Raw Deal (Beauty for Ashes: Book One) (16 page)

Michelle gave me a dirty look but didn’t reply.

We all sat there silently. Sandy was texting someone, Michelle was in a foul mood, and Monica had spaced out. The atmosphere at the table was pretty dismal.

“Well, I’m with Jace now,” I announced. They all looked up. They liked to talk about guys. “We’re going to Chicco’s tomorrow. Do any of you want to double date?”

“I’m going to see a therapist,” Monica said. She frowned, “Oh, yeah, I broke up with Hayden, so we couldn’t double date anyway. I’m single.”

Was it a cause for concern when someone forgot whether or not they were single? “Cheer up, you guys,” I groaned.

“We didn’t get into your agency,” Sandy said dropping her phone into her Dior purse. “That’s why they’re down. As for me, I didn’t really care too much about it.” Sandy removed a drug packet from her purse. She popped a yellow pill from the packet and knocked it back with her water.

“What’s that about?” I asked.

“Iron tablets,” she explained. “I’m anemic.”

I didn’t ask, lest I be accused of being ignorant again. I made a mental note to Google it later. I needed to Google Jewish people too.

Sandy sighed. “I guess we have to do our finals.” She stuffed her iron tablets into her purse.

“I wonder what I did wrong,” Monica said.

“For me, I think it was nerves,” Michelle said. “I know I didn’t walk very well. How are you supposed to act normal with all those people watching?”

“Since when do you care about people watching you?” Monica sneered.

Michelle turned on her. “What does that mean?”

“That you love being the center of attention.”

I quickly cut in, steering the conversation back to modeling before a war broke out in the cafeteria. “It’s definitely hard to relax if you’re not used to it,” I said. “But you just have to do whatever works for you. For me, I just think happy thoughts and imagine good things.”

“Like?” Sandy asked.

“I dunno. Anything that makes me happy.”

“Like what?”

“My dad. He always used to say I’m just as good as any of the big models out there. That totally makes me lighten up.”

“Is your dad, um—” Sandy began carefully.

“Yeah.” My cell phone rang, and I snatched it up in embarrassment. My ringtone was a disgraceful pre-set tone. It was Sheena at my agency; she wanted to give me a booking for January. It was a photoshoot for a line of Poko Pano swimwear. My mom would freak out, but I took the details anyway. She couldn’t freak out about what I didn’t tell her. All eyes were on me when I hung up.

“Was that a modeling job?” Michelle asked.

I nodded.

“How come you can be a model and we can’t?” she huffed. “What have you got that we haven’t?”

I shrugged. “I guess it just depends on what they want at the time.” I decided to change the subject. “What are you guys doing this weekend? Anything good?”

“I told you I’m going to see a therapist and it totally just went over your head,” Monica said. Her eyes welled up.

I passed her a napkin. “What are you going for? Are you okay?”

“Monica, are you crying?” Michelle asked. She snorted. “You’re not the only one with problems, okay? So get over it! You always act like the world owes you something, but guess what? That’s life; everyone gets shortchanged. You just have to make the best of it, instead of crying like a total wuss.”

That was rich coming from Michelle.

“Are you okay, Monica?” I asked.

Michelle stood up “I’m going home.” She gave Monica a dirty look. “Some of us have real problems. Okay, so your dad’s crazy, and violent, and psychotic. It could be worse.”

Monica got up and walked around the table. She lunged at Michelle. Luckily, Michelle was able to move out of her way quickly, sending her chair clattering to the floor.

“Cut it out,” I yelled, jumping between them. By now, other kids in the cafeteria were looking at us. Monica tried to get past me, but I held her back.

“Yeah, and you’re just like him, you violent psycho!” Michelle spat.

“Shut up, Michelle!” I couldn’t believe what was going on. Were these girls crazy? I was glad when Michelle picked up her chair and Monica returned to her seat.

“Honestly, you guys need therapy,” Sandy said, “some serious medical attention.”

“Yeah, well I have a counseling session tomorrow,” Monica grated. “Actually, I’m not sure if I’m going.”

“You have to go Monica,” I said.

“Yeah, you need help,” Michelle muttered under her breath.

Monica didn’t react. “Will you come with me, Lexi?”

“I have a date with Jace, remember?”

Monica looked slightly hurt, but she didn’t say anything. I felt guilty. She started shredding the napkin I’d passed her. I noticed her hands were shaking.

“I guess I could cancel.” I really wanted to go to Chicco’s though. Darn it! I was a good friend. When Monica was with Liam, she’d never canceled on him to hang out with me.

Sandy reached over and hugged Monica. “I’ll come too.”

Michelle looked thoughtful for a moment. “So will I,” she said resignedly.

“Lexi, I really want you to come with me,” Monica said.

“Okay.”

“And I don’t want you out in the waiting room. Come into the consultation with me.”

So I canceled my date with Jace, and the next evening I accompanied my friends to see a psychotherapist.

Chapter 17

Dr. Paula was a middle-aged woman, who wore a blank expression on her face all the time, except for when we arrived and she realized there were four of us and not one as she’d expected.

She tried to get us to have individual sessions, but we insisted on seeing her together. She complied and led us into the room that she used for group exercises. We each took a chair.

“I sense a lot of negative energy,” Dr. Paula told us, crossing toothpick legs. “Why don’t we take it in turns to let out all that bad energy and see whether that helps?”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Oh, I’ll go first then,” Sandy said. She told us about her anemia. It made her too weak to do any sports or go to the gym, and she was often breathless and suffered from severe headaches. She’d had two blood transfusions in the last three years, and she’d almost died once when she went mountain climbing.

Sheesh! I tried not to stare at her, but I was totally stunned. She didn’t look ill at all.

Dr. Paula asked her whether her family was supportive. Sandy said they were, but that she felt like a liability to them.

