Manic (7 page)

I grabbed my journal and retraced my steps toward the garden. I flopped down and began to sketch. Nothing was as I remembered it, though. The clouds, so fine and wispy the day before, had grown thick and gray, obscuring the sun. Drops began to splash down onto my page. The sky had betrayed me: it was no longer shelter. I buttoned up my sweater and got to my feet.

When I reached my room, I was thoroughly wet and longing for my lilies. But something was standing between me and them—a figure, human enough until it turned around. I gasped. Her face was a patchwork of scarlet and white, shiny in some spots and mottled in others. Her features on one side had melted and blurred. Her left arm was a stump, although her right was intact, still freckled and fair. She looked at me, then turned away.

I cursed myself for that embarrassing gasp. As a lawyer, I was trained to keep my feelings under wraps. I held out my hand. “You must be my new roommate,” I said, and I hoped my smile hid my trembling. Part of me was downright scared, part of me was furious, not with the poor woman in front of me but with the institution. They should have prepared me for this.

She mumbled her name, then got into bed. Her face was hidden in the pillow, but I could tell by the shuddering of her shoulders that she was crying. I thought longingly of the garden I had just left, the wide-open expanse that made no demands of me. Fighting the urge to throw open the door, I crossed the room and stood over the bed.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” I asked.

“Wish I was invisible,” a quivering voice replied. “Wish I could just disappear.”

I was utterly unnerved. I recognized her language. It was the language of suffering, and I knew it well. We were one and the same, the girl and I. The only difference was that my scars were on the inside, where they didn’t show.

The instinctive aversion to her appearance was drowned out by a sudden flood of empathy, and to my surprise, I reached down and gathered her up in my arms. Her skin felt thin and wrinkled, like crumpled tissue paper. At first she tried to pull away, but I hushed her and started stroking her hair, rocking her back and forth in my arms.

Her long blond hair was healthy, luxurious even, in my hands. I wondered at the irony of this ornamentation: of what possible use was such hair to her now? But beauty, true beauty, is never wasted. In fact, her hair was all the more glorious because of the contrast with her damaged skin.

And that’s when it hit me: I had been going about it all wrong. It was futile to try to deny the existence of ugliness—either in the world, or in myself. God made light, and God made monsters, and there must have been a reason for that. As Saint Augustine said, “Even monsters are divine creatures and in some way they too belong to the providential order of nature.” Without the darkness, how can we ever hope to understand the light?

I started to cry. True beauty, I realized, is not the absence of ugliness, but the acceptance of it. And I knew then what I had refused to admit all along: that I was indeed mentally ill.

I welcomed the monster. I gave it a home.

It was March 22. I remember the date because, every year, I send an anonymous card to Phoebe, for that was the young girl’s name. It’s a simple card. There are only two words printed on it: “Thank you.” I send it anonymously because I don’t know how to explain. I only know that my greatest victories have always been surrenders.

We were the Gatsby couple, or so our friends
called us. We made a martini look good. It was the eighties, and he was as essential to me as shoulder pads. His intellect gave me breadth; his beauty gave me symmetry. I was never so complete as when I stepped into a crowded room as his other half.

But bipolar disorder always chooses the most inopportune times to remind you that remission is just a respite, not a cure. I’d had several bad episodes of both mania and depression while Rick and I were seeing each other, back when I was in college and law school. To his credit, he had been kind and gentle, if a bit bewildered by it all. But then all at once the floodgates broke loose, and a depression of biblical savagery swept over me. I could barely move, let alone make it to class. What little energy I had was devoted to deceiving the people around me into believing that I simply had a lingering case of the flu. I had neither the time nor the inclination for romance. The care and feeding of a lover was completely beyond my capabilities.

I knew that I was losing Rick. Our phone calls became fewer and shorter each night, until they basically consisted of the same three sentences: “Any better?” “No.” “That’s a shame.” It
was
a shame, a damned shame, but the breakup wasn’t the worst of it all. What really tortured me were the dreams that visited me night after night, when I would remember in full sensory detail the exact expression of Rick’s gray-green eyes when he told me I was beautiful; the timbre of his voice when he called me sweetheart; and his sigh when he held me in his arms after making love. The memory of sustenance is a terrible thing. Far worse, I think, than actual starving. Starving just kills you. Longing can gnaw away at you forever.

But Rick was a rescuer, and I hadn’t been properly rescued yet, although I was getting tremendous help from a new medication regime. The drugs knocked the depression to its knees, but they kept me just this side of manic. So the next time I saw Rick, several years later, I was definitely high—not so high that I looked or acted inappropriate, but high enough that I sparkled, I glittered, I was as charming as the quicksilver moon.

I ran into Rick again while I was waiting for my car outside a fashionable restaurant, the kind of L.A. hot spot that we used to frequent together in our Jay and Daisy era. I was a full-fledged entertainment lawyer by then, and my job required me to waste a lot of time in such places. I remember I was feeling chilly and bored that night, and my feet hurt. I was standing alone by the door, looking for the valet, when a red Lamborghini roared up to the portico. Ever since I was given a 1965 Corvette for my sixteenth birthday, I’ve been a sucker for sports cars, and this one was a full-throttle work of art. I let out an involuntary “Wow!” and heard a familiar voice behind me say, “Thank you.” Sure enough, it was Rick, looking every bit as handsome and sexy as I remembered him.

