Manic

by Terri Cheney

  “We’re all set,” Rick said. “The finest seafood restaurant in La Jolla, and it’s only a few blocks away. The concierge said to dress.” That meant that for the next few hours, my mind would be preoccupied with other things, deeply important things like mousse and mascara and the line of a black seamed stocking. I’d brought my very favorite evening dress along: a complicated wasp-waisted, full-skirted affair with honest-to-God petticoats. Rick was all smiles when he saw me dressed for dinner. “You look like Grace Kelly in Rear Window,” he said.

  Guilt is a rotten thing for the digestion. The abalone was fresh and in season, but I couldn’t taste it. The Bach, the candles, the white-jacketed waiter, all of it was wasted on me. By the time the strawberry tartlets arrived, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to speak.

  “Rick, we have to talk about Sarah,” I said. “What are you planning to do about her? Do you ever intend to tell her about us? In fact, is there any ‘us’ to tell her about?”

  Rick put his fork down and looked at me, annoyance showing on his face. “Of course there’s an ‘us.’ What do you think we’ve been doing all these months?”

  “That’s my question. What have we been doing all these months?”

  “I think what we have is very special,” he said. “Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  Luckily for him, the waiter came by at that moment to ask monsieur if he would care for a cigar. Rick was brave: he opted to stretch out the meal, or maybe he just didn’t want to be alone with me yet. In any event, he said yes. I was glad. I wanted to make up for the tension between us, and a surefire way of pleasing Rick was to go through what we called the Gigi routine: I chose his cigar by holding it up to my ear and rolling it between my fingertips; then I cut the tip and lit the match while he puffed away. Normally I find this a very soothing routine. I like being old-fashioned and submissive—as long as it’s understood that it’s only a routine.

  But that night, the ritual only inflamed my mood. The flare of the match head startled me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the flame, which could only mean one thing: I was manic. I have a fascination with all things incendiary when I’m manic. I surround myself with candles; I cultivate friends with fireplaces; and I simply love to watch things burn. I’ll stand for hours, plucking strands of hair from my head and tossing them onto the stove just to see them sizzle. That night I stared so long into the flame that Rick had to reach out and snatch the match from my hand.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he said.

  “It’s because of the manic depression, isn’t it?” I said.

  He glanced away, just for a second. “The truth is, you seem so much better these days, like a whole different person,” he said. “But….”

  “But?”

  “But I’m still waiting to see if it’s real.”

  When you’re manic, your mind is running so fast that you can easily envision alternate endings to any given moment. So I could see myself standing up and storming out of the restaurant. I could see myself sitting quietly and smiling rather sadly. And I could see myself thrusting my hand into the candle flame and saying, “You want real? I’ll show you real.”

  Although I wanted a dramatic release, I settled for the Mona Lisa smile. My mind had already jumped ten steps ahead: if I could just fool Rick into thinking everything was okay, maybe I could convince him to let me go for a walk alone after we left the restaurant. I knew that I couldn’t face a hotel bed, not now, not with his rejection still quivering between us.

  After the check came, I told Rick that I was going to take a quick walk along the park between our hotel and the sea. “It’s after eleven,” he said. “I’ll be just a few steps away,” I reassured him. “Besides, the park is well patrolled.” All of La Jolla is well patrolled. He reluctantly agreed, as long as I was back before midnight.

  I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Across the park was a series of steps that led directly down to a cove, protected on all three sides by sheer rock. I wanted to feel the cool, wet sand against my feet, so I kicked off my heels, and made my way across the stretch of grass that separates La Jolla proper from the sea.

  “Do Not Enter. Danger. Riptide” read the wooden sign at the top of the steps. No one was around. I ducked under the chain, past the sign and down the mist-slick steps to the beach. Maintaining my balance was a constant struggle. I was finally forced to stop at one point and remove my panty hose. I left them on a nearby outcropping of rock, then I continued all the way down to the beach.

  It was just as I had remembered it: vicious, lonely, the kind of place where pirates would have hidden their treasure or ravished their maidens. There was only a tiny strip of sand to stand on, and even from there, it was impossible not to get wet. It looked like the tide was rising; but what did I care, I was here. I stepped into the freezing water. Within minutes, my feet were completely numb. I didn’t notice the cold anymore. I didn’t even notice the wet. My feet had completely ceased to exist.

  What if? a voice in my head kept asking, tugging at me like the tide. What if all of you were blessedly numb? What if your mind didn’t always think, think, think?

  I looked up at the sky. It was a clear, starry night, with an exquisite Van Gogh kind of brilliance. Well, I was sick of the exquisite brilliance of madness. I wanted simple and sane. Barring that, I wanted nothing. I wanted numb. Lifting my petticoats as high as I could, I stepped in further and let the water wash over my knees and thighs. The pain was searing. I forced myself to stand rock still until the pain gave way to nothing at all.

  What if? I slipped my dress up over my head and threw it onto the rocks. I slipped off my bra and panties, too, and flung them up there as well. Naked, I stepped into the surf.

