By the time my phone restrictions ended, Dad would have had time to stir the news around, letting it dissolve like an Alka-Seltzer in water.
The elevator doors clanged open.
“How did he sound? My dad, I mean.” I pushed my words over the dam in my throat that held back rivers of regret and guilt and shame.
“Kind,” Cathryn said. “He sounded kind and caring and concerned, Leah. He told me all he wants is for you to be well. He said something along the lines of, ‘You take care of my baby, now. You know, she's my only daughter.’ No pressure, huh? Oh, I almost forgot.” She smiled, pulled paper and a pen from the counter, and handed them to me. “He said to write what you want to eat on your first weekend home, and he’d be there to cook it for you. In fact, he promised to cook extras for the staff.”
“My father believes any problem can be solved by raw oysters, a crawfish boil, and Blue Bell Natural Vanilla Bean ice cream slathered on hot apple pie,” I said.
“Who am I to argue with that?” Cathryn chuckled. “Write on, girl.”
That night my new dysfunctional family and I went to the cafeteria for dinner. I hadn’t spent more than five minutes with anyone in the group since the time I met everyone in the communal playroom. And even though Theresa was admitted after me, the crew already welcomed her. She knew Doug, so that put her miles ahead of me on the rehab food chain. I watched her move around and envied how easily she laughed with the group, chatted with the staff. But was I supposed to want to be like the woman who felt comfortable checking in for round two? Something about that seemed skewed. So, did recognizing the lunacy of that logic mean I was better or worse?
I trailed Benny and Vince, who argued over who would serve first at the volleyball game that night. Funny how the more a person's world shrinks, the more otherwise insignificant acts grow. I suspected this wasn’t the first time they had discussed this.
“Man, you suck at serving,” Vince said. “Come on, you seen me slam that ball over the net so hard, old Doug wished he’d be on his way to another blackout.”
“What? You think we’re here for Olympic tryouts or somethin’?” Benny playfully shoved Vince into the elevator. “How much fun you think it was standing there watching you pound the ball at them? We wanna play volleyball, not watch you be hero-server boy.”
Their banter continued as we walked through the cafeteria door. Annie brought a magazine with her. What a shocker. Guess she didn’t plan to engage in a stimulating dinner conversation. Had to give it to her. The chick used those mags as her “no talking” signs. And it worked. Of course, Doug and Theresa yapped on, totally involved in their little festival of memories.
I’m an outcast among outcasts. How pathetic. But what was I going to talk to these people about? Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter? Not exactly a mystery as to what brought us all together. Besides, my life compared to theirs was beyond boring. It wasn’t like we were going to have reunions after we left Brookforest. We couldn’t find each other anyway; we didn’t even know one another's last names.
“Hey, Miss, you gonna get a tray or what?” said Benny.
“Sure, I’m on it. Sorry,” I said, embarrassed to be so mesmerized by my conversation with myself.
I wasn’t sure if it was the sight of meat slabs soaking in juices the color of oil spills or the cacophony of pungent aromas that created a ruckus in my gut, but my tray didn’t make it past the salads. A geyser of yesterday's meals came up from my stomach and crashed its way to the shore of my mouth. I bolted to the bathroom.
Benny's voice followed me, “Miss, you forgot your tray.”
14
I was alone.
Well, about as alone as a recovering alcoholic can be in a treatment center. After my mad dash out of the dining room, I skipped dinner and headed upstairs.
Jan had already started her shift and met me as I stepped off the elevator.
“Whatever they’re serving down there must be toxic. You look terrible,” she said and steered me to the sofa.
“Happy to see you too,” I told her and plopped on the cushions. Jan started to sit next to me, but I held up my hand to stop her. “If you’re going to sit, please be gentle. My stomach is sloshy, but I need something. How's the stash of Diet Cokes and crackers?”
“That's not dinner. You haven’t eaten well since you’ve been here. What about a sandwich? Or soup? Both?”
“None of the above. How about peanut butter and jelly? I can handle that.”
“No problem. In fact, you’re in luck. We already have peanut butter on the floor. It's Matthew's, but I’m sure he’ll be a good boy about sharing. I’ll send him down for some of those packs of jelly Cathryn told me you’re so attached to.” Jan patted my hand and walked down the hall to find the peanut butter.
By the time the crew returned from dinner and the ritual volleyball game, I‘d retreated to my bed. The gaggle of voices in the hall reminded me my new roomie would be joining me tonight, and Jan would be calling “lights out” soon. My moment of decision.
I could: a) stay awake and attempt a mini-bonding experience with Theresa, or b) turn off the lamp, wiggle under the covers, face the wall, and let her think I was sleeping. The kicker was neither option was an honest one. I’d either be pretending to want to be friendly with Theresa or pretending to be asleep.
The door creaked open.
“Man, how does this little white bread chick expect me to see in this room?”
Theresa flipped on the overhead lights, and I flipped on the bed. I plowed my face in the pillow.
So much for any of the above.
“Hey, I wake you up?”
