I don’t want to talk to her. Is it okay to ignore someone who’s sitting right next to you? I give it a try, I really do, refusing to look in her direction and doodling on the cover of my notebook. Rows and rows of little boxes, because that’s how I feel — boxed in.
Eventually, though, my inner Carole Ryman wins out. The need to behave in a socially correct manner must be genetic or something.
“We’re supposed to, aren’t we?” I say. “Keep a journal, that is.”
“Ha! If we did everything we’re supposed to, we wouldn’t be locked up in this place, would we?”
I guess she has a point there.
“But doesn’t Dr. Pardy … you know … check, or something?” I ask.
Missy cracks up.
“What, like your second-grade teacher checking that you’ve done your homework? No way! It’s personal. Only if you want to ‘share.’”
She does the little quote thing with her fingers when she says “share.” Me, I think I’d rather die than “share.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” I say. “Dr. Pardy made such a big deal about how we’re supposed to write down our feelings and …”
“Yeah, yeah, she gives that speech to all the new kids. But it’s bullshit. My notebook has, like, three sentences written in it — and two of them say ‘This place sucks.’”
“What does the third one say?”
She stretches her arms above her head and yawns.
“I don’t feel like ‘sharing’ that just yet.”
Fine. Be that way. But don’t expect me to “share” with you.
“Anyway,” Missy goes on, “I’ve never been big on writing down my innermost secrets — too much risk.”
“Risk of what?”
Missy gives me this look like I’m a few scoops of ice cream short of a sundae.
“Don’t you realize that you’re being observed 24/7 in this place?”
“Well, yeah, but …”
“The walls have ears, as they say. Everything you say and do is being noted and used to ‘evaluate your current state of mind.’”
Again with the finger quotes. I’m wondering if Missy is totally paranoid or if what she says is true, in which case she’s making me totally paranoid.
“What, even when we’re not in group?”
“Anytime, anywhere,” she says. “Don’t say anything out loud that you wouldn’t want written down in your file.”
Missy gestures at my notebook.
“And be careful about what you put on paper.”
I’m totally freaking out now. It’s not like I want to say anything in group. I’m quite happy to sit there and let everyone else spill their guts. But not to be able to write down what I’m feeling … that makes me feel even more boxed in. Trapped, caged. I can’t give the writing up, no matter what Missy says. I’m just going to have to make sure I keep my notebook with me at all times, even when I go to the bathroom or take a shower — that way I can be sure that no one will read it.
“Whazzup?”
Callie throws herself into the chair opposite mine and swings her legs over the arm.
“I’m just explaining to the New Girl …”
“Janie,” I say.
“Yeah, okay, Janie, how the whole ‘journaling is an important part of the therapeutic process’ bullshit is exactly that.”
“So how long have you guys been here?” I ask, hoping to gain some insight into when I might escape this police state and head home to my private bathroom and my real friends.
“Five days,” Missy says. “But that’s five days too many, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Feels like forever.” Callie sighs. “But I think it’s been three weeks.”
I’m so horrified I can’t help exclaiming, “Three weeks?!”
“Yeah, Callie’s one of our hardcore cases,” Missy says. “Out of all the eating disorder patients, I think only Helen has been here longer.”
“And Tracey,” Callie says. “Tinka only came a few days after me, too.”
“How do you stand it?” I ask. “I’ve only been here two days and it’s making me so crazy I feel like digging my way out with a spoon.”
Callie laughs, but it’s not a happy sound.
“Yeah, it’s pretty ironic that they think being in here will make you sane, isn’t it?”
“What? You don’t think it’s perfectly normal to have someone listening to you while you take a crap?” Missy says. “What’s the matter with you, girl?”
“Or listening to you trying to take a crap,” I say. “I haven’t been able to since I’ve been in here. I think I’ve got stage fright.”
I can’t believe I’m telling two girls that I’ve known for all of, like, forty-eight hours about my constipation problems. Maybe I really am crazy.
