would be the event that most shaped your life. The admissions committee will see it too. Given your writing, a sewer rat would see it.”

  There’s a but coming. I hear it, like a freight train. It’s gonna flatten me.

  “But you have to kill your babies.”

  “Connie! What?”

  “Kill your babies. Scrap your writing. As writers, our words are our children. We birthed them; we adore them. But if they don’t do their jobs, we have to kiss them goodbye.”

  “Okay, but you don’t have to put it that way! That’s a horrible way to describe it.”

  “But you won’t forget it, will you? Now, they asked you for a moment; you gave them an event. How long is a moment?”

  “Like, ten seconds?”

  “And how long is an event?”

  “A couple hours?”

  “Exactly. Zoom in the camera. To stand out from the avalanche of admissions essays, you need to give them precisely what they’ve asked for: a moment.”

  “But how? I wasn’t there the moment he died. Or even if I was, I don’t remember. How am I gonna write about that moment?”

  The Sweet’N Low packet chooses now to spring a leak. I’ve been squeezing all the powder into one pink corner and the paper there, fat with fake sugar and soft from my thumbs, gives up and splits open. Star-white powder explodes onto my lap.

  “You’re not. You’re going to write about a moment you recall with the clarity of shattering ice.”

  “I am?” I say, rubbing the Sweet’N Low into my jeans.

  “You are. Would you say that growing up without knowing your father has affected you?”

  “Like, duh.”

  “Precisely. We’re going to find a moment you would have experienced differently had you known your father. Then we’ll use that moment to prove your point. Apologies for pressing on the bruise, but pain is real, and real sells. Agreed?”

  “I talk about everything at meetings. You know I’m okay with real.”

  “Bravo. Veracity is next to godliness.”

  Connie has me list all the ways not having my father has affected me:

  • living in a crappy, embarrassing house

  • getting embarrassing free lunch

  • not getting designer jeans

  • my mother marrying Jacque

  • not having anyone to protect me

  • not having anyone who loves me

&
nbsp; But they all sound wicked whiny to me. Like I’m gonna tell Smith College that I didn’t get Jordache jeans? Or that Jacque used to lock me in the bathroom with him? Not.

  So Connie goes, “What about boys?”

  “Boys?”

  “Boys. Girls learn what to expect from boys from their fathers. You don’t have a father, but you do interact with boys. This could be fertile ground. Good gracious, excuse the pun.”

  “The what?”

  “Inside joke. Boys. Tell me about a moment you spent with a boy you like.”

  I can feel my grin cracking upward when she asks me that. Like, every single tooth is on display. I smile at my teacup for a sec, remembering. Then, because I know Connie won’t judge me, I close my eyes and go back there. I keep my eyes closed as I tell the story. Behind my eyelids, I get to live it again.

  “It was in the rec hall at their church, Jack and Whitney’s. It was a costume party, and I got there late. Everyone was over at the snack table. They had punch in a plastic bowl cut to look like crystal. Some kids’ moms had made real cookies and cupcakes, you could tell by the Tupperware, but other moms bought the store kind. I walked in and saw all these kids’ backs, because the snacks were on the other wall. But I couldn’t recognize anyone. They all had on costumes.”

  “What was your costume?”

  “I was an old maid. I mean, an old lady.”

  I want to look at Connie real quick to make sure she doesn’t take that personal. But even more, I want to stay at the costume party. So I keep my eyes closed and switch my brain back to her question.

  “I had on queen-size stockings, so they’d be baggy, and my mother’s organ-player shoes. And this suit I’d found in a trunk in her room, from when she was in college. It was dark-green wool. The skirt went past my knees, and the jacket had brown leather buttons. It smelled like mothballs. It was perfect, except I couldn’t button the jacket, because my mother has really small boobs. I had her reading glasses on and half a tub of baby powder in my hair, to make it gray. I stood there looking at these kids’ backs, like, ‘Fuck, I forgot to bring food,’ when this prostitute turns around. Fishnets, huge high heels, tiny black roller derby shorts, and a red bustier. Like, totally somebody’s druggie image. Just not mine. The prostitute walked over to me with her big, red lips all bunched up. I had no idea who she was, but when she got closer, I was like, ‘Lady, shave your arms.’”

  Connie laughs. “What does she do next?”

  “She reaches out her hairy arm and honks my boob. And says, ‘Nice falsies,’ in Jack Pilgrim’s voice.”

  Connie claps and my eyes fling open. Her face looks as happy as mine feels. “Truly? He squeezed your breast?”

  “He didn’t squeeze my breast, Connie! He tweaked my boob! And he didn’t think he was—he thought they were fake!”

  She raises her teacup in a salute. “To Jack, your cross-dressing beau!”

  “It was his costume. It was like, Rocky Something Something Show.”

  “Cyndy, you have fine taste in friends.”

  “But I can’t write about that for a college essay!”

  “Perhaps not. But this is too good for a permanent killing. You must put it in a future piece. Promise me?”

  “Promise you.”

  Two hours later, when I open the front door of my house, I get slammed by that feeling: I’m in trouble. All I can hear is the butcher block clock, ticking off the seconds. My mother said I had to be home by ten. It’s ten.

  There are so many dirty dishes, you can’t tell if the sink is made of porcelain or metal. Bad sign. There’s an overflowing Hefty bag leaning against the fridge, which means she heaved it out of the trash can by herself while I was out. Really bad sign. Her jacket and purse are on the table like she tried to go out, then remembered I had the car. Really, really bad sign.

