by Paloma Meir
I asked them what they thought of Celena’s statement about me meeting her for the first time again. In my mind that question was the key. Cara said yes, finding the whole situation tragically romantic. Boy loses girl to mental illness. Cara’s mind was as rarefied as Zelda’s. When Cara wasn’t around Brendan would say it was a sexual obsession on my part, and all I needed to do was “get laid”.
He would point out the promiscuous girls to me at lunchtime, pushing me talk to them. I saw his point, but it wasn’t in me to take advantage of a girl. Part of me felt like that would confirm Celena’s opinion, not that she would know, but I would. Anyway I had always preferred the sad eyed girls. Vulnerability was what got me going.
Danny was still in that weird emotional place where he was all fake positive energy, so I didn’t unload on him the way I did with Brendan and Cara. He wasn’t much of a role model on letting go. A brooding Byronic hero is what he was. I felt bad Zelda was missing out on her favorite romantic archetype.
I meant to tell them about my mother. It didn’t work out. My mother would escape the rehab center high up in the hills of Malibu and hitchhike down the road to drink at the bars on PCH. My father pointed out that she always came back on her own which showed commitment. It was hard to contemplate. I chose to trust his thoughts.
I decided to tell my friends when she was released. They weren’t going to let her out until she had thirty days of sobriety. I kept up my positive attitude up in spite of her setbacks.
…
I sat in front of the liquor store drinking a bottle of water after taking a longer run than planned. I was debating the pros and cons of my experiment in being open with my friends when Zelda rushed by me into the store. She was a mess in oversized dirty jeans and a stretched out gray sweater, her hair oily to the ends. I watched her grab close to a dozen candy bars and throw her money on the counter. When the cashier looked away, she reached across and grabbed an airplane-sized bottle of liquor.
I couldn’t move as she ran out of the store and threw her candy into the garbage can. She took the stolen bottle out of her pocket and drank it down in one gulp. Although she was standing by the garbage can she made the choice of throwing the empty bottle into the street, shattering it.
I stared after her not comprehending what I had seen. Drinking, stealing, destruction... What the fuck? I pulled myself out of my shock and chased her up the road.
“I saw you down at the liquor store. You’re a little kleptomaniac now? What’s going on with you?” I said as I caught up with her.
“I’m not a little anything. I never would have thought that you would be a part of the patriarchy. Leave me alone,” she yelled and tried to pick up her pace as if she could outrun me. Good luck with that Zelda.
“Stop Zelda.” I put my hands on her shoulders so she would face me. She tried to shake free. I didn't want to scare her and loosened my grip. “What can I do to help you?”
“I don’t need your help. How patronizing. Go away.” She yelled at me again.
“I’m just going to walk you home okay? I’m not part of the patronizing patriarchy.” I tried to catch her eye again, “You can’t fight them off with body odor Zelda.”
My mind tried to make sense of her. We resumed our walk. Passing Danny’s house, I looked up to see him watching us from the large picture window on the second floor.
“I don’t mean to break my word, but I need to know, did Danny do something to you?"
“No” She picked up a rock and threw it at the wall in front of his house. “He’s nice.” I looked up at Danny as he walked away. I wondered if this was something they did every day.
“I didn’t think so but I had to ask.” I put my hand on her shoulder and wanted to pick her up and carry her somewhere safe. I removed it because I didn’t want to frighten her and continued walking beside her and into her house.
“You should take a nap. I’ll stay here until you fall asleep.” I sat down on the chair by her vanity. She had broken the mirror. I looked away.
“I can fall asleep by myself. I’m a big girl now. You’re so condescending. I hate that.”
I didn’t believe a word of what she was saying. As she had been my favorite person, I knew I was hers. I couldn’t understand why she had done this to herself, or why she was trying to push me away.
The healthy ivory glow of her beautiful face was gone, her eyes were wide with dark circles, and her teeth that had always been so white, now dull, almost beige. Her face gaunt, starved looking without any of the innocent happiness that had been as much a part of her as her once shiny clean hair.
I saw Celena’s irrational anger in her. I smelled the scent of my mother’s Vodka along with her stale body odor. I felt the unbearable loss of both of them. My peaceful new frame of mind dissolved with the realization that there was nothing I could do to help her.
“I’m tired Zelda. My mom doesn’t get better. She keeps relapsing. Maybe you could help me? I don’t have much left right now to offer you anyway.”
She pulled me to her bed. I lay down next to her, her back against me and wrapped my arms around and hugged her tightly. I kissed the back of her head that smelled like weeds as she fell asleep.
I wanted to join her in napping but I didn’t. Lying next to her felt too good to waste on sleep. I had never laid on a bed with her before, never held her in such a way. She stunk of staleness but it didn’t matter. Her body fit against mine perfectly. I realized lying next to her, with her in my arms that I was finally taller than her.
