All Fall Down: A Novel (28 page)

“Oh, none taken.” I wasn’t sure whether her “no offense” applied to my age or to the assumption that I’d gotten in trouble at work. “No, I work for myself, so no drug tests or anything.”

“Lose your license? DUI?”

I shook my head. “How about you?” I said, like we’d just been introduced at a cocktail party and she’d just tapped the conversational ball over to my side of the net. “Are you working, or in school?”

“I waitressed.” It took her a minute to remember how conversation happened. “What do you do?”

“I’m a journalist,” I said, which sounded like more of a real job than “blogger.”

“Huh.” She tugged at her hair. “Did you have to go to college for that?”

“Um. Well, I did. But I guess, technically, you don’t have to. You just need to have something to say.” I had to remind myself that I was here to get help for myself, not to rescue anyone else, or save all the little broken birds.
You are not coming out of here with an intern,
I told myself. I didn’t plan on staying long enough to learn names, let alone collect résumés.

“Good morning, Meadowcrest!” the intercom said again. Aubrey rolled her eyes and shot her middle finger at the ceiling. “Ladies, it’s about that time. Morning meds, breakfast, and inspections. Riiiise and shiiine!”

There was another knock. “Are you the new girl?” an older woman asked. She had curly white hair and wore black polyester slacks, white orthopedic sneakers with pristine laces, and a red cardigan with shiny cut-glass buttons. Reading glasses dangled from a beaded chain against her sizable bosom. She wore a gold watch, a gold wedding band, a gold cross hanging on a necklace, and another necklace with little ceramic figurines in
the shapes of boys and girls, probably intended to represent her grandchildren.

“Hello,” she said, offering me her hand to shake. “I’m Mary. I’m an alcoholic.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to say that, like, everywhere you go, Mare,” she said. “Only in meetings.”

“I’m trying to get used to it,” Mary said.

“Hi,” I said, and tried to think of a polite follow-up. “So, how long have you two been here?”

“Three days,” said Aubrey.

“Four for me,” said Mary. “We’re the new kids on the block.” She looked at Aubrey anxiously. “Did I get that right? New kids on the block?”

Aubrey made a face. “Like, how should I know? They’re oldies.”

“Well,” said Mary, looking flustered. “Do you want some help with your room?”

“Fuck,” Aubrey said. I followed her gaze past the bathroom to what must have been her bedroom, a narrow space the twin of mine. Based on its appearance, Aubrey had had a seizure in the middle of the night and flung everything she possessed to its four corners.

“I’ll help,” said Mary. I decided to join in, thus avoiding demerits, whatever they turned out to be. I wouldn’t be staying here long, but that didn’t mean I wanted to make a bad impression. Bending down, I began to gather up girl things: ninety-nine-cent nail polish, Victoria’s Secret panties, a black eyeliner pencil, a paperback copy of
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous,
a packet of Xeroxed pages labeled
RELAPSE PREVENTION
, a piece of posterboard with
MY TIMELINE OF ABUSE
written on top, a blouse, a pair of inside-out jeans, a single Ugg boot, and a half-empty package of peanut butter cookies.

“Do you know where we are, exactly? Like, what town?” I’d been so sick and so out of it on the ride down, I’d barely noticed exactly where we were heading.

“Buttfuck, New Jersey,” Aubrey said, shoving books and papers under her bed. “I mean, I guess it’s got a name, but I have no fucking clue what it’s called. All rehabs are, like, in the middle of fucking nowhere. So you can’t cop.”

I took my armload of stuff and deposited it gently at the bottom of her freestanding wardrobe. “How many times have you done this?”

She kept her smirk in place while she answered, but her eyes looked sad. “Six.”

Six rehabs. Dear Lord.

“How about you?” I asked Mary, who shook her head.

“Oh, no, dear, this is my first time in treatment. Come on,” she said. “We should get in line for meds.”

Aubrey wandered toward the bathroom. In my bedroom, I put on clean jeans and a T-shirt, gave my plastic pillow a fluff, and zipped up my duffel and set it in the wardrobe. Then I followed Mary out of the bedroom and into the wide, fluorescent-lit hallway. Dozens of doors just like mine ran along each side of it, amplifying the place’s resemblance to a cheap motel. We walked down the hall until we arrived at the desk I’d found earlier. There were maybe two dozen women milling around, most of them dressed, a few in pajamas and robes. Many of them held white plastic binders. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the one Mary had in her arms.

