by Cyndy Etler
Then he’s touching my z-z.
And pushing something inside me.
And splitting me in half.
I can’t. I’m not. I can’t…
“Okay!” he says. “You’re fine.” He pulls me empty, rolls backward, and disappears the shoehorn all at once. “All done! Go ahead and get dressed. I’ll see you and your mother outside.”
All done. He’s gone. I’m soaked in sweat. As I climb off the table, I catch a whiff of myself, and God. I’m a Mrs. Skinner vocab word. I’m a cacophony of smells. Face smell, pit smell, and something-else smell. When I sit down to put my underwear back on, I feel like I might fall over. Like, what just happened?
But 120. I’m 120. I slide into my jeans so easy, it’s like they’re water. And everything’s okay.
When I open the door to the hallway, Dr. Kretschmer’s bringing my mother back from the waiting room. It’s a small hall. The only thing here is another scale. So that’s where we talk, next to the scale.
“Cyndy’s fine,” the doctor tells my mother. “But she’s severely underweight at one hundred twenty pounds. That’s what caused her period to stop.”
“Oh!” my mother says. “But I weigh 118. Am I underweight too?”
“Well, it gets a little tricky. According to the body mass index, there’s a range of acceptable weights for any given height. At Cyndy’s five feet four inches, normal ranges from 110 to 150. Technically, she’s within range. But individual norms differ. For her frame, her skeletal and muscular makeup, 120 is dramatically underweight. I’m not going to say she needs to gain weight; she looks fine, and according to the BMI, she’s healthy. Instead, I’m going to put her on the birth control pill, which will force and regulate menstruation.”
“Birth control?!” That’s me and my mother.
“But pills are a drug! And I don’t need—I’m a virgin!”
I can’t believe I said that word. But it’s true, right?
I don’t remember doing sex, but there’s a lot I don’t remember from when I was little. I have certain memories that are freakishly strong, but they’re an outline. Like, there’s glass between me and the memory, and the panes are hazy. So even though I remember being alone in a dark room with Jacque a lot, I don’t remember what happened between the door closing behind him, and me being all alone again.
Why did I always know about sex, though? In third grade, I was the one who told the other kids how babies got made. God, I was so mean to Eve Yin, who was Korean. I was all, “Do you know where babies come from?” And Eve said, “Maybe…an egg?” Me and the other kids laughed at her so hard… I remember that, sharp as a steak knife, because it made the other kids like me. I remember Eve’s voice going upward on an egg? But I don’t remember who taught me the answer to that question.
I remember being in fifth grade and riding my Mongoose dirt bike on the back path, and coming down hard on a rock. The plastic seat bashed into my z-z, and I raced home to see if I had blood in my undies. I needed to know if my bike seat had made me lose my virginity. But there was no blood, and I had the same question then as I have today: Am I not a virgin? And like, why did I know blood and virginity went together? And why was virginity in my head when I was ten?
These are freaky thoughts. Normal people don’t think like this. I have to try to be normal.
“It’s okay,” the doctor says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “The pill is frequently used to regulate the cycles of adolescent girls.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
When we get to the car, my mother starts frothing.
“One hundred and twenty pounds, Cyndy? I’m so proud of you! Your OA program is really working! Maybe I should give it a try…”
As soon as she starts talking, I close my eyes and lean back. I can’t deal with her meaningful eye contact. It’s a miracle, but she lets me get away with it. No pinched-leg, pulled-hair, “Look at me when I’m talking to you” today.
“And now the pill! My daughter is growing up!”
Behind my closed eyes, the blackout feeling rolls back. I squeeze tight against whatever window is trying to come unfogged. Keep it, memory. Keep it away from me.
11
OCTOBER 1988
ONE YEAR AND SEVEN MONTHS OUT
That closet door in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the one that led to Narnia? My version of that door is on Interstate 95. It’s called exit 19. You go down the ramp and think you’re in some regular town with trees, houses, a diner. Same old. But that’s the thing about magic doorways—most people think they’re nothing. It’s only the bored and the desperate who look twice and find the magic.