We started talking so fast we were almost talking over each other: me, because I was practically manic, and Rick because I think he was genuinely glad to see me. The Lamborghini turned out to be his reward for selling a screenplay. I was so proud of him, I started to cry. Just like old times, I thought, except now they were actually tears of joy.

After fifteen minutes of catching up, Rick said, “It’s a beautiful night. Why don’t we go for a drive?” and our relationship took off again from there. He careened up Benedict Canyon Drive with one eye on the road and the other on me. “I can’t get over how good you look,” he kept saying. “It’s like the old you, come back to life.”

I was perfectly happy to be the old me, especially when we parked on Mulholland Drive and looked out at the sparkling city below. “It’s your town,” I whispered to Rick, and before I knew it his arm was around me and he was kissing me again, with lips that still remembered every curve and nuance of my own. And I was kissing him back.

We saw each other the next night, and the next, and the night after that. At that point, Rick told me the truth: he was living with someone. “It’s a rotten relationship, and I’m not in love anymore,” he confessed. “But she needs me—she’s had a rough life, and I’m the only thing she’s got.” I was devastated, but incipient mania got in the way of my better judgment. I didn’t stop to ask myself whether I should be in this relationship at all. I only asked myself how I could manage to stay. I was determined to pummel the relationship into submission. Either that, or pretend there was no problem at all.

Pretending worked pretty well for a while. For the next six months, we saw each other several nights a week. Rick’s girlfriend either didn’t care very much, or she didn’t expect to know where he was. Then one night, long after I’d gone to sleep, Rick called me and said, “Sarah’s going to see her sister in Connecticut this weekend. It’s our chance to finally get out of town. What do you say to La Valencia?” He knew how I loved La Valencia Hotel—a little pink paradise just north of San Diego, in the immaculate seaside village of La Jolla.

Much as I loved La Jolla, I didn’t say yes immediately. The increasing volatility of my mood had been bothering me. I was no longer reliably three-quarters manic. When I was under too much stress, particularly deadlines, I began to plummet into something that resembled depression. It wasn’t full-blown depression, but it was close enough to make me nervous about going away. My mooring lines had slipped. I wasn’t quite sure in which direction I might suddenly find myself headed.

I tried to explain all this to Rick, but he was having none of it. “I’ve never seen you so stable,” he kept reassuring me. Rick could sell sand in the desert, so it didn’t take long before I finally agreed. I packed for emergencies.

We took off late that Friday afternoon, and arrived at the hotel just as the sun went down. Rick had a craving for abalone and went to talk to the concierge about restaurants. I was sticky and tired after the long drive, so I ran a warm bubble bath in the Jacuzzi tub, and sank down to my shoulders in lavender-scented bliss. But the second I closed my eyes, thoughts started swarming my brain: this isn’t right, I shouldn’t be here, this is stolen time. I didn’t know Rick’s girlfriend, Sarah, but by all rights these were her lavender bubbles, this was her tub, and that was her man coming through the door, whistling “There’s a Small Hotel.”

“We’re all set,” Rick said. “The finest seafood restaurant in La Jolla, and it’s only a few blocks away. The concierge said to dress.” That meant that for the next few hours, my mind would be preoccupied with other things, deeply important things like mousse and mascara and the line of a black seamed stocking. I’d brought my very favorite evening dress along: a complicated wasp-waisted, full-skirted affair with honest-to-God petticoats. Rick was all smiles when he saw me dressed for dinner. “You look like Grace Kelly in
Rear Window
,” he said.

Guilt is a rotten thing for the digestion. The abalone was fresh and in season, but I couldn’t taste it. The Bach, the candles, the white-jacketed waiter, all of it was wasted on me. By the time the strawberry tartlets arrived, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to speak.

“Rick, we have to talk about Sarah,” I said. “What are you planning to do about her? Do you ever intend to tell her about us? In fact, is there any ‘us’ to tell her about?”

Rick put his fork down and looked at me, annoyance showing on his face. “Of course there’s an ‘us.’ What do you think we’ve been doing all these months?”

“That’s my question. What
have
we been doing all these months?”

“I think what we have is very special,” he said. “Can’t we just leave it at that?”

Luckily for him, the waiter came by at that moment to ask monsieur if he would care for a cigar. Rick was brave: he opted to stretch out the meal, or maybe he just didn’t want to be alone with me yet. In any event, he said yes. I was glad. I wanted to make up for the tension between us, and a surefire way of pleasing Rick was to go through what we called the
Gigi
routine: I chose his cigar by holding it up to my ear and rolling it between my fingertips; then I cut the tip and lit the match while he puffed away. Normally I find this a very soothing routine. I like being old-fashioned and submissive—as long as it’s understood that it’s only a routine.

