Spin A Novel

CHAPTER 5

No Rest for the Wicked





After group I speed back to my room so I can get down as much of what I’ve witnessed as possible. What I wouldn’t give for a microcassette recorder, or one of those tiny hidden cameras that fit into your eyeglasses. But Bob thought it would be too risky, so I’m left relying on my memory, never perfect in the best of circumstances.

My roommate nearly gives me a heart attack when she enters the room without knocking. I close the journal quickly, trying to appear nonchalant. It feels like my heart is beating visibly out of my chest like in an old Disney cartoon, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

Amy’s model-tall and beautiful. Her toffee-colored skin matches her eyes, and her dark hair is tightly curled and chin length. After I introduce myself, she starts to download the details of her life with the ease of someone who’s been here for a while. She’s a lawyer who works at one of the largest firms in the city. One too many cocaine-fueled deal memos landed her an all-expenses-paid trip to the Cloudspin Oasis. She’s been here for twenty-four days, and if all goes well, expects to leave six days from now.

We chat for a while, and then we have dinner together in the cafeteria. It has a bistro-y feel to it, and another bank of windows framing the green lawn that rolls out like a blanket toward the woods. The view is breathtaking, but no one’s looking. Instead, everyone’s talking, talking, talking about themselves. I look for TGND, but despite the “all patients must attend all meals” rule, she’s nowhere to be seen.

The food is good, simple fare (spicy penne arrabbiata, a tart Caesar salad), and after dinner we follow the crowd to the common room to watch a cookie-cutter romantic comedy on the widescreen TV. When the couple that’s meant-to-be finally gets together, there doesn’t seem to be anything left to do but go to sleep, and so I do.

I’m dreaming a wonderful dream. I’m writing a cover profile about Feist, and I’m meeting her backstage at the Grammys before she performs. A rainbow of musical celebrities surrounds us. Paul McCartney is playing “Blackbird” for Adam Duritz. Madonna is warming up for her duet with Fergie. Kurt Cobain’s daughter is about to make her musical debut, singing backup for Lisa Marie Presley. None of it makes any sense, of course, but I feel extremely happy nonetheless.

That is, until I’m awoken by the most ungodly scream.

“AAAHHHHH!”

My eyes fly open, my heart pounding. By the moonlight seeping through the window, I can see Amy tossing back and forth on her bed, her mouth open.

I jump to the cold floor and put a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Amy.”

“AAHH, AAHH!”

“Amy!”

“Get off me!”

I pull my hand away. “You were screaming.”

“Who are you?”

“It’s me, Katie. Your roommate.”

I turn on the light that sits on the night table between our beds.

She blinks slowly. “Sorry. I was disoriented.”

“It’s OK. I think you were having a nightmare.”

“I wish. I was in a K-hole.”

“A what?”

“I was dreaming I was using.”

Oh. So “K” must be a drug. But what drug? Vitamin K? Special K cereal with cocaine sprinkled on it?

I’m going to be unmasked soon, soon, soon.

“Right, of course . . . I hate those kinds of dreams.”

I totally paused for too long between those two phrases.

Amy sits up and runs her hands through her tightly curled hair. Her eyes look unfocused. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

Phew. She doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“Do you want some water? I could get it for you.”

“No, thanks. I’m all right.” She pounds her fist into the mattress. “F*ck! I’m so goddamn tired of this. Why doesn’t it get any easier?”

“I’m sure it does.”

She looks at me bleakly.

“Sorry, what do I know? I just got here.”

“Right. I’m the one who’s supposed to be teaching you how to cope.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. But I should know something by now, especially since I’ve been here before.”

“This isn’t your first time in rehab?”

“This is take three. Three strikes and you’re out,” she mutters.

“How come it didn’t work before?”

She shrugs. “Choices I made. People I should’ve stayed away from. Take your pick.”

“Why not try something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’m just talking smack.”

She almost smiles. “Interesting choice of words.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for waking me up.”

She reaches out her hand and after a moment’s hesitation, I take it. She quietly begins to cry, and the tears well up in my own eyes.

Jesus. Four days in rehab, and I’m already crying with strangers.

The next morning at breakfast I don’t have much of an appetite, so I sip my coffee while Amy digs into an omelet.

“Don’t worry, your appetite will come back in a couple of days,” she says.

