The Weight of Zero (5 page)

I text back: “Can I see it tomorrow?”

My phone vibrates with his next text. “Sure! Can you stay after school tomorrow? Go over research?”

Jeez. We got this assignment ten hours ago. And it's not due till the end of the year.

Michael texts again: “Just a few minutes, nothing major
”

Despite the smiley face, I am sensing one major pain in the ass. I mentally remove Michael from my list as the number one candidate for L.V.

Another Michael text: “Forget that. I have Gamers Club. How is Wednesday?”

I'm tempted to text back: “Afternoons no good. At St. Anne's intensive outpatient program mon-fri for foreseeable future.
Available evenings and weekends.” Instead I type: “after school no good.” Then I type: “job.”

Michael responds with: “How about lunch? Will only take 5.”

Before I can respond, he texts: “Where do you sit in caf?”

I don't. I avoid the cafeteria. I hide out in the library, avoiding the catcalls from the dementors who surround Olivia and Riley. I don't know what to say to Michael's question. How do you tell someone you have no friends? Or that you have no lunch table, and every day, you eat in your favorite cubby alone?

I shut off my phone.

“Cath, honey?” Mom calls from the kitchen.

I zip the phone into my backpack and head to the kitchen for the nightly ritual.

Mom stands beside the chipped Formica countertop. One hand holds a tall glass of water and in her other hand's palm sits my tan pill. It's Lamictal time. This pill has one of the stranger shapes, like a badge or a shield. Intentional irony by the drug company? I can hear the pitch:
When you're battling depression, shield yourself with…[trumpets blare] LAMICTAL!

Dr. McCallum made some bold moves when I switched to him in June following the Mediterranean cruise debacle. He axed the Prozac Dr. A had prescribed, cold turkey, and urged lithium. Dr. A had also prescribed lithium in the summer following my freshman year, after a weird episode when I basically wanted to paint the outside of our two-story house. By myself. Not exactly a full-blown mania but screwed-up enough to clue Dr. A into thinking that a new prescription for lithium might be “helpful.” Mom stalled on filling it, waiting until September of sophomore year. I was only on it for a week before swallowing the entire bottle. Mom blamed lithium for my suicide attempt and forbade any more prescriptions for it. When Dr. McCallum took over, he wanted me back on it. But even Pope McCallum couldn't convince her. They compromised with a new prescription for Abilify.

Once I was pretty stable, Dr. McCallum weaned me off that too. But due to increasing irritability (thanks, Mom), Dr. McCallum prescribed Lamictal for depression. That was over three weeks ago, and Mom, of course, was and is a wreck. She said she's just worried because Dr. McCallum told us of a possible rare allergic reaction to Lamictal—a mother of a rash.

“Stevens-Johnson syndrome,” Dr. McCallum had said. “Catherine would have to be hospitalized. I've never come across it, but we'll start her out at a very low dose, twenty-five milligrams, and work our way up over a five-week period to about two hundred, two hundred fifty, maybe three hundred milligrams.”

Mom had objected, saying that Dr. A had never prescribed Lamictal. Why take such a risk?

Dr. McCallum had grudgingly agreed to the no-lithium rule for the time being, but that was the extent of his med negotiations with Mom. With a firm nod, he had said to her, “I've had some really good outcomes with it, Jody.” Then he focused his attention on me. Unlike Dr. A, Dr. McCallum always makes a point to include me in the discussions about my health. “I'm confident the Lamictal will help stabilize your mood, Catherine,” he said. “And more important, it won't make it worse. But because we have to raise the dose gradually over five weeks, you shouldn't expect to wake up one day and suddenly realize you're no longer depressed. Instead, if you respond like most kids, after six to eight weeks you'll slowly notice that you don't get as down as before, or that little things that used to irritate you no longer seem as big of a deal.”

So Mom was overruled and I began Lamictal. And every night, after I swallow the pill with a rush of cold water, Mom inspects my arms and legs for the rash that has yet to make an appearance. Her brows knit together as she leans in close, eyes running the length of my arms, legs and back. But her extraordinary inspection skills are about more than some itchy red bumps. I know my mother. This new prescription is undeniable proof that things are not fine with her daughter. It's confirmation that Zero could circle again. Time to buckle your seat belt, Jody.