When the diner’s on the right, you turn left to go under the bridge, so I-95 is overhead. Ten seconds up the road, on the left, there’s a white building with a huge wraparound parking lot. It looks like one of those clubs where war vets get drunk in the dark. And maybe it used to be, but not anymore. Now it’s my Narnia: Club 12.
Bitsy was the one who told me about it, not like she’s ever been. Even though it’s named after the twelve steps of AA, Club 12 isn’t for boring, old alcoholics—you know, people who have been sober so long, it’s just their lives. Bitsy heard about it from her daughter, who’s young. Younger addicts, who still have some danger in them, we need excitement to stay sober. That’s what Club 12 is for.
My first time I walk in late, of course, to the meeting that’s being held there. It’s so packed, people have to move so they don’t get hit by the opening door. And every face—I swear, every face—turns away from the person sharing to check me out. Can I die now? Plus, there is no place to sit. My choices are either join the mob standing by the door or turn around and leave, with this whole convention of sober young people thinking, What a loser.
But Grant saves me. I don’t know he’s Grant yet, but it’s obvious he’s my savior. From over in the corner, I hear a psst! And there he is, with his half grin and his c’mere finger. I tiptoe through the crowd to reach him and, with his eyes on the guy who’s sharing, he pats the linoleum counter next to him. For me. To put my butt there. My first Club 12 meeting, and my knees are practically touching this cute boy’s shoulder. Like, okay. I can die now.
He doesn’t look at me again until after the meeting. I’m flipping through the AA booklets on the counter next to me, as if I’m some dumb newcomer. I’ll do anything to delay leaving this heaven and driving back to Monroe. From the corner of my eye, I see him pull out car keys. I try not to care.
But then. “Hi,” I hear. I look up and it’s all there: the half grin, the eyes, the shoulders. And it’s all pointed at me. “Good meeting, huh?”
Oh my God, he’s cute and he speaks my language.
“Oh, yeah. Great meeting. Lots of honesty, right?”
“Yeah, right. You new to the rooms? I haven’t seen you before. I’m Grant, by the way.” He holds out his hand to shake.
Can we stop and talk about this? First of all, he’s my age. I don’t care how square his shoulders are. You can’t be eighteen and keep that baby face. So he’s sixteen, and he greets people with a handshake? Nuh-uh. And second, what’s he doing with that big gold ring on his hand? Third, thank you, Jesus God, for making me touch up my manicure last night.
“I’m Cyndy,” I say, putting my hand in his. “Um, what else did you ask?”
I really said that. Wherever he learned he’s supposed to shake hands, I’m not fit to sweep the floors. But he laughs. In a not-snotty way. He looks in my eyes, still holding my hand. Does this even happen outside of fiction?
“Nice to meet you, Cyndy.” He squeezes and lets go. “I’m Grant. Wait, I said that.” He looks at his keys and laughs again. He’s got two key chains: a miniature flashlight and a chunk of wood. He curls his fist around the wood. “Well, I better go. Work awaits. Nice to meet you, Cyndy. Keep coming back.”
I watch his gr
ay hoodie as he threads through the clots of postmeeting talkers. I cross my fingers and pray—I pray—he’ll turn and say, “Can I have your number?” But he keeps going, out the same door I came in.
When I get home I go straight to my room because my mother’s creepy old-man boyfriend is over. They’re watching TV, and I’m not gonna be in the same room as them. He’d switch from watching TV to watching me. I put her car keys by her purse and yell, “Thanks, Ma,” as I head upstairs.
What’s extra-creepy is that my little sister’s not home. Somehow in the divorce process, Jacque got visitation rights. So when I was at my meeting, my mother was here alone with old-man boyfriend. And ewww.
My mind needs something else to think about, wicked now. But I’m fucked because I finished my library book last night, and I’m not allowed any more food today, and I’m not going downstairs to shower, one wall away from where they’re watching TV. If I had a friend to call, to talk to about Grant, I’d be millionaire happy. But nope.
