Sad Janet

by Lucie Britsch

  I think about that little pill for a long time. I think about how all I have to do is swallow it and I’ll suddenly be a happy, carefree person, someone who doesn’t see the sadness. I shed a little tear for the sadness. Someone needs to see it, I think, why not me?

  I feel my throat closing, getting sore, and I swallow.

  Before I go to sleep my mother texts me. Did you take your first pill? she says. I ignore her. It could be worse. At least she didn’t throw me a Daughter’s First Pill party.

  14

  I have my pills and my candy and my condoms. Now all I have to do is go to seven hour-long meetings and I’ll be a changed person.

  It doesn’t say anywhere that I can’t be drunk for those seven hours. Or at least a little drunk. I know you’re not supposed to mix alcohol and pharmaceuticals, but it’s the holidays. If you’re not having Baileys for breakfast, you’re doing it wrong.

  I often had to be a little drunk to get through the school day. Just a little. I kept a bottle of peach schnapps under my bed. I’d take a swig, enough to get me through, especially if it was a gym day or a day when I might have to speak in class. I hate that all I had was peach schnapps, not something cool, but it served a purpose and didn’t taste gross like most alcohol. I had a friend who’d bring her schnapps in to school in a thermos. I liked her a lot, as people go. I hope she’s still alive.

  On the day of my first meeting, I drag myself out the door and drive to the church without turning back, but once I’m safely parked outside I sit in my car as if someone who’s never heard of me might come and get me. It feels nice. I could be anyone. I used to walk past this church and think, At least I’m not in AA yet. Yet. And now here I am anyway.

  In the back of my head, I hear my mother saying, You want this, Janet, or you wouldn’t be doing it. In the front of my head, I see Debs holding her hands like she’s pointing a gun at me, saying, So long, Janet.

  Inside, the building smells like life and death and piss. People use the doorway as a bathroom because they hate Jesus, and I don’t just mean the bums but drunk regular people. The smell wafts through to the hall where my meeting is. It’s the opposite of that fresh donut smell stores pump out to lure you in.

  I’m the last to arrive, it seems. I’m tempted to say, Well, actually I was just sitting in my car deciding if you’re all really worth my time, but instead I clam up and take the last empty seat. I leave my coat on. There are ten of us in the room, and seven are women. There is no hot widower, like the commercials promised, so I instantly feel cheated. But then someone might look at me and say I’m nothing like the Model Me on the poster and I’d have to say touché.

  Across the room, I see an official-looking guy sitting by the door making notes. I don’t think he’s there to stop us walking out—running out, in my case—but I bet he’d try. Maybe stand up, at least, put his notebook down. But he’s definitely from the pharmaceutical company. Men medicating women—just as it’s always been. I once took a class on the history of women and the mind. Or, as I called it, How Men Have Fucked Women Over for All Time, but my professor threatened to fail me if I didn’t stop putting that title on my exam booklets.

  Karen is our group leader. She looks like she’s never led anything, not even a dog. She seems more pathetic than any of us, and for that I decide I’ll cut her some slack. She wears clothes that look like she made them herself, like no one ever told her there are stores. Also, she is called Karen, which makes me sad for her. Karen is a sad-girl name, because of Karen Carpenter. I know all the dead sad girls.

  Hi, I’m Karen, she says, but she doesn’t sound that sure, and no one believes her.

  The official-looking guy introduces himself but says he’s just here to observe and goes back to his seat by the door. Try to ignore him, she says, which sounds like it’s directed at me. They just want to know how we’re doing, she says, and I remember again that this is all an experiment. We are chimps in Santa hats. I wonder why they didn’t just get cameras.

  Karen makes us go around and say our names. I really want to give them a joke name, but if I do I’ll probably get kicked out. Plus, I really can’t be bothered. I wear my apathy like it’s perfume I stole from Sephora.

  Pharma Guy is wearing a suit, so we know he is at work. Karen’s outfit is obviously homemade, because it’s knitted, which is code for I have a ton of cats. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was married, but to the Lord.

