Group

by Christie Tate

  “Okay, I’ll do a second group.”

  “I suggest an all-women’s group.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what’s next for you.” My eye twitched.

  He suggested the Tuesday-noon group. One hundred eighty minutes of therapy in a single day. Two round-trip train rides to Washington and Wabash on Tuesdays.

  “That’s insane.” Plus, the noon group was Marnie’s. I reminded him that we were friends. My eye twitched again.

  “There are social risks for you.” I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of Bianca and that table of girls in fifth grade. Since fifth grade, I’d been terrified that any group of women would eventually turn on me, and I’d end up taking my meals on the crapper. But would enduring some friendship friction be better than dying alone, unloved and untouched, heart as slick as an obsidian stone?

  I said yes.

  Part 2

  16

  I was cocky that first Tuesday. I already knew the drill. I’d tallied the minutes I’d spent doing group therapy over the past thirteen months: 5,265. My heart had a few score marks—shallow knicks, but grooves all the same—from all the work I’d done so far.

  I wasn’t planning to tell Clare, who wasn’t a consumer of mental-health services, that I’d signed up for two groups in one day, but I’d blurted it out one afternoon on the walk home from family-law class. She paused and then smiled like she was proud of me. “Be sure to take a snack on Tuesdays because that’s a long day, Tater.” She loaned me her favorite Anthropologie sweater to wear on my first double-decker therapy day.

  Thirty minutes before my second group session of the day, I strutted out of criminal procedure class, ready to slide like an egg into batter. I was seven minutes early, but I jabbed the group room button anyway, even though its purpose was to alert Dr. Rosen that a group member who arrived late wanted to be let in. Guess who, Rosen? How you like me now? Two times in one day. I took a seat and was soon joined by Emily, who was famous in Rosen-world because her father, a pill addict who lived in Kansas, was enraged when Emily started therapy, so he harassed and threatened Dr. Rosen through the mail and over the phone. She and Marnie were close friends, and as we chitchatted before the session, I realized how weird it felt to intrude on “their” group. I dismissed the fear and greeted a tall woman wearing a straw hat. “I’m Mary,” she said, taking the seat next to me. I’d heard about Mary from Marnie, but couldn’t remember if she was the one Marnie loved or the one whose guts she professed to hate.

  At noon, Dr. Rosen opened the door to the waiting room, offering each of us a smile. Before we were settled in our chairs in the group room, we were joined by an ample woman named Zenia, who had mulberry-colored hair and gigantic brown eyes stuck in the expression of surprise! She kicked us off with a story about her multi-orgasmic weekend, courtesy of an erotic online community for Dungeons & Dragons fans. She mentioned a girlfriend who lived in Croatia whom she’d never met in person.

  I’d spent more than five thousand minutes in this room. Ninety of those minutes were three hours earlier. Everything looked the same: the swivel chairs, the bookshelf, the cheap mini-blinds, and the limp Easter lily hanging on for one more season. Yet it felt totally unfamiliar. Like a dream where you’re in your house, but it’s not really your house because the door is the wrong color and there are two stories instead of one. At the level of energy and particles, something was totally off.

  Dr. Rosen looked like an unfriendly stranger: his lips were set in a stern line; his arms looked rigid and unnatural. There was nothing warm or familiar coursing between us, and my heart contracted with homesickness for Tuesday morning.

  Zenia glowed as she discussed her relationship with Greta from Croatia—and the hours of sex they enjoyed online and how they were saving money to meet up for a convention in Brussels. Zenia smiled at me every few minutes, which I took as a generous welcome, and then segued seamlessly into a question for Dr. Rosen about how to treat one of her patients.

  “Patients?” I said out loud.

  “I’m a physician.”

  Dr. Rosen smirked at me. That fucker was laughing at me! Oh, look at the lonely prude sitting next to the successful doctor enjoying virtual sex with her girlfriend! I narrowed my eyes and scowled at him; his smile widened. I didn’t expect him to coddle me, but I also didn’t expect him to sit on his throne and laugh at me.