“Oh, that happened to me, too,” Missy says.
“And me,” Callie adds.
I take it back. I’m not crazy. Maybe I just feel able to talk to them because we’re all in this not-able-to-take-a-shit hole together.
“If it lasts for too much longer, you can ask Dr. Pardy to add a laxative to your medication cocktail,” Missy advises me. “But I’m warning you — first she’ll tell the kitchen to give you more fiber and roughage in your meals.”
“Yeah, and you better warn us if that happens, so we make sure you sit near the Starvers,” Callie says.
“Why is that?” I ask. “I thought seating was strictly segregated.”
The two of them crack up. I’m struggling to see the joke.
“Farts,” gasps Callie. “From the fiber.”
“Yeah, let the Starvers suffer for a change,” giggles Missy, “after making us wait so long for all our meals.”
Wow. It’s almost worth staying constipated just for payback. I imagine the expression on Helen’s face if I let a really smelly one rip right next to her, and I start cracking up, too.
“It’s a deal,” I tell them.
Maybe they are my Barfing Brethren after all.
* * *
My parents and Harry come to visit after dinner, which is a real load of laughs.
I’m so pissed at them for sticking me in this place that part of me doesn’t even want to see them. The other part wants to grab them by the knees and beg them to get me out of here tonight, so I can eat with my napkin on my lap and not have to pee with an audience outside the bathroom door. It’s strange how those things make me feel so, I don’t know, less than. Less than normal. Less than I should be. Less than human.
My mother hugs me and starts to cry. It’s kind of embarrassing and I feel like asking her what she has to cry about, because I’m the one who’s stuck in this hellhole. I’m also afraid that her crying will be infectious, and the last thing I want to do is cry in front of the other people crowded into the dayroom for visiting hours, although I’ve been completely dry-eyed since I got here. I wonder if it’s the meds.
“Pull yourself together, Mom,” I say, extracting myself from her tentacles.
“Hey, Pussycat, how are you?” Dad says, enveloping me in his arms and hugging me to his chest.
“Don’t call me that in public!” I hiss. Dad’s always called me by that nickname because of my eyes, which are green and catlike. It’s one thing in the privacy of our own home, where I kind of like it — although I’d never admit that to anyone — and completely another when in the presence of psycho people who aren’t immediate family.
“Sorry,” Dad whispers, and he lets me go. It makes me wish I hadn’t said anything because I’ve always felt safe in one of my dad’s hugs, like nothing bad could ever happen to me. But he was in on the betrayal, agreeing with Mom and Dr. Jonas, my pediatrician, that I needed “treatment.” I’m still trying to work out how having someone listen outside the door while I’m trying to pee constitutes “treatment,” because frankly, it just makes me feel mad and even more crazy.
“Hey, Janie,” Harry says. He puts his arm around me in what approximates a hug, and his
messy dark curls tickle my chin. His T-shirt smells like home, a mixture of laundry detergent and Ringo. It makes me want to keep on hugging him, but after what seems like a nanosecond he’s already pulling away.
“How’s Horatio?” I ask. “Are you remembering to feed him? I’m not sure I could face another hamster funeral in my current mental state.”
“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” Harry says. “I’ve been giving him extra treats.” He gives me an awkward pat on the arm, before plunking himself on the sofa and whipping out his Nintendo DS. Once he gets going into his game, you can forget about having any kind of coherent discourse with the kid, which leaves me just my parents to converse with. Oh, joy.
“So how are things, Janie?” Dad asks. He’s standing next to the sofa, unwilling or unable to sit down. I think he’s afraid that if he sits down, he might catch loony cooties or something. My father hates illness of any kind and has absolutely no tolerance for mental illness, which is supposedly what I’ve got. Dad’s the kind of guy who won’t even take an aspirin when he’s got a fever or a headache. I dread to think about what he’s going to say about all the meds they’ve got me on, particularly the antidepressants. My father is the High Priest of Positive Thinking; if any bad stuff happens to you, it’s because you weren’t thinking positively enough. Yeah, right.
