But my grandmother’s words rang in my ears and I followed Mariam out of the apartment and down in the elevator like a lamb to the slaughter.
‘Electra, you’re on day twenty-two of your programme here with us at The Ranch; how do you feel?’
Fi’s deceptively gentle gaze appraised me. When we’d begun our therapy sessions, I’d felt that it didn’t matter what shit I spouted to her, because her soft voice (with traces of a European accent) and her hooded blue eyes had made her appear half asleep. How wrong I had been. That question, the ‘how do you feel?’ trope, had haunted me since my first therapy session here.
So how did I feel?
Week one: in my initial forty-eight hours in the medical detox centre, my response had been, ‘Like I want to mainline vodka mixed with a couple of mollies, and twenty lines of coke. And then steal a gun so I can shoot my way out of here.’
I had been put on suicide watch, due to my ‘overdose’, and pumped full of medication that was meant to ease me off the booze and drugs. I don’t think I’d ever felt more rage and despair in my life than in those two days; it felt like no one would believe that it hadn’t been a suicide attempt and that I wouldn’t harm myself again.
Once out of detox and into ‘the dorm’, I was horrified to find out that I was basically back at boarding school with two roommates who snored, screamed in their sleep, broke wind or sobbed into their pillows (and sometimes a mixture of all those in one night). And why the hell didn’t a place that was costing more than the most exclusive five-star hotel offer private rooms?
Week two: I spent this feeling angry that the Twelve Steps of the AA programme meant I had to ask a God I didn’t believe in for help, and even worse, that to get clean I must subjugate myself to this mythical figure and His greater glory. And hating Fi for being so nosy about my life and how I ‘felt’ about it, when it was none of her goddamned business. On the plus side, I really liked one of my dorm mates, Lizzie, and the fact that there were people in group therapy who were obviously far bigger screw-ups than me.
Week three: this is when I started to feel relieved that the Twelve Steps had begun to make more sense when one of the guys in group therapy said he didn’t believe in God either, so instead he imagined a higher power – something far more powerful than we humans walking the earth could ever be. And that helped a lot. Also, I discovered that I loved the equine therapy, but I didn’t want to just groom the horses, I wanted to get on the back of them and race away across the Sonoran Desert. And that me and Lizzie had ‘bonded’, especially after the third roommate had left (she’d had serious body odour issues and slept with a cuddly rabbit she called ‘Bobo’) and that we were getting closer all the time.
‘So, Electra? How do you feel?’ came Fi’s ubiquitous prompt.
Actually, now I thought about it, I felt proud, yes, proud that I hadn’t drunk liquor or done a line or swallowed a pill in twenty-two days.
So, that’s what I said, because I knew Fi liked positive feedback.
‘That is just fantastic, Electra. And so you should be. Like everyone here at The Ranch, you’ve been on a very tough journey, but you’ve stuck at it. You should be proud of yourself. I am,’ she smiled.
‘Thanks,’ I shrugged.
‘I know you’ve had a difficult time addressing the events that led up to you coming here,’ Fi began.
I knew exactly where she was going with this, and I felt the usual stab of anger and irritation.
‘Have you had any more reflections on your overdose that night in New York?’ she said.
‘No!’ I snapped. ‘I keep trying to tell all of you that it was an accident. I just wanted to sleep! That’s all I wanted! I was having a bitch of a time getting my mind to shut up, and I just wanted it to be quiet—’
‘Electra, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s simply that if there’s any indication that you would try to hurt yourself, it’s my duty as your therapist to protect you. Even though I’m happy that you’ve gained a new perspective, I want to talk about the fact that you’ve told me you find it difficult to open up to anyone about your feelings. As you’ve learnt during your time here, how we feel affects everything that we do – and that includes your ability to stay clean once you leave The Ranch.’
‘I’ve told you, I’m a private person. I like to deal with stuff alone.’
