Right, I say, like I understand.
It will take me a while to process what she’s said because she doesn’t seem like someone who I should be taking advice from, but then she does seem happy, even if that’s the heat stroke talking, and maybe the drugs.
I don’t think Emma really does that many drugs. She just likes the sun and the dancing and all those bright colors. That’s why she left. She’s one of those people who’s genuinely high on life. She came out of the womb tripping, seeing the world as one big psychedelic party, and all she had to do was see some color and wave her arms over her head and spin around, and the head rush and colors were amazing enough. I don’t know how we ever became friends.
(That’s not true. I do know. On the first day of school she took my hand and said, Come and see this gross bug, and who was I to say no? It was as simple as her touching me, wanting my attention. No one knew not to talk to Janet yet. No one knew I’d be the weird girl who liked books and dogs and not people, who was probably a lesbian or witch or psycho. Emma didn’t care what the other kids were saying, she was too busy spinning round and laughing at how funny the world is. She may have also been dropped on her head as a baby; she’s yet to confirm or deny it.)
Emma thinks I should say fuck it, that I should just give up wanting to be happy. I wonder if she means just for Christmas or forever. I suppose I should be glad she didn’t say, Just dance away your troubles, or Come visit me in Ibiza.
Emma isn’t stupid—she actually went to grad school, whereas I went to the woods—but sometimes I wonder if she’s had something in her brain removed. The thing that worries. The thing that needs a rest. A proper meal. She seems more like a plant than a person. Only needing sunlight and water. This simplicity is what annoys me, more than her bikini body. It’s like she’s some secret existential Jedi master who knows all the rest is bullshit. And if complications are bullshit to her, I wonder if I’m bullshit too.
I tell her goodbye again.
Oh, I almost forgot, she says. Can you send me some emergency candy? The candy here is weird.
This is why I love her.
17
My mum thinks the pills are acid. She thinks I’ll see elves everywhere, and I will, because there are elves everywhere. It’s Christmas. I don’t know how everything got so complicated, she says, popping a Xanax. When I was a girl, she says—never a good start—we were just grateful to have some time at home and a tangerine. Please, not the tangerine story, we groan. She used to put a tangerine in our stockings. One year I left mine in there the whole year and it turned to dust. I thought it was poetic, she thought it was disgusting, we were both right.
When I still had a boyfriend and we still liked each other, he’d come and see me at work. Debs didn’t really like him just showing up, because it distracted me from my job, and also from my larger job of helping her smash the patriarchy. Mostly it reminded her that I wasn’t as dead inside as she was, not yet anyway, but she said it was fine, cool beans, whatever, as long as he pitched in. So she gave him the crappy jobs she’d been putting off, like fixing the leaky kennel roofs and walking the monster St. Bernard in boarding. He didn’t mind—he liked to feel useful, and he wanted Debs to like him, because I told him that she maybe murdered her husband.
One day, he showed up unannounced. I didn’t even know he was there; I was too busy having my arm ripped off by a Staffie. The poor girl had locked onto my arm, which is something animals do when they’re really pissed, and there’s no way they’re ever letting go. It’s huge fun for everyone involved. It was a shame; she was such a sweet little girl when she wasn’t ripping people’s arms off. This dog was doing nothing to change public opinion about its breed. Melissa saw it all happen, but she just stood there screaming. If we’d been in a cartoon, she would have been on a chair with a broom.
I stayed calm, apart from trying to crowbar the dog off with my boot while telling Melissa to shut the fuck up. This is why women should always wear Doc Martens. You never know when you’re going to have to defeat the Jaws of Death or kick a man in the nuts.
Eventually Debs appeared, like she’d heard something vaguely but was hoping we’d sort it out because people always needed her to solve stuff and what she really wanted was to let the dogs go and wash her hands of the whole thing. Like any good relationship, hers with the shelter was complicated, and a lot of it was wanting to run away or burn it all down. I think that’s what love is. When you mostly stay.