“Oh, I’m just peachy,” I say. “This place is a laugh a minute. It’s better than Disney World.”
“That’s good,” Mom sniffs, dabbing tears from under her eyes with a tissue in a vain attempt to salvage her mascara. “As long as they’re giving you the help you need.”
I clearly didn’t inherit the irony gene from my mother.
Dad rolls his eyes. He might be the High Priest of Positive Thinking, but at least he understands sarcasm.
“So what treatment have you been getting so far?” he asks.
“Well, let’s see,” I say. “I’ve had my blood pressure and temperature checked.”
“We’re shelling out a five hundred dollars-a-day co-pay to get you treatment and all they’ve done is take your temperature and check your blood pressure?”
It sounds like Dad’s in strong need of getting his blood pressure checked. My father is very bottom-line oriented. I think it’s from working so hard to make rich people richer all day.
“Don’t worry — that’s not all,” I assure him. “They also listen outside the bathroom door, which I have to keep cracked open all of the time I’m in there, and yell at me for putting my napkin in my lap.”
I’m hoping that if I can convince Dad he’s not getting his money’s worth, he’ll tell Mom and the Golden Slopes people they have to let me go home. It looks like what I’ve said is having the desired effect because Dad mutters, “What kind of joint is this? I’m going to find the doctor in charge.”
“Leave it, Hal, please,” Mom pleads. My mother would sell her firstborn child (i.e., me) to avoid “making a scene.” It’s hard to imagine how she ever survived in hedge fund management.
Just then GI Joe comes into the dayroom. Dad takes one look at the muscular physique encased in Joe’s nurse uniform, leans down, and hisses, “Tell me they don’t have that guy listening outside your bathroom door — if they do, I’ll sue the bastards.”
It’s kind of nice to see my dad so protective of me. It almost makes me feel like he really cares.
“Get a life, Dad!” I say. “Of course they don’t let Joe listen outside the bathroom if it’s a girl in there.”
“Thank goodness for small mercies,” Dad says, although I almost get the impression that his relief is tempered by disappointment that there’s one less thing to argue with the doctors about. He straightens his tie, the equivalent of a medieval knight putting on his helmet, and is about to go raise hell about medical incompetence when my mother grabs his hand and gazes up at him with teary eyes.
“Please, Hal. Don’t make a scene,” she pleads again. When Mom dies, I swear that’s what is going to be engraved on her tombstone. Here lies Carole Baird Ryman. She never made a scene.
“We have to trust the doctors know what they’re doing,” Mom continues. “They’re the ones who specialize in treating these things.”
These things. My mother, the Queen of Denial, can’t even say the words out loud. I wonder what she’s telling her friends about my sudden disappearance from home. I bet she’s told them I’m at some exclusive drama camp. I mean, Heaven forbid that anyone might suspect that all is not perfect in the Kingdom of Ryman.
Dad gives Mom that half-angry, half-amused look. That Honey, it’s sweet and even somewhat amusing when you voice opinions, but now you should just shut up and let me get on with it kind of look.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he says, using his free hand to cup her cheek while he extracts his other hand from her clutches. “I won’t make a scene. I just want to have a full and frank discussion about how exactly they are treating Janie.”
He marches out of the dayroom, giving Joe the hairy eyeball as he passes by. Joe, fortunately, seems impervious to Dad’s suspicious glare as he stands near the door surveying the room.
There are so many questions I want to ask my mother: Have Jenny and Clarissa taken out a contract on me? Have any of my friends called, and if so, what has she told them? Have the doctors told her when they’re going to let me come home?
But Mom’s sitting on the sofa opposite me, sniffling daintily into her handful of tissues.
“I’m okay, Mom,” I lie. “Really. It’s all fine.”
