Free Fall (14 page)

FOR
what could be the first time in her life, Karen was jealous. That woman looked a lot better than she had looked at the club. Karen recognized the dress as a Rachel Roy. Good taste in clothes, she had to admit, though you wouldn’t be able to tell from that messy first impression at Willie’s. Joseph had finally seen her side by side with that homely woman and he had barely looked at her. In fact, he was almost rude to her! How could he not make the comparison? Karen had the confidence of a beautiful woman. If she wasn’t
the
most beautiful woman in any room, then there certainly wasn’t anyone
more
beautiful present.

She knew Mick from one of her casting calls. Snuck him into Peter's house and told him to be on the lookout for someone who looked like that tramp. Perhaps she had made a mistake in getting him to make a pass at her. At first she was delighted when she saw how uncomfortable the situation was, she wanted the bitch to be embarrassed and look like the whore she was, but then Joseph started to get physical with the man. She felt an unexpected pang when she saw Joseph lose his temper like that. She couldn't remember one time when he had so defended her honor.

Then she wondered just how possessive that woman would be towards him. Maybe she should switch the players around. A plan started to take shape in her mind.

She drove to Encino and unlocked the door of her cottage style home. She stopped. Was that marijuana she smelled? Oh, no way!

There was a bottle of scotch on the small drop leaf dining table and the flat screen on the wall above the fireplace was blaring out an MTV heavy metal rock video. She sped across the living room, her heels clacking on the beige tiled floor, and slammed open the bathroom door to find her sister Karla sitting on the edge of the tub evidently in the middle of shooting up heroin.

"Get out!" Karen screamed. She made a grab for the needle, and then just as quickly backed off, afraid she'd get stuck. It was too late anyway, her sister had already plunged it home. Karla grinned foolishly and fell backward into the tub with her legs dangling out over the edge.

"Well don’t you look pretty. All in your 'fuck me' clothes," Karla slurred. "Pretty, pretty," she sang nonsensically. "Pretty Karen, pretty girl."

"Give me the key!" Karen said.

"What key?" Karla looked to her left and then to her right. "I don’t see no key."

Karen picked up a leather pouch from the toilet seat and opened it.

"So sorry," Karla said. Her head started to nod. "Didn’t save any for you." She passed out.

Karen went to her closet and screamed again when she saw that two of her dresses were gone. "You bitch!" She stormed back into the bathroom and slapped her unconscious sister across the face.

"The Halston! Where is it? Did you take it to Gloria’s?"

Karla’s eyelids fluttered and then closed again.

"Don’t you OD on me!"

She grabbed her by the arms and heaved her out of the bathtub. Karla piled onto the floor like a giant sack of potatoes. Karen propped her up and then stood over her, hands on her hips. She was tempted to just leave and pretend she’d never come home tonight. Let someone else discover the body, she thought. Karla wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. Because she would be dead. And her world would be a better place. She didn’t like the idea of a dead body in her bathroom, though, and there would be police cars and ambulances and forensic people in her house and she didn’t want that either. She bent down and slapped her sister again, trying to get her to wake up. She put her hand on her chest and found that she was barely breathing.

"I hate you!" Karen went to the phone and called her mother.

"Your daughter is overdosing in my bathroom," she said without preamble.

"Oh no! Did you call an ambulance?"

"No ambulance! I’ll take her to Cedars but I’m leaving her there. I’m just not in the mood to spend the night in the ER. I suggest you get down there and meet me at the entrance."

"Karen, you can’t just leave her like that."

"Oh, yes I can. I’m not going to be responsible for her. I’m sick of it! If you’re quick I won’t leave her on the pavement outside the hospital. So, get going!" She hung up on her mother and went to change out of her dress into jeans and a sweatshirt. She washed off her makeup and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Unlikely as it was, she didn’t want anyone recognizing her and leaking a story to the press. Normally she would take any publicity that came her way to get attention and to keep her name circulating, but she didn’t want to be associated with her sister.

Karla’s drug use had turned her into a death camp caricature, with greasy dishwater blonde hair, a scrawny, caved-in chest and a tacky, amateur tattoo of a snake slithering up her neck. Karen couldn’t take the chance of being seen with her. Very few people knew that she had a twin sister. Joseph knew about Karla because he was around when Karla had bottomed out last time. She’d told a producer at a party once, hoping to manipulate him into giving her a part in his movie. But the producer was indifferent to her tale of woe and she doubted if he even remembered her name, let alone her sister's. Louis knew, but Louis was easily controlled. If a photo of her sister got out to the media the jig would be up. Her sister wouldn’t hesitate to tell her story to anyone. Right now she was just too stupid and too zoned out on drugs to realize that it was worth anything. Karen didn’t want to be known for having a sister for a junkie, certainly not with her new movie coming out next year.

She went outside, got into her seven-year-old Mercedes convertible and backed up over the winding brick pathway to get as close to the front door as possible. She opened the passenger door of the two-seater and ran back to the bathroom. She took one of her sister’s arms and slung her emaciated body over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She brought her through the house, down the steps of the porch, and dumped her into the passenger seat of the car. She quickly locked her front door and looked around to see if there were any neighbors watching. Seeing nothing, she jumped in the car and roared off in the direction of the hospital.

As Karen pulled up to the emergency entrance, she saw her mother standing at the entrance with a wheelchair at the ready. She jumped out of the car. "You are so lucky!" She helped her mother get Karla out and into the wheelchair.

"Is she breathing?" Mary Wassenbaum pushed her daughter into an upright position on the seat and held onto to her shoulders to keep her from slumping over.

"I don’t know." She hadn’t seen her mother in six months. Her wrinkled face was distraught and she looked ten years older than her sixty-one years. The old crone. Karen shuddered inwardly, and swore to herself, as she did every time she saw her mother that she would never end up like her. "You look tired, mom. Why don’t you leave her inside the door and go home and get some sleep?"