‘And I get that, Electra, I do, but by agreeing to join us here, you were accepting that you needed help from others. And I’m concerned that once you step back out into the “real” world, you won’t ask for it when you need it.’
‘We’ve talked about my trust issues. I guess it’s just that.’
‘Yes, and I accept that like any celebrity, it’s a natural issue to have. However, you’ve seemed particularly reluctant to discuss your childhood.’
‘I’ve told you I was adopted along with my five siblings. That we had a privileged lifestyle . . . there’s not a lot more to it than that. Besides, Pa always taught me never to look back. Even though that’s what therapy seems to be all about.’
‘Therapy is all about dealing with the past, so you don’t need to look back any longer, Electra. And your childhood is two-thirds of the life you’ve lived so far.’
I gave my usual shrug and inspected my naked nails and thought how well they were growing now that I had stopped chewing on them. We then had what I termed a ‘battle of the silences’; it was a war that I knew I could win anytime. And I regularly did.
‘So, would you say that your father was the most powerful influence in your life?’ Fi finally piped up.
‘Maybe. Aren’t all parents?’
‘Often, yes, though sometimes it can be another relative or sibling who fulfils that role. You told me your father was away a lot during your childhood?’
‘Yeah, he was. But all of my sisters worshipped him, and as I was the youngest, I guess I followed their lead.’
‘I’d bet it’s a tough deal to be bottom of the pile of six girls,’ said Fi. ‘I’m one of four girls, but I was the eldest.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because . . . I don’t know. My two eldest sisters have always been in charge and the rest of them always fell into line. All except me.’
‘You were the rebel?’
‘I guess. But not on purpose,’ I replied, wary of the fact that Fi was drawing me into territory I just did not want to talk about.
‘Was that when you were a teenager?’
‘No, I think I was born a rebel; they all told me I screamed the house down when I was a baby. They used to call me “Tricky” – I heard Ally and Maia talking about me one day when I was four or five. I went and hid in the gardens and cried my eyes out.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘I got over it. No big deal. All siblings call each other names, don’t they?’
‘Yes, they do. So, what were your other sisters’ nicknames?’
‘I . . . don’t remember.’ I looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘I have to go now. I have equine therapy at three.’
‘Okay, we’ll wrap for today,’ Fi said, even though I had ten minutes of my allotted session left. ‘But your task for tonight is to continue with your mood diary and focus on what your triggers were for cravings. And how about you also think back if you can remember those nicknames for your other sisters?’
‘Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I got up from the chair and walked out of the room, irritated that we both knew that I wouldn’t remember any nicknames for my sisters because there had never been any. As I walked along the therapy corridor into the main reception area and out into the blinding light of the Arizona sun, I gave that round to Fi. Oh, she was good, really good, leading me into traps of my own making. As I had a few minutes to spare, I headed for my new favourite place: the Worry Maze – a circular brick path that led you round and round in a different direction each time, depending on which way you chose to turn at any given point. I
t felt to me like a metaphor for life; we had talked in group therapy about how each decision we made affected the future course of our life – some small and some mighty big, but each one having an effect. Today, as I walked along the worn brick path, I thought about the decision I seemed to have made without even knowing it . . .
‘Why can’t you trust anyone?’ I asked myself.
It was so very easy to blame it on my celebrity status. I smiled ruefully as I thought of all the billions of people in the world who wanted to be famous and how fame had come to me unexpectedly – literally overnight – at such a young age.
But I knew it wasn’t that. Nor was it my sisters finding me irritating, or Pa, though he was partly responsible because he’d put me in that situation in the first place . . .
So why don’t you tell Fi and talk it through? I asked myself.
Because you’re scared, Electra, scared of having to relive it . . .
Besides, it was pathetic, I thought, to base one’s whole perception of trust on one small event in one’s childhood.
And the one thing I wasn’t and would never be was a victim. And wow, had I met a lot of victims here at The Ranch.