  Mary shared that her abusive brother—the one who had threatened to kill her all through childhood—had called to ask for money. Regina, a massage therapist wrapped in what looked like two black shawls and a flowy nylon skirt, had come in during Zenia’s sexalogue. She told Mary in a sympathetic, hushed tone that when her psychotic cousin pulled a knife on her, she filed a restraining order.

  Dr. Rosen had misread my history. A fear-lump in my belly swelled as I realized this was the wrong group for me. I wanted to grab him by the crisp brown collar and remind him that yes, I’d suffered in the aftermath of Hawaii and battled an eating disorder, but there’d been no attempted murder. I’d turned out perfectionistic, frigid, and borderline asexual, but how could he think I belonged here? I was a lightweight, trifling thing, who was all “boo-hoo I wish I had a boyfriend”—I was absurd and garden-variety next to these women who were braver and more interesting and accomplished than I’d ever be.

  Twenty minutes passed. Where was Marnie? She was supposed to be my swim buddy.

  Marnie arrived thirty minutes into the session, dropped her orange leather bag unceremoniously on the floor, and fell heavily into her chair. I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at me. Her jaw was set tight and her brown eyes darted around the circle, looking for prey.

  “I’m so fucking tired I want to die,” she said. She’d given birth to a gorgeous baby girl six weeks earlier. “Pat’s traveling every week, and the baby won’t sleep. I can’t—” Her hands were shaking as she pulled out a bottle of Voss. I’d talked to her earlier in the morning, but she hadn’t expressed any of this anguish. Now she seemed to be pretending I wasn’t in the room. That kind of studied avoidance could only mean one thing: she was angry at me. I could no longer hear anything because I was swept up into my own panic about how to stop Marnie’s anger. I’d seen Marnie mad before. It wasn’t pretty.

  The door buzzed. A woman with a giant purse with leather tassels and a Styrofoam food container walked in, and all the molecules in the room shifted. It had to be Nan—Marnie had mentioned her, but had not told me she was so radiant, throwing off energy like light beams. Though I knew she was near retirement, Nan’s skin glowed like a young woman’s. When she smiled, two dimples appeared on either cheek. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her silver sandals, the ring of keys that jangled as she set her purse behind her chair, her sly smile at Dr. Rosen when she sat down, or her mouth as she mumbled under her breath while Marnie was talking. She acknowledged me with a quick nod of her head, and I smiled back.

  “IN is having its way with me today,” Nan said. “IN wants me dead.”

  I looked at Dr. Rosen. IN? He looked at me but offered nothing. If I wanted to know what Nan was talking about, I’d have to ask her.

  Nan picked up her Styrofoam container and lifted its lid—one compartment was filled with mac and cheese, the kind with the near-orange sauce and elbow-shaped pasta. She kept talking as she took a bite. “I’m not even hungry.” Her voice cracked. She looked at me and explained that the I stood for “inner” and the N stood for the racial slur that had oppressed her all her life. She made it clear that she—and only she—was allowed to say the full name of IN, and by God, I was not about to defy Nan. I nodded, grateful she had filled me in.

  “Nan, I was talking,” Marnie said. I knew that tone. Marnie used it with Pat right before the marital spat I’d witnessed. I curled further inward and found myself holding my breath. The air was sharp, flickering with the threat of violence. I didn’t want to inhale it.

  Nan pointed her fork at Marnie. “Hold. The. Fuck. Up.” I sucked in a gulp of
air and held it, suspended, in my lungs.

  Marnie twisted the top of her water bottle. “Wait your fucking turn.” It sounded like a warning, a hiss.

  This was not like my other group, where Patrice snapped at Colonel Sanders or Carlos bickered with Rory about showing up on time. Between Marnie and Nan, I sensed something heavier, more corporeal and unstable. They were dragging their words from the depths of their bodies, not plucking them out of their heads. They were using their hands and arms. They were spitting. The air crackled with heat and something menacing.

  Nan set her food down. I thought she was going to rise and roll up her sleeves, but she grabbed a napkin from her purse and wiped her mouth real slow, like a pissed-off sheriff in a Western. I let the air seep out of my lungs, tiny breath by tiny breath. They kept yelling—Marnie was a “skinny white bitch,” and Nan was “a help-rejecting drama queen.” Dr. Rosen looked alert but not alarmed. Then Nan pointed her fork at Dr. Rosen.

