by Karyn Bosnak
4 Dolls (n): Slang term for pills made popular by a fine piece of American literature, Valley of the Dolls. God bless you, Jacqueline Susann, for writing one hell of a book that became one hell of a movie. May you rest in peace.
Chapter ten
I’m still in rehab.
Chapter eleven
I’m still in rehab.
Chapter twelve
a ferocious bark
sunday, may 1
I’m finally out of rehab.
“Read before you sign next time,” Lucille says, as she bids me farewell.
After leaving Lily Pond, I go to a bookstore and buy Matt a copy of Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul. Lucille promised me that she’d get it to him. I adore and will forever be indebted to her. Not only did she convince Jan to call Michelle who verified I’m not a drug addict, she also took care of Eva. In addition to calling the vet to make sure she came out of the surgery okay, she picked her up and took her home to recuperate.
I feel so irresponsible. I shouldn’t have gotten a dog, and not just because I’m on a road trip. Don’t get me wrong, I love Eva and am glad to have saved her, but what if there was no Lucille? What if it took me longer to get out of rehab? What would I have done then? Just leave her at the vet until I was ready to pick her up? Until I was done trying to sort out my own disastrous life?
Also, I didn’t tell Michelle or Colin—the only two people who know I’m on a road trip—that I was checking myself into rehab. I thought I’d be out before they’d even realize I was gone, but I was wrong. I was unreachable for six days and all their phone calls went straight to voice mail. Thinking something bad happened to me, they both freaked out. All in all, Michelle left me over twenty messages, each one sounding more panicked than the previous.
As for Colin, he wasn’t quite as worried as Michelle until she came knocking on his door in hysterics, asking if he knew where I was. After calming her down, he told her that I was in Rockford visiting some guy named Matt King. I’d previously told Michelle about Matt, and the only thing she remembered about him was that he was my drug-dealing ex-boyfriend. In total, Colin left me about fifteen messages. I owe them both an apology.
Before getting on the highway, I find a quiet spot in a parking lot and pull out my phone. After taking a deep breath, I dial Michelle’s number first. She answers after two rings.
“Hi, it’s me,” I say softly.
She doesn’t respond.
“Listen, I’m really sorry for disappearing.”
“You’re sorry?” she says, mockingly. Her voice is loud and sharp. “That’s all you can say?”
“I don’t know what else to say. It was stupid of me to do what I did and I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t think it was necessary to tell me or anyone else that you were checking yourself into rehab? You thought it was okay to just disappear?”
“No, but I didn’t think I’d be in there for as long as I was and—”
“That’s your problem, Delilah,” she yells. “You don’t think.”
I realize I don’t have a right to be angry at Michelle, especially now, but I hate that she always makes my life her business. “Michelle, why do you care so much about what I do?”
“Why do you care so much about what other people think?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t be so preoccupied with some stupid number average, with fitting in with the rest of society.”
I sigh loudly. I don’t know what to say.
“You’re actions affect other people, Delilah,” Michelle continues, “and that’s why I care. I mean, imagine how Colin and I felt—we were worried. I had an interview at Vintage Vogue, and while I was there, during the entire thing, all I could think about was the possibility of you being dead. I couldn’t concentrate and almost screwed the whole thing up.”
“I’m sorry, Michelle, really,” I say again. “So, did you . . . get the job?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“I don’t know yet,” she says, “they haven’t said. Listen, I don’t mean for this to sound rude, but do me a favor and don’t call until you’re home, okay? I need to focus on job hunting and I don’t want to be worrying about what you’re doing every second of the day.”
“Okay,” I say softly. “I won’t.”
When I hang up from Michelle, I feel a little like the wind’s been knocked out of me but I don’t allow myself to crack; I have another call to make. Picking the phone back up, I dial Colin’s number. From his messages, it’s clear that Michelle didn’t tell him the reason I’m doing what I’m doing (thank God), but still, I’m embarrassed. After two rings, he picks up but doesn’t say anything. No “hello.” No “how are you.” Just silence.