Debs took one look at us all, then turned around and walked away. I’m wrong about the love thing, I thought. She’s leaving us. But a few minutes later she came back with a frozen steak and the dog let my arm go immediately and went to the steak. Dogs are such fucking clichés. They’ve seen all the cartoons too.
The whole time, my boyfriend just stood off in the background watching. Taking bets, probably. It’s not like I wanted him to save me or anything, but a Hi! might have been nice.
He did take me to the hospital. Melissa wanted to come with us, and I almost let her because I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alone with him, which was a problem since we lived together, but thankfully I was in too much pain to think about it.
My arm was fine, but our relationship wasn’t. The body has remarkable healing capabilities, while the mind is one big gaping wound that you keep touching until it gets all gross and infected.
On the way home, my boyfriend started going on about how I’d said I was just going to stay in this job till I figured out what I wanted to do, how I was supposed to be thinking about maybe going back to college to get my master’s. He believed this because I’d lied and told him I was thinking about it, like you do in those hazy days of new love when you’ll say anything to make yourself seem like someone else entirely.
I said I wasn’t thinking about much right now, really, and could we stop for burgers, because I’d just had my arm almost ripped off and they’d given me some great painkillers that I knew I shouldn’t have been given because I couldn’t be trusted with things that made me feel like this, and he couldn’t say no because of the whole almost-dying thing.
The whole time, I’m sure he was wishing I was someone else, but the joke’s on him because so was I.
He got me a burger and a shake and took me home and helped me get in bed. Then he left me and went elsewhere, to look at his porn probably, I didn’t know or care, I was on awesome painkillers and had some fries left and Supernatural was on and sometimes all you need is some hot, demon-hunting brothers.
* * *
I still like drugs when I get to choose them. A bit of pot now and then. A lot of alcohol. Speed a few times in college. No one wants to be told to take anything even if it’s a big, delicious bong being shoved in your face.
The boyfriend was all about the pills—for me, anyway. He pretended at first that I should do it for me, that I might even feel like going back to school if I felt better. Then there’d be no stopping me—I’d get a real job and marry him and there’d be fewer trips to the hospital. In my mind, we’d need just one last trip, but maybe straight to the morgue, because all that normal stuff he wanted would kill me.
My mother was just like him. She’d say things like, So-and-so’s daughter just passed the bar and it’s all thanks to Prozac, because before that she didn’t get out of bed! I’d tell her I’ve gotten out of bed every single day, apart from those three days I had the chicken pox when I was seven, and even then it was because she told me to stay in bed.
My mother thinks I’m living a half life. Like I’m in the world but just barely. And she’s not wrong but she doesn’t understand compromise. She doesn’t see me at night, curled up in front of the TV laughing my ass off, or at work when I’m walking a dog I really like and it’s just the two of us striding out, not giving a shit about anything and I feel the closest thing to happy. I keep my joys small and close to my chest. I’m not trading them in for anything flashier, not anytime soon.
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* * *
Now that the boyfriend’s gone, I’m alone with my thoughts too much. I keep trying to block them, but it’s exhausting. TV lets me down constantly. If I’m watching a show and it’s just not cutting it, I start trying to read something at the same time, and then I start eating, just trying to drown myself out, flood myself with something other than me.
I wish Debs would let me sleep in one of the kennels, so I’d at least feel contained.
I can’t imagine what it’s like living without self-doubt and its friend self-loathing. I can’t imagine not questioning everything.
I read once that you’re supposed to lather your hair for a full twenty seconds, and even knowing that specific information I still seem to do it wrong. Sometimes I step out of the shower and realize I haven’t washed my legs and don’t even know if I was supposed to. I read once that you’re not supposed to over-wash your lady parts, so now I’m probably under-washing them. Showering, to me, feels like a tightrope walk: You don’t look down, just stare straight ahead. Get in, get clean, get out. I’m like a shower ninja. Bodies are just another thing that can make us sad, the way they break, the way they slow us down, keep us from being free.