  “You need to help me,” she said quietly. Tears I hadn’t noticed welling rolled down her cheeks. She bent her head low like she was addressing her leftovers. “Please help me.” I wanted to cross the circle and put my arms around her. Instead, I picked the cuticle on my right thumb deep enough to draw blood and make my stomach seize.

  “I’d love to,” Dr. Rosen said, smiling and sitting up like an actor who’d been waiting for his big solo.

  “This is all I know.” She daubed her eyes with her napkin.

  Nan turned to me and described a childhood filled with violence and addiction: an unstable stepfather who brandished a gun at her after gambling all night, a bipolar brother who punched the walls and broke family heirlooms. “Brute force—it’s all I know.”

  Marnie scooted her chair toward Nan and touched her arm. “It’s all I know too.” Mary and Emily had tears in their eyes. Mine were stuck in my thumb, where I continued to dig at the exposed bright pink flesh. A drop of blood pooled in my nail bed.

  In the five years I’d known her, Marnie had met every emotional situation with a hard-nosed defiance, a macho Italian “you talkin’ to me?” bravado that I both feared and admired. I watched, mesmerized, as Nan and Marnie, two women I was sure were going to maim each other moments before, melted into a collage of mutual trauma and healing. Marnie held on to Nan’s left arm.

  I’d never seen two people fight—or make up—before. My thumb was throbbing, and I bit my lip to keep from bursting into tears. As the minutes ticked by, I fantasized about shrinking—losing skin, muscle, bone, cells—becoming nothing more than a heap of clothes in my frayed swivel chair.

  The next time Dr. Rosen caught my eye, I mouthed, “Help me.”

  “What’s that?” he said, cupping his ear with his hand.

  No sound came out, but I kept mouthing, “Help me.” Over and over. Help. Me.

  The attention in the room shifted from Nan and Marnie to me. I couldn’t look at any of the women, and I couldn’t make any sound come out.

  “What’s your problem?” Marnie asked, finally giving me her full attention.

  I shook my head, holding Dr. Rosen’s gaze.

  “Seriously? What’s your fucking problem? If you’re going to make it here”—she glanced over at Dr. Rosen and jutted out her chin—“and for the record, no one asked me how I felt about her joining my group—you have to speak up. We do deep work here.”

  My only thought was I want to go home—to the morning group, the people who knew and loved me.

  I turned to Dr. Rosen. “Why did you bring me here? I don’t fit here. Everyone has been on the other end of a knife or horrific violence. I just want some people in my life, maybe a boyfriend who isn’t drinking himself to death or too depressed to have sex, but I feel disgusting—”

  “Disgusting isn’t a—”

  “Yes, it is!” My whole body shook. I wrung my hands like I was trying to dry them. I wanted to shake the disgust off my skin, even though it was coming from inside.

  “No.”

  “Fine. I feel shame for intruding on Marnie’s group, scared of what I’m seeing and hearing, and mad at you for putting me here. I’m never going to have a place in this group. I never should have joined a second group!”

  “Good!” Dr. Rosen stuck both of his thumbs up like my distress was a movie he’d just watched and was recommending to his audience. “It’s already working.”

  “What’s working?”

  “This group.” Cue million-watt smile. A sweep of his arm across the circle. Elfin joy.

  “Mamaleh, one part of intimacy is learning to express anger. You’ve made huge progress in the morning group. But another part of intimacy is learning to tolerate other people’s anger. This group will help you with that.” He looked at Marnie, who stared him down without blinking. “It already has.” In full Mister Rogers mode, he explained that my terror about other people’s anger was yet another stumbling block to intimacy. Sure, I could now join my law school friends for lunch at the deli, bookend my baths, and yell at Dr. Rosen. But there was always more. Therapy was a Sisyphean trap.

  “What do I do about Marnie?”

  “You could celebrate her anger.” I rolled my eyes. Then I asked how. “Look at Marnie,” he directed. I swiveled my chair and stared into her angry eyes. “Tell her that you love her, and her anger is beautiful.”