“Please don’t be angry with me,” I say in a little voice. “I just wanna let you know I’m okay.”
“Well, thanks for calling,” Colin says quietly, calmly, after a long pause. “Thanks for being so fecking considerate.” The tone of his voice, although softer than Michelle’s, is more frightening. “You know, I’m not one to judge, I do stupid things all the time, but when some girl I don’t even know comes knocking on my door, crying to me, saying you’re dead, what am I to think?”
I don’t say anything.
“I mean, put yourself in my position. When she told me this guy was some sorta drug dealer, not only did I worry something might’ve happened to you, but I felt responsible because I’m the one who gave you his address.”
“I’m sorry. I never thought about it that way.”
“Yeah? Well, think about it that way in the future, will ya? I’m not trying to be a dick, but I was worried.”
“You were?” I’m somewhat surprised that he seems so genuinely concerned.
“For fuck’s sake, yes! Of course I was! What kind of question is that? I don’t want anything to happen to you!”
“I’m sorry, Colin. I really am.”
“’Sokay,” he says, his voice becoming softer. “I forgive you, but if you disappear again, I’ll never speak to you for as long as I live. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“So where to next?” he asks after a long pause.
“Los Angeles,” I mumble. “Unless you found someone else between here and there.”
“To be honest, I stopped looking when I thought you were napped by the druggie. “But I’ll start again if that’s what you want.”
“I do,” I say softly.
“Okay then. But Jaysus, be careful out there, will ya?”
“Yes, I promise.”
After hanging up from Colin, I shut off my phone, lay my seat back and think. I think. Michelle was partially right in saying that I care about what other people think—that’s partly why I’m doing this. As for the other part, seeing Matt stirred up a lot of feelings, a lot of memories. So did hearing about Nate. Both of them got me thinking about connections that you have with people, real connections. I’m lonely; I really am.
As I realize this, tears begin to fall from my eyes and I begin to cry. I cry because I don’t want Michelle to be angry and I hate that Colin was. I cry because Nate’s in jail and I couldn’t help Foxy. I cry because I’m not jealous of Daisy, but I do envy what she has. I cry because I’m happy that my grandpa found love, and don’t understand why I can’t. I cry because I don’t want to disappoint my mother, but I’ve already disappointed myself. I cry for all these things, but mostly, I cry because I’m afraid I’ll be alone forever.
Sitting on my lap, Eva peers up at me with her big brown eyes. She looks exhausted. After slowly lifting her leg, I look at her belly, look at her wound, look at the thin piece of thread that’s holding her together. Ever so gently, I run my finger along the pink edges of her skin—her insides are slightly exposed.
“I’m sorry for leaving you,” I tell her as I put her leg back down. She scoots up my chest and licks the tears off my face. As I wrap my arms around Eva and hold her close to my heart, I can feel every
bone in her body. Beneath her fluffy hair, despite her ferocious bark, beyond her low grumble . . . she’s fragile.
We’re more alike that I thought.
$1,984, 17 days, 4 guys left.
Chapter thirteen
you’ve got mail
wednesday, may 4
It’s amazing to me how quickly we heal. In the three and a half days it takes to drive to LA, the pink edges of Eva’s skin melt together and her stitches begin to disappear. There will be a scar, of course, but you’ll have to look closely to see it. As her spunk comes back, so does mine.
Since the drive takes us directly through Las Vegas, I call my grandpa but get Gloria’s answering machine. Her message tells me that the two of them are out of town for the week, visiting the Grand Canyon. I look over at Eva. My grandpa goes on road trips with his girlfriend and I go on them with my dog. When did I become so pathetic? Choosing not to pinpoint a date, I crank up my 2003 playlist and sing along while thinking about the reason I’m going to LA, #18, Kyle Luxe. “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard . . .”
