“Yeah, well, that’s the difference between being bulimic and anorexic,” Tom says. “Being anorexic is a lot harder to hide. Unless you’re trying to hide it from my dad, that is. But in his case I think it’s more that he didn’t want to see than that he didn’t see.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Tinka says, grinning. She lays down D-E-N-I-A-L. “And that’s got a triple letter score!”
“And here they keep trying to tell us that denial is bad for us,” I tell her. “Obviously not in every situation.”
“Frankly, I think a little denial is healthy,” Tom says. “It’s about the only thing that keeps me sane.”
Tinka and I look at each other and burst out laughing.
“Sane being a relative term in a place like this,” she says.
Tom joins in the laughter — but mine fades when I see Dr. Pardy standing in the doorway.
“Janie, please come join us again,” she says.
I give Tom and Tinka a help me! glance.
“Good luck,” Tom whispers. “Don’t let the bastards … uh … I mean them … get you down.”
“Not easy,” I whisper back. “Not easy at all.”
Mom’s eyes are even redder than before, but at least my parents are holding hands, so Dr. Pardy must have helped them work out Dad’s dropping of the C-bomb. I wonder if she’d be as good at working out my problems if I actually volunteered to let her into my head. I’m not willing to take the risk, because I’m worried that if she finds out just how completely screwed up I am, she’ll never let me out of this place.
“I’ve been speaking to your parents about how family conflict can feed into eating disorders. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to voice any thoughts about how your parents — and the rest of your family — might be able to give you additional support.”
How can my family support me? Let me count the ways …. There are so many I can think of — but instead I say, “I dunno.”
“Well, perhaps I’ll kick things off by sharing a few things I’ve discussed with your parents,” says Dr. Pardy. “Firstly, as part of your release plan from Golden Slopes, we require that you see a therapist weekly. I’ve also recommended that you attend an outpatient eating disorders group.”
“But — how will I ever be able to go to play practice if I have all these shrink appointments?” I protest.
“Play practice isn’t so important,” Dad pronounces. “Getting better is.”
I feel something swelling inside me — something huge and terrifying. I feel like if I don’t let it out, I’ll explode, but if I do let it out … I don’t know, it’s just too frightening to contemplate. So I just sit there, fixing my eyes on the picture of the poppy field, every breath hurting because of the effort it takes to keep this insidious growth inside me.
“How do you feel about what you father said, Janie?” Dr. Pardy asks. She’s trying to fish again. She wants to stick that hook inside me and drag this thing out, but I’m so not going to let her. I swear I’m not.
“He’s right, of course,” I say in a monotone. “Getting better is important.”
There. I’ve said what you all want to hear. Now let me the fuck out of this place, okay?
“We want Janie to be able to come home,” Mom sniffs, dabbing her eyes again. “I hate to see you in this place,” she adds, fixing me with her tearful gaze.
Well, I sure as hell don’t miss hearing you and Dad fight, or seeing you crying all the frickin’ time when I’m the one locked up in here and you’re not.
“When might Janie be released?” Dad asks.
I bet he’s sick of paying the $500-a-day co-pay. But I’m glad he asked the question, because I want to know the answer to that myself.
“It’s too early to be talking about a discharge date,” Dr. Pardy says. I feel that growth inside me swell even more when I hear that. It’s so big I can barely breathe or swallow.
“Janie has been making progress,” Dr. Pardy continues. “But we had a bit of a setback recently and I need to be convinced that she’s truly committed to her recovery before I can even begin to think about releasing her from the hospital.”
“Setback? What setback?” Mom sniffs. Oh, jeez — don’t let her start crying again.
“Of course she’s committed to her recovery — aren’t you, Pussycat?” Dad says.
I thought I told him never to call me that in public. If I have to stay in this room another minute, I’ll die. Or at least that’s how it feels. I really don’t want to be in here when Dr. Pardy tells my parents about my sock-puking transgression.
“Can I go now — please?” I beg Dr. Pardy. “I think Joe is taking a bunch of us to the gym and I really need to go.”
“That’s fine, Janie. I’ll finish up with your parents.”
“Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. See you soon.”
“Bye, sweetie,” Dad says. “Hang in there. Keep your chin up. Think positive.”
Any more clichés you’d like to add before I leave?
Mom presses my head to her silk-clad shoulder.
“Take care of yourself, darling. We miss you at home.”
I disentangle myself from her soggy embrace.
“Yeah, miss you, too. See ya.”
And then I’m free. Or at least free from that room — and for now, that feels good enough.
I walk over to the nurses’ station.
“Joe, can you take us over to the gym soon? I really need to go.”
“Sure,” Joe says. “We can leave in about five minutes.” He eyes me quizzically. “Had a rough family meeting, did you?”
You are so not going to trap me, Joe.
“No, it was really helpful,” I lie, feeling that growth in my chest again, “Yeah, superhelpful.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but tells me he’ll call me when he’s ready to take me. I head to my room to change into shorts and a T-shirt.
Callie is sprawled across her bed, reading.
“Hey, what’s that?”
She snaps the book shut and shoves it behind her back.
“Nothing,” she says.
