This Is How It Happened (not a love story)

by Jo Barrett

  “Best day of my life,” my brother now says. When speaking to his troubled teen groups. He lays it all out for them. Rolls up his sleeves and shows them his arms, where the needle marks used to be.

  “I’d go to Mexico and shoot up twenty times a day,” he’d say. “It’s a miracle I’m still alive. But I believe God kept me here for a reason.” Then he points around the room. “And that reason is you,” he says. “And you, and you, and you,” he says, pointing at each kid throughout the room.

  Unlike other rehab counselors, my brother is still in close contact with what he calls the “bad element.”

  “Why ignore the street dealers?” he’ll say. “They control supply.” He tells me that he doesn’t trust law enforcement to do the job. “I meet up with the dealers myself and tell them to lay off selling to these kids,” he says.

  When I ask my brother how he does it, he says he appeals to their inner morality. “Drug dealers are businessmen,” he’ll say. “I just call them up and remind them that I used to work for Snoop Santino. This gets their attention real fast. Then I tell them the obvious, i.e., they’ve got plenty of adult users. They don’t need to take a child’s lunch money.”

  “Does it work?” I ask.

  My brother shrugs. “No one wants to feel like a child molester,” he says.

  I drive to see my brother. His official full-time job is at an inpatient rehab campus outside Austin. It’s nicknamed “the farm.”

  The place is surrounded by a grim wall. I wish someone would paint the wall blue, or pink. Something better than cold, embattled gray. I drive through the main gates.

  The guard checks my purse for drugs. And then surprises me with a full-on check of my car.

  “Go ahead,” he says, clicking open a locked gate.

  I walk to my brother’s small office. It’s got a poster on it. A bunch of people smiling and holding hands. Rehabbers. My brother is in the picture, too.

  “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” it says.

  Terrific, I think.

  I pause outside the door. Ronnie opens it, wide. He’s grinning. He’s never been touchy-feely, the type of guy who needs a hug, but he grabs me anyway and squeezes me tightly.

  My little brother.

  “Maddy-go-laddy,” he says. He ushers me into his office, clears a stack of files from a chair, and motions for me to sit.

  Over his desk is the Serenity Prayer:

  GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN, AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

  On his shirt, he’s wearing a nametag. It says, “HELLO, MY NAME IS RONNIE. AND I’M AN ADDICT.”

  I point to the nametag. “Subtle,” I say.

  He chuckles. “These kids need to know they’re not alone. And let me tell you, Maddy, they feel a lot more comfortable when they know their counselors aren’t just blowing a bunch of hot air up their asses.”

  My brother sighs. He looks older than his twenty-nine years. The by-product of hard drugs and fast living.

  “How’s it going?” I ask.

  I watch as he reaches across his desk and grabs at a pack of Marlboro’s. I think he’s about to light one, but he just sits there, with his hand on the pack.

  “I had a girl o.d. on me last night. She escaped over the wall, hitched a ride with some jerk-off, and then did a bunch of crystal-meth.”

  He shakes his head back and forth. “I swear that stuff is the devil.” He looks up at me suddenly, remembers I’m there, and smiles. “Sorry. Let’s talk about something light. What’s going on with you?”

  “I’ve been dreaming of Carlton,” I say. “And every night it’s the same dream. We’re alone. On a beautiful sailboat. Having sex. And then he tries to strangle me. Like in the movie Dead Calm.”

  My brother slides a cigarette between his lips. Flicks his lighter.

  “That’s fucked up,” he says, exhaling smoke through his nose.

  “It gets worse. I’ve been researching cyanide websites. I even paid a witch twenty dollars to cast a spell on him.”

  “You went to see a witch?”

  “Actually, you can hex someone over the Internet, now.”

  “Holy Mary! You’re worrying me, Maddy! Do I need to get one of my crisis counselors in here?” Ronnie asks, and he’s looking at me like I’m the weird one.

  “No. I’m not really going to KILL him kill him. I’m just—venting.”

  My brother points to a crucifix on the wall above my head. “What would Jesus do?” he asks, and I think he’s kidding, but he’s dead serious.