  Crash! A wave assaulted me from the left. I staggered, slipped, then found my footing. Crash! Another wave hit me from the right, knocking me off balance and sending me into the water. It wouldn’t be long until I was thoroughly numb. I just had to stay upright long enough to let the cold work its way through me.

  It never even occurred to me just to lie back and let the water have its way with me. That would have been suicide, and I didn’t necessarily want to be dead, just dormant for a while. I had to escape. Manic feelings are sometimes so brutally strong it seems like there is no way to endure them. To me, there was nothing crazy about immersing myself in a freezing riptide at a quarter till midnight. Crazy would have been continuing to feel the way I did.

  So we danced together, the tide and I. I began to relax into the ocean’s rhythm: the boom-and-swish, boom-and-swish percussion of the waves. My eyelids grew heavy, and a drowsy warmth began to move through my body. My head started nodding, my eyes kept closing, and I found myself slipping deeper into the tide’s embrace. We danced together as one now, the only dance my body knew, the only dance I’d ever known…the riptide tango: three steps forward, three steps forward, two steps back.

  The water was up to my chin, and I was actually starting to get scared. I wanted to go back to the strip of beach, but the little beach was no longer there. There was nothing but water now, all around me—and in the distance, on an outcropping of rock, a glimpse of my green silk evening gown, flapping wildly in the breeze.

  And then the most extraordinary thing happened. The stars came loose from their moorings and started chasing one another across the sky. One by one they shot through the night, trailing arcs of shimmering silver behind them. For a brief spectacular moment, the entire sky was afire, like a giant’s birthday cake. Then the sky was extinguished and the darkness reclaimed its own.

  I knew there was probably a simple explanation for what I had just seen, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was in the mood for messages: I wanted to believe that what had just happened meant something. I couldn’t imagine what that might be. Between the surf and the chattering of my teeth, it was simply too noisy to concentrate. All I could think was, thank God I didn’t blink. And maybe that was the message all along: Don’t blink, never blink, or you’ll miss
the whole show.

  That’s all I had been doing: blinking. Closing my eyes to reality, refusing to see the truth about Rick and me. No wonder I’d been getting depressed again. The world was full of shooting stars, and I was settling for the blackness.

  I was fully awake now and aware of the danger. I reached underwater and began rubbing my legs, rubbing my arms, rubbing all of me. Some feeling returned to my limbs, which hurt like the devil. Why, I wondered, is pain so necessary for survival? But then an enormous wave surged up and slapped me full in the face. I got the point: now was not the time to philosophize. Now, right now, was the time to survive.

  I shouted for help, but there was no one to hear—and I didn’t necessarily want to be heard. Men had been rescuing me all my life. For once, I wanted to rescue myself. I plunged toward the shore. I advanced a few feet, only to be sucked back out. I pushed again harder, again, and again, gaining a little more ground each time. Trembling, gagging, spitting up seawater, I finally emerged from the waves and fell onto the beach.

  I lay there until my breathing slowed and my pulse returned to a regular rhythm. Then I lifted myself up and over to the rock where my dress still hung, still flapping briskly in the breeze. It took me a few tries, but I finally snared it. It was damp but wearable. I slid it over my head and smoothed it out around my hips and I was suddenly civilized again, notwithstanding my wet and dripping hair. Then carefully, I climbed my way out of the cave and up toward the park, past where my shoes lay patiently waiting, past the Danger sign.

  To my shock, the clock on the lobby wall said a quarter past three. Rick would either have called the police by now or fallen asleep. I bet on the latter. Rick could fall asleep anywhere and everywhere after midnight—in a movie theater, a play, my bedroom, his car. Rather than risk waking him up, I decided to ask the desk clerk for a key. He made no comment on my bedraggled appearance. He simply handed me the key and bid me a good night.

  When I opened the door, it was just as I expected: Rick was asleep, one arm flung across my side of the bed. I wondered if I’d worried him. I wondered if he’d missed me. And I wondered what I was going to say when he finally woke up.

  I went into the bathroom, dried my hair with a towel, and put on a robe. I stepped out onto the terrace, sat on one of the deck chairs and heard a sound from the bedroom. I poked my head through the door. Rick was mumbling and fidgeting in his sleep. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, but I did hear him distinctly say my name. Then he reached across the bed and grabbed the pillow, the pillow on which my head should have been laying, and he hugged it to his chest.

  Did that mean he loved me in his dreams? Maybe I mattered far more than he knew; and maybe I was about to make a horrible mistake. I stepped back out onto the balcony and looked to the sky for answers. Orion had all but disappeared. I couldn’t see the Big Dipper, either. In fact, I couldn’t make out any of the constellations at all. The sky was haphazard and made no sense.

  Nothing’s colder and lonelier than a manic morning after. I’m never quite sure what actually happened, and what’s just a by-product of my feverish imagination. Did the sky ever really explode with shooting stars, and if so, what did that mean? Did it mean anything at all?

  I chose to let the stars decide. I would lie here and watch the sky until morning. If I saw another shooting star by then, it would mean that I was supposed to break up with Rick. If I saw nothing, then I would just let things go on between us the way they were. I settled in. I didn’t have to wait long: within fifteen minutes, a flash of silver streaked through the sky. It happened so fast, the image barely registered before it was gone. Maybe I was seeing things, I thought. If I saw two shooting stars sometime before morning, that would clearly be a sign from God that I should end it with Rick.