Mom returns the Lamictal bottle to the large pink-and-black polka-dot makeup bag that contains all the house medicine like Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol along with my personalized goodies. Ever since my attempt a year ago, she carries that bag with her, inside an enormous purse, day in and day out. Obviously, this makes it much harder for me to recruit new troops for my shoe box.

Luckily, I began collecting my current stockpile that eighth-grade summer, in my strange and misguided attempt at a tribute to Grandma's own pill-bottle collection. I didn't use them on the first Saturday of September, sophomore year, when Zero sucked me dry. When Zero bore down, I chose lithium, whose element-y name alone screamed its alpha position in the psychopharmaceutical pecking order.

Post-attempt, everything changed. All pills remain under lockdown in the traveling polka-dot bag. I haven't been able to stockpile any newbie Lamictal yet. Mom insists on hanging out with me for at least a half hour after I take it so she can watch for allergic reactions, and even if I didn't swallow it, the damn thing dissolves in my mouth anyhow.

Mom follows me into my room to give me a good-night kiss. “Number?” she asks, her hand ruffling my hair.

“Six. Six and a half.”

“Okay, babe. Pretty stable, I think. Right?” Her eyes, shadowed in black, beg me to agree that yes, I am stable.

I want her to sleep well tonight. “Yeah,” I lie.

She shuffles out and I wait until the silence from her room falls like a thick blanket. Ever so gently, I shut my door. After spending the weekend in Grandma's room, my shoe box is back under my bed. I pull it out and feel immediate relief just touching the cool, smooth plastic of the bottles. I stare at them in their line, and their presence quiets that falsetto
“Cuckoo, cuckoo”
that has echoed in my head throughout the day. Riley's laughter. The shock and pity in Michael's eyes. The dark hallway to Room Three. Vanessa's long brown hair. Mom's gray roots.

Everything will be okay, my soldiers tell me. We're here.

Oh God. It's Tuesday and Day One at St. Anne's. The waiting room is filled with five other kids—two girls and three boys. No Kristal. Shit. Maybe she dropped out already.

I recognize one of the kids, a boy from grammar and middle school, Thomas Reardon. Everybody called him Lil' Tommy because he was always the tiniest thing, barely reaching the shortest kid's shoulder. Even in middle school, the girls would pick him up and carry him around. He catches my eye and waves. I give a short nod and look away quickly but it's too late. He plants himself in front of me, head tilted up, his Harry Potter–like glasses reflecting the overhead fluorescents.

“Hey, Catherine,” Lil' Tommy says. “Funny meeting you here. Ha ha.”

Poor kid has grown maybe an inch since eighth grade, so I'm a sumo wrestler next to him. Puberty hasn't laid a hormonal finger on him yet—his face is still downy smooth.

“Hi, Tom,” I say.

“First day, right?” he asks. “Nervous? Don't be. This is a really cool group of kids. You at Cranbury High?” Without waiting for a reply, he says, “I'm at St. Joe's.”

Smart move for Lil' Tommy to be at the all-boys Catholic high school in New Haven. He would be eaten alive at Cranbury.

The door at the end of the hall swings open and a woman around Mom's age appears on the threshold. She's got on high-waisted mom jeans, possibly bought before they became “in” again, a short-sleeve sweater and flats. Her frizzy blond hair is pulled into a short ponytail. She calls out cheerily, “Hi, everyone! C'mon in!”

Room Three is open for business. My heart thuds heavily in my chest.

We head down the hall and into a large room. As I pass the woman in the doorway, she pats my arm. “Welcome, Catherine. I'm Sandy. I'm a clinician, and I'll be running our group.”

Four sofas arranged in a square take up most of the room. There's a large coffee table in the middle, and a long table with a couple of folding chairs hugs the wall with the large picture window. The two girls, after eyeing me warily, snag one of the sofas. Lil' Tommy and the two other boys take another sofa. The sofa with a pile of clipboards appears reserved for Sandy. So it's just Catherine Pulaski, stranded like a shipwrecked sailor yet again, on the last island.

“Everyone, let's welcome Catherine to the group,” Sandy announces as she sits down. “Why don't we all introduce ourselves?”

Lil' Tommy shouts out, “We already know each other! We went to the same grade school and junior high. Right, Catherine?”

I nod and attempt a smile, but my mouth is dry and my lips snag on my teeth.

The stocky Hispanic boy outfitted head to toe in Red Sox gear alongside Lil' Tommy talks next. “I'm John. Hi.”