  “Turn the other cheek, I guess,” I say, staring at my shoes.

  “That’s right,” my brother says, slapping his knee with conviction.

  “What’s happened to this society!” I protest. “When did we get to be such pushovers? I mean, what happened to an eye for an eye?”

  My brother shrugs. “We’ve evolved,” he says. “There’s no such thing as vigilante justice.”

  “But Carlton broke—” I stop.

  “There’s no law against breaking someone’s heart,” my brother says, solemnly. “There’s no law against screwing someone in business. There’s no law against sleeping with someone and not telling them you have an STD.”

  I raise my finger in the air. “Michael said it’s called Reckless Endangerment.”

  “That’s for HIV,” my brother says.

  I don’t know how Ronnie knows this. But he does.

  “Look, Maddy. There’s no law against being a shitty person. And we all know Carlton’s shitty. So move on. Count yourself lucky you didn’t have his kid.”

  I cringe. Hearing my brother say this makes me think of the one thing I haven’t told him. Or anyone.

  My brother holds his cigarette between two fingers, casually—a man who’s done it ten thousand times before. He muses as the smoke curls into the air. “This is the worst drug of ’em all,” he says, stabbing the cigarette into a black tray. He pushes the tray aside as if he’s angry with it.

  “I know you can find someone to help me,” I say.

  My brother sighs. And it’s a profound sigh. Long and weighty. As if he’s got the world resting on his shoulders.

  “Look, Maddy. You’ve always been the logical one. The person who thinks through every decision. If you want someone to beat Carlton’s ass black and blue to make yourself feel better, I’ll find someone. Or I’ll do it myself. But I think you’re being irrational. And that’s not you. That’s not the sister who saved my life,” he says, steadying me with his gaze.

  “You saved your own life, Ronnie. You made the choice,” I say.

  “Bullshit,” he says. He raises his hand to his head and salutes me.

  I stare down at the floor in my brother’s office. At the institutional-looking carpet. Carpet the color of burnt oatmeal.

  “What’s happened to you, Maddy? What’s happened to my positive, high-on-life sister? The sister who always says, ‘Leap Before You Look?” Ronnie asks. He shakes another cigarette from the pack and tucks it behind his ear.

  “That’s what I did with Carlton, Ronnie! I did the whole ‘leap before you look,’ thing—”

  My brother doesn’t answer.

  I glance over at him and see that he’s bowed his head in prayer.

  I really shouldn’t involve him in this, I think. But I can’t help myself. Carlton Connors haunts my every waking moment.

  And even my dreams.

  Chapter 22

  A week after the big investor meeting, I found the pill bottle. In the bathroom, in a side pocket of his dop kit. I was looking for a condom. We usually didn’t use them because Carlton hated the way they felt.

  “Don’t make me bag it,” he’d say, flashing me his sexiest grin.

  But tonight was different. I was in the dangerous part of the month and—as much as Carlton professed his control—the rhythm method seemed risky.

  I wasn’t a candidate for birth control because of
a hormone problem I’d had since childhood. So I did what every good Italian Catholic woman does.

  I prayed. And counted the days, keeping a meticulous calendar of every time I thought I could possibly be ovulating. In the fifteen years since I’d started having sex, it had somehow, miraculously, worked.

  Heather told me I was “playing with fire.”

  “You should make Carlton wear one Every Single Time,” she said. “He’ll get used to it.”

  But I didn’t listen. I wanted him to feel good. I wanted sex between us to be natural. And besides, ripping open a condom always seemed to be a bit of a buzz kill.

  No matter how creative I got—extra sensitive, glow-in-the-dark, lambskin, and the occasional French tickler, Carlton still acted as though I’d dumped a bucket of ice over his head.

  He suffered through it, sure. And he’d smile when I’d make jokes. Trying to find humor in the situation. Lighten the mood, as they say.

  “Look out, babe! I think this thing is trying to suffocate you,” I’d say, as I fumbled around. Trying to unroll it. My hands nervous and slippery.