  Four, maybe five minutes later, another streak of silver shot through the sky. Then another. Then another. Then a sudden barrage of brilliance. Surely this was some kind of astronomical phenomenon, a once-every-blue-moon spectacle like Halley’s Comet or the convergence of Venus and Mars. If so, it wasn’t fair to use it to decide my fate. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural. It was loaded dice.

  Part of me protested at this. “What better evidence could you possibly want?” I asked myself. Deep down I knew I was probably right. And I also knew that there weren’t enough shooting stars in the galaxy to convince me that I should break up with Rick.

  There are all kinds of riptides, and love is surely the most powerful. I’d been sucked in so deep I could barely find my footing anymore. For the second time that evening, I was in danger of drowning. I was fully conscious, and I knew exactly what I was doing. I was doing the wrong thing.

  I thought back to my epiphany earlier that night. “Don’t blink, never blink.” Manic epiphanies are like shooting stars: flashes of brilliance that are gone in an instant.

  8

  It’s a little-known secret, and it should probably stay that way: attempting suicide usually jump-starts your brain chemistry. There must be something about taking all those pills that either floods the brain sufficiently or depletes it so completely that balance is restored. Whatever the mechanism, the result is that you emerge on the other side of the attempt with an awareness of what it means to be alive. Simple acts seem miraculous: you can stand transfixed for hours just watching the wind ruffle the tiny hairs along the top of your arm. And always, with every sensation, is the knowledge that you must have survived for a reason. You just can’t doubt it anymore. You must have a purpose, or you would have died. You have the rest of your life to discover what that purpose is. And you can’t wait to start looking.

  My search began in Africa. I hadn’t planned on going there, but then, I hadn’t planned on being alive at all. In early 1991 I’d made a sincere but thwarted suicide attempt (amateurish in comparison to the attempt I would make several years later in Santa Fe). Not long afterward, a girlfriend called to ask me if I’d be interested in going on safari with her. She was supposed to go with her boyfriend, but he was having problems. She knew I was unhappy at work, wasn’t a vacation just what I needed?

  Lisa didn’t know anything about my recent suicide attempt. No one did, except my doctors and the paramedics who had saved me. But she was right about my unhappiness. For the past two years, I had become increasingly miserable, in spite of my promotions and pay raises. The worse I felt on the inside, it seemed, the greater my success. Part of this was due, ironically, to the depression: I had to try harder than everyone else, and trying harder ultimately had its rewards. But the rest of it—the finest part—was all David’s doing.

  David was a senior associate in my law firm. He was one year ahead of me, my assigned professional mentor. But his protection extended well beyond the confines of our careers. I already knew that I was different. David was the first person who ever taught me that different might also mean special.

  David had come out of the closet when he first started with the firm several years before, and he had braved it with an unfailing dignity and self-respect, until he was finally just “David,” just one of the guys. He was the only associate in our buttoned-down, striped-tie firm to wear red silk shirts with the occasional paisley cravat. But on him, it looked great. Everything he ever wore looked great, he was gorgeous. I wouldn’t say he was altogether good, and he certainly didn’t like everyone, which made it so special to be one of the few who was welcome to gather in his office after hours to bitch about a nasty partner, commiserate about a stubborn judge, or, in my case, despair about life altogether.

  David was the first professional colleague I ever told about my manic depression, and he took it in stride. He checked up on me whenever I didn’t show up at work and never criticized me for not returning his calls. Sometimes he tucked little notes in my desk drawer or inside a file, so I got a sudden jolt of love just when I least expected it. He taught me all about tulips and burgundy wines. And most important of all, David thought I could write. He pushed me to write as a career, and damn nea
r convinced me to do it. But then he got sick, and nothing else mattered; and nothing else would, for a very long time.

  AIDS was just a scathing rumor back then—a scourge somewhere far on the other side of the world, devastating but nothing any of us need worry about. At first David’s persistent coughs and headaches and assorted aches and pains yielded to medication, but inevitably came the day when the drugs stopped working. I, of course, had great empathy for this tortuous scenario, having been through my own version of it with the depression drug regime. But all at once David suddenly got much sicker, so sick he couldn’t come to work anymore. The next time I saw him, a week or so later, his hair was falling out, and he was unable to eat. Over the next three weeks he stopped eating altogether, and the lithe gymnast’s body became cadaverously thin, while that thick, wavy head of hair was nothing but a memory in his bedside photograph. And then his mind succumbed, and he no longer knew me; and heartless or not, I have to admit I was glad that the end came soon after that. I had never known death so intimately before.

  My depression, bad enough before David’s illness, tripled in intensity after his funeral. Nothing about my lifestyle, not even the large bonus I got when I was promoted into David’s position, brought me any comfort. All I could think of was death. It would mean an end, at last, to this impossible façade. Plus, I figured, David would be there. I held off two weeks until David’s birthday, then quickly gulped down all the pills I could get my hands on. Then I lay back on my bed and waited.