  “Marnie, I love you, and your anger is beautiful.”

  “Now breathe.” My words hovered over the circle. Every instinct pushed me to go off Dr. Rosen’s script, throw myself at Marnie’s feet, and promise to leave the group or stay up all night with her baby—anything to stop her anger. But I kept breathing, each second pulling me away from my tired old impulses.

  I broke my gaze to look at the clock, but Dr. Rosen told me to keep my eyes on Marnie. “Tell her that you welcome her anger and that you are available for more.” I did. She didn’t say anything.

  “What are you feeling?” Dr. Rosen asked.

  “Scared.” My toes curled toward the floor.

  “Good. If you can learn to tolerate that fear and let go of trying to fix her anger, you will be ready for an intimate relationship.”

  “I thought all I had to do was turn over my food to Rory. And bookend my bath. And take Baby Jeremiah. And tell the Smoker I was a cocktease.”

  “You definitely needed to do all of that. And this is the next thing.”

  The session was over. Dr. Rosen ended it in the familiar way. When the hugs began, I kept my eyes on Marnie, watching her embrace Emily, Mary, and Zenia. Please hug me, I wished from across the room. I heaved my backpack over my shoulder.

  “Hey you,” Marnie said, nudging my shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said, my eyes flitting to hers and then to the floor.

  “You did good today.” We both smiled.

  “Doesn’t feel good.”

  “I know.”

  She opened her arms, and I stepped forward into them. Marnie said something into my hair. “What?” I asked.

  “I can be mad at you and still love you, you know.”

  No, actually, I didn’t know that. I had no idea.

  17

  I slipped on one of Clare’s black dresses and a new pair of black strappy sandals. Marnie was throwing a fortieth birthday party for Pat, and miraculously, I had a date. A date with someone I was attracted to. I’d met Jeremy a few years before law school at a party that was full of 12-step people. I was enchanted by his wire-rim glasses, gentle green eyes, and insightful comments. Turns out, he was also in Carlos’s other Rosen group, so I heard tidbits about him from time to time. Like that he’d just broken up with his girlfriend.

  The week before Pat’s party I stood on the train platform at Fullerton and spotted Jeremy. He was absorbed in a thick, impressive tome—by Thucydides. His khaki pants were cuffed just so, and his blue fleece made his green eyes shine. I sidled his way. When a crush of people exited the next train, he looked up.

  “Hey,” he said, folding the top corner of his page and shutting
his book.

  “I thought that was you.” I reached for the same train pole he was holding. He asked about law school, and I asked him about work and why he was reading Thucydides. “For fun,” he said. His smile made me feel cozy, like we were sitting by a fire, not jammed into a rickety El train packed with short-tempered commuters.

  “I’ve never seen you on this train,” I said when I realized we lived two stops from each other.

  He let out a short, unhappy laugh. “I used to stay at my girlfriend’s in Bucktown. We broke up.”

  “I heard that.” I smiled, wishing I could wink without looking stupid. He cocked his head. “I see Rosen. Tuesday morning with Carlos.”

  He leaned toward me, close enough that I could see specks of gold in his green eyes, and whispered, “I’d heard that.”

  “Touché.” The whispers of the Rosen-grapevine echoed all around us.

  We both laughed, and the sound of our voices rose over our heads and those of the people absorbed in their phones, books, and newspapers. Desire for this smiling, literate man flowed from my fingers twined around the steel pole, down my arm, and through my chest, belly, and between my legs.

  Next thing I knew, the invitation for Pat’s party flew out of my mouth, as if I was the sort of woman who routinely asked out philosophy-loving, newly single men. He agreed right away and wrote his address on a Post-it note he used as a bookmark. We touched hands when the train jerked its way to the Southport stop, and a fresh zing of desire shot through me.

  He was waiting outside when I pulled up the following Friday night, dressed exactly the same as he was on the train, which put me at ease. Our first topic of conversation was Dr. Rosen. We joked about his unfortunate wardrobe choices, and his absurd optimism that group would cure absolutely any emotional impairment.

  “He sure loves group,” Jeremy said, laughing.

  “He sure loves brown sweaters.”