Kyle and I met two years ago when he got a job working as a production assistant for Elisabeth’s weekly television show, Elisabeth Sterling Style. It was his first real job; he had just graduated from college. Yes, he was young, but that’s why I liked him. I had just come out of a pathetic relationship with Grody Gordy Peterson, and the chances of a twenty-one-year-old recent college grad being married were slim to none.
One week after we started working together, Kyle and I had both mastered water cooler rendezvous and long lingers by the copy machine. I’m not sure what he saw in good OLD me, but I thought he was a breath of fresh air. Being so young, he hadn’t experienced many of life’s disappointments—no real broken hearts, no career setbacks—so he wasn’t jaded. He had an enthusiasm about life that was infectious. I felt young when I was around him.
Well, most of the time I did.
Sometimes, through the course of conversation, Kyle would say things that reminded me of our age difference. For example, the first time he came over to my apartment he looked around and said, “Wow . . . you have real furniture.” Another time I told him about an old Walkman tape player I had that used to eat cassettes. I was reluctant to throw away because I was usually able to save the tapes by sticking a pencil in one of the holes and winding them back up. But the day it shredded my favorite Debbie Gibson cassingle beyond repair, was the day it hit the can. After I told Kyle this, he stared at me blankly.
“You remember cassingles, right?” I asked.
Kyle shook his head. “No.”
“They were cassette singles,” I explained.
Kyle looked confused.
“You remember cassettes, right?”
Kyle shook his head again. “No.”
“Walkmans?”
“Nope.”
“Debbie Gibson?”
“Sorry.”
After seeing the worried look on my face (no doubt accompanied by a few fines lines and a forehead wrinkle), Kyle tried to make me feel better by telling me that he knew what they all were (except for cassingles and Debbie Gibson), he just didn’t remember the time they were actually being used. Kyle didn’t remember the time before CDs or digital downloads.
“How about Atari, do you remember that?” No. Sega.
“Busy signals?” No. Call waiting.
“Do you remember a time when getting up to change the TV channel didn’t only happen because you lost the remote control?” You mean it actually had a knob?
While I shrugged off Kyle’s answers and pretended they didn’t bother me, I silently cursed the rapid advance of technology for emphasizing our age difference.
Within two weeks of meeting each other Kyle and I had gone on a couple of dates and kissed, but our relationship was still very innocent. Just as things were beginning to heat up the television department was moved to another floor in the building, another floor with its own copy machine and its own water cooler. Just like that, Kyle and I went from seeing each other ten times a day to seeing each other once a week. For most budding relationships this would be the end, but for Kyle and I it was just the beginning.
Enter e-mail and instant messaging.
For the first time since I met him, I was happy technology had been progressing at such a rapid pace. Within days of Kyle’s moving, the two of us found ourselves in the middle of a hot and heavy Internet romance. Each day hundreds of e-mails and instant messages between us zipped through cyberspace, messages that at first outlined every detail of our monotonous workdays . . .
DARLING: I hate the copier and I want to kill it.
luxeynluv: did it jam again?
DARLING: Yes. I want to bash it in with a hammer.
luxeynluv: do it.
luxeynluv: i’m gonna eat an apple now.
DARLING: Cool.
. . . ended up outlining every detail of our vivid imaginations as telling each other what we were doing and thinking turned into telling each other what we were wearing . . . and what we weren’t.
DARLING: What are you wearing?
luxeynluv: a black izod shirt and khakis. you?
DARLING: A black and white wrap dress.
luxeynluv: and?
DARLING: Heels.
luxeynluv: and?
DARLING: Panties.
luxeynluv: what do they look like?
DARLING: Black. Lacy. Tiny.
luxeynluv: tiny like a thong tiny?
DARLING: Yep.
luxeynluv: what kind of panties were you wearing yesterday?