“It’s the welcome packet, and the schedule. You didn’t get one?”

I shook my head no. A heavy-set woman wearing khakis and a yellow short-sleeved shirt hunched behind the computer at the desk. An engraved plastic nametag announced that she was
MARGO
, and the words
MEADOWCREST COTTAGE
were sewn in red thread onto the right side of her chest. Her desk was a poor relation to the burnished oak desk out front, with a bouquet of flowers and a dish of hard candy. This desk was made of cheap pressboard, and, instead of blossoms or treats, there was a stack of papers with the title
A LETTER FROM YOUR ADDICTION.

Dear Friend, I’ve come to visit once again. I love to see you suffer mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. I want to have you restless so you can never relax. I want you jumpy and nervous and anxious. I want to make you agitated and irritable so everything and everybody makes you uncomfortable. I want you to be depressed and confused so that you can’t think clearly or positively. I want to make you hate everything and everybody—especially yourself. I want you to feel guilty and remorseful for the things you have done in the past that you’ll never be able to let go. I want to make you angry and hateful toward the world for the way it is and the way you are. I want you to feel sorry for yourself and blame everything but your addiction for the way things are. I want you to be deceitful and untrustworthy, and to manipulate and con as many people as possible. I want to make you fearful and paranoid for no reason at all and I want you to wake up during all hours of the night screaming for me. You know you can’t sleep without me; I’m even in your dreams.

“Excuse me,” I said, aiming a smile at Margo. “I’m hoping I can speak to someone about leaving.”

She looked up at me. “Where’s your tag?”

“Tag?”

“Tag,” she repeated, pointing to my chest in a way I might have found a little forward if I hadn’t been such a wreck. “When
you’re admitted, they give you a nametag with your welcome binder and your schedule. You need to wear it at all times.”

“Right. But I’m not staying. I’m not supposed to—”

She lifted her hand. “Honey, I can’t even talk to you till you’ve got your tag on. Check your room.”

“Fine.” I went back to my room as more women drifted out into the hallway. Most of them appeared to be Aubrey’s age, but I saw a few thirty- and fortysomethings, and some who were even older. The young girls wore tight jeans, high heels, faces full of makeup. The women my age wore looser pants, less paint, and, inevitably, Dansko clogs. The official shoe of playgrounds, operating rooms, restaurant kitchens, and rehab. “Excuse me,” said a sad, frail, hunched-over woman who looked even older than Mary, as she used a walker to make her way toward the desk. I shuddered, thinking that if I were an eighty-year-old addict, I would hope my friends and my children would leave me alone to drink and drug in peace.

Sure enough, back in my cell of a room, on top of the desk, I found a beige plastic nametag clipped to a black lanyard with my name—
ALLISON W.
—typed on the front. Beside it was a binder and schedule. I spared my single bed a longing glance, wishing I could just go back to sleep, then looped the tag over my neck and proceeded back down the hall.

T
he scent of mass-produced food was seeping from behind the cafeteria’s double doors. Even if I hadn’t been so nauseous, I couldn’t imagine eating anything. I felt like Persephone in the underworld—one bite, one sip, a single pomegranate seed, and I’d be stuck here forever.

I walked back to the desk and flapped my nametag at Margo, the desk drone. “I’d like to call home.”

“Morning meds,” she said, without looking up.

I went to the nurse’s counter, stood in line for twenty minutes, swallowed what was in the little white paper cup she gave me, and then returned.

“I took my medicine,” I said, showing Margo the empty cup, feeling grateful she hadn’t asked to see my empty mouth, the way the nurse had. “May I please use the phone?”

“You’re on a seven-day blackout,” she recited without looking past my chin. “No visits, no phone calls.”

“Excuse me? I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

Margo heaved a mighty sigh. “If you’re here, then you signed a contract agreeing to follow our rules.”

“May I see that contract, please?” I remembered signing my
name to all kinds of things—releases for my doctor to share my medical history, releases for Meadowcrest to talk to my insurance company—but it seemed unlikely that I’d sign something promising I wouldn’t call home for a week. Nor did it seem reasonable that they’d expect parents with young children to go that long between calls. Besides, could a contract be legally binding if the person who signed it was fresh out of the ER and still going through withdrawal?