Next Michelle told us about how she felt like a failure and how some mornings she woke up and felt so rubbish that she drank beer to make her feel better. She was stammering and stuttering, and Dr. Paula told her to calm down. Michelle looked embarrassed and said she wasn’t saying anything anymore, but Dr. Paula managed to coax the story out of her with a few articulate questions. By the time Michelle was finished, she was crying. Dr. Paula had her recite: ‘I’ve confessed. I’ve let it out. I am healed.’ five times. Then Dr. Paula smiled at me and told me it was my turn.

“I don’t really have anything to say,” I replied. “I’m just here to be supportive to my friends.”

Dr. Paula smiled an annoyingly patient smile. “Everyone has dormant pain of some sort. Think hard.”

“I don’t have any dormant pain.”

“Tell her about your dad,” Michelle encouraged.

Even Dr. Paula’s smile was expressionless. “Yes, tell me about your dad.”

“He’s dead,” I said shortly.

“When did he die?”

“In February.”

“How did he die?”

I was determined that Dr. Paula was not going to succeed in getting my life story out of me like she had with Sandy and Michelle. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

I was surprised when she let me off the hook. “We’ll let your fresh wound heal, and then a few months down the line when it’s a good hard scab, we’ll dig it up. It’ll be less painful then,” she said.

I wasn’t sure I liked her analogy. Besides, this was the first and the last time she was going to see me, so there would be no digging up of anything a few months down the line.

She smiled at Monica and asked her what was troubling her. I was surprised at how honest Monica was. She didn’t seem to care that me, Michelle, and Sandy were there. She talked about her stepdad and how she hated him. She also said that she sometimes hated her mom for not being strong and leaving him.

“You’re using very strong words,” Dr. Paula pointed out. “Is hate really the right word, or do you mean ‘dislike’?”

“Hate is the right word,” Monica confirmed, her voice hard.

This cold Monica was scary. The squealing, clothes/boy crazy Monica was slightly annoying, but I preferred her.

“I hate my parents,” she said. “I hate my life. I wish I’d never been born. I wish there was some way that God would show you your life before you’re born and let you decide whether you want to live it or whether you want to remain as dust.” Monica paused, “That’s if there is a God.”

Dr. Paula started making notes.

“I wish I wasn’t such a coward, or I’d kill myself and put an end to it all.” Monica laughed, but the rest of us didn’t find it funny. So Michelle wasn’t my only suicidal gal pal.

“Is there anything that makes you happy?” Dr. Paula asked.

“Shopping, dressing up, being told I look nice.”

“Me too,” Michelle agreed. “My looks are all I’ve got going for me. People think I’m vain and shallow, but what else do I have?”

“I wanted to be a doctor.” Monica’s voice was still like granite.

I was surprised to hear that. I would never have expected her to want to be a doctor. I would have thought she’d study something like beauty therapy, if she studied at all.

“Wanted?” Dr. Paula asked. “So you don’t want to be a doctor anymore?”

“I do, but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t even study anymore. All I do is sit in my room and cry, and hate myself, and stare at aspirin, and try to motivate myself to take the entire bottle.”

I held back a gasp. If Monica was just trying to shock us, it wasn’t funny. I wanted to tell her to cut it out, but something told me she wasn’t joking.

After the session, Michelle was given a referral for alcohol abuse counseling, and Monica was given a prescription for some antidepressants.

I made Monica book another session. She needed it. I followed her home to get all her aspirin. She laughed about it, and I told her to stop laughing. None of this was funny. She continued to laugh. Luckily, her stepdad wasn’t in. I didn’t want to meet him.

When I got home, I told my mom about it, and she was concerned too. We had dinner, and then I went to my room to call Jace to apologize again for canceling our date. It rang out, so I decided to call Monica and see how she was doing. I kept her on the phone for as long as possible, thinking that if I occupied her she wouldn’t be able to do anything stupid. She could easily have gone out and bought some more aspirin as soon as I left. I wasn’t taking any chances. Maybe I would start doing a bi-weekly raid of her room.

After we talked for a while, she said was going to bed. I let her go reluctantly. I called her again fifteen minutes later to make sure she was still alive. When we hung up, I called Jace, but there was still no answer. I called Monica again—paranoid that she might be popping pills.

“What?” she answered.

“I just called to say, um…that I’m going to bed in a minute.”

“Stop calling me,” Monica said in exasperation. “And stop worrying. I’m too afraid to die—no matter how much I think I want to. Plus, Tanya said I’ll go to hell if I die in this state.” She laughed.

I let her go after making her promise me that she would go and get her antidepressants first thing in the morning. After we hung up, she sent me a text saying she loved me. That made me smile.

Chapter 18

On vacation, I slept until at least ten so I was not impressed when Monica called me at seven thirty on Monday morning. “What’s up?” I groaned.

“Are you still sleeping?” Monica sounded very awake.

“There’s no school remember.” Suddenly, I was wide awake. Why was Monica calling me so early? Maybe she’d taken the aspirin. I sat up. “What’s wrong, Monica?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but I wasn’t sure if I succeeded.

“Just thought I’d ask if you want to go shopping.”

Relief washed over me, and my heart rate returned to normal. “Sure!” It was out of my mouth before I remembered that I hated shopping with her.

“Meet me at the mall. Twelve thirty, by the water fountain.”

“Okay. See ya.” I fell asleep again.

I woke up an hour later, but I didn’t get up. I was feeling lazy, so I just lay in bed thinking—thinking about my friends, thinking about Jace, thinking about how bizarre life was these days.

Two of my friends were on medication, and the third was only coping with the aid of alcohol. Oh, for the innocence of freshman year, when we ate candy and studied teen mags. Now, we were grown up and going to see a shrink.