Authors: Catherine McKenzie
It feels silly, and yet, it seems to work. It’s not
long before Amy’s smiling, and by the end of the song, she’s singing too. Maybe
it’s like the song says.
Something unpredictable can be right in the
end.
W
hen
the goodbyes are over, I walk with Amy to the front door to say goodbye. The
lobby is empty and smells faintly like wet dog, though there’s no sign of
Saundra.
“Will you send me anything I forgot?” she says, her
voice echoing off the beams in the vaulted ceiling.
“Of course. Hopefully, I’ll see you in a few
weeks.”
“Yeah, I’d like to keep in touch.” She looks around
nervously. “Where the hell is the van? I’m going to miss my plane.”
“I’m sure it’ll be here soon. Don’t worry.”
Her eyes touch mine briefly, then jump away. “I
can’t help it.”
I feel an odd impulse to comfort her. This place
must be getting to me.
“This time is going to be different from the
others, Amy.”
“How can you tell?”
“I just can. I’m a very good judge of character,
you know.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Oh yeah, just
like all of us here.”
“Seriously. You’re going to do great.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
There he is again. Maybe Amy can tell me where to
find him?
I hear the van pull up outside the front door. Amy
picks up her bag.
“I guess this is it,” she says. “Candice will be
OK, right?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Will you let me know?”
The van toots its horn.
“Of course. Now quit stalling and get out of
here.”
We walk outside. The sky’s clouded over and it
smells like it might rain. I hug my sweatshirt close to keep out the chill. Evan
gets out of the van and helps Amy load her suitcase in the back. He closes the
doors with a soft thud and walks back toward the driver’s seat.
Amy reaches out and hugs me. I hug her back without
too much effort. When she lets go her lip is quivering.
“I’m glad I met you,” she says.
“Me too.” My throat feels tight and there’s
something wet sliding down my face.
Oh God, I’m actually crying about someone I met a
week ago. Sign me up for the next season of
Big
Brother.
I wipe my tears away. “Now get into your pumpkin
and get out of here.”
“All right, I will.”
She climbs into the passenger seat of the van and
closes the door behind her. The engine roars to life, and in a moment, she’s
gone.
W
hat
with the crying and all, I arrive at group a few minutes late.
As I search the room for a seat, I see that Amber
wasn’t joking when she told Zack that she had a performance to prepare for.
She’s wearing brown cords and a brown shirt, and her hair is in two side
ponytails. Her tongue is even protruding slightly from her mouth.
I stifle a giggle as I take a seat next to her. The
air in the room is tense. Saundra’s shoulders are hunched, though she’s trying
her best to keep her tone light and professional.
“As I was saying, I think it’s important that we
discuss what happened to Candice last night, and how you’re reacting to it. I
know some of you have addressed this already in your individual therapy
sessions, but I thought it would be good to discuss it together. Would someone
like to start us off?”
“Where were you?” Amber pants out of the side of
her mouth.
“Working on your escape plan,” I whisper back.
“Really?”
“Amber, Katie. Is there something you want to share
with the group?”
Amber narrows her eyes. “Katie just wanted to know
where you got that sweater.”
The room erupts in laughter. Saundra’s wearing a
sweater that makes her upper body look like a poodle.
“I’d ask you both to be more respectful, especially
considering the topic.”
“Sorry, Saundra, it won’t happen again,” I say.
Amber shoots me a dirty look. “Suck ass.”
She slumps down in her seat, staring fixedly out
the window. Her posture would be more convincing if she wasn’t in a dog
costume.
The Screenwriter raises his hand and starts to
recount his own suicide attempt, but that’s not what’s got my attention.
Or Saundra’s. “What is it, Amber?”
Amber’s sitting there, dumbstruck by something she
sees out the window.
“Amber? Are you OK?” I ask.
Amber raises a shaking hand and points her index
finger. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
Our eyes follow Amber’s finger. A gasp escapes
someone’s lips. The van is back from dropping Amy off. And climbing out of it
is . . .
“Isn’t that James Bond?” The Lawyer asks.