“Oh, I never eat much breakfast.”

“Have you had any tremors yet? Those are the worst.”

I’m not quite sure how to play this. Should I admit to tremors, or counter with something worse, like seeing imaginary bugs?

She’s not testing you, idiot, she’s just making rehab conversation.

Right. Less paranoia would be good.

“Not yet. Anyway, I should get to my therapy appointment.”

“Sure enough. See you later.”

I get a to-go cup for my coffee and ask for directions to Saundra’s office.

Her office is oddly decorated with all things dog. I mean, all things dog. There’s a dog calendar, a dog clock, a couple of framed photographs of dogs, and a dog leash sitting on the corner of her desk. The only thing missing is the actual dog itself. Or maybe the leash is for me?

Saundra sits behind her large oak desk. I get comfortable in her matching visitor’s chair as she explains that the Oasis’s approach is to identify the root, internal causes of my alcoholism and to teach me techniques that will allow me to solve problems without alcohol. If I trust Saundra and work with her, I should acquire the skills I need to stay sober by the end of my thirty-day stay.

I’m guessing the skills I really need to learn by the end of my thirty-day stay aren’t what she’s talking about.

“Some patients need longer than thirty days, of course, but given that this is your first time in rehab, and the level of your addiction, which is severe but not chronic, it should be sufficient.”

“What do you mean by the level of my addiction?”

“You scored a ten out of fifteen on the alcoholism test.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s a graduated scale. Answering yes to more than five questions means that drinking is interfering in your life in a substantial way, which is a sign of alcoholism.”

“And I got a ten?”

“Yes.”

Yowser, that is not good. But wait a second. Not all those answers were really mine, right? At least three were what I told Dr. Houston as my cover story. So my real score is probably like . . . six. That’s nothing.

Saundra pulls a pad of yellow legal-sized paper toward her. “Katie, I’d like to begin by trying to discover the origins of your alcoholism. How old were you the first time you got drunk?”

“I was four.”

Her eyes widen. “Four years old?”

“I guess that’s kind of young, huh?”

“A little. Why don’t you tell me about it.”

“Well, actually, it’s a funny story . . .”

It was funny. When my parents finally extricated themselves from their commune-gone-wrong legal problems, they decided to celebrate by holding a party. There was champagne, and my dad poured me a small glass, a splash really, so I could join the toast.

I remember my first taste of that champagne. It was sweet and delicious, like drinkable candy, and the bubbles felt ticklish on my tongue. I loved it and I wanted more. So I asked for some, and my dad, already a bit drunk, gave it to me. That disappeared as fast as I could drink it, and so did the fuller glass I got from him a few minutes later when he wasn’t paying attention.

Before I knew it, I was hammered. I felt like my body was floating, and I lay happily in the grass feeling each individual blade with the tips of my fingers. When the party broke up, my parents took us to a restaurant for dinner. My tipsy parents didn’t realize there was anything wrong with me until we got there. That’s when I thought it’d be a good idea to teach my two-year-old sister, Chrissie, how to pull the tablecloth out from under the dishes. I’d seen a magician do it on TV and he made it look easy. I remember the horrible clatter of dishes, my father’s jumble of oaths, and my mother repeating over and over, “Why would you do that, honey? Why would you do that?”

When they finally clued in that I was drunk—Dad confessed to giving me “just a little taste”; Mom’s shriek of anger set half the restaurant’s eardrums ringing—I was hauled out of the restaurant by my ear and left in the family car to “sober up!”

When my parents calmed down, the whole thing became a family joke. From that point on, whenever I’d act out, my dad would yell, “Sober up!” and we’d laugh and laugh.

“Do you really think that’s a funny story, Katie?”

Uh, yeah. I’ve brought people to tears with that story on more than one occasion, but maybe you need a drink in your hand to really appreciate it. Like therapy.

“Kind of.”

“Can you see why not everyone would think so?”

“I guess. They shouldn’t have been giving me alcohol at that age, right?”

“Yes, that’s one thing. But don’t you also think it’s problematic that they turned it into a family joke?”

“It’s not like I wasn’t punished.”

“By leaving you alone in the car?”

“I grew up around here. People always left their kids in the car.”

Saundra writes a few words on her pad of paper in a cursive script. “Were your parents neglectful in other ways?”