My God, though. Can I really complain? This was my whole life in Straight: for a year and a half, 100 percent nothing except confessing what a scumbag I was and getting spit therapy. I couldn’t walk down a hallway by myself. I couldn’t read a cereal box! How the fuck did I… How did my brain not eat itself? I get that I needed to be beaten into accepting my addiction. But what about the fourteen months after that? Why’d I have to be in there so long?
Now that I’m out, I live like a Saudi prince. I drive a frigging car! I listen to music. I read actual books… I can open a door and step outside. Whenever I want. With no one even watching me. That’s a frigging miracle.
So what the fuck am I saying, I have nothing to do? I have everything to do. I have anything. I have a window to climb out, a shingled ledge to sit on, and a zillion, trillion stars up over my head. I have cold air and trees and a love story to tell them about a lucky girl and the boy who shakes her hand. The boy named Grant.
12
NOVEMBER 1988
ONE YEAR AND EIGHT MONTHS OUT
I guess I believe in magic, but I didn’t know magic could work this hard. If you saw the completely different person I am at Club 12, you’d know there’s actual magic. The popular kids I need my Dunkin’ mug to protect me from at school? That’s who I become when I hit Club 12: pretty, happy, popular!
I get there late for my second meeting too. First thing I do while I’m smooshed by the door is scour the whole room with my eyes. When I get to the last face and still no Grant, my heart bombs down to my stomach. I end up sharing anyway though, because it’s November 20. I share how three years ago today, my mother signed me into Straight, Inc., and how hard it was for me to accept that I’m an alcoholic and drug addict, since I only drank and drugged for two months before I got sober. And I share how now, by the grace of God and these rooms, I have three years’ sobriety and I have food sobriety. I swear, the roof is rattling when they all clap for me. I get like ninety-six hugs at the end of the meeting.
And then, when I’m walking out the door to the parking lot, guess who’s walking in? Our eyes meet, and his eyebrows jump, and his smile goes up on both sides. Because of me. He hooks his arm through mine, like he’s Frank Si-fucking-natra, and I look down because what do I do with my face? And ting! His gold ring is glowing in the floodlight. A conversation piece from God.
“Hey, lady!” he says, which is way cuter than, “Why do you wear this ring?” which is what I say. He laughs and leaves his arm where it is, like I’m not an epic buzzkill.
“Oh God, this ring,” he says. “Why do I wear it, or what is it? What do you really want to know? I have a strict one-question policy.”
As he talks he slides his arm down, grabs my hand, and starts swinging our arms like we’re skipping little kids. I totally get it, Juliet. I’d dagger myself to stay with this guy too.
“But first, my question,” he says. “Which one’s yours?” He waves our arms at the parking lot.
“Um, that one. The one that looks like a cop car,” I say. “It’s my mother’s.”
“Sweet. A cop car. We’ll be totally safe.”
He leans back on the hood like it’s his car. I lean next to him like this is something that happens to me.
“Did you decide which question?” He tilts his head to look me in the eyes. The way guys do in movies before they kiss the girl.
My real question is, When’s the last time I brushed my teeth? The question I ask is, “What is that ring?”
“That’s what I thought you meant,” he says, and lets go of my hand. Which makes me want to cry for a sec, until he pulls off his ring, spreads my fingers open, and puts it in my palm. It’s the exact weight of a human heart. He shines his key chain flashlight on it, so I can see the shield pressed into the flat, oval top. “It’s the Lattimore family crest,” he says. “Cough, cough, right?”
“Your family has a crest? You’re royalty?”
“No, no. It’s stupid, really. Just, one of my ancestors was a war hero.”
We both stay quiet and think about that. His voice says no big, but his face—what I can see of it above the flashlight—says something different. It says he could just hand me his family ring, instead of clutching it so tight it punctured his fist. It says he could grab my hand with zero fear I’d pull away. It says he’s worth something and he knows it, so he can pretend he’s nothing special. I think to tell him my father was a famous composer, but the words feel like a puff of smoke. He’s got proof of what he is. I’ve got dreams of what I could have been. We’re so not in the same league.