The next morning I woke up to an empty room. Theresa's bed was unmade, and her boxer shorts and T-shirt were on the floor. At least she wasn’t the queen of neat. Not that, judging by her disorganized hair, I really expected her to be. But, obviously, I’d been wrong before about lots of things. Having to share a room with someone as bizarre as Theresa was enough to deal with. I certainly didn’t need my mother's clean clone following me into therapy.
My mother had a place for everything, and everything had its place. Dad referred to their house as the museum. In the kitchen, the collection of four tin canisters on the left side of the cook top all faced large apples out. In the family room, the coffee table arrangement moved left to right: a stack of three books chosen because the hardcover shades coordinated with the room's harvest colors, a woven basket filled with large pine cones Dad merrily brought home from the golf course (“Aren’t these remarkable, Lola? Can you believe the size of these things?”), and three inches up and two over, a fan of four magazines that were replaced monthly. I wouldn’t dare move one of her knickknacks for fear some silent alarm would reverberate in my mother's clean control room.
One night, after too much ouzo at the Greek Festival, Dad zigzagged through the crowd to find Carl and me as we watched the Hellenic Dancers. “Quick, gotta tell you the new name I came up with for your mother. Sh.” He looked around, spotted her, and waved as she stood in the bakery line for more baklava. “I’m … I’m getting Morrie over at the trophy shop to make a plaque for her. It's going to have her name and—” He slapped the table with giggling delight, “—a line that says, ‘official rep for the FBI—Female Bathroom Inspectors,’ and he's drawing a little toilet underneath.” He must have changed his mind when the anise-flavored liquor worked its way out of his system, because he was still alive months later.
All those years of cleaning, dusting, polishing, vacuuming, swishing, and swashing had taken their toll. When I finally moved out of my parents’ house, I became a creature of clutter. I surrounded myself with a happy jumble of books and papers and dishes, both clean and dirty. The disorder comforted me. Drove my mother crazy. She’d wince when she walked in. Probably itched to grab a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of anything with the word “disinfectant” on the label. Clutter had a life of its own, but it gave me a chance to make order out of chaos. I’d experience a spir
itual, Genesis-like satisfaction in seeing the gleam of an empty sink, the bareness of the polished pine desk.
So now I had a partner in grime. Maybe there was hope for us.
Oddly, no knocking on the door this morning to wake me. Maybe installing Theresa in my room was alarm enough. I showered and pulled on slouchy sweats Molly insisted I pack. “You have to wear something that lets you eat another bowl of ice cream.” My butt-freeing sweats and I stood on my toes by the sink. I was trying to reach the mirror to determine how much time I had before my eyebrows formed a straight line when the bathroom door swung open.
Theresa's body filled the open space of the door frame. Her perfume—and that would be a kind description—occupied the rest of the space. “Girl, you gotta learn to lock this door if we gonna be sharing this room.” She didn’t move. She stared.
Was I supposed to speak? She didn’t seem quite as threatening, but then I noticed she hadn’t yet applied her war paint. And she definitely did not have mental telepathy or she surely would have swatted the blazes out of me by now.
“Okay.” I glared back.
“So, you finished or what ’cuz I got some business to do in here, you know?” She pulled a pink plastic case out of the front pocket of her jeans and wiggled it as if I was capable of seeing only moving objects. “This ain’t no pencil case.” She waved the tampon container toward the door. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Lucky for her, the universal rule of menstrual cycle sisterhood worked in her favor here. “Sure.” I shrugged my shoulders and eased past her. I hoped the fumes of whatever perfume she wore wouldn’t settle on me in the seconds I needed to escape.
I headed to the rec room to wait to be herded to breakfast. After last night's feast of peanut butter and jelly, I woke up ready to chew on the pillow.
The women were the only ones moving around. Annie was back in her corner with her ever-present magazine. I tossed a feeble “hello” in the direction of Good Housekeeping. It nodded back. Maybe I could dash across the room, yank the magazine out of her hands, and … and what, genius? Run away. Yep. That's probably what I’d do. A few seconds of brain-numbing ridiculous behavior followed by the awful recognition of my own stupidity. And then flight. Hmmm. Why does this feel so familiar?
“Hey, the bathroom's yours if you want it now. I even sprayed it all up for you.” Theresa's burp punctuated her arrival in the rec room and her announcement. “Whoa! Watch out now.” She laughed, slammed her fist into her chest, and then umpfed on the sofa next to me.
“Thanks, but I’m all done for now,” I said, grateful to bypass the aromatic aftermath of Hurricane Theresa. Any other year, I’d be combating the aftermath of a weekend at the lake house. Morning Bloody Marys, margaritas for lunch on the pier, late afternoon sunset martinis, and wine with dinner. My 24-hour prescription for surviving the toxic dose of Carl's mother during the day and Carl at night.
“So, what's with book chick over there?” Theresa said, and nodded her happy curls in Annie's direction.
I pretended to be intrigued by the viewing guide scrolling on the television. She leaned closer and whispered, “She stuck-up or something?”
I glanced at Annie, who still hadn’t moved. She had to have heard Theresa's question. I’m sure half the wing heard her. A Theresa whisper is on the level of ordinary conversation.