Margo yawned without bothering to cover her mouth. “You can ask your counselor.”

“Who is my counselor?”

“You’ll be assigned one after orientation.”

“When’s that?”

“After breakfast.”

“I’m not planning on staying for breakfast.” I made myself smile and lowered my voice. “This isn’t the right place for me. I just want to go home.”

“You need to discuss that with your—”

Before she could say “counselor,” I pointed toward the front of the building—the nice desk, the clean waiting room with its wide-screen TV and baskets of snacks, the door—and said, “What happens if I just walk out of here right now?”

That got her attention. She sat up straighter and looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. “If you choose to sign yourself out AMA, you can leave after twenty-four hours,” she recited. “We can’t let you go right now. You still have detox drugs in your system. It would be a liability.”

“Even if I have someone pick me up? And I go right to a hospital or something?” A hospital sounded good. I’d get a private room, and I’d bring my own bedding, of course. I pictured an IV in my arm, delivering whatever drugs would make this
process more bearable. Then maybe I’d take myself to a spa for a few days. Fresh air, long hikes, nothing stronger than aspirin and iced tea. That was the ticket.

“Twenty-four hours. That’s the rule.”

“Okay.” I could endure anything for twenty-four hours. I’d been in labor that long, having Eloise. I went back down the hall and found Mary and Aubrey waiting in line.

“Where’d you cop?” I heard a statuesque brunette, who could have been a model except for her acne-ravaged complexion, ask a petite blonde girl in a see-through top. I didn’t hear the girl’s answer, but the brunette gave a squeal. “Ohmygod, no way! Who was your dealer?”

The petite girl gave a shrug. “He just said to call him Money.” She must have noticed me staring, because she turned toward me, eyes narrowed. “You work here?”

“Me? No, . . .” Now there were a few young girls staring at me.

“Booze?” asked the tall brunette.

“Pills,” I said, deciding to keep it short and sweet.

“Yeah,” the brunette said wistfully. “That’s how I started.” I was beginning to get the impression that pills were how everyone started, and that when you couldn’t afford or find the pills anymore, you moved on to heroin.

“Come on,” said Aubrey, as the herd of girls and women began moving down the hall. “Breakfast.”

I bypassed the limp slices of French toast and greasy discs of sausage in stainless steel pans on steam tables, with jugs of flavored corn syrup masquerading as maple, and made a mug of tea. The room was chilly and cavernous, a high-school cafeteria from hell with unflattering lights, worn linoleum, and aged inspirational posters, including the inevitable kitten-on-a-branch “Hang In There!” thumbtacked to walls painted
a washed-out yellow. Six long plastic-topped tables with bolted-on benches took up most of the room’s space. Each one was adorned with a tiny ceramic vase of plastic flowers—someone’s sad attempt at making the place look pretty. The air smelled like the ghosts of a thousand departed high-school cafeteria lunches—steamed burgers and stale French fries, cut-up iceberg lettuce birthed from a bag and served with preservative-laden croutons hard enough to crack a tooth. I sat at the end of a table, numb and aching for my pills, listening as the conversation between the tall, dark-haired girl and the petite blonde continued.

“. . . parents found my works underneath my mattress and, like, hired an interventionist . . .”

“You had an intervention? That is so cool! Shit, my mom said she was taking me to the movies, and then she dropped me off here . . .”

I sipped my tea and watched the clock. I would say as little as possible for as long as I could. I’d sit through their orientation and endure the mandatory twenty-four hours. Then I’d find a supervisor, explain the situation, and get Dave or Janet or someone to come pick me up.

I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t like these women. I didn’t have any DUIs that needed to be expunged, a judge hadn’t ordered me to stay, and I hadn’t flunked a drug test at work. Nobody named D-Block had ever stuck a needle in my arm, and I wasn’t sure I could find Kensington even with my GPS.
Heroin,
I thought, and shuddered. These girls had done IV drugs, and probably worse things to get the drugs. All I’d done was swallow a few too many pills, all of which (except the ones I’d ordered online) had been legitimately prescribed. I didn’t belong here, and all I needed to do was figure out how quickly I could leave. My daughter needed me. So did my readers. How on
earth had I let Dave convince me, even for a minute, that I could just check out of all of my responsibilities to come to a place like this?