“No,” says Amber, in a dead-sounding voice. “It’s
the
Young
James Bond.”
The Monkey on My
Back
I
’m
standing at the edge of the path slowly, slowly lacing up my running shoes,
trying to put off running as long as possible.
It’s after breakfast, and the air is already hot
and cloying.
A heat wave in May! Go, global warming, go.
I’m here to run. I don’t want to, but I’m going to
do it. I’m going to keep the resolution I made yesterday to run at least five
minutes even if it kills me. Or was it six?
I adjust Amy’s watch on my wrist. I found it on my
bed when I returned to my room after the commotion caused by Connor Parks’s
arrival. Her simple gesture brought me to tears for the second time that
day.
Alcohol-free Katie is getting too bloody soft. I
need to get out of here before I lose all my self-control.
When I was done with the crying, I checked the web.
Amazingly, no one seemed to know that Connor Parks was in rehab. And here I was
in the perfect place to learn all sorts of confidential things about him.
Things were looking up.
I stand up slowly. My movement startles a bird from
its nest. The loud
thawp, thawp, thawp
of its wings
echoes through the forest.
I wonder what YJB is doing here. Does he really
have an alcohol/drug problem, or is this just about Amber? And how the hell does
the world not know he’s here?
Well, whatever the reason, I took care of that. Or
rather, Bob did.
I can’t sit on this kind of
scoop,
he responded to the email I sent him.
Even if it blows your cover, it’s worth it.
The story broke quickly. When I checked Amber Alert
a few hours later, it had a red flashing headline that read
CAMBER REUNITED
above a picture of Connor and Amber with their arms
around each other at some red-carpet event.
Amber Alert can confirm that
Camber are now both patients at the Cloudspin Oasis, a $1,000-a-day
rehabilitation center. As we were the first to report, Amber checked into
rehab after a much publicized video showing her smoking crack appeared on a
rival website (damn you, TMZ!). Insiders report that Connor also suffers
from drug and alcohol addiction. All patients staying at the Oasis commit to
a minimum 30-day stay. Conditions are said to be rustic but comfortable. The
residents take part in both individual and group therapy. One can only
assume that Camber’s reunion in such circumstances was
bittersweet.
Surely this means my future at
The Line
is secure?
I place my earphones in my ears and queue up Matt
Nathanson’s “Come on Get Higher.”
OK, OK. No more putting it off. One, two, three,
run!
I take a couple of running steps, and it’s not so
bad. It’s cooler here under the tall, green trees. Step, step, hup, step. Step,
step, hup, step. It’s pretty, in fact. I should’ve done this a long time ago. I
feel healthier already. Five minutes will be no problem.
Shit. I didn’t start the watch.
I stop and press the buttons to get the chronograph
to show. Amy’s time from her last run is still displayed. Fifty-six minutes! How
is that even possible?
OK, focus.
I clear the clock until the zeros appear.
Beep!
Run along, Katie.
Good. I’m in the woods. I’m running. I kept my
resolution, big step for me. I just need to think of something to distract
myself from the running.
My mind wanders to Zack, and a guilty tingle creeps
up my spine.
I push the feeling back down. Our breakup wasn’t my
finest moment, but that was a really long time ago. Besides, he’s married to
Meghan. He married
Meghan
? How did that happen?
OK, this is not helpful. Think of something
else.
Got it! I have to find something outside myself to
appease Saundra and her desire for me to believe in a higher power. That tree’s
really big. Maybe that’d work? Oh, Big Tree, will you help me stay sober even
though I don’t really have a drinking problem? Will you help me play along with
Saundra so I can stay incognito and learn things about TGND and her
ex-boyfriend? What’s that, Big Tree? You don’t want to help me with my nefarious
deeds? Can’t really blame you.
Shit. My lungs hurt. I must’ve been running
for . . . what? At least five minutes. But maybe it’s less.
Should I look at the watch? No, that’d be a mistake. I should run until I really
can’t anymore and then look at the watch. Maybe I’ll make it up to ten minutes,
and I’ll be way ahead of myself. Yeah, if I make it to ten, then I can take
tomorrow off.