  I put the keys next to her purse all dainty, as if that’s gonna turn back time. Then I tiptoe across the dining room. Maybe I can get in a pee before the bomb goes off.

  Wasted effort.

  My mother’s in my bathroom. She’s standing on the dirty little bathmat surrounded by every bottle of Silkience and Love’s Baby Soft I ever saved up for. These bottles, and every other thing I keep under the sink, are lying sideways on the scungy, sticky floor.

  “What is all this mess? This is ridiculous,” she says.

  “Ma. What are you doing with my stuff?”

  “I need a pad. Just one pad, to get me through to when I can use my car to go to the store. Is that too much to ask?” Her jaw is clenched so hard I can see the outline of her skull. I’m in deep shit, because I’m out of super-maxis.

  “I don’t have any. I ran out. But I’ll go to the store for you—”

  “What do you mean, you ‘ran out’? I spent fifteen dollars on that enormous pack of heavy-duties! What did you do with all of them?”

  “That was last summer. Those are long gone.”

  “Last summer? Well, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you get more?”

  “I don’t know, Ma. I just don’t need them.” Which is true. It’s like, ever since I got food sober, God’s been rewarding me by taking away my period.

  “What do you mean you don’t need them? Are you not—Cynthia Drew Etler! Are you preg—”

  “No! God! I just—I don’t need pads, okay? I don’t want to talk about it!”

  Her eyes sizzle into me like a branding iron, but then she remembers why she’s here. She stalks off toward her car keys, walking like a cowboy. Then she turns.

  “I have to tell you, I am very concerned. I will be calling Straight staff first thing in the morning to see what they have to say about this.”

  She grabs her keys and shoves out the front door with no daintiness whatsoever. Not even a little bit.

  10

  AUGUST 1988

  ONE YEAR AND FIVE MONTHS OUT

  The doctor’s office smells the same as it did when I was little: so clean it makes your nose squeak.

  “Just slip into this smock. Opening in the front!” says the nurse, chipper as a tea-party hostess. How do you be so happy when your work’s smell causes nosebleeds?

  When I was little, my mother would lift me onto that giant paper towel that runs down the doctor’s exam table. I didn’t have to slide my own butt across it, ripping it in half.

  I’m trying to fix the rip when the doctor tap-taps and opens the door. I’m leaning way over on my right butt cheek, pulling the ripped paper straight to clamp it in place with my left butt cheek, when he walks in. I slap back down onto cold, red leather.

  “Hellooo, Cyndy. I’m Dr. Kretschmer. I understand you’ve stopped having your period.”

  He pushes his big pink hand at me. I look down as I shake it and watch my giant un-bra’d boobs slap each other under my tie-front doctor’s-office dress. I don’t talk, but he doesn’t notice.

  “Let’s have you jump onto the scale for me,” he says.

  He sits on his rollie-wheel stool, spins away from me, and swooshes over to the scale, all in one motion. So I get down from the table, fist my dress-front closed, and step onto the scale. The doctor taps and clunks the metal bolts around. Finally, the lever stops moving.

  “One twenty,” he says.

  Me? Cyndy Etler? One twenty?! I’m skinny! I must be skinny! I’m—

  “What are you…five foot five?” he asks, his hand pushing me back against a ruler on the wall. “Five feet four inches. One hundred and twenty pounds. And you’re—” He flips back some clipboard pages. “—sixteen years old. Two months away from seventeen. Congratulations!”

  I haven’t said a word, and he’s ready to throw me a party.

  “O-kay! Let’s get ya back up here,” he says, patting the paper towel.

  I drill my eyes into the split in the paper, as if I could fuse the rip closed with my psychic power
s. If there was no rip, I could get up there, like the doctor told me. But no way am I shuffling my flabby butt and thighs across that table again, shredding the paper into confetti. I snatch a look at him, in case he’s pulled out a little ladder to help me. But he’s facing his cabinets, writing on his clipboard.

  Quick, while he’s not looking, I plant my hands on the edge, pretend it’s the gymnastics vault, and heave. Riiip. The sound of tearing paper makes the doctor turn around. Either that, or my face snapping into flames. There’s zero way I can look at him, but luckily I don’t have to. He’s pointing down by my feet.

  “Good girl. Let’s get your feet in the stirrups here.”

  Stirrups. Like on a horse. But they’re not by the ground, they’re…sideways, in the air. Spread way apart.

  I’m not wearing underwear.

  The doctor stands at the foot of the bed, with his middle framed by the stirrups. He’s patting the left one with his hand. It sounds like a tapping foot. Tick-tock. This feels ickily familiar.

  I squinch my eyes shut and a number pops up: 120. 120! I weigh 120? Oh my God! Everything’s perfect! I can do this!

  I say my first word to him. “Okay.”

  I put one foot in a cold metal cup. It feels stuck. Trapped. But I’m 120. I’m light as a feather. I’m light as Wendi Rosini. My other leg is so light it flies up, then drops my foot into the other metal cup. My legs are spread open. I can’t move them. And there’s a man at the foot of the bed. I’m trapped.

  But 120.

  “Good girl,” he says again.

  Jacque has said those words to me in a gross fucking whisper. I can hear them in his sick accent. He’d be—No! I can’t think about this shit! I have to just look at the ceiling. I have to be sane. I have to talk to myself. It’s not Jacque’s voice. I’m not in my bed. It’s just Dr. Kretschmer.

  I’m gushing sweat. Am I also going crazy?

  “We’re just going to check you out here,” he says, holding up a metal shoehorn. “My apologies. This might be cold.”

  His rollie chair slides between my legs.