  Then Karen starts telling us about our pill. It’s almost like a little play. I wonder if it’ll turn into a musical, but it doesn’t. If I get bored I’ll have to make up my own songs.

  They don’t have PowerPoint, and we’re all thankful, Karen mostly, because I’ll bet things like PowerPoint keep her awake at night. I can relate. Being in this room with these people is already softening me, and I don’t like it.

  Karen tells us what our doctors told us: that the pill was made for people just like us who want to be happy at Christmas. Everything we need to know is in the pamphlet, she says, and then spends ten minutes rummaging around her giant bag to find it. Finally she whips it out and waves it above her head, like, Got it! I’m not completely incompetent after all! I might have more in common with Karen than I thought.

  I like how old-school this all is: there is paper, there are actual humans talking—or one, so far—and over by the side there are donuts. There are no weird sci-fi vibes, no giant screens, no signs we’re all doomed. It gives me hope, if I can forget they’re drugging us all.

  By this point, Karen says, we all should have been taking our pills for a full week. How are you all feeling? she says. No one answers, but I see a few people shrugging at one another. No one feels anything yet. Karen senses our disappointment. It’s early days, she says. You won’t necessarily be feeling anything yet. This only bums people out more. We all want instant gratification. We all want this to be over.

  Before this, I used to secretly love stories of drug trials gone bad. Obviously, I felt awful for the poor people who needed a quick buck and thought letting someone test their pharma-grade meth substitutes on them was better than a real job, but who can resist a fairy tale where Big Pharma is exposed as the wicked witch? I could not get enough.

  What I’m really obsessed by, though, is where the Christmas pill idea started: with the pharma boss’s wife. The first Janet, that’s what I call her. The one my pill was invented for. I read about her online. I’m not stupid; I know origin stories are marketing scams, designed to make us think something profitable was actually created out of love. This one, though, I hope is true. Apparently the boss, whose name was Richard Grossman, wanted to make his wife happy at Christmas, but he didn’t know what to get her—until he realized how unhappy she was. And so, instead of setting her free from a loveless marriage, he devised a pill to help her forget about it . . . at least through Christmas.

  Surprisingly, the origin story has a tragic ending: apparently the pill made the first Janet a little . . . excitable, shall we say, and one day she left Mr. Big Pharma to run off with a sexy mall Santa. But I can’t help thinking that was all part of the big sell. Because it is part of the big sell, right there on their website. I mean, it doesn’t actually say he was sexy, the mall Santa, but he must have been, right, or what’s the point? I picture him as a hot felon, not just some overweight, out-of-work bearded guy who gave in and took the gig because he was sick of people constantly telling him he looks like Santa and making no money at it.

  I want to know what happened to them in the end. I want to know if they’re still together. I want to know if the first Janet is happy. Maybe one day our paths will cross. She might be the only one who understands. It’s a lot, to pin all your hopes on someone who probably doesn’t exist, but isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

  I have so many questions about the first Janet, but no one to ask.

  I’m actually rooting for her, not her nerdy pharma husband. An
d if that doesn’t say love, I don’t know what does.

  I had assumed that everyone at the meeting would be like me and feel like this is all a huge inconvenience, that we all have somewhere better to be, but I am wrong. There are at least two people who seem to think this is the most fun ever. I’m worried that one of them is going to reach over and start trying to braid my hair soon. I make a mental note to come in with my hair extra dirty next time, so no one will want to touch me.

  We’re seated in a circle, and I’m wishing it was a coven, like the one I always wanted to start with Debs—just the two of us making voodoo dolls of all the people who have wronged us, held in a pro-witchcraft bar.

  Thankfully, no one calls for us to go around and tell our stories. It’s obvious we’re all here for the same reason: we’re all a giant pain in someone’s ass.

  I did rehearse what I’d say in the car if they did make me speak: Hi, I’m Janet, and I’m in the business of sad—here I’d tell them all about my glamorous job at the shelter—and I don’t really want to take any pills, because life is sad and I don’t want to forget that. But maybe a few weeks off at Christmas wouldn’t be so bad. I never get the chance, though. Instead Karen starts clapping for us and we just look at her, blank. Read the room, Karen, I want to say. Too soon, I want to say.