The other boy, a blond stoner in a black hoodie and skinny jeans, gives the bare minimum. “Garrett.”

It's the girls' turn. They look at each other and stay silent.

Sandy turns to Thing One and Thing Two. “Is there a problem?” she asks, her tone indicating that no shit will be tolerated in our happy little group.

“Uh,” Thing One with the long blond hair starts, “I'm Alexis.”

The uglier, scrawny, brown-haired Thing Two stares at me, and I'm amazed at the size of her head. It's ginormous, somehow balanced on a pencil neck that juts out of a huge, thick, long-sleeve sweatshirt. She's a human bobblehead. Finally, she asks, “Did you go to cheerleading camp? For girls starting high school? At Laurelton Park? You're a junior now, right?” Her mouth forms an almost snarl.

“Um…yeah,” I say. I hated that camp. I didn't even like cheerleading, but Mom had signed me up to get me out of the house, shake me out of my “funk.” Grandma had died only a few weeks earlier.

In front of me.

I blink hard. “Do you go to Cranbury?” I ask.

“No, we go to Immaculate Conception,” Thing One/Alexis answers. With something resembling a smile.

Lil' Tommy bursts out laughing. “That never gets old!
Immaculate
conception? Classic organized-religion bullshit!” He sits straight up on the sofa, his little Docksides barely scraping the floor. “Am I right?”

Thing Two snaps at him, “What? You have to tell that same joke like once a week?”

In a surprising show of solidarity with Lil' Tommy, Garrett says, “Good one, little man.” He raises his fist for a bump but they stop, fists apart about an inch, and make no contact. An air–fist bump.

Huh. I assumed Garrett the stoner would be too cool to partake of the festivities here inside the four walls of St. Anne's.

Sandy shakes her head. “C'mon, guys. Rule number one—
respect
!”

Alexis makes eye contact with me, smiles and points to her ridiculous sweatpants, the ones with the word
PINK
emblazoned across the ass. “We change out of our uniform before we come here.”

Thing Two, aka Bobblehead, stays silent in her sweats.

“We go to Cranbury,” John volunteers, adjusting his Sox cap. “Me and Garrett. I'm a sophomore and Garrett's a senior.”

I nod while simultaneously launching a silent prayer:
Please, God, let us never run into each other at school.

Garrett slides down the sofa as he stretches out his legs, his hood falling farther over his head. “You catch a ride here or something?”

“My mother drives me,” I say.

Sandy pops to her feet, clipboards in hand. “All right, let's get to the diary cards.” She passes out the clipboards; when she gets to me, I see a manila folder with my name on it. “Let me know if you have any questions about it, Catherine,” Sandy says. “These are not shared with the group. Vanessa reviews it and follows up with you in her office if you want to discuss anything.”

Everyone is opening their manila folder and getting poised to write with the pen from the clipboard. Inside my folder is a sheet of paper mysteriously titled “DBT Diary Card.” I still have no idea what DBT stands for. Don't Bullshit Them? The paper has a grid with the days of the week running across the top and a list of ten emotions ranging from “angry/irritable” to “good/happy” down the left column. We're supposed to fill in how we feel for each emotion using a number scale (0 = extremely low; 9 = very high). I'm a pro at fraudulent reporting, having all that excellent practice with Mom every night. I fill in a six and a seven on the two positive emotions and for the negative ones (like “empty/alone,” “disconnected/unreal” and the tricky “ambivalent”), I score them low—ones or twos.

Catherine Pulaski is doing swell according to her DBT Diary Card.

On the bottom of the sheet, it's fill-in-the-blank time for the phrase: “Today I felt an urge to…” This box is a little more serious because it wants the number of times you thought about self-harm and the number of times you acted on those thoughts. It also asks for the stats on your drinking, drug use, bingeing and purging, or “other” (you fill in the blank with your own personal poison). The final question asks whether you need to speak to a clinician today and provides a yes-or-no check box. I fill in all zeros, of course, and check “no” on the speaking to anyone.

Me and my shoe box troops are just fine, thank you very much.

Sandy collects the forms and Vanessa walks in. Her hair is pulled into a gorgeous high pony and she's got on capris and a cute sleeveless shirt. After a friendly hello, she grabs our folders. The boys' eyes follow her as she glides out the door.

Sandy sits back on the sofa, crossing her legs. “Okay, today's topic is bullying. Have you been targeted? What happened? How did you handle it?”