DARLING: I wasn’t.1
As Kyle and I began having no-holds-barred discussions about everything, not just sex, our relationship went from zero to sixty over the period of a week. Looking back now, I can clearly see that e-mail distorted my perception of our relationship, but at the time I didn’t know it. Speaking from experience, it is my belief that e-mail moves relationships along at an unnaturally fast pace. Because they’re simply typing words into a computer, people aren’t as guarded as they usually are with their feelings and usually end up revealing way too much about themselves, way too soon. My relationship with Kyle out there in www land couldn’t have been stronger, but my relationship with him in person was practically nonexistent. I knew so much about him and yet I knew nothing. I didn’t know his quirks, his mannerisms, his habits—I knew words on a screen. I barely knew Kyle, but at the time I really thought I did.
Whereas in real life all Kyle and I did was kiss, out there in cyberia we did much more. All our intimate talks, I mean typing, soon led to a rendezvous that wasn’t beside the water cooler but in a downtown hotel room in the middle of a workday. I don’t know what I was thinking . . . It was a Friday afternoon when it happened, and I was sitting alone in my office watching a special on cool hotels when I sent Kyle a message telling him to turn it on.
DARLING: Hotel rooms are sexy.
luxeynluv: yeah. they make me horny.
DARLING: Me too. Have you ever been to the Mercer in Soho? Just walking through the lobby gives me multiple orgasms.
luxeynluv: multiple?
DARLING: Yes.
DARLING: Multiple.
luxeynluv: soho’s only a five-minute cab ride from here you know . . .
DARLING: It is, isn’t it . . .
luxeynluv: yeah.
luxeynluv: meet me there in an hour?
DARLING: Make it a half.
As soon as I agreed to meet Kyle, I started to worry. I was afraid that I wouldn’t live up to his expectation of me, an expectation that I myself created in the e-mails I sent him. Since I’d always had a backspace button at my fingertips, I was able to edit what I said—I mean typed—and knew that I had come across sounding much more put-together than I actually was. I was terrified that Kyle would expect me to be a suave, sophisticated woman because I’m really anything but.
Oh, but why was I worrying? We weren’t going to be talking.
Anyway, seeing as though I
was nervous already, what I now refer to as “the underwear fiasco of 2003” only made matters worse. Let me start by saying that, with regard to sexy underwear, I prefer wearing lacy boyshorts and hipsters to thongs. I hate thongs, I do. Every time I wear one, I find myself picking it out of my ass all day. I find them uncomfortable.2 With that said, earlier that day in an e-mail I had told Kyle that I was wearing a thong even though I wasn’t because I knew that he liked them. Because of that, I had to run out and buy one before going to the hotel.
Lucky for me I knew of a lingerie store near the Mercer, so I stopped there quickly before checking in. Problem solved? Not quite. You see, my mother raised me right (okay fine, maybe not), so I don’t wear new underwear unless it’s been washed. Because of this, before Kyle arrived I tried to wash my new undies with the complimentary shampoo in the bathroom sink and then dry them with the blow dryer but I didn’t finish in time. When he arrived and knocked on the door, even though the undies were still slightly damp, I put them on anyway.
When I opened the door to greet Kyle, I didn’t feel much of a connection between us. To be honest, I felt more of a bond with Abogado, a two-night stand, than I did with him. However, I didn’t turn back. Chalking up what I perceived to be a lack of chemistry to nerves, I ended up having sex with him. We were ready to take this plunge in our cyber relationship; we just weren’t ready to take it in our real one. It was so awkward. Afterward, I remember lying in bed, trying to cuddle, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I rested my head on his arm and felt like I was squishing him.
Kyle had to leave town early the next morning for a weekend wedding in Los Angeles, so I stayed in the room alone that night. The next day during a bad case of post-sex regret, I decided that I was going to make things work with Kyle even though we didn’t have any chemistry. After going back to the same lingerie store, I bought a sexy pair of lacy boyshorts thinking that maybe if I was more comfortable next time—more relaxed—the connection between us might be stronger. That Monday, using interoffice mail just for fun, I sent him the boyshorts with a note that said, “How about I wear these next time?”