But that night, the ritual only inflamed my mood. The flare of the match head startled me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the flame, which could only mean one thing: I was manic. I have a fascination with all things incendiary when I’m manic. I surround myself with candles; I cultivate friends with fireplaces; and I simply love to watch things burn. I’ll stand for hours, plucking strands of hair from my head and tossing them onto the stove just to see them sizzle. That night I stared so long into the flame that Rick had to reach out and snatch the match from my hand.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said.

“It’s because of the manic depression, isn’t it?” I said.

He glanced away, just for a second. “The truth is, you seem so much better these days, like a whole different person,” he said. “But….”

“But?”

“But I’m still waiting to see if it’s real.”

When you’re manic, your mind is running so fast that you can easily envision alternate endings to any given moment. So I could see myself standing up and storming out of the restaurant. I could see myself sitting quietly and smiling rather sadly. And I could see myself thrusting my hand into the candle flame and saying, “You want real? I’ll show you real.”

Although I wanted a dramatic release, I settled for the Mona Lisa smile. My mind had already jumped ten steps ahead: if I could just fool Rick into thinking everything was okay, maybe I could convince him to let me go for a walk alone after we left the restaurant. I knew that I couldn’t face a hotel bed, not now, not with his rejection still quivering between us.

After the check came, I told Rick that I was going to take a quick walk along the park between our hotel and the sea. “It’s after eleven,” he said. “I’ll be just a few steps away,” I reassured him. “Besides, the park is well patrolled.” All of La Jolla is well patrolled. He reluctantly agreed, as long as I was back before midnight.

I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Across the park was a series of steps that led directly down to a cove, protected on all three sides by sheer rock. I wanted to feel the cool, wet sand against my feet, so I kicked off my heels, and made my way across the stretch of grass that separates La Jolla proper from the sea.

“Do Not Enter. Danger. Riptide” read the wooden sign at the top of the steps. No one was around. I ducked under the chain, past the sign and down the mist-slick steps to the beach. Maintaining my balance was a constant struggle. I was finally forced to stop at one point and remove my panty hose. I left them on a nearby outcropping of rock, then I continued all the way down to the beach.

It was just as I had remembered it: vicious, lonely, the kind of place where pirates would have hidden their treasure or ravished their maidens. There was only a tiny strip of sand to stand on, and even from there, it was impossible not to get wet. It looked like the tide was rising; but what did I care, I was here. I stepped into the freezing water. Within minutes, my feet were completely numb. I didn’t notice the cold anymore. I didn’t even notice the wet. My feet had completely ceased to exist.

What if? a voice in my head kept asking, tugging at me like the tide. What if all of you were blessedly numb? What if your mind didn’t always think, think, think?

I looked up at the sky. It was a clear, starry night, with an exquisite Van Gogh kind of brilliance. Well, I was sick of the exquisite brilliance of madness. I wanted simple and sane. Barring that, I wanted nothing. I wanted numb. Lifting my petticoats as high as I could, I stepped in further and let the water wash over my knees and thighs. The pain was searing. I forced myself to stand rock still until the pain gave way to nothing at all.

What if? I slipped my dress up over my head and threw it onto the rocks. I slipped off my bra and panties, too, and flung them up there as well. Naked, I stepped into the surf.

Crash! A wave assaulted me from the left. I staggered, slipped, then found my footing. Crash! Another wave hit me from the right, knocking me off balance and sending me into the water. It wouldn’t be long until I was thoroughly numb. I just had to stay upright long enough to let the cold work its way through me.

It never even occurred to me just to lie back and let the water have its way with me. That would have been suicide, and I didn’t necessarily want to be dead, just dormant for a while. I had to escape. Manic feelings are sometimes so brutally strong it seems like there is no way to endure them. To me, there was nothing crazy about immersing myself in a freezing riptide at a quarter till midnight. Crazy would have been continuing to feel the way I did.

So we danced together, the tide and I. I began to relax into the ocean’s rhythm: the boom-and-swish, boom-and-swish percussion of the waves. My eyelids grew heavy, and a drowsy warmth began to move through my body. My head started nodding, my eyes kept closing, and I found myself slipping deeper into the tide’s embrace. We danced together as one now, the only dance my body knew, the only dance I’d ever known…the riptide tango: three steps forward, three steps forward, two steps back.

The water was up to my chin, and I was actually starting to get scared. I wanted to go back to the strip of beach, but the little beach was no longer there. There was nothing but water now, all around me—and in the distance, on an outcropping of rock, a glimpse of my green silk evening gown, flapping wildly in the breeze.

And then the most extraordinary thing happened. The stars came loose from their moorings and started chasing one another across the sky. One by one they shot through the night, trailing arcs of shimmering silver behind them. For a brief spectacular moment, the entire sky was afire, like a giant’s birthday cake. Then the sky was extinguished and the darkness reclaimed its own.

I knew there was probably a simple explanation for what I had just seen, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was in the mood for messages: I wanted to believe that what had just happened meant something. I couldn’t imagine what that might be. Between the surf and the chattering of my teeth, it was simply too noisy to concentrate. All I could think was, thank God I didn’t blink. And maybe that was the message all along: Don’t blink, never blink, or you’ll miss the whole show.