  A few people leave even faster than me. I like them instantly. A few hang around the snack table, exchanging numbers. I could walk over and give them my number and we could all text one another little messages of support: You got this, girl, or Don’t stab your brother with a fork, Janet. But I don’t do that, obviously. Instead I just go back to my car and pet it on the steering wheel—What a good car, waiting for me so long—and we go home together.

  One day at a time, I tell myself as I try to fall asleep. It’s just one day, Janet. Okay, so you had to go to some weird mandatory meeting. Doctor’s orders, but you did it.

  I wake up crying.

  You’d think I’d be used to crying by now, given the shelter and all. In the beginning, Melissa used to cry constantly. It’s so sad, Janet, she would say cradling a dying puppy, her tears disappearing into its fur. I was sure Debs was going to fire her.

  I did catch Debs crying once. Only once, in the whole time I’ve been at the shelter. In those three years we’d lost several puppies who were too far gone when we got them to recover, and we ourselves had to put three dogs down, but no one had ever seen Debs show any emotion over it. For her it was life, because it was her life. This song came on the radio, and I guess the song conjured up some feelings for her, ones she didn’t want conjuring, and then there they were, the tears, and there I was suddenly, lurking in the background, just another person she usually had to be strong for. But it was over as soon as it began, and I knew she’d deny the whole thing, so I never mentioned it again.

  People see the shelter in two ways: as a second chance for dogs to find a home and love, or as a prison where unwanted dogs go to die.

  It can be either, really, but most days it’s just a version of home for all of us.

  15

  Every day in November someone asks how I’m feeling. My mother, Melissa, the girl in the apartment across from me, a perky woman on TV trying to sell me lady cereal. You deserve to feel this great, she says, almost cycling into a lamppost.

  I should block my mother, but then she might come over. Or send my father to say, Call your mother.

  I go out without my phone a lot. It’s the closest to free I’ve ever felt. People think their phones connect us all, but mine feels like a weight around my neck.

  Debs thinks it’s hilarious that Big Pharma came up with a pill for people like me. Who knew there were so many Janets? she says. I still haven’t told Melissa, but she’s seen the commercials; she knows a target consumer when she sees one.

  The girl who lives across from me only knows about the pills because of something that happened one night. Before that, I’d pretty much avoided eye contact with everyone in the building, mostly because they’ve all heard me have sex and explosive diarrhea, but then I generally avoid eye contact with people if I can help it. Most people are looking at their phones anyway, so no one calls me out on it. Sometimes I look at my phone just to not look at people, and no one suspects a thing.

  I get up each day, put my head down, make my way to work, and power through the hours, barely looking up, banging into stuff, mostly making a hash of it. I try to give off the message I can’t stop or I’ll die. I don’t need pills to shut down, I did it by myself, I want to say to my mother. I’m just like you but also better, I want to say, which she maybe already knows.

  My neighbor is the coolest person I don’t know. In another world we’d be friends. Her name is Min-seo. I only know that because I heard her boyfriend shout, Min-seo, you are such a bitch! That’s how I know we’d get on. Hi, I’d say, I too am a bitch.

  We bonded, or my version of bonded, over Ethiopian food. We both ordered food from the same place a lot, and when the guy showed up, I thought it was for me and she thought it was for her and it was for both of us and it was some rom-com shit neither of us wanted but we went with it, laughed a little, mostly at how embarrassing being alive was. We were both just grateful this guy didn’t say, Hey, you two should hook up. I might have been up for it, but she probably had other plans.

  When the guy left, it was just us standing awkwardly in the hall with our food. It was like when neither person wants to be the one to end a phone call; we just stood there letting our food get cold, unsure how anyone did anything at all.

  Then Min-seo said, I thought I was the only one who ate Ethiopian food.

  She seemed almost a little mad, like How dare you, this is my thing. There’s so much other food. Don’t you dare go making it a trend. I liked her thinking I had that power.

  Same, I said.