“I don’t really know. Maybe you should ask her.”
Theresa leaned back into the mushy sofa cushion, folded her arms behind her head, and eyed Annie like she was up for auction. Her feet alternately tapped the floor; the movements rippled up her body and jiggled her stomach to the beat. Even deep thinking was a physical activity for Theresa.
“Nah,” she said, “I don’t think I’m gonna need someone else to talk to. I got you, right?”
At that moment I wanted to bash Annie and her magazine-addicted self over the head.
15
On the way down to breakfast, Cathryn announced the day would start with a group session with Dr. Sanders.
“That ain’t no good after breakfast,” Benny grumbled.
“Yeah, so what meal is it good after, huh, kid?” We could always count on Doug for our reality check.
“Me, I don’t care when it starts as long as I got time to go the bathroom,” Theresa said.
I shifted to let Theresa out of the elevator and caught Annie either twitching or actually winking at me. The corners of her mouth seemed suspiciously turned skyward for a nanosecond. Her usual slather of green eye shadow had been replaced by an iridescent violet, meant, I think, to coordinate with the tie-dyed pink and purple blouse shoved into waist-cinching khaki shorts. Annie's clothes had not yet surrendered themselves to what must have been a new body shape.
“So, how are you and Theresa working out?” Annie didn’t lift her eyes from the gray cafeteria tray she pulled from the stack. I looked over my shoulder, not even sure she was talking to me. We were the last two in line, so she really was breaking her vow of silence.
“I can tolerate anything for twenty-three more days,” I said. “Even these scrambled eggs with bits of what I’m praying are bacon or some sort of meat substance.”
Annie stopped to survey the bread options. “Yeah, but now you’re doing it sober.” She picked up two lumpy biscuits, stacked them onto her plate next to her mini-tower of sausage patties, picked up her tray, and walked toward an empty table at the far edge of the cafeteria.
So much for the beginning of that friendship.
How could Annie not like me? Most people at least liked me. Well, if I didn’t count my mother-in-law, and I didn’t. The thud of absolute loneliness that crashed into my gut echoed through the dining hall. How ridiculous! I’m a professional. I have a college degree. Plus graduate hours. I have friends. I have a husband. A house in the right zip code. I drive a Lexus. And not one person in this motley assortment of human beings talked to me.
I ate at a table for two near a window. At least I had a view if not a human companion. I swirled the syrup on my disorganized stack of pancakes. Not at all like Carl's. What was he thinking as he ate breakfast this morning? Probably not about dreading group therapy.
Dr. Frank Sanders already sat in the group room when we arrived. He stationed himself in a chair closest to the door. Was that to expedite his getaway or to prevent ours?
A circle of submarine gray folding chairs waited. The only seats not occupied were on either side of the doctor. Naturally. But my teacher-self realized the advantage of not being in eye-lock view of the man in charge. Peripheral vision tended to eliminate the possibility I’d have to be subjected to one of his squirm-inducing stares.
Everyone was quiet. Sanctuary quiet. Like any moment a priest or minister or rabbi or Dali Lama would start services quiet. Even Theresa was mute. She held her pudgy hands hostage under her thighs, which seemed to ooze off the seat, and stared at her kneecaps. Doug's long legs acted as ballasts as he teetered on the back chair legs, his neck barely holding up his head. His splotched hands, threaded together on his bloated stomach, were the shade of pancakes I barely ate for breakfast. The boy teens’ U2 fire-red shirts were the only bolts of color in the otherwise naked room. The overhead lights were so white and punishing they could have been used for police interrogations. The unforgiven in an unforgiving room.
Dr. Sanders looked around, taking emotional temperatures as his eyes flicked from one of us to the other. He smelled fresh, like pine trees, like my brother. If I closed my eyes for just a moment, I could pretend Peter sat next to me, and we were in the movies waiting for the lights to fade into black. Only there's no black, no fading, no Peter.
“First day, first group. Let's start with an introduction. First names only and how you came to be here. I’ll start.” Dr. Frank, a psychiatrist, was in recovery from an addiction to Demerol and Dilaudid and other pain medications outside the realm of pronunciation.
I prayed we’d do the clockwise round because my tongue felt paralytic, and a Civil Defense air-
raid siren drilled into my eardrums. I heard Vince's post-adolescent voice and stopped holding my breath.
“Hey. I’m Vince and, like, my mom, she told me I had to be here or else she’d, like, figure out a way for me to be in jail, ya know. She got all whacked when she found out I was skipping school. Well, I guess I’m addicted to pot, X, whatever gets me flying. I ain’t old enough to buy alcohol.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Dude, that's funny.” Benny gave him a fake punch in his arm. “You not being able to buy drinks or go to bars and you still ended up here.”
No one else laughed, not even a stifled giggle. I wanted to award him bonus points for catching the irony of it all.
“Me? I’m Benny. My old lady, she liked that guy Elton John. Guess he's a guy. Anyway, she liked the song he wrote about Benny and his jets. So, I’m nineteen. I started using, but I told my old lady when I get here she the reason I’m here. I mean, look where she got my name.”
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