Step, step, hup, step. Step, step, hup, step.
What the hell is that pain in my shoulders? I know
this sounds crazy, but it feels like there’s some monkey-sized thing sitting on
my shoulders bouncing up and down.
Hey, monkey, get the hell off my back! I mean it,
monkey! Go away, shoo! Fine, you want to play that way? I’m going to stop and
you’ll disappear!
I stop running, and the weight eases off my
shoulders.
What the hell was that? Running is making me
cuckoo.
Well, at least I did it. I ran way more than five
minutes, for sure.
I pull the earphones from my ears and look at Amy’s
watch. It says I’ve been running for four minutes. Even with forgetting to start
the watch there’s no way I ran for five.
Goddamnit. I did five minutes yesterday. I was
supposed to do six today. Well, at least five and a half. But I can’t take
another step, I can’t. Running clearly doesn’t agree with me. I mean, it has me
talking to imaginary monkeys!
“Are you all right?” a deep voice asks me.
I turn around in a panic. There’s a man with short
red hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose standing on the path. He’s
about six feet tall, in his early thirties, and he’s wearing gray running shorts
and a matching sleeveless T-shirt.
I’ve never seen the guy before. My mind spits out
possibilities. New patient? Staff member? Escaped convict? Ax murderer?
Fight or flight? Fight or flight? I can’t run
anymore, so I guess it’s going to have to be fight.
Only, I don’t know how to fight.
“I got a cramp,” I say.
Idiot! Now he knows you’re
helpless.
He looks sympathetic. “In your side?”
But he doesn’t sound like an ax murderer. Is this
his MO? Distract me with kindness before going in for the kill?
“Kind of all over . . .”
And yet you keep answering his
questions. You are a moron.
“Did you just start running?”
“No.”
That was better.
“Well . . . if you’re OK, I’ll be
off.”
Shit. Maybe he was being nice, and I’m totally
overacting?
I try to make my face seem friendly. “Thanks for
stopping.”
“No problem. See you around.”
He pushes some buttons on his watch, and I watch
him as he lopes off through the woods with the easy gait of a long-time
runner.
Well done, Katie. A nice man
asks if you need help, and you scare him off. No wonder you’re
single.
Shut up, monkey.
“I
think I found my thing,” I say to Saundra in therapy later that morning. I’m
wearing designer-knock-off black yoga pants topped by a pumpkin-orange hoodie.
My hair is tied back and still wet from my shower.
She gives me a puzzled look from across her desk.
“Your thing?”
“You know, my replacement-for-God thing. Like you
asked me to.”
“It’s not supposed to be a replacement for God,
Katie. It’s supposed to be what you place your faith in so you can work the
steps.”
“Right, I know. I get it. Anyway, I think it’s
running.”
She shakes her head. Her miniature-dog dangle
earrings dance. “I don’t think a higher power can be a sport, Katie.”
“It’s not the sport. It’s how I feel when I’m doing
it.”
“You feel good?”
“No, I feel awful.”
“That doesn’t sound like a promising
beginning.”
“But that’s just it. It’s the only thing I can
think of that takes me outside myself. It’s the only thing that’s bigger than
me . . . like when I was running today . . .
well . . . this is going to sound crazy . . .”
“Don’t worry about that, just tell me.”
“Well . . . I was running earlier,
and all I had to do was five minutes, or maybe six . . . anyway,
that’s not important . . . so, I’m running, and I’m hating it,
and I hurt everywhere, and I’m trying to distract myself by thinking of
something that could be my higher power when it happened.”
“What happened?”
I hesitate. She is so going to think I’m
bonkers.
“The monkey showed up.”
She stares at me blankly, her hand poised above her
yellow pad.
“It sounds crazy, right?”
“I’m sorry, Katie. I was just surprised. Keep
going.”
“It wasn’t an actual monkey. It just
felt
like there was one.”
“What was the monkey doing?”
“It was sitting on my shoulders.”
“And?”