I imagine Melissa never thinks this way. She never takes a shower and wonders, Am I doing this right? She’s too busy singing some god-awful pop song. She probably gets her lady parts washed perfectly, by a flock of gentle cartoon birds.
I wonder if pills help people feel at home in their bodies. This would be a big draw for me. I don’t mind feeling sad, but I don’t like how my body makes me feel. If I was fully medicated, would I be the boss of me again? But then I’ve heard people say they feel numb, or disconnected, so I doubt it. It’s as if people take things not just to make them feel better but to ward off feelings altogether. Like they assume the world will upset them. This is where I part ways with the world. It’s people in the raw state—the state they’re trying to block all the time—that I want to meet.
When I want to forget myself, I guess I’ll stick to giant coats and alcohol.
18
By the third meeting there’s a rhythm starting. Life can be that way sometimes, apparently, if you let it. We all know our parts, where we come in, where we stay quiet—only we’re idiots, not musicians, so someone always fucks it up. Sometimes it’s me. This week it’s me.
These meetings have me regressing to when I was a teenager, when I used to have to prepare for what I would say in social situations. If I knew I had to talk to people, I’d stay up late the night before making notes. The first time a boy called me, I remember having a sheet of paper labeled Stuff to talk about, but in the end he never stopped talking, so I just made agreeable noises and laughed. That’s when I learned that people are easier than you think, once you figure out how self-involved they are. I was healed by people’s narcissism.
When I realized that I might be required to speak at these meetings, I wanted to have something to say. I wouldn’t say it very well, there would be a lot of awkward pauses and ums, but I’d have a go. I’d try to be a little drunk, too, which would help.
This week, there’s already an awkward silence when I arrive. Karen is in the front, sweating. Pharma Guy is sitting in his usual spot, over by the door, like a prison guard. If anyone leaves for anything other than to pee, we’re going straight on the naughty list. I already feel different, and it’s not because of any drugs. It’s because I’ve had sex with someone in the room. I feel exposed but also carefree, like I give even less of a shit.
It’s so quiet in the room that you can hear people in the street getting on with their lives while we’re in here, stalled out entirely. Usually it takes twenty minutes or so for the awkwardness to start suffocating us all, like a scratchy sweater you’re being made to wear because your grandma knitted it, even though she’ll be dead soon judging by how many she still smokes and how she only eats Oreos, or at least nibbles off one cookie, licks out the middle, and leaves the other cookie by the side of the bath. The sweater she knit you is the size you were when you were twelve, but you must try to wear it even if it kills you, which it probably will. We’re all dying in this sweater together. That’s how these meetings feel.
Karen is rooting through her folder, trying to work out what we’re supposed to be doing. Good luck to her. I’m not sure she even remembers if she drove herself here.
Suddenly I realize it’s now or never, this talking thing I’ve been preparing for my whole life, and I open my mouth and suddenly—
So apparently February has the highest shoplifting rate!
I imagine it’s quite jarring. This weird shuffling blob of a girl—at least they think I’m a girl—who mostly looks mad at everyone and rolls her eyes like a teenager, and she’s definitely a drunk, or on her way to being one, and now out of nowhere she’s doing some skit. I’m always surprising people, but not in a good way. Like when you weren’t expecting someone to be lurking out behind the trash.
I have no control now. My mouth has taken over. I start spilling out a bunch of weird facts I read on my phone in the car before I came in. I wonder if I’ve been possessed by Melissa, who talks like this all the time. People are looking around, peering off into the middle distance. It’s some kind of aftereffect of Christmas, I tell them, hoping the C-word will catch their interest. I’m such a freak. It would have been less embarrassing if I’d have done a striptease.
The room is quiet but prickly. I want to say, Well, no one else was saying anything, but I don’t because someone else might start talking.