Lil' Tommy immediately raises his hand. “Can I start? Okay, you guys all know that I get picked on for my size.” The sofa crew nods sympathetically and Lil' Tommy continues, “So today, I'm in the boys' room, you know, doing my thing. Scrubbing away. It's right before lunch, no big deal. People are supposed to wash their hands before lunch, right? So this big asshole comes up to me and starts cursing that I'm taking too long, what's my problem, lunch is gonna be over by the time I'm done, the other sink's broke, whatever. And then”—Lil' Tommy's voice cracks and his eyes water—“the fucker picks me up—
picks me up
—and moves me aside. I wasn't even finished!”

Sympathetic murmurs come from the girls and John shakes his head while Garrett growls, “Asshole. Sorry about that, dude.”

“How did you feel, Tom?” Sandy asks slowly. “When he did that?”

I want to say, “Duh, Sandy, how do you think he felt?” but Tommy answers like it's a valid question.

“Like complete shit,” he says, his hands rubbing the tops of his thighs over and over. “Worthless. I…I missed lunch. It took me so long to finish washing my hands.”

Tommy must be OCD, probably with a germ phobia, if that air–fist bump with Garrett means anything. Tommy's little-kid hands are bright red, chapped and raw from the relentless onslaught of soap and hot water. I should've recognized it before. My roommate in the hospital had OCD.

“That's rough,” Sandy says. “I understand how upsetting that was for you. I'm sorry that happened.”

And then, starting with John and traveling around the circle, everyone says to Tommy, “I'm sorry that happened,” or some other version of it. I say, “I'm sorry, Tom.”

Tommy nods, already recovering his composure. His hands stop their nervous travel up and down his legs. “Thanks, guys.”

“I want to get to anyone else who wants to share, but first let's talk about Tom's situation,” Sandy says. “Any suggestions on how to handle it? How to avoid it or defuse it?”

Just then, the door swings open. It's Kristal. Looking stunning in a miniskirt, copper metallic flats and belted tank top. I feel sloppy in my denim shorts and T-shirt from Old Navy. Kristal shakes her head and mumbles, “Sorry.” Then she sees me on the sofa and makes a beeline straight to the empty spot beside me. The ten silver bangles on her wrist sing noisily as she sits. “Hey,” she whispers. “You made it.”

I'm about to whisper back, “Unfortunately,” but Thing Two whines loudly at Kristal, “Group starts at three,” as her bobblehead shakes back and forth, threatening to snap her neck.

Kristal snaps, “I'm coming all the way from Chapman. I can't get here any faster.”

Chapman. The expensive private school for the area's most elite families. A pipeline to Yale and the other Ivies. It's all the way in Hampton, on the other side of New Haven, a good half hour's drive from here. A girl from my junior high got accepted there and that whole spring of eighth grade she wore only Chapman shirts and sweats. It's a ticket to the good life.

Sandy raises a hand to Thing Two. “That's enough, Amy,” she says. “If you have an issue, you'll need to say it in terms of how
you
feel, okay? No attacks. This is a safe zone.” Sandy turns to Kristal. “Welcome, Kristal. We're glad you're here.”

And as with our apologies to Tom, we go around the circle like pre-K robots and say hi or hello to Kristal. Unaware that we met yesterday, Sandy makes a point of introducing me to Kristal. When it's Thing Two's turn, she says, “I'm sorry. It's just that when you…
I
sort of lose focus when you…when people come in late.” Her huge head dips down as if that neck is getting fatigued. “It, like, disrupts stuff.”

Kristal nods and asks Thing Two defiantly, “What's your name again?”

Thing Two takes a second, sizing up the room's altered dynamic now that Kristal is here, realizing that maybe she'll be dislodged from the alpha girl spot. Then she says, “I'm Amy.”

Kristal says, “Well, I'd hate to disrupt
Amy's
therapy. Maybe I shouldn't come here. I doubt I can make it any earlier.” And it's clear she likes this idea because a smile spreads across her face. She catches my eye and winks.

Sandy shakes her head. “We'll work something out, Kristal. We want you here. Now, we were discussing an incident that happened to Tom today.” Sandy gives a quick summary of Tommy's bodily ejection from the restroom sink. What follows is a free-for-all of advice coming from Garrett, John and the Immaculate Conception girls that ranges from bringing a bigger bottle of Purell to finding a new bathroom.