  My ex used to say, What the fuck is Ethiopian food? she said. Like flies and rice and shit?

  He sounds great, I said.

  Yeah, well, she said. Enjoy, she said, finally going back into her apartment so I could go back into mine.

  We sat in our apartments, eating our food alone, but it was nice knowing she was there across the hall. Sometimes that’s enough. There’s this Shakira song that goes, I’ll be there and you’ll be near, which sounds stalkery to me but also perfect.

  So that’s my neighbor. Min-seo. She’s there in the hallway when I get home that November day. Our whole relationship takes place in this hallway, this tiny space. People think relationships need space, but I think they might be wrong. This one was working out great for me.

  I nod, like What’s up, because I want her to know I’m cool. Min-seo always gives off this cool vibe, like Whatever, though at this point I probably just give off a crazy-lady vibe. She watches me drop my grocery bag, but she doesn’t swoop in to try to catch it, which I appreciate. A boy might have, because boys always want to be someone’s hero, because their brains have been fucked by books and movies and the world, and it all makes me tired.

  I bend down to pick my crap up and my bag spills out and my pills roll right across the floor to where she’s standing. She picks them up, not necessarily to help, but because it’s always interesting to see what people are on, so you can go, Oh, right, that explains a lot, or, Same! Pill buddies! This is a common thing now, apparently—girls everywhere are in these Facebook groups based on what meds they’re on and what crystal they carry. My mum loves it when she meets someone on the same meds as her; it’s like discovering someone who likes the same brand of coffee.

  Min-seo hands me back my meds, but she lets me handle the rest of the mess myself, and I respect it because I’d do the same. I once saw some crabby-looking lady drop a bag of oranges, which promptly started rolling into traffic. Some dude tried to chase one, but he just looked like an idiot. I stayed put. I looked like an idiot already, I had nothing to prove. The crabby lady looked at me, and I thought
, Curse me if you must. Whatever. I’m so wretched I probably wouldn’t know the difference.

  It’s that white-girl pill, Min-seo says. Nothing gets past her.

  I once heard her boyfriend ask if he could call her Minnie. Who the fuck is Minnie? she said. He said, You know, Mickey’s girlfriend, the mouse, and she said, Why the fuck do you want to call me that?, and he said, It might be cute, and she did not get it. I was there listening by the door, and I thought, Who is this guy? She meant Don’t try to call me anything other than my name or I will cut you, and I believed her. He’s her ex-boyfriend now, thankfully, but I’ve seen the men who leave her apartment, and some of them look like they have definitely been cut, maybe from weird sex but maybe from rage.

  What are you doing for Christmas? she says, to make small talk.

  Oh, I say, me? No, nothing. I mean, the old family obligation, I say, you know, rolling my eyes.

  You can spend it with us if you want, she says.

  Min-seo and I are ships crossing in the night, or strangers, or buses, I don’t know. I just know she’s there and I’m there but we’re never really there, we’re mostly in our heads. I have never seen her at the pharmacy, not even buying tampons. I hear her more than see her. I thought I saw her in a bar once, but neither of us is the type to acknowledge we’ve seen someone out in the wild, because it’s exhausting having to validate people that way.

  But now here she is, reaching out to me, extending pity to the pathetic girl in the hall.

  It’ll just be me and my dad and my sister, she says. You should come. You don’t have to be happy, she says, but you don’t have to be sad either.

  I want to say, Sure, I mean, I’ve been planning our wedding for months anyway. I haven’t, obviously, because I’m not into chicks, or anyone really. If I’m into anyone it’s myself, which makes me sound like a terrible narcissist, but in my defense, I never look in the mirror. Anything could be going on with my body and I’d just let it do its thing. Why shouldn’t I? The world is reflective enough for me to know I exist. Once I did my hair a different way, pulled it back, and Melissa made such a fuss about it, like I was from some makeover show where they take someone normal and make them look like someone else, someone who’s had major cosmetic surgery. I said, It’s just hair, Melissa, and Debs said, Leave Janet alone, Melissa, but then she said, Nice hair, to me too, so I made sure I always tied it back after that.