Why are you talking about shoplifting? says a girl whose name I can’t remember. She’s shifty looking, like she might have something concealed in her pants. I know I’m not supposed to touch anyone, but now I want to frisk her on the way out. The awkward silence is threatening to crush us all, as it does sometimes. Sometimes I wish it actually would. I should feel some kind of solidarity, an ounce of compassion at least, for my fellow happiness shirkers, but I just don’t. Not yet anyway. I’m still in denial. I don’t want this motley crew of miserable fucks to be my people. They probably don’t even know who Mötley Crüe are.
November is the second-biggest month for shoplifters! I go on.
I’m wishing I had PowerPoint now and I fucking hate PowerPoint. No one tries to take the floor from me, though, so I continue with whatever it is that I’m doing.
July has the lowest reported incidences of shoplifting! I say, feeling like a weather girl, only without a map to point at or good hair. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Never in my life have I encountered a nice chunk of silence and decided it needs filling. Usually I want to pry it open and have it swallow us all. But here I am, trying to rally the troops instead of pushing them off the cliff.
Where are you going with this? says the girl with the stolen lipstick, probably, in her bra. I’ve never taken anything! she says, guiltily. A guy I think is called Kevin, who looks a bit shifty, keeps staring at her, then sneaking a glance at the door. I wonder if he’s actually a shoplifter and I’ve just rumbled him, but then again he probably feels special because a girl noticed him.
Shoplifting, medicating, it’s all the same! I hear myself say, and I do a thing with my hand that I’ve seen other people do, like Pfft. I’m definitely possessed by Melissa.
A girl I think is called Sarah, and if she isn’t she should be, starts to show signs of brain activity. I want to jump up and say, Yes, Sarah! You can do it!
So you’re saying people are too happy in summer to shoplift, but before and after Christmas they’re miserable? Sarah says.
Attagirl! I say, because I can’t help myself. I’m suddenly feeling the fuzziest I’ve felt in here without sugar or alcohol. Anyone observing this meeting would assume my meds had kicked in, but I think I was just bored and looking to start trouble.
So . . . you’re saying there’s a link, Karen says. I’d forgotten there even was a Ka
ren. Karen, the one who’s supposed to be running this show but most weeks can’t really be bothered, and no one can blame her, as this little gig is clearly punishment for something. I always know what I deserve punishment for, but what on earth could Karen have done? It’s that tiny air of mystery that keeps me coming back each week. In an age when most people Instagram their vaginas, I like people who keep a little something back.
Is this school? says a guy called Danny or Dan or D—no, Brian, it’s Brian, it says so right there on his backpack in Magic Marker. Because I hated school, he says, and this seems a lot like school. Me too, Brian, I want to say, but that feels like bonding, so I just glare.
Totally, someone else says—about the school thing, not about the fascinating statistical information I’d chosen to share.
For some reason, I’d thought this would be the night when I’d contribute. I just thought I would try something different. I was opening myself up to new things, just the way this whole thing was supposed to work. I wanted to see if there were any signs of life in these husks of people. I thought Karen at least would appreciate it. I was definitely not doing it to appear smart to any man. At least I know now people don’t care about facts. Maybe next week someone could teach us how to break into a car.
I thought we could talk about anything we wanted in these meetings, I say. I didn’t really think that, but things were getting desperate.
I look to Tim. Tim is one of the only people in the room I consider normal. He might even be a freak like me. Tim seems to come here because he wants to tell someone, anyone, about the latest thing his cat did or didn’t do. He didn’t shit once for a week, apparently—the cat, not Tim. I’ve been trying to get him to bring the cat with him one week, mostly so I could just sit in the corner and pet the cat instead of interacting with people. But Tim seems preoccupied. In desperation I look over at this other guy, a skinny guy with an almost-quiff who looks like prescription meds are the least of his worries, but he just shrugs at me.
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