"No! Karen why do you have to be so difficult about this? Karla needs help. How can you be so cruel?"

"Yeah, I’m pretty much tapped out. This is the last time I’m going through this. I’ve got a reputation to worry about and I don’t need my trashy sister ruining it. You understand?"

"What did she take?" her mother asked.

"She’s a junkie, mom! What do you think?" Karen got back into the car and drove off. In her rearview mirror she could see her mother wheeling her twin sister through the automatic doors.

At home, she put on a pair of dish gloves and cleaned the bathroom, taking great care not to touch the end of the needle lying in the bathtub. She picked up the half bottle of Scotch her sister had pilfered from the kitchen cupboard. Joseph’s brand, Joseph’s bottle. Again, she felt that strange little pain at the thought of him. She dumped the contents out into the sink, you never knew what kind of diseases her sister might have, and slipped the used needle into the bottle. She  put that and the leather bag into a small plastic garbage bag. She would take it tomorrow and drop it in a dumpster somewhere. Her phone rang and she picked up the receiver but didn’t say anything.

"I thought you might like to know that your sister didn’t die," her mother began accusingly.

Unperturbed, Karen said,"Hey, I didn’t hold her down and inject poison into her veins. It’s not my fault."

"They took her in right away and gave her some Naloxone to counteract the drugs. She’s awake now."

"Whoopee! My sister made it through another crisis! I think I’ll just do a little happy dance right here and now."

"Now you listen to me. Whether you like it or not, I need help with this. You think you're riding some rocket to fame? How famous will you be if everyone knows about your sister? Do you want to be known as Karen Clark, the up and coming actress, or do you want to be Karen Wassenbaum, with a sister addicted to heroin and an alcoholic mother? You understand what I'm saying to you? I’m going to try to get her into rehab this weekend and it’s going to take both of us to get her there. I can’t do it alone."

"You wouldn’t dare." Karen kicked the kitchen cupboard in frustration.

"Oh, yes I would."

"Fine! I have a job on Saturday. Could we make it tomorrow or Sunday?"

"What kind of job is it that takes you all day and night?"

"It's in Las Vegas." She'd take a chance that Joseph was going to Vegas alone, which was likely, because she had listened to the conversation with Peter when he'd drooled all over that black girl, that woman's friend visiting from Seattle. They probably wouldn't go with Joseph for an overnight trip. She knew one of the players in the film that he was working on this weekend. Michelle, a waitress-slash-actress who would do anything for money, also had thing for Joseph. She'd fly over there, somehow get Michelle aside, and offer her a job. If all went well, this might be the end of the little nobody from Seattle. If Joseph brought her to Vegas, then she'd just have to wait for another opportunity.

"Las Vegas," her mother said scornfully. "I’ll try to get her in tomorrow, then."

"We’re taking your car," Karen said.

"Of course we’re taking my car. Of course that’s all you care about. God forbid if the crowd of fans that blocks your street every day and night see you in the company of your family! You know, if you ever gave any thought to anyone but yourself, you’d realize that this current situation is partly your fault. If you had any insight into your character, the ability to see any part of yourself that doesn’t portray you as the bright, gleaming star you imagine yourself to be, then you'd realize that you have a personality disorder."

"Whatever, mom," Karen said.

Why did she have to be related to these annoying losers? They embarrassed her. If they were strangers and she ran into them on the street, she wouldn’t give them the time of day. Her sister was a junkie. Her mother was a recovering alcoholic. Karen could not understand how people could purposely damage themselves. Her mother was forever going to meetings and constantly making such pronouncements as ‘one day at a time’ and ‘but for the grace of God go I.’ Karen could not grasp the concept of addiction. Since she knew that putting bad things into your mouth and into your veins was not a good idea, and since she knew she had complete control over her motor movements, she couldn’t understand why other people didn’t have that same control. She didn’t believe that there was anything, any ‘power’ outside of herself. Karla was weak and stupid, it was as simple as that.

"Since you were five years old you had to have all the attention." Her mother went on. "You manipulate people, and keep badgering them until they give up. It’s too much trouble to cross you when you want your way. You compete against everyone. You don’t care about anyone’s feelings. God help me, you’re a sociopath!"

"Oh, please mom. Can I get off the phone now? Are you through?"

"All of Karla’s life you’ve beaten her down. You always have to come out on top. You had to be better, prettier and more accomplished in all things. You wouldn’t even acknowledge that she was your twin! You went out of your way to look different. She’s had an alcoholic mother and a monster for a sister. No wonder she’s trying to escape through drugs."

"Why don’t you take her to one of your meetings mom? Maybe that will help. Listen, I really love these heart-to-hearts, but I’m tired. I’ll see you tomorrow." Karen hung up and called Louis who, after some hesitation, said he could get what she wanted.

When she got to the treatment center the next afternoon, she could see that she wasn’t needed. Karla was unusually cooperative, shaky after a day of detox, but lucid and seemed ready to stay in treatment.

"I’m sorry." Karla’s troubled eyes showed that she meant it. "Both of the dresses are at Gloria’s."

She handed Karen a pawn ticket, and for a moment Karen could see the little girl that she used to be. The girl who wanted to tag along with her everywhere she went. She glanced at her mother, who stood beside her with a look of approval on her wrinkled face, and experienced a stab of irritation. Karla had done this before. She would stay in rehab a week, maybe two, and then go right back out there.

"Where’s my key?" she said indifferently. If she comes back to my house high, she thought, I’ll dump her in crack town to overdose on the street.

"I put it back under the rock." Karla knew there would be no further conversation from Karen so she lay down on the bed and turned her face to the wall.