“What? My parents didn’t neglect me.”

“I’m sorry, Katie, a poor choice of words. What I meant to say was, were there other times you got drunk as a child?”

A flash comes to me of a Thanksgiving dinner when my mother was away visiting her parents. I was thirteen or fourteen, and Chrissie, Dad, and I polished off several bottles of wine. A snowstorm kicked up in the middle of dinner, and my sister and I ran out into the night to make snow angels. We spread our arms wide, the fluffy snow giving way to our sweeping arms. Dad sprang onto the front porch swinging a bottle and yelling, “I’ve got the last of the wine!” We burst out laughing and couldn’t stop for what seemed like hours.

I feel a wave of nostalgia for the fun Chrissie and I used to have together. “Yes, but . . . those events were harmless. They were fun.”

“I’m sure it seemed like fun at the time . . . but do you think it’s possible that those early experiences laid the foundation for your alcoholism?”

“Are you saying it’s my parents’ fault that I . . . that I’m here?”

“Of course not. I’m merely exploring to see if we can find the root of what led you here.”

There’s a knock at the door. Saundra glances at the clock.

“I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today. We’ll pick this up tomorrow, all right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I stand up to leave. “I don’t think my parents did anything wrong. I mean, they were, are, great parents.”

She looks sympathetic. “I understand. I’ll see you in group this afternoon.”

“Right, sure. See you in group.”

So, I have a confession to make. I didn’t have only four mini bottles of Jameson and Coke on the plane. There were a few drinks at the airport too.

Now, I don’t usually drink in the morning, but there was something about that morning that felt out of the ordinary. It was a combination of things, really. Seeing the tiny plane I was going to have to fly in. Going undercover. Being about to meet a celebrity I’d been watching for weeks on television. Having the opportunity to finally get where I wanted to be as a writer. Going to rehab. It all balled up inside me, and I needed something to calm me down. The chamomile tea I had before I left for the airport wasn’t cutting it, so I headed to the always-open airport bar and ordered a gin and tonic.

And it worked. When the drink was gone I felt better. I felt steady. I felt ready.

Then the flight got delayed because of mechanical problems (Mechanical problems? Shouldn’t they be canceling the flight or getting a new plane?) and I ordered another drink to soothe my renewed nerves. The plane wasn’t ready until I got down to the ice in drink three, and I blame that drink personally for what I did next.

You see, the whole time I was at the bar there was a woman sitting next to me intently reading a book. I kept trying to strike up a conversation, but she wasn’t having it. I don’t know if she didn’t want to talk to me, or she was enjoying her book too much, but I couldn’t get two words out of her.

As I sat there drinking, I started to feel pissed off, and the focus of my pissed-offedness was this woman, sitting there all serene and too good to talk to me, reading, reading, reading.

So, so, when she got up to go to the bathroom, leaving her book sitting on the bar, I had this uncontrollable urge to take it. I knew it was childish, I knew it was kind of criminal, but I was having a shitty day and I wanted to spread the shit around.

When my flight was called, the book’s owner hadn’t returned. I gathered my stuff and threw down some money to pay for my drinks. And then, as I walked away, I scooped up the book and shoved it in my bag, being careful not to glance over my shoulder furtively, feeling thrilled that I’d gone through with it.

Take that, too-good-to-talk-to-me lady!

Of course, once the deed was done, I promptly forgot all about it. Until after my therapy session, when a craving for something, anything, that might be bad for me sends me rooting through the bag I shoved the book into in a mad search for a (please, God!) forgotten pack of cigarettes. I don’t find any, but I do find forty bucks (score!) and the book I swiped.

I pull it out, unsure where it came from until my thievery comes back to me. Oh, right. The airport. The drinks. The woman.

Well, maybe it’s a good read?

I turn it over. It’s Hamlet. Hamlet? You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s what airport woman was so engrossed in she wouldn’t talk to me? Well, maybe it’s one of those modern retellings, like The Other Boleyn Girl. I check the author. Nope. William freaking Shakespeare. Just great. It feels thick too, like the movie Kenneth Branagh made. Rory dragged me to it, and it was like four hours long. It even had an intermission.