I hadn’t come here for therapy anyway, I’d come here to get clean, and I was.
‘For now,’ I said out loud, remembering the Twelve Steps. One day at a time was the mantra. The three weeks had been so hard, like, the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, and today wasn’t so great either, because being clean meant that you had a brain again, which meant that you had to face yourself and who you were, and . . . well, all that shit. Though it did feel great to wake up in the morning after an actual night’s sleep and be able to think. So even if I didn’t manage to conquer my trust issues, I’d conquered my addictions. And wasn’t that the most important thing of all?
I stepped out of the Worry Maze and headed towards the stables and the field where the horses grazed, ready for all the screw-ups (which included me) to come and pat them.
‘How are you, Electra?’ said Marissa, the young stable hand.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ I said, giving my stock reply. ‘How are you?’
‘Oh, I’m okay,’ she said as she led me into the stable and pointed to the pile of dirty straw. ‘Your turn to shit-shovel.’ She grinned at me, handing me a pair of rubber gloves and a pitchfork.
‘Thanks.’
She left the stable and I wondered what she really thought about one of the world’s top super models up to her eyes in horseshit. Whatever it was, I knew they were (technically anyway) sworn to secrecy and only on pain of death would reveal who and what went on inside The Ranch’s walls.
As I began the revolting but calming task of baling out the dirty straw, I thought about what Fi and I had discussed – i.e. my childhood – and it actually made me think of a happy memory. When I’d been six or seven, we’d been holidaying in the Med as usual on the Titan and Pa had taken me off on the speedboat to some stables owned by a friend of his somewhere close to Nice.
‘I thought you might like to come and see the horses,’ he’d said. ‘You could maybe even ride one if you want.’
At first I’d been frightened, because they’d seemed gigantic and I’d been so small, but the groom had found the smallest pony in the yard and I’d sat up on its back, feeling a million times taller than I ever had before. I’d been led around the paddock, at first bumping up and down, but then letting my body adapt to the natural rhythm of the animal, and by the end of it, I’d been able to encourage the pony into a gentle canter.
‘You have a natural gift with horses,’ Pa had said as he had pulled up beside me on a beautiful brown stallion. ‘Would you like to learn to ride properly?’
‘I’d like to very much, Pa.’
And so Pa had arranged riding lessons for me in Geneva, and then again when I went to boarding school. It had been the highlight of my week, because I knew that I could tell all my secrets to my horse, love him as much as I wanted and he would never, ever betray me.
‘There, all done,’ I said to Marissa as I took off my gloves, having refreshed the straw from the bale in the yard.
She indicated the paddock where three of the screw-ups were leaning over the fence watching another screw-up pet Philomena, a gentle bay mare.
I went to the fence and leant over it, nodding at the others but not engaging.
‘Hi, Electra!’ Hank, who ran the stables, waved at me. ‘You’re up next!’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, giving him a thumbs up. I watched him from a distance, thinking how attractive he was, with his muscled torso that had not been honed in the gym but by riding out in the desert every day. I enjoyed the way Hank was with the horses; even though I’d seen him kill a diamondback rattlesnake with a shovel when it had appeared in the paddock, he showed a gentleness with the horses that was endearing. I had to admit, I’d been coming down to see him as much as the animals . . .
‘Okay, honey, you’re on,’ he shouted to me a few minutes later, after I’d had him stripped naked in a stable in my imagination. The good news about my dark complexion was that blushes didn’t show.
‘She’s all yours,’ he said as I approached Philomena.
‘Hi, Philly,’ I whispered as I stroked her nose and gave her a kiss, breathing in her fresh horsey smell. ‘Gee, you’re a lucky girl. Number one, you are an animal, and number two, you get so much love and none of the grief that goes with it. But I sure wish I could climb on your back and take you for a ride,’ I added, turning to see Hank watching me and shooting him a smile.