I pulled her closer to me if that were possible, and really nuzzled into her still kissing the back of her dirty head while looking around her room. In a city of rich girls, she was one of the wealthiest with the way her parents indulged her every wish. I glanced into her open closet and noticed not for the first time how it was almost the size of my bedroom, stuffed not with preppy thrift shop clothes I preferred, but with brand new items from her favorite store Barney’s. All of her shoes neatly put away in clear plastic boxes with pictures on the outside, carefully organized by color.
Everywhere I looked in her room I saw indulgence. Her state of the art drafting table with all of her supplies better suited to a professional than a young girl experimenting with the different art forms. Her deluxe sewing machine sat next to her tall pile of silks and cashmeres that she practiced her stitching on. I didn’t know much about furniture, but it looked well made and artful like the rest of her sprawling immaculately kept house.
I knew her parents weren’t the most attentive or caring, but they were intact, not drinking or hiding their lives away. It wasn’t like she was lonely or abandoned. She had a very small group of friends, but that was by her choice and they were all very close to her. She wasn’t lacking emotional connection. She loved her brother in the way a mother loves her child, and he more than returned that feeling.
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Why would she drink in the middle of the day, or at all after seeing my mother all those years? I remembered my sister saying they experimented with drinking but had given it up. Had her sugar cravings turned into alcohol cravings during that time? Had she read in a book that this was the way to behave after a break-up? I couldn’t imagine an actual break-up hitting anyone as badly as this hit her. She seemed more angry than mentally ill like Celena.
As good as it felt to hold her in my arms, and it felt good, I got up and sat beside her. I held her hand in mine, and saw her long fingers that had always been manicured with a pale pink polish were rough, the nails bitten down to nubs with painful looking reddened hangnails. I sighed and glanced down at the floor only to see her school notebook that was covered in hand drawn anarchy symbols.
Anarchy symbols? If she had any political leanings they would have been pro-Monarchy. I couldn’t think of anyone less interested in political thought than her. What was she trying to prove?
“You’re on your own.” I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.
…
&n
bsp; I walked straight up the stairs and into Carolina’s room. She sat at her desk talking on the phone, I assumed to John. I opened my mouth to ask her the same questions I had been asking her for the previous two and a half months. I knew she wouldn’t answer me as well as the fact that there was nothing I could do to help Zelda.
I gave it one last shot the next day. I walked Danny to the parking lot after Lacrosse practice. We hadn’t talked about Zelda since the night they first met, and that hadn’t gone well. I approached the conversation with much trepidation, almost upset he might know more about her than I myself knew about her.
“Danny, this isn’t any of my business. What happened with you and Zelda?”
“I cut her loose.” He opened his trunk and put his equipment away.
“Really.” I laughed, “You cut her loose? Do you want to take a minute and think about who you’re talking to?”
“Why does everyone say that?" He slammed his trunk closed as if he wanted to destroy the car “Okay, she cut me loose. Are we done?”
“No” I decided to go easier on him. The moist eyes were too much for me. “I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder because in that moment I was sorry. “What happened to her? Why is she…”
“She has brain damage.”
“What?” I thought he had brain damage for thinking that about her.
“From the car accident. I’ve got to go now Serge.” He got in his car and drove away.
And with that I gave up on the mystery of Zelda and any remaining hope of helping her.
…
Spring break came and the weather that had been so cold and grey turned sunny and warm. I spent my time tutoring my students. I had convinced the parents that the break would be the perfect time to get their kids ahead.
I visited my mother at rehab every day. Her attitude had improved. Instead of crying and apologizing, she made plans for the future, telling me how things would be different when she came home. Her positive outlook was encouraging, but I remained cautious.
I sat in my room the Monday before school was back in session working on the essays for my college applications. I could have waited until summer, but I wanted to get it over with. MIT had a series of short essay questions I had spent years worrying about. My assumption that I wouldn’t be going there freed me from the pressure. I flew through them with an honesty that only comes from having nothing left to lose.
I laughed as I wrote an essay on the ways of arousing Celena using only my hands supported by geometric theorems. The essay prompt was “My Greatest Achievement” I called it the “Perfect Triangle of Love”. I was getting pretty graphic with words about fluids and the suppleness of her thighs when of course Carolina barged in ruining all my fun. I really needed to get a lock on my door.
“I need to talk to you.” She paced back and forth nearly knocking over my telescope.
“That’s fine.” I deleted the essay which was a shame because Celena was about to orgasm. I laughed again thinking how she wouldn’t like being interrupted that way. “Could you knock next time?” I realized I had an erection and adjusted my position.
“It’s Zelda...” She paused dramatically because why not?