“C’mon, tell me,” I say, pulling a pair of shorts out of the drawer.
“None of your business,” Callie says. “Who elected you to the Book Police?”
Well, excuse me for breathing.
“What the hell is your problem, Callie? I just like to talk about books, okay?”
“Yeah, well I don’t. I prefer reading them.”
I pull on my shorts.
“Fine, be that way. I’ll leave you to read in peace. I’m going to the gym.”
As I leave the room, I can’t help wondering yet again what the hell is eating Callie. But frankly, I’m more worried about what the hell is eating me. I still feel the I.G. (Insidious Growth) inside me, and it’s like I’m choking for air. I just hope a few flights of StairMaster help me work the damn thing out.
Royce and Missy join the gym excursion, as well as a couple of the generally psycho people. The General Psychos and Royce head to the basketball court for some two-on-two. Missy gets on the treadmill. It looks like she lost a few pounds since she’s been in here, not that we’re supposed to care about stuff like that. But seriously, who wouldn’t?
I’m about to go on the elliptical when Joe calls me over and hands me a pair of boxing gloves.
“What am I supposed to do with these?” I ask, holding them at arm’s length.
“Well, putting them on your hands would be a good start,” he says.
I never figured Nurse Joe for a sense of humor.
“But why would I want to do that?”
“Because if you hit this here punching bag without them, you’ll seriously hurt your knuckles, that’s why.”
I start to say that I don’t want to hit the punching bag, that I, Janie Louise Ryman, was not brought up to punch things, but then I think of Dad saying that play practice doesn’t matter and I pull the gloves on.
Joe laughs at my first attempt at a punch.
>
“C’mon, Janie! You can do better than that. You punch like a girl!”
I glare at him.
“This might have escaped your notice, Joe, but I AM a girl.”
“True. But it doesn’t mean you have to punch like one. Here, let me show you.”
He pulls on a pair of gloves and starts whaling on the bag like it’s a mugger who tried to steal his wallet.
“I can’t do that!” I protest.
“Sure you can,” he tells me. “Just throw from the shoulder, not from the elbow.”
He shows me again.
The first few times I feel stupid. But Joe corrects my form and encourages me to try again.
I do. Again and again. I punch that bag, harder and harder, faster and faster. “Play practice isn’t important my ass!” I mutter, as I smash my fists into the bag, over and over again.
It feels so good. The Insidious Growth shrinks a little with each blow. After ten minutes I’ve got sweat dripping from my face and trickling between my breasts but I can’t stop.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Joe says. “I always work out on the bag when I’m mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I say automatically.
He just looks at me.
“Really, I’m not. I just … oh, okay, I’ll admit it. I’m fucking furious.”
Joe grins from ear to ear. “I thought that might be the case when I saw you after your family meeting.”
“But … how did you know? I didn’t even know it myself right then.”
“Janie, I was a sergeant in the Marines. You don’t spend that much time with a bunch of hotheaded nineteen-year-olds without being able to recognize someone who is seriously pissed off but bottling it all up inside.”
So I was right about GI Joe.
“I didn’t know that what I was feeling was mad. It just felt like … like this cancerous growth inside that was strangling me.”
“That’s what anger does if you don’t let it out,” Joe says, suddenly serious. “Believe me, I know. I was one hell of an angry kid. I’m not exaggerating when I say the Marines saved my life.”
He sits on the bench and gestures for me to sit, too.
“I’m not saying that you should start to pick fights or break things when you’re angry,” Joe says. “But you’ll be a lot happier — and healthier, too — if you can find a way to let the mad out in a constructive way. Have you ever tried kickboxing?”
“No. I’ve never even thought about it. But actually now that I’ve figured out how much fun it is to punch things, I’ll give it a try. It’ll help me when I star in Charlie’s Angels Six.”
Amazingly, Joe laughs. I didn’t think the guy ever laughed.
“You sure as hell better invite me to the premiere when you do,” he says. “I’ve always dreamed about going to one of those fancy schmancy Hollywood parties.”
“It’s a deal,” I tell him. “And … Joe … thanks.”
August 1st
I got Joe to take me back to the gym yesterday, and I had another session on the punching bag. It’s like now that I realized that I’m mad, I just want to punch the shit out of the thing morning, noon, and night. I pretend it’s Matt Lewis, I pretend it’s my dad and then my mom. I even pretend it’s Dr. Pardy. I wonder if I’d have started sticking my finger down my throat if I’d known how good it felt to punch things.
The first time I purged was about two years ago, I think. Mom took Harry and me out for Chinese, because Dad was traveling. I was starving when we got to the restaurant because I’d had late play practice and hadn’t had much for lunch, so as soon as they put the crispy noodles and duck sauce on the table I practically inhaled the entire bowl, much to Harry’s chagrin because those are one of the few things he likes at the Chinese restaurant. I wolfed down a pretty good sizeable portion of cold sesame noodles, too, and then, even though I was starting to feel kind of full, I couldn’t not eat the main course or else I’d get a lecture from Mom about filling up on the crispy noodles — even though she doesn’t seem to care if Harry does that.
