How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  “You’re almost as bad as your dad,” she said. “Stop that crazy dancing and go get yourself and your Dad a cup of coffee.”

  Dad had his head down between his arms on the table. “Is he passed out?” I asked.

  He lifted his head. “Who the fuck’s asking?”

  We had to leave soon after that because Aunt Flo told us to. I threw up on a bush on my way to our car. Mom didn’t say a thing. Probably because she was so mad at Dad for grabbing a big blonde woman and putting his face right into her cleavage and then making a loud blubbery sound. Everyone saw him do it, including the woman’s husband, who was much taller and bigger than Dad. I thought he was going to punch him, but he didn’t. I think he knew Dad was wasted, because he just walked him over to a table, sat him down, and said, “Next time you die, you dumb son of a bitch.”

  I saw and heard the whole thing, and so did Aunt Flo and Arnold. But I wasn’t going to let Dad ruin my good time, so I did my best to ignore him and pretended not to hear him when he yelled, “Those are some tits, man!” Instead I put the coffee cups I’d gone to get down next to Mom and went back to the dance floor until Sissy said, “Looks like Flo and your mom are trying to carry your dad out of here.”

  I thought about Sissy and Tyler the entire drive home, which was hard to do because Dad wouldn’t let Mom drive and he was all over the road. Sissy and Tyler were the luckiest kids I’d ever met. They didn’t have parents telling them what to do all the time and they both seemed so grown up. Sissy said they went to private boarding schools and spent holidays and every other weekend with Arnold.

  “I like Flo. She’s got a colorful aura and good energy around her,” Sissy had said. She’d also said she wasn’t planning to get to know Flo too well because she was wife number five, and Arnold’s last wife had only moved out of the Malibu house a few months ago. “Tyler and I are still pretty pissed off about it. We liked wife number four a lot.”

  The day after the wedding, I woke up with a horrible headache, and so thirsty I drank four glasses of milk. I also took a couple of aspirin and decided to make breakfast, as I’d read an article in one of Mom’s magazines about hangovers and it said eating and drinking water is the best thing to do.

  I knocked on my parents’ bedroom door at noon to ask if they wanted some of the pancakes and scrambled eggs I’d made. “Can you bring us some coffee and an ashtray? Make your dad’s coffee a special one, please. He’s not feeling too good,” Mom said.

  I put a little half and half in Mom’s and two shots of Wild Turkey in Dad’s and put both cups on a serving tray with a pancake for Mom.

  I sat down on the bed next to Mom and told her how much I liked Arnold and Sissy and Tyler and how much fun the wedding was. “It was the best time I’ve ever had,” I said.

  “I thought it was a beautiful service, and the food was delicious. I even liked Arnold’s black-and-white-checkered tuxedo,” Mom said.

  “I liked it too. Almost as much as I liked Sissy’s lavender poncho dress,” I replied.

  “Arnold will be good for Flo. He certainly is good looking enough for her. He’s got the Miami Vice style down perfectly,” Mom said, half giggling.

  Right about then Dad sat up, coughed a few times, took a big drink of his coffee and then lit a cigarette. “Don’t get too friendly with them, girls. Arnold’s too young for Flo and he’s gonna get sick of her pretty soon. Another fucking fancy-pants, pot-smoking, draft-dodging liberal with a trust fund. He’ll never go the distance,” he said.

  Mom rolled her eyes at me and I rolled mine right back.

  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be like Sissy and my mom. I wanted people to notice me the way they noticed them. They were both cute and they both had big boobs. I thought I could probably find a way to become cute, but without big boobs I couldn’t imagine getting a boyfriend or having men whistle at me when I walked down the street or hand me a business card in an elevator the way a man did to Mom when we were out shopping for dresses to wear to Aunt Flo’s wedding. Mom smiled real sneaky-like at that man and he said softly that he thought she was the best-looking broad he’d seen in a long time.