  The moment we finished, he’d tear it off, throw it on the floor, a look of disdain on his face.

  I always—always picked it up. Wrapped it in toilet paper. Threw it away. It was the least I could do, I figured. After all, he was the one making all the compromises.

  So, finding the condom box empty, and knowing Carlton was on his way home, I began a frantic search. For an errant condom. The one that got away.

  I dug through every drawer in the bathroom.

  A-ha! I thought, flicking my finger in the air. Carlton’s dop kit. Under the sink.

  The pill bottle was one I’d never seen before.

  It said: Carlton Connors. Take one in the morning. With food. I checked the date on the bottle. Hmm. Two weeks ago. Carlton never told me he went to the doctor.

  Just then, Carlton walked in the door.

  I held up the bottle. “What’s this? What’s Valtrixo?” I asked, reading the name off the prescription.

  His face turned a shade of crimson I’d never seen before.

  “I love you,” he said, immediately.

  “Oh…Kay,” I replied.

  “Seriously, babe? What’s this for? Jock itch? Hemorrhoids?” I giggled and covered my mouth with my hand. “I think it’s cute you’re embarrassed,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.

  He grabbed my shoulders and steered me over to the bed. “Sit,” he said.

  I was suddenly nervous.

  This was no jock itch.

  “What is it, Carlton?” I asked, almost in a whisper.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while, Maddy.”

  “What? Ohmigod, Carlton. What!”

  He stood up and began pacing the bedroom. “You’re going to be mad, but I want you to hear me out. First things first, I want you to know I love you. I want us to get married.” He swung around, knelt down on his knees, grabbed both my hands, and kissed them. First one. Then the other.

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to leave me.”

  I sit on the bed, still as a statue. Carlton is on his knees, on the floor in front of me. I wait for the bomb to drop.

  He stares past me. “After Megan and I got divorced, I was in a state of confusion. Depressed, you know. So I went out with the guys a lot. To different bars. To Vegas. We all got hammered. And I had a few girls…” he trails off. “I don’t even remember most of their names, Maddy.”

  “Nice,” I say.

  Carlton takes my hand and kisses my ring finger. He notices I’m not wearing the Juliet ring.

  “Where’s your ring?”

  “You wanted me to take it off before the investor meeting, remember?” I say, in a caustic voice.

  Carlton rushes into the bathroom, spots the ring on the counter, and comes back into the bedroom. He kneels down on one knee and pushes the ring back on my finger.

  “Tell me more,” I say.

  Carlton stays on his knee. He doesn’t look at me. “There was this one girl,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I found some pills in her medicine cabinet but it was too late. I’d already been infected.”

  “Infected?” I pull my hands away. Carlton looks up at me, a wounded dog.

  God, he’s gorgeous, I think. I don’t want to think this way, but with him staring up at me with his movie star eyes, I can’t help myself.

  Carlton runs his hand through his hair. “Genital herpes. It’s not that serious, Maddy. Sixty percent of American men and women in our age group have it.”

  “And you’ve got it?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve been having unprotected sex, Carlton! We LIVE together! When were you planning to tell me?”

  “I’ve been careful, Maddy. You’ve got to understand. Whenever I’ve had a flare-up, I haven’t slept with you. I check myself every day. In the shower. Scouts Honor.” He raises his hand, like a boy scout taking an oath.

  “I swear to you, Maddy. I would never, EVER put you at risk.”

  “But you did put me at risk, Carlton. No matter how careful you were!”

  “If you don’t have any symptoms, you probably haven’t been infected,” he says.

  “Probably?” I stand from the bed, abruptly, and pace the room. “First you leave me high and dry in the investor meeting. You completely accept the fact that your father basically robbed me of any power in Organics 4 Kids—my idea!—and now—this!”

  I stare into Carlton’s eyes and see that they’re surprisingly moist.

  “Maddy, I’m going to marry you. And you’ll get a huge share of the company, no matter what my father says about it. I promise you.” Carlton lowers his voice. “Please understand that the reason I didn’t tell you about the herpes is because I love you so much. I didn’t want to risk losing you.” He kisses my ring. “Forever, my Juliet,” he says, softly.