“That’s it.”
“I don’t get it.”
Neither do I now that I’m saying it out loud.
I try again. “I don’t know. It felt like it was
something outside myself. Something I can hold on to.”
She contemplates me. The dogs wiggle, wiggle,
wiggle. “I think what you experienced is a feeling that runners often get when
their muscles are oxygen-deprived. What you need to find is something permanent.
Something that’s always there. It can’t be something transient.”
“Well, that’s what I’m going to use as my higher
power,” I say petulantly.
“Then we still have a lot of work to do,” Saundra
replies gently.
A
fter
lunch, I wander to the library, hoping desperately that something a little less
taxing and depressing than
Hamlet
has magically
appeared on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
A mad hope.
Sobriety,
Moment of Clarity, Working the Steps,
it goes on and
on, and there’s not a beach read among them. I know we’re supposed to be working
on ourselves (that’s why I’m killing myself through running, right?), but this
is taking it way too far. Reading any one of these books would stress me out,
not dry me out. No surprise that most of the books look like they’ve never even
had their spines cracked.
“It probably doesn’t matter which one you pick up,”
a man says behind me. “I’m sure they all say the same thing.”
I turn around. It’s the potential-murderer guy I
met on the running path earlier. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a blue-gray
Oxford that matches his eyes. He has a book tucked under his arm.
“What’s that?”
His eyes twinkle. “Don’t drink. Don’t do
drugs.”
“Good point. What are you reading?”
He shows me the cover. It’s
Running with Scissors,
Augusten Burroughs’s really bleak tale about
his depraved childhood. It’s full of gay sex, drugs, and Oedipal feelings. I bet
he’s a fun person to party with.
“There’s no way you found that here.”
“Mr. Drink and Do Drugs? Of course not.”
“Didn’t he dry out in his next book?”
“Really? How disappointing.”
We exchange smiles and move toward the comfy navy
armchairs tucked into the corner of the room. As we sit down, I catch a whiff of
his aftershave. It smells spicy and expensive.
“So, how did your run end up?” he asks, tapping the
fingers of his left hand against his knee.
“End up? Oh no, you saw the end of my run.”
He smiles. “It’ll get easier if you stick to
it.”
“That seems to be the theme of this place.”
“Right. But I can promise you that it’s true for
running.”
“And for the rest of it?”
A bleak look crosses his face. “Who the fuck knows?
I hope so.”
Who is this guy? He’s definitely not a patient.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
I gather my courage. “Well . . . I
know this is going to sound . . .
odd,
but when I was running, I had this weird feeling in my
shoulders . . .”
He nods. “Like something was sitting on you?”
Oh, thank God.
“Yes, exactly. Do you know what that is?”
“Maybe your muscles weren’t getting enough
oxygen?”
“That’s what Saundra said.”
“Who’s Saundra?”
How can he not know who Saundra is? Now I’m really
confused.
“You’re not a patient, are you?”
“Nope.”
I cock my head to the side. “But if you were on
staff, you’d definitely know who Saundra was . . .”
“A leading character, is she?”
I smile. “Kind of. She leads group, and she’s my
individual therapist.”
“That sounds like a lot of therapy. Does it get
boring?”
“Sometimes, though it can be entertaining listening
to some of the other patients.”
Nice. I just said I enjoyed listening to other
people talking about the most painful moments in their lives. I’m a bad, bad
person.
“I’d hate it,” he says.
“Listening to others, or talking about
yourself?”
“The latter.”
I flex my feet, trying to stretch out my calves.
“That’s pretty definite.”
“When you know yourself, you know yourself.”
“What made you so enlightened?”
He gives me a rueful smile.
“Well . . . when every girl you go out with says the same thing,
you can either accept it or put your head in the sand.”
“
Every
girl?”
“Yup.”
“But don’t women like the strong, silent type?”
He shrugs. “Apparently, not so much.”
“Maybe you just need to be with someone who’s spent
time in here. After listening to twelve narcissists spill their guts day after
day, you learn to appreciate someone who can keep the cap on.”