  “How about I make you happy for the next forty minutes,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Only forty, huh?” Mom laughed as she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the elevator.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, but Mom obviously did because she smiled at him and put his card in her coat pocket before the elevator doors closed. After that she seemed to transform into the happiest woman alive, and we spent the rest of the day together shopping and laughing. She even bought me lunch at a nice cafe and let me order a large hot fudge sundae instead of a sandwich. I realized, as I watched her read the business card and sip her ice tea, that our great day was made possible because some strange man said a few strange things to her.

  I made a plan. I bought a plain Jane–style white cotton bra at the Goodwill store for a dollar. (I wasn’t about to buy a lacey thing like the one Reverend Bob made me try on in his car.) It was one of those push-up bras with a couple pieces of what felt like coat hanger wire sewn in. I thought if I started wearing it, it might send a signal to my body to fill it up. Until then I thought it would be okay to put balled-up toilet paper in the bra cups to keep them from looking all wrinkled under my shirt.

  I wore my new bra to school right after spring break, and everyone mentioned my new, mature look. When my friend Katie saw me she said, “Holy shitballs, what the hell happened to you?” and then tears started rolling down her face. I didn’t ask her why she was crying because I figured she was just jealous. She so wanted to beat me at becoming a woman and really thought she was going to start her period any day. It was all she talked about. She’d been carrying a schoolbag around since the beginning of eighth grade that contained just about every type of tampon and pad you could ever imagine. She’d often go into the girls’ bathroom when other girls were in there and rummage through her bag, pulling out a tampon or pad and announcing something stupid like “The monthly uglies are with me again” before disappearing into a stall.

  Earlier in the year she’d even convinced me to try a tampon on for size, just so I would know what to do when the time came. I went into a bathroom stall with one of her tampons and she stood outside the door and told me what to do. I told her I didn’t need her help because I’d read the Tampax instructions leaflet at least a million times. But I hadn’t really read them; I’d only looked at the pictures and wondered if the map was accurate and whether I had all those things inside me. I got the whole thing wrong and didn’t pull out the cardboard inserter, and boy was it painful when I walked. Katie insisted it would get better and told me to wear it through gym class. But after the first cartwheel I was pretty sure I was going to die from the pain and had to get a bathroom pass from Mr. Ronald, who asked if I was okay. It took me five minutes to dig the tampon and cardboard wrapper out of me. I was sore for days, and pretty mad at Katie for making me do it in the first place.

  So I wasn’t really concerned about Katie being upset with me and my new boobs, but I couldn’t take her crying about it, either, so I decided I’d tell her the truth. This was a big mistake, because later in the day I got to the cafeteria just in time to overhear her tell the best-looking boy in our school to have a look at my chest and tell her if he thought my boobs were lopsided or not. I gave her my “hate you” look and then had a quick look down to discover she was right: the wad of pink toilet paper I’d stuffed into the left bra cup had slipped out and crawled all the way up to my neck. I was going to have to find an alternative to toilet paper.

  I used pantyhose for the next two weeks, until I had a dentist’s appointment that gave me a brilliant idea. In the waiting room, I noticed a woman pulling a large white cotton pad from a small box she had in a diaper bag. She put the pad in her bra after she fed her baby. After a good ten minutes of staring at her to make sure the pad wasn’t visible through her shirt, I took note of the box and deci
ded I’d have a look for those pads the next time I was at the store. I figured a pad like that would be better than toilet paper because it wouldn’t get loose and crawl up. I went shopping with Mom the next day, and after I ate a Snickers bar and hid the wrapper behind a box of Apple Jacks, I headed for the baby supply aisle to see if they carried nursing pads.

  I discovered the store carried a variety of pads, so I picked the smallest box because I thought I could easily hide it under other things in the shopping cart. I was used to hiding small things under bigger items, but the box was a bit larger than the things I usually hid, so I grabbed a twelve-roll pack of toilet paper instead of the four-roll pack Mom had requested, and then I got an extra loaf of bread. With these two items placed on top of the nursing pad box I was sure no one would notice. But someone did. The woman stocking the shelf with baby food looked at me like I was up to something and I thought she was going to tell me to put them back, but she didn’t. After walking up and down the aisle for a few minutes, thinking about what I should do, I decided not to risk Mom or anyone else catching me with a box of nursing pads, so I put the box under my shirt, parked the cart in a safe place, and headed for the bathroom.