I move to sit next to her on the sofa and put my arm around her shoulders. As I start rubbing her back, I suddenly wonder why I’m comforting her and not the other way around. I mean, I’m the one who is locked up here. She gets to go home and sleep in her very own king-size bed with 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, whereas I’m stuck in a narrow single bed with sheets that smell like industrial bleach. But that’s the way it is with Mom. If you have a cold, she has to have the flu.
This realization causes a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wonder what I would have to do, how far I’d have to go, to make Mom admit that I’m doing worse than she is. But I’m distracted from this thought when someone I’ve never seen before walks into the dayroom accompanied by Nurse Kay and two other adults I assume are his parents. He’s a skinny guy with blond hair (Starver? Barfer? Or just Generally Psycho?) wearing a Mets shirt and sweats.
The guy he’s with looks like he played football in college. He’s got white hair, so he’s probably older than my dad, but he’s still in great shape. His arms are strong and muscley. Unlike Dad, he doesn’t even have the slightest trace of a gut sticking out over his perfectly creased chinos.
The woman, without a doubt, is Blondie Boy’s mother. He has her fine bone structure and slender build, not to mention her deep blue eyes and blond hair.
“This is the dayroom, Tom, where you’ll eat, have some of your group therapy sessions, and where your family visits take place,” Nurse Kay tells Blondie Boy.
“So how long do you expect Tommy to be in this place?” Football Dad asks.
“It’s impossible to predict,” Nurse Kay replies. “It depends on the individual, and how hard he’s willing to work to get well.”
“Tommy’ll work real hard — won’t you, boy?” his dad says, thumping him on the back. “Soccer practice starts in three weeks.”
I think I see Tommy-boy wince, but I can’t be sure. One thing I do see is him giving his mother a pleading glance, but she either doesn’t see it or pretends not to. I wonder if she’s employing the Carole Ryman tactic: If I make believe the problem isn’t there, maybe it will go away. It’s pretty clear that if I’m my family’s problem child, Tommy-boy bears that honor in his. It makes me feel an instant kinship.
“I hope your father isn’t getting into a fight with the doctor,” Mom says, twisting the wad of mascara-smudged tissues between her manicured fingers.
Yes! I think. A reason to escape Mom’s tearful clutches.
; “I’ll go check,” I tell her, leaping off the sofa before she can protest or Harry can volunteer to go instead. As if. He’s glued to his Nintendo — I swear, those things are like crack for boys his age.
I head out into the hallway and immediately hear Dad’s raised voice down by the nurses’ station. I’ve heard enough arguments at home over the last twelve months to last me a lifetime, so I head in the opposite direction toward the TV room, which consists of one large TV that everyone has to fight over and several couches that have seen better days.
Unfortunately, the Generally Psycho folks have control of the remote tonight, and they’ve opted to watch Saving Private Ryan. Talk about a bizarre choice of movie for a bunch of depressed people. Even though I know it’s supposed to be a great movie about war and stuff, I can’t stand watching blood, gore, and guts. But I don’t want to deal with Dad’s fighting or Mom’s tears, so I just sit on the floor outside the TV room with my head on my knees, listening to the sounds of people getting shot and maimed.
“Um … are you okay?”
I look up and there’s Blondie Boy staring down at me, looking worried.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. “I just don’t want to hang out with my visiting parents. But on the other hand, I don’t particularly want to see people’s intestines hanging out, either.”
Blondie pokes his head into the TV room, sees what’s on the screen, and emerges laughing.
“I see what you mean. Seems like a strange choice of movie for a place like this, don’t ya think?”
“Exactly what I was just thinking,” I say. “I’m Janie, by the way.”
“Tom,” he says.
“So I gathered. I was in the dayroom when you came in with Nurse Kay.”
A slow red flush spreads up his neck and over his face.
“Great. So my parents have preceded me in your impression.”
“Listen, dude, that’s my dad you can hear down the hall telling the doctors they don’t know their ass from their elbow. So don’t think you’re the only one with progenitor problems.”
He laughs, showing even white teeth. Cool. He has a good command of vocabulary. I like that in a guy.
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