Walking on Broken Glass (9 page)

Could I survive a month on Nutty Buddies? Maybe rehab was a blessing in disguise. Sobriety and weight loss. Double-teaming the addictions. A real two-for-one. Grams would be so proud I had scored such a deal.

I settled for two buttermilk biscuits with strawberry jelly, and warm orange juice with what I hoped was pulp clinging to the sides of the glass. Cathryn and I sat at a table for four in the corner of the cafeteria. Floor to ceiling panels of glass were evenly spaced between wide stucco columns. On one side of the room, diners could look beyond the glass into a wide semicircle of bushy purple azaleas. They surrounded a three-tiered pineapple-topped cement fountain flanked by black wrought-iron benches. On each side of the garden, red brick walkways wove through manicured sections of crepe myrtle trees, small magnolias, Mexican heather, and eager sunflowers. No evidence a frenzied world lurked beyond the landscaped perimeter.

“Finish eating. I’m going to ask Dr. Rizzuto to escort everyone upstairs,” said Cathryn. She walked over to a wiry-haired man whose white lab coat hung from an inverse hourglass body. He scraped his leftovers into a deep plastic bin, gave her a thumbs-up, and ambled over to the group's table.

“Okay, folks. Make sure you don’t leave anything behind. We’ll head back up and have time for a smoke break.” Maybe I should start smoking. Even the intense sun, soggy humidity, and suffocating cigarette smoke would have provided a welcome break from the stale air inside.

I stared at the human mishmash as they shuffled plates and chairs on their way out of the cafeteria. They discarded me, a broken toy on their playground. I was either an untouchable or invisible.

“Don’t you worry, honey,” my mother consoled me from the heavens. “They may be ignoring you, but remember God's always awake.”

Well, Mom, today was one of His narcoleptic days.

I shifted my attention to Cathryn, who had refilled her coffee cup. She slid into a chair and launched into my agenda items for the next two days, none of which included recess. At the end of the those forty-eight hours, we’d have another chat about my schedule of individual and group therapies, phone and visiting privileges, weekend releases, occupational therapy, and mandatory on- and off-site AA meeting attendance.

“So, how are you feeling? And spare me the ‘I’m fine.’ I know you’re not.” She sipped her coffee and waited.

“I’m not fine. I don’t even know what fine means anymore.” I knew what it used to be, long ago and far away. I checked Cathryn's hands. No engagement ring or wedding band. Maybe she won’t even understand what comes next. “Some things, some parts of my life I’m, um, not missing at all.”

Coffee cup down. Eyebrows up.

“Really, I mean that. It's hard to explain. Well, not hard to explain. I guess I never had to explain it. But, anyway, I’m scared to be here, but I’m scared not to be here. Then I have these gigantic headaches and a three-ring circus going on in my stomach.” I took a break from talking and twisted my paper napkin around the empty orange juice glass. I had to be careful. I already sensed a trickle in the floodwall I had so carefully constructed. If I said too much, I couldn’t contain the breach. It would unleash an uncontrollable emotional torrent.

I took a deep breath. “I feel bad for Carl. It's not like he asked for any of this. I just dumped all this stuff in his lap and ran here. He called my dad because I just couldn’t do it. And what's he supposed to tell our friends and neighbors when they ask where I am? Like poor Mr. Rossner at the end of our block, who started a petition to ask the network for a Houston CSI. By the end of the month, he’ll suspect Carl's buried me in the backyard.” There. Good word play. End on a grin. I’d run out of dry napkins to twist, so I stacked the little gold tin jelly containers.

Cathryn slid her empty coffee cup to the side.

“Well, has he? Has Carl buried you?”

“Would I be here if he had?”

I stacked and restacked, knowing if I stopped I might get careless and vulnerable. I stayed focused by making sure I placed the grape jelly squarely on top of the boysenberry. Cathryn gazed at the top of my head for quite some time. She’d probably already figured out I dyed my hair.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe that's a question you’ll have to answer eventually … with someone else. I’m not a therapist. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

I scrinched my mouth to trap the wicked snicker behind my teeth. Her Pee Wee League definition of uncomfortable couldn’t run on the same field with Carl's Professional Leaguers. I swallowed and mumbled, “Not at all.”

I unstacked the jellies and arranged them in alphabetical order. Apple, boysenberry, grape, raspberry, strawberry. I’m far too entertained by these things. But how else was I supposed to distract myself? I didn’t really want to talk, and I honestly didn’t want to be talked to. I returned the little boxes to the basket and looked at Cathryn.

“Carl will figure out what to do,” she said. “He was given some ideas last night after we brought you to the unit. You have to trust this is where you’re supposed to be. The universe has a way of accommodating even our most unexpected plans.”

“The universe accommodating me?” I asked. “It's about time. I’ve been accommodating the universe for most of my life. For somebody who isn’t a therapist that sounds like a lot of psychobabble.”

She laughed. “I guess you can’t work here for five years and not pick up some babble,” she said. “Universe later … you now. What do you need?”

“Today, I need to know that whatever I eat won’t make an encore,” I told her.

“And I want a drink. When am I going to not want a drink?”

Journal 5

I learned long ago to use compliance and submission to save myself. That to say no only postponed the inevitable. His demands,
his accusations, or worse, his sickening pleas for solitary relief all led to revulsion.