  It took me a while to get all twelve nursing pads into my bra, six on each side, and I was a little concerned that my boobs looked noticeably larger than usual, but I was willing to take my chances. I tore the box up into the smallest pieces I could and flushed them down the toilet. It took a few flushes to get it all down but I did it.

  The additional padding made my Goodwill bra feel tight, almost too tight to breathe, so I had to take short little inhales and exhales as I headed to the makeup aisle to get a few new nail polishes. I’d just started on my way to find Mom when I almost ran the cart into my half-sister, Tammy, although I didn’t recognize her at first because of her real short, blond hair. I was so surprised and happy to see her that I forgot about my padded bra until she hugged me.

  I could tell from the look on Tammy’s face that she knew something was up, but she didn’t make a big deal about it. She just smiled and said, “Nice developments, sister.”

  I blushed and said, “They’re not real, ya know.”

  “I figured that out,” she joked as she looked over the contents of my grocery cart. “How are you gonna get out of here with three six-packs of Miller Lite?” she asked.

  “Those are Mom’s. She’s getting something from the butcher,” I said.

  She turned her attention to the five bottles of nail polish I’d put out on top of the bread.

  “I’m looking for the right color for my skin tone,” I explained. “Mom’s Cosmo says women with blue undertones look best with pinkish purples, and not so good with melons or orange shades, and since I can’t tell what my undertone is, I’m getting a few different colors to try.” I held my hands out so that she could see my glue-on nails.

  “A rainbow of nails might be a good idea for me, too,” she said, laughing.

  It was about then that I saw Mom walking up the aisle struggling to carry something wrapped in butcher paper. My sister practically sprinted to help her with what turned out to be a leg of ham Mom had mistakenly ordered the week before and was too embarrassed to tell the butcher she’d meant to order a ham hock, not a ham leg. Mom said thanks as they dropped the ham into the shopping cart.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Mom said and then, looking at Tammy more closely, whispered, “Oh, you’re the schoolteacher, aren’t you?”

  My sister smiled and said, “Yes.”

  No one said anything for the longest time, and then Mom said we had to go and started walking toward the checkout line. I wanted to stay and talk to my sister, but she said she had to go too. “Bye, Tammy!” I yelled out as I ran after Mom.

  Mom didn’t say anything at the checkout stand. She didn’t even answer when the checker asked her if she wanted the ham in a double bag, so I said, “Yes, please.” I thought Mom would notice and say something about the nail polishes or the three bottles of maple extract and two packs of toothpicks I’d put in the cart earlier, but she didn’t. She didn’t even notice my overstuffed bra; she just looked straight ahead, wrote a check, and handed it to the checker without saying a word. She walked like a robot all the way to the car.

  I followed her with the cart. When we got to the car, I watched her unlock the door, get in, and pour the contents of her purse out on the passenger seat. I had to knock on her window three times to get her to hit the trunk release button, and when I did I could see she had two small yellow pills in her hand, the new ones she’d recently got from her doctor. With the car trunk open I was able to take the nursing pads out of my bra without Mom, or anyone else, noticing. I put them in one of the shopping bags and took a few deep breaths. I took my time moving the grocery bags from the cart to the trunk and rearranged them a few times to kill time, hoping Mom would snap out of her weird mood and drive us home.

  By the time I climbed into the passenger seat, she was leaning on the steering wheel, crying and mumbling some pretty nasty things about Dad. A few minutes later her hiccups started, and that seemed to make her mad and sad at the same time. We stayed parked long enough for me to finish an entire bag of Fritos and a half a bag of Cheetos, and for her to finish the two beers she made me get from the trunk.

  She guzzled those beers down so fast it made her burp about ten times. I couldn’t help but laugh about that, and she started laughing too. It went on for a few minutes, and then she suddenly stopped giggling and asked me if I had a cigarette. She hadn’t smoked for years, and while I’d gone through a phase where I helped myself to Dad’s Pall Malls, I hadn’t smoked in months.