When they’d done my original psych appraisal, there had been a question mark as to whether I was a sex addict. I’d replied that I was a twenty-six-year-old woman who enjoyed sex, especially when I was high, but no way – no way – did I think I was addicted to it. Well, not any more than the next woman of my age.
‘This is the problem with coming here,’ I whispered to Philly. ‘You come out with more possible addictions than you arrived with.’
Once my ‘horse-hugging’ session was over – there was only so much you could do with a static mare – I nodded at Hank, who ambled across to offer me a treat to feed to her.
‘You okay?’ he asked me as I gave Philly probably her twentieth carrot of the day.
‘Yeah, I’m okay. This horse is gonna get fat if she stands here and eats all day.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll give her a good run later.’
‘I wish I could take her out,’ I sighed.
‘It’s against the rules, I’m afraid. Otherwise . . .’ he shrugged.
‘I understand.’
‘Maybe when you’re out of here you could come to my ranch and take a ride.’
‘Thanks, I’ll see,’ I said, feeling the sweat pool under my armpits. Maybe it was just me, but as I walked away and saw out of the corner of my eye that he was watching me, I wondered whether that had been a come-on. Whatever, it cheered me up a bit to think that maybe I could still attract a man, even in rehab.
I returned to my dorm, a pastel-painted room with three double beds that were only just long enough for me to fit on. I had a narrow closet for my hoodies and track pants and a desk that I hadn’t had use for so far. At first, the thought of sharing a shower and the subsequent body hair that got left behind (I had a thing about hair in plugholes) was enough to make me stay sweaty and unwashed, but I’d finally given in when I realised I smelt, and actually it was just fine.
Luckily, the shower was sparkly clean today – the maid had obviously just been in – so I stripped off as fast as I could and stood beneath the blissfully cool spray, casting my eyes upwards and not down to the swirl of water around my feet. When I’d emerged from the shower and dressed, I took out my old sketchbook (I’d found it in the front pocket of my holdall, still tucked away after my trip to Atlantis) then grabbed a pencil and began to draw. I’d recently found that thinking up ideas for unusual but comfortable clothes relaxed me – so many times I’d been dressed up in basically unwearable (
and often hideous) haute couture to create images which the average woman on the street couldn’t even begin to emulate. But, as I heard from endless designers, fashion was a modern art form. Personally, it pissed me off that they claimed this idea as their own when fashion had always been an art form. The Versailles courtiers, for example, or the Ancient Egyptians.
I began to sketch a dress that had a detachable glittery collar and which would fall in soft folds to the ankles. Beautifully simple and very, very wearable. A few minutes later my attention was caught by a new face appearing around the dorm door. The girl wandered over to the empty bed closest to the window. She was – as a lot of the inmates were here – anorexically thin, and little more than five feet high. She had the gorgeous skin tone that, like Maia’s, indicated a mixed-race heritage, and a head of lush, glossy dark curls.
‘Hi,’ I said as I put my pencil down. ‘You new?’
She nodded as she sat on the bed, knees together, hands clasped in a fist on top of them. She didn’t look up at me, and I was glad – normally it only took one glance for a stranger to recognise who I was and to start asking the usual questions.
I watched her release her hands and saw they were shaking as she lifted one to push a lock of hair away from her face.
‘Just out of medical detox?’ I asked.
She nodded.
‘It’s tough, but you’ll get through it,’ I said, feeling like an old pro after my three weeks here.
She shrugged in response.
‘Have they got you on the benzos? That sure helped me,’ I added. This girl looked so frail and now her hair wasn’t covering her eyes, I could see the fear in them. ‘Was it coke?’
‘No, junk.’
As my eyes sought out the telltale track marks on the inside of her thin arms, her hands automatically covered them from view.
‘I’ve heard that’s the toughest,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
I watched the girl as she put her arms around herself and curled up onto the bed in a foetal position, her back towards me. I could see she was shivering, so I took the blanket from the end of her bed and draped it over her.
The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters) Page 24