  I push past him and march into the living room. Clutching a pillow and blanket under my arm.

  He follows after me. “Don’t sleep on the couch,” he says.

  But it’s too late.

  I’m already pulling out the mattress.

  Chapter 23

  Heather has invited me over for the Big Day. The “unveiling of the nursery,” as she calls it. I swing by with an early baby gift. Something I bought from the Internet. Now that I’m officially an Internet warrior, whatever that means.

  It’s a Hanukah bear with a little wood Dreidel around its neck. I got it off a website called “OyToys For Jewish Joys.”

  Heather rips the bear out of the gift bag and literally squeals. “Oh my Gaaahh, Maddy! I absolutely One Hundred Percent Adore It!”

  She cradles the bear in her arms, like a child herself, and nuzzles it against her chin. “Let’s show Michael!” she says, leading me from the kitchen to the living room. Heather calls it the “sitting room,” but it’s nothing fancy. It’s just a plain ol’ comfortable television room filled with the typical starter-marriage furniture. Mismatched stuff that looks like it came from Pottery Barn or IKEA. Heather’s decorated as best she could with a few lamps and throw pillows to make everything nice and cozy. Her piece de resistance is an antique prayer rug she brought back from her summer in the Middle East. But this doesn’t compare to Michael’s finishing touch—a gigantic, 60-inch, big-screen plasma TV that barely fits in the room. Michael calls it “his baby.”

  I see him sitting on the couch, a bucket of popcorn in his lap.

  Heather says, “Look at this adorable little Hanukah bear Maddy gave us!”

  “Cute,” Michael says, staring at the TV. He points to his movie-theater-sized screen. I can see Julia Roberts. An almost life-sized Julia Roberts onscreen.

  Julia says, “They’re called boobs, Ed.”

  “They’re called boobs, Ed!” Michael squeals, hooting, and honking, and slapping his knee like a hillbilly.

  Heather turns to me and rolls h
er eyes. “He’s watching Erin Brockovitch. AGAIN!” She sighs and pats Michael’s head as we breeze by. “Some husbands dream of speedboats and swimsuit models. My husband dreams of medical malpractice.”

  “McDonald’s coffee,” Michael corrects her.

  Heather turns to me. “You know the big lawsuit where McDonald’s was serving its coffee too hot?”

  I nod. Sometimes Heather and Michael do this jive where they both talk at the same time. Finish each other’s sentences, that type of thing. They start to do this now. Talking over each other. Something about McDonald’s coffee.

  Michael swings around and flings a piece of popcorn in Heather’s direction. It hits her shoulder and falls to the floor.

  “Mature,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I’ll pick it up,” he drawls in his fake Southern accent. “Don’t git your knickers in a twist, darlin’.”

  “What about the McDonald’s case?” I ask, because I know Michael wants to tell me. He likes to be the center of attention, which is why he loves standing up in front of the jury box and telling twelve fine citizens of Travis County what’s what.

  Michael says, “Well, Maddy, if you must know, I dreamt of that woman calling me and telling me she burned herself because the coffee was too damn hot—And in my dream, I say, ‘well, where’d ya get the coffee?’ And she says, ‘McDonald’s.’”

  “You should have heard him moaning in his sleep,” Heather says.

  “Yeah,” Michael says, “Can you imagine the lawyer that got to sue Mickey D’s? I bet he smiled his way to the bank,” he says, with his Southern drawl.

  Michael turns back to the TV. “You know. Julia Roberts is one hot tamale in this movie,” he says.

  Heather tosses some popcorn kernels on the floor near Michael and stomps on them. I hear the kernels crunch under her sandal.

  “That’s not nice,” Michael drawls. But even as he says it, he looks up at his wife and smiles.

  I look at Heather with her supermodel face. I guess a man will forgive anything with a face like that, I think. Heather is a real knockout. She’s got the body of a young Twiggy or Kate Moss, and a face that makes most red-blooded American men do a double take. When I’m with her, I’m the invisible friend.