  “I don’t have any cigarettes Mom, I don’t smoke,” I said.

  “Sure you don’t. I’ve seen both you and Robbie smoke, so don’t give me that story. I don’t think I’ll be able to drive home without a cigarette. In fact, I’m sure of it,” she said.

  She opened her door and, using it as a support, she stood up and steadied herself for a few seconds before she headed to the store’s front door, returning a few minutes later with three packs of Winstons and a lighter. She coughed and cried her way through her cigarette and didn’t start the engine until she’d finished the first one and lit a second.

  I was going to say something about her raccoon face—the smeared and runny eyeliner and mascara—before she went into the store to get cigarettes, but I didn’t because it had only been a few weeks since she’d had a meltdown about Genie bringing her car to our house for Dad to fix. I didn’t want to make it worse. Once we were driving, I saw that her make-up had run completely down her cheeks but pretended I hadn’t noticed because she wasn’t driving very well. I knew if she tried to clean her face we’d likely end up in a bad accident.

  After what seemed like a week we pulled into our driveway and Mom drove right into the back bumper of Dad’s truck.

  “Take that, you asshole,” she said under her breath.

  She told me to carry the groceries in because she was too tired and needed a nap. I put the groceries away, shoved the bra pads in my pockets, stuck the ham in the freezer, took a couple of wine coolers from the fridge, and went to my room to watch TV.

  CHAPTER 11

  Aunt Flo seemed happy with Arnold and excited about moving from her cottage house into his Malibu beach house. She called me one night, a few days after the wedding, to talk. “Did you have fun? Aren’t Sissy and Tyler great? What do you think about my new dreamboat husband?’ she asked.

  “I liked everything about the wedding, especially the band, and I’m sorry I dropped cake on Helen’s shoes,” I said.

  “Seems like you may have had a bit too much champagne,” Aunt Flo replied.

  “I guess I did. But I really like it.”

  “Try not to like it too much,” she said before she told me she had to hang up because Arnold wanted her to swim with him.

  I couldn’t believe Aunt Flo had married someone who looked so much like a mov
ie star. He wasn’t an actor, though; Arnold was an illustrator, cartoonist, and animator who worked for a movie studio, it turned out. His houses, one in Malibu and one in Half Moon Bay, were filled with his paintings and posters. I heard him tell Dad, in the wedding reception line, that painting had never made him a cent; what brought in the big money were his original cartoon characters. Some were used in films, TV shows, and commercials. Although his most famous characters weren’t well known in America, they were huge in Japan.

  Aunt Flo had let Uncle Bill move into her house because he promised to repair the porch, take care of the cats, keep the place in good shape, and pay the property taxes. “You can go over anytime you want to visit the cats or to swim with Mayadelsa,” she told me.

  One hot Saturday afternoon in March, four weeks after the wedding, I asked Mom to drop me off at Aunt Flo’s cottage on her way to visit Olive. She started crying and said, “You know that bitch Genie moved in there with your Uncle Bill.”

  “Oh,” I replied.

  I hardly ever saw Mom upset to the point of pulling her hair out, so I decided I wouldn’t go over to Aunt Flo’s cottage again until the “bitch” moved out. Besides, Arnold’s beach house was pretty nice. It had a huge gate at the entrance that opened onto a long driveway, and a manicured garden with large statues of naked men and women in every corner. The house had sixteen rooms, including four bathrooms and a game room. There was a groundskeeper and a part-time cook who made orange cinnamon scones and a chocolate pie that tasted just like a candy bar. Even though the house was on the beach, it had a swimming pool shaped like a kidney bean and made from black-and-white marble. But swimming in the bean-shaped pool wasn’t anything like swimming with Mayadelsa.

  Aunt Flo said the only problem with the Malibu house was that it was too far away from the stores she liked; and since Arnold wasn’t happy to drive her and wait in the parking lot like Uncle Hank used to, he bought her a brand-new automatic Mercedes Benz convertible for a wedding present. Aunt Flo still wasn’t very good at driving, and she still refused to wear a seat belt, but she managed to get around okay.