And I was so hoping it was something delicious and readable. I’m sure we’re supposed to spend our free time contemplating how badly we’ve messed up our lives, but really, how much time can you think about that kind of stuff? And I can spend only so much time writing in my journal, no matter how wacky TGND acts in group. That leaves walking in the woods, talking, talking, talking with the other patients, or the library. I scoped it out yesterday and it’s useless. It’s full of copies of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar self-help fare. The thought of reading anything like that, in addition to hearing it twice a day during group and therapy, makes me want to poke my eye out with a sharp stick.

On the other hand, if someone told me a week ago that I’d be contemplating reading Shakespeare as a way to pass the time, I’d have told them to pass me another drink. But now that I’m here, and drinking’s not an option, why the hell not?

I take the book to a comfy corner in the library, curl up, and am immediately, surprisingly, semi-engrossed.

“That’s contraband,” a woman says to me an hour later as Hamlet’s talking to his murdered father’s ghost about “murder most foul.”

I keep reading. “What?”

“That book. It’s contraband.”

Hold on a second . . .

I look up. TGND is standing in front of me. Oh my God. TGND is talking to me.

“How can Shakespeare be contraband?”

She flops down next to me, curling her feet under her short jean skirt. “If it’s not on the bookshelf, you’re not supposed to be reading it.”

“Why not?”

“Who the f*ck knows?” She plucks the book out of my hand. “So, Shakespeare, huh? Serious stuff.”

“It’s actually really good.”

“Yeah, he knew how to write.” She squares her shoulders. “‘What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!’ Doesn’t that give you goose bumps?”

Wow. She doesn’t just croak. She quotes the goddamn bard.

“Do you know the whole thing by heart, or is that just a party trick?”

She gives me a coy look. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Well, yeah. Duh.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

She laughs. “Looks like you have a few party tricks of your own.”

“Nah, I just totally pulled that out of my ass.”

“Nice image.”

“Sorry. I come out a little crass sometimes.”

She waves a hand at the room. “We’re in rehab. Crass is the vernacular.”

If she’s trying to impress me, it’s working.

“Got it.”

She hands the book back to me. “Enjoy. Maybe I’ll borrow it when you’re done.”

“Sure.”

“You’re Katie, right?”

“Yeah. And you’re Amber.”

“That’s me. What’d you say you did again?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Like literature?”

“Like journalism.”

Her shoulders tense. Shit.

“I write about music.”

She relaxes. “Oh. For Rolling Stone ?”

“I wish. I write music reviews for a couple of weekly papers.”

“Cool.”

She glances around the room, and I can tell she’s losing interest.

Say something interesting, Katie. Quickly.

“You read a lot?”

OK. That wasn’t it.

Her large green eyes track back to mine. “You think I’m too busy partying to read?”

Whoops. Really not it.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s OK. You’ve probably seen all that stuff on TV, right?”

I’m not quite sure what the right answer to that question is.

“A little.”

She smiles. “I’m sure you’ve seen enough. But it’s not really like that living it, you know? Or . . . I don’t know . . . maybe it is. I’m not saying things weren’t out of control. They just weren’t quite as bad as they looked.”

Right. I’m sure that was the first time you ever smoked crack. Your bad luck that it was caught on tape.

I play along. “I know what you mean. Today in my therapy session, Saundra asked me about my childhood, and then she picked it apart until I felt like it was an After School Special.”

“I was in an After School Special once.”

“Which one?”

A blush creeps up her cheeks. “That one about incest . . .”

“That was you? There was this line that became this catchphrase at my school . . .”

She scrunches her shoulders, and I can see the six-year-old girl peeking through. She speaks in a breathy voice. “I don’t like it when my daddy touches me.”

“That’s it. That’s totally it!”

“Why do people always remember the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“Because negative things are way more interesting.”

“Right. I should definitely know that by now.” She swings her legs off the chair and stands up. “Anyway, I should let you get back to that.”

“OK. Nice talking to you.”

“Yeah. You too. You know . . . you might just be the first normal person I’ve met here.”

Shit, shit, shit. I’m not supposed to be normal. I’m supposed to be damaged.

“Thanks.”

“See you around.”

I watch her walk away, noticing again how very thin she is. When I’m sure she’s gone, I grab a pen off the desk and begin scribbling notes into the empty pages at the back of Hamlet, trying to get the gist of our conversation down while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Bob’s going to be excited!