“What? Speak.”
“I don’t know where to start.” And with that every last thought of the tingling Celena left my mind.
“Is she okay?” How many times had I asked that question of Carolina?
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“I give up.” I stood up. “I’m going to her house to find her father, and she will become his problem. What’s wrong with her parents? Letting her run around that way.” I wondered why I hadn’t considered that option before.
“Danny took care of that already.”
“Took care of what? What are you talking about?” I screamed for the first and possibly the last time in my life.
“She’s in rehab.”
“You couldn’t have just said that? Why do you make everything so difficult? Thanks Bye.” I sat back down on my bed and waved her away.
“There’s more to it.”
“I’m sure there is which is why I’ll call Danny and get the details in a lucid and chronological order. I would really appreciate if you could stay out of my room for the rest of the time I live in this house. Okay? Bye Carolina.” I waved her away again and took my phone out of my backpack to call Danny.
“Don’t bother him. He must be devastated. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you. I’ll be lucid” She sat down on the floor instead of the chair beside her because again why not? Looking at her sitting there so forlornly I wished someone would give her a prescription for Prozac.
“We were walking down to the Farmer’s Market. Okay I’m not being chronological. She woke up and drank a shot of gin and then we walked down to the Farmer’s Market.” I wanted to ask her why she stood by and let her friend wake up to a “shot” of gin, but I knew questions would derail the story.
“Danny and Liza were in front of Liza’s house. This is the worst. Everyone’s going to gossip about her now.” She sighed heavily. I remained calm somehow.
“Danny and Liza in front of Liza’s house?”
“Oh yeah. I don’t really understand what happened, but Zelda started yelling, cursing actually. I didn’t even know she knew those words. You know how she is.” Another long pause, I picked up my phone again.
“Stop Serge. Okay... She screamed “fuck you” to both of them and called Liza “a fat fuck cunt” I think that’s how she put it.” She laughed. “I grabbed her arm and pulled her down the road away from them to shut her up. It was Easter morning, you know? Not even 9:00 AM. Then all of a sudden Danny was there. He turned her around and screamed in her face. Then the strangest thing happened, she started smiling. I hadn’t seen her smile in so long." She paused again, and I didn’t mind because she looked relieved.
“Sorry, okay. The smile didn’t impress Danny. He tapped her shoulders really lightly, but for some reason she fell backwards and he fell on top of her. Then he was kissing her face which must have been gross. Her breath...” She shook her head.
“I spoke to Danny for a minute and then he picked her up and took her back to his house saying he would take care of her from now on... and I thought that was the end if it but her mother just called me. It really gets confusing now. Her mother’s not good with relaying information. You know how she is.”
“I don’t know how she is. Finish the story.” I was not looking forward to making sense of the events.
“For some reason Danny’s mother arranged for Zelda’s rehab? And for some reason Danny was able to talk everybody into letting Zelda stay with him for a few days before going away? You know I never thought of it before, but both of them always get what they want for very different reasons.” She looked up at the chair as if she had never seen it before and got up to sit in it.
“So she slept over at his house last night and for some reason woke up at 6:00 this morning when everyone else was asleep and went downstairs and drank a bottle of Vodka she found in their refrigerator and now she’s in rehab and can’t talk or see anyone for three days or seven days. That’s it. Any questions? Because I don’t want to talk about it ever again.” Her eyes filled with tears because it had probably been a good hour since the last time she cried. I’m sorry to say that at that moment I had zero sympathy for her.
“Just one question. Why did you let her carry on this way for so long?”
“Gee Serge, I don’t know.” Her tears turned into anger. “Let her? My reasons weren’t so different than yours or Danny’s or anyone else’s. As far as I can tell, Anthony is the only one who tried to help her. It’s a shame, he’s just a kid.” She got up and left slamming my door. With that, I had zero sympathy for myself.
I sat on my bed for a couple of minutes trying to process Carolina’s story of Zelda. It brought up more questions than answers so I let it go, happy that she was safe. Danny on the other hand? The guy was a wreck over her before. I couldn’t imagine h
ow hard having her back and then losing her again so quickly had hit him.
So I did what came naturally to other people but not for me with my friends. I texted him a supportive message that consisted of these words:
Are you okay? Need anything?
That may seem like nothing to most people but to our group it would be considered loving words of support. About an hour later I received the following in reply:
Out in Malibu. No. Study sessions.
Out in Malibu meant that he was in fact in Malibu at the time of texting which explained the one hour reply lag. No meant that he was not okay. In fact, things couldn’t be worse. Study sessions meant that he planned on not being able to focus on his schoolwork and would need help.
I texted back: Got it covered
Which I’m sure you know means no further texting was needed and, of course, I will help you in any way possible because you are my friend. Have a very nice day.