By the time the waiter brought the bill along with the fortune cookies and orange slices, my stomach felt stuffed and huge, like I’d swallowed an oversize watermelon. I felt awful on the way home in the car — it was painful being that full.
When we got home, I went up to my room to do my homework, but it was impossible to concentrate.
You know how when you’ve got a stomach bug and you feel really awful and then you finally throw up and you feel better? I figured that if I threw up a little bit, maybe it would relieve some of the painful pressure in my stomach. So I went into my bathroom — that’s one advantage of having a father who’s loaded, having your own bathroom — and stuck my finger down my throat. That time I didn’t completely purge. I did just what I set out to do, which was relieve some of the full feeling, and I was right — it did feel better afterward.
So in the beginning it was only once in a while — I hadn’t started bingeing then. Purging was just a way to relieve the full when I’d eaten a little bit too much. I was in control of it — or so I thought.
I can’t tell you exactly when it started controlling me, but things started going downhill in a hurry at the beginning of last summer.
What happened? It’s hard to say it was any one thing. Jenny and Brad announced their engagement, triggering endless discussions about the Wedding. Then the fights started, in a seemingly endless series of permutations — Dad vs. Clarissa, Clarissa vs. Mom, Mom vs. Dad, Jenny vs. Dad. I couldn’t stand it. You never knew how it was going to be at home — or who was going to be mad at whom.
I don’t know if it was because of the fighting that I started bingeing. That was definitely a factor. But there were other things. Kelsey was away most of the summer, working as a junior counselor at a sleepaway camp for vegetarians. Danny was dating Nicole Hartman and they were spending every waking moment together when he wasn’t at work, so he didn’t have much time for me. I had other friends — it’s not like I was a complete loser — but without Kelsey and Danny around I felt kind of lonely, not to mention bored. I couldn’t get a good summer job because my parents were taking us to Europe for three weeks, so I ended up working at the local ice cream parlor. When things were slow and I was really bored and depressed, I’d make myself these elaborate sundaes with hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, and jimmies and then go make myself throw up in the employee restroom.
Once school started, it got worse, because it was much more intense than sophomore year, what with having to worry about taking the SATs and the pressure of taking two AP classes on top of the usual honors stuff. By the time I got the lead in Anne Frank, which was a dream come true but even more pressure, I was bingeing and purging at least three times a day, sometimes more.
So there you have it — my sorry tale. That’s how something I thought I controlled ended up controlling me.
When Callie leaves the room to take a shower in the morning, I sneak a look under her pillow and find the book that she’s been so secretive about reading. The title freaks me out — Incest: A Guide for Survivors. Does this mean that Callie … could it possibly be that she … I can’t even bear to think about it, or who it might be that did it … like what if it’s her father? Or her brother? Does she even have a brother? I can’t remember.
I slide the book back under her pillow and lie down on my bed, my head spinning as I try to take it in. I guess it would explain a lot about Callie — the cutting, her comment that being bitchy is “the only way to get by.” But the thought of it … it’s too horrible for words.
No wonder she’s got so many scars. But the scars on the outside can’t be anything compared to the scars she’s got on the inside … if that’s what she’s been through.
Part of me wants to stay in the room and talk to her about it, to show her that I care, to tell her that I’ll try to understand if she’s being bitchy — that it’s just because of what she has to deal with. But another part of me is scared — scared she
’ll be mad at me for invading her privacy, scared to be drawn into that much pain when I feel so much of my own.
I’m ashamed to say the scared part wins. I make sure I leave the room before she gets back so I don’t have to see her till breakfast, when there’ll be plenty of other people around. Chalk up another thing that I suck at — being a good friend.
The one good thing about breakfast is that most of what I have is supposed to be cold, so it doesn’t matter if the Starvers are late to the table. The first morning after I get out of here, I’m going to the diner for pancakes, waffles, and maybe even blintzes. Okay, maybe not all at once. But I’m looking forward to having a cooked breakfast where everything is warm again.
Tom is sitting across the table from me, next to Royce, who is inhaling a bowl of Total while talking to Missy. Tom, being a Starver, has a big breakfast to get down: eggs, toast, and cereal.
“Royce, could you pass the salt and pepper, please?” Tom says.
Royce either doesn’t hear or is purposely ignoring him. I hope it’s not the latter.
“Uh … Royce — do you mind passing the salt and pepper?” Tom repeats, a little louder this time.
Missy giggles. She’s been flirting with Royce like crazy, even though (a) you’re not allowed to have relationships and (b) Royce supposedly has a girlfriend, even if he is still pissed at her for ratting him out to the wrestling coach and landing him in here. I can’t believe Royce is falling for it, but he’s pretty busy flirting back. Too busy flirting to pass Tom the condiments, obviously.
I roll my eyes at Tom and he shrugs his slender shoulders. Finally, he just reaches across Royce and grasps the S&P shakers.
“What the hell are you doing, you faggot! Get the hell off of me!”
I can’t believe what I just heard.
“Jesus, Royce, I was just getting the salt and pepper since you were too busy to pass it to me.”
“Why the hell didn’t you ask me for it, then, instead of touching me like that?”
“He did ask you, moron! Twice,” I tell Royce. “You were just too busy flirting with Missy to hear.”
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