“Oh good, you’re still here!”
He scoops his ring out of my hand as we both look up, like kids caught in the cookie stash.
A lady in Guess jeans and a hippieish purple Indian top is standing in front of us, saying, “I really wanted to catch you, Cyndy. I loved hearing you share. I’m Suzanne.” She puts her hand out, then goes, “Can I hug you? Let me hug you. You’re a little miniature me! Oh, if I’d had your wisdom when I was your age!”
“Hi, Suzanne,” I say, hugging her back. She doesn’t smell like violet flower water, but she looks like she should.
She gives a quick hi to Grant, then looks back at me. “Three years sober today! And you’re how old?”
“I just turned seventeen.”
“So you’ve been sober since you were fourteen! You’re the Buddha of AA! Do you—can I ask if you have a sponsor?”
“Um, not really. I haven’t found the right—”
“I get it. Picking a sponsor is a big deal. I don’t have a sponsee right now, so let me give you my number. If you want to keep that sobriety, you’ve got to have a sponsor!”
“Right. Thanks,” I say, taking the card from her. She wrote the S and the Z so swoopy, you’d think she was a movie star. I’m grateful she’s making me look popular, but I’m ripshit she’s hijacking my Grant time.
“Okay, Cyndy. Great to meet you. Give me a call!” she says, and gets into a pearl-colored convertible.
“Get a sponsor! Work the steps! Take it one day at a time!” Grants squeaks in a lady-voice, clicking and unclicking his little flashlight. His family ring is back on his finger.
He’s like, mocking the program. I didn’t even know that was possible. “You don’t believe in that stuff?”
“Nah, not really. I mean, I come to meetings at Club 12 when I have time. But otherwise, I stay sober because I want to stay sober, not because some dead old man in a crusty book tells me to ‘search out the flaws in my makeup.’ Life’s too short, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say.
If he comes to meetings when he has time, what if he runs out of time?
“Speaking of meetings, I guess I should go into that one,” he says, thumbing at the Club 12 building.
If he goes in there, I might never see him again.
“Yeah, I guess,” I say.<
br />
“You did the early meeting, right?” he asks.
If I lie and say no, he’ll ask why I was walking out before.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Okay, well…see you next time,” he says, and gives me a two-finger salute.
I want to chase after him, to sit on the counter with my knees at his shoulders. I want to link his arm through my arm, to put my hand in his hand. I want to go back to our movie-kiss moment. I want. But I have to hide it. That want is the ugliest thing in the world.
I’m allowed to want a sponsor though. I pull Suzanne’s card out of my pocket, put it up to my nose, and inhale deep. It smells like a second-place ribbon.
13
DECEMBER 1988
ONE YEAR AND NINE MONTHS OUT
Even though they’re her boyfriends, sometimes my mother’s latest buys stuff for me. Which I don’t get. If I had money to burn, I’d spend it on Benetton sweaters and Coach bags for myself. Buying a baked potato and grilled cheese for some lady’s kids is, like, equal to or less than spending ten bucks on toilet paper. Shoot. At least the toilet paper does something for you.
It’s more than ten bucks, actually, because I don’t just get the baked potato (which is legal now! Since I reached goal weight, my food plan lets me have one starchy vegetable twice a week!). I also have the steamed broccoli and the half a roasted chicken, which is one of the most expensive things on the whole Monroe Diner menu.
The heaven of food cooked by someone else cancels out my feeling bad for old-man boyfriend spending money on me. It even cancels out my conscience, which is barking, “You know if you put that chicken on a food scale it’s gonna weigh more than four ounces.” I bark back, “I don’t have a food scale at the Monroe Diner, and I think I know what four ounces looks like by now!” Then I quick-eat that pile of chicken before my conscience can stop me. I’m like Henry VIII, tearing the little bones apart to get every last sliver.
I’m finishing cleaning my bones when my mother goes, “You are a mess!” I look up, but she’s talking to the other mess, my little sister. “Come on,” my mother says, picking her up from her booster seat. “We’re going to the bathroom.”