I’d wake some nights, terrified by the crushing reality of the nightmare, by its unrelenting physical closeness. But sometimes it was not a nightmare. I ’d awake to his weight pressing on me, his hands groping under my clothes, which I often slept in as an irrational defense. None of it mattered—clothes, no clothes. He would be on top of me, and his goal was not ever waking me up—awake, asleep—like the clothes, they weren’t an issue. He wanted a body on which to press his own. I could feel even the mattress beneath me surrender to him.

There would be no stopping until he was spent. He never asked if I was awake. He didn’t speak. He wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it, and how. I pleaded. He pushed. I cried.

I remembered how my cousins would ambush me in the pool, knowing I couldn’t really swim. They would shove my head underwater and howl when I struggled. The harder I fought, the louder and deeper their laughter.

I used those lessons on those nights. I learned to perform—to act as if none of it mattered.

I
spent the day like a human boomerang and traveled from one office back to the central station on the floor only to be sent out to yet another office. A seriously flawed system, it seemed, for psychological assessments.

While I schlepped around, subjected to everything from blood work to brain busters, I missed lunch. I headed back to the floor to alert Cathryn. I stepped off the elevator, but as I walked to the central station, I saw that I’d have to wait for her attention.

She and another woman, but one taller and wider, played tug-of-war over a backpack. The woman's hair looked like it had been caught in a blender. Wild strands poked out in every direction, some of them weighted down with colored beads woven on the ends. I definitely wouldn’t want to tangle with her. I stopped and debated if I should hang out in my room until the quiet signaled the storm had blown over. But I’d experienced enough hurricanes in New Orleans to know the eye of the storm seduced people into a false sense of security. My empty stomach growled, so I’d have to tolerate the drama if I wanted food.

“Theresa, the information we sent detailed exactly what you couldn’t bring here,” said Cathryn.

“It did not say anything about laptops. No cell phone, no iPods. That's all. Nothing about laptops.” Theresa wore enough rings, chains, and bracelets to stock a boutique jewelry store. Each back and forth tug between the two elicited a chorus of clinks and clanks on her wrists. Her well-ringed hands gripped one bag strap while Cathryn clenched the other. I wanted these women with me at Macy's One Day Sales.

I figured one or both of them would soon surrender, and I could resolve this hunger issue. My stomach now sounded like a small lawnmower. But I’d underestimated Theresa's persistence.

“Look, Miss, I know you have a job to do, but I don’t see how this laptop's a problem. Like I said, the brochure didn’t say I couldn’t have one.”

“It didn’t say you could,” said Cathryn. Her eyes bored tiny holes in Theresa's head.

“King Solomon had an answer for this,” I said and realized, too late, the sounds I heard had spilled out of my own mouth.

Theresa turned to look at me, and, in that moment of surprise, Cathryn swooped in for the kill, pulled the bag toward her, and then shoved it under the counter.

A few seconds of incomprehensible language later, Theresa focused her attention on me.

“Or maybe not.” I told her.

Now that we were face-to-face, Theresa's youth surprised me. And the Egyptian-like application of her black eyeliner mesmerized me. She pointed one of her cherry red fingernail daggers at my nose. Her bracelets provided background music, “Girl, who asked you to jam your way into my business? Huh? Does this concern you? No. It's your fault that lady got hold of my laptop.” She showered the space between us with sprays of spit as she ranted.

As flattered as I may have been that Theresa thought I qualified as a girl, I realized I might need to stay clear of her for a few days. My hunger prevented me from being intimidated, but I knew my alter ego, Patty Peace at any Price, would have to find a way to smooth this over. Later.

I rocked back and forth, my heel-to-toe distress lullaby, and contemplated the next step. Cathryn chimed in and solved the problem for me.

“Leah, meet Theresa, your roommate. Theresa,” Cathryn grinned with perverse delight. “Leah checked in yesterday. I’m sure she won’t mind showing you to your room, right Leah?”

“Why do people here always ask me questions they either already know the answers to or don’t care to know the answers to?”

Cathryn moved from behind the counter and took the file I held from my marathon of tests. Theresa stomped over to her, her hair beads bouncing like small marbles. A few beads almost swatted Cathryn in the face. “I can’t believe I’m supposed to share a room with Miss Goody Two-Shoes here. She already got me ripped off once. What? You want she should spy on me? This some kind of joke?”

I knew Cathryn didn’t have the capacity for this sort of humor. Theresa and I were doomed.

“I will chew chunks of sheetrock off this wall if I don’t get something to eat soon. Can we postpone this fight until after lunch?” I looked at the clock. Lunch for everyone else ended two hours ago. I tried not to stare at Theresa, who struggled with a wedgie in her abundant stonewashed jeans.

“Yeah,” said Theresa, “I didn’t know them people downstairs wanted to talk so much. I never ate. Where's girly-girl here gonna eat? And don’t give me no ice cream. I want real food.”

So, Theresa already knew about the ice cream. Hmmm. But before I had time to contemplate Theresa's familiarity with rehab, the elevator thumped to the floor, and the morning crew streamed out the open doors and made their way to the rec room.

As the foursome passed us, Theresa yelped and plowed her way over to Doug. His back to her, he never saw her propel herself in his direction. She surrounded his scrawny waist with her spongy arms and squeezed. Any more enthusiasm in that maneuver, he could have belched out a whole chicken. Doug emitted a loud primal grunt and yelled, “What the—”

Theresa released him. “Doug, my man! It's the Mexican Mama! Can you believe this? Both of us back here. How many round trips this make for you, Alkie?”

Doug readjusted his pants, which Theresa had swiveled around his body. “You won’t make too many more if you keep that up. How many of the family jewels you pawned this time?”

How touching. A reunion.