I glance over the lyrics I wrote before the lights were turned out last night. My left hand is still numb, and if I don’t have my little rubber ball to squeeze, I touch my fingertips to my thumb like I learned from the orthopedic rehab therapist. Squeezing and finger touches have become so routine, I just do them without thinking about it.
My right hand is a lot better and I’m getting better at using it. I cross out words and add others to the piece I’ve titled “Groan-a-Lisa.” “I don’t want your husband,” I sing in Edie’s pitchy voice. “He’s all yours. I’d rather stab my eyes out than look at his sores.” So maybe those aren’t my best lines, but the chorus is pure gold.
Hey, Groan-a-Lisa, I don’t need your crazy around me. I’ve got bigger problems than the ones you fight. I got problems that keep me awake at night.
Listen up, Groan-a-Lisa, don’t bring your crazy around me. I don’t care about your emotions, your struggles, or what you fear. All I care about, Lisa, is how I get the hell out of here.
Okay, maybe not Grammy-worthy lyrics, but this is my life and they mean something to me.
Meals at Livingston are always served with plastic utensils (the lethal-weapon thing) and always at the same time. The dining room doors open at precisely 7 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m., in order to avoid confusion, agitation, and conspiracy theories. The food isn’t great, but I’ve had worse. The Chat-N-Chew Chili Wagon comes to mind.
Today’s lunch is some very bland rigatoni and a mixed-greens salad. I trade in my pasta for an ex
tra salad. I figure Edie must have been vegan, because I crave fresh veggies like I used to crave snack cakes. I remember my first real meal after I was moved to ward B. I was feeling more like myself and ate roast beef and potatoes, dinner rolls and real butter. I ate until I was tight as a tick. Afterward, I got sick as a dog. I discovered Edie’s digestion can’t take a healthy appetite. I learned to eat more like Edie and less like Brittany to avoid some serious agony. Three-for-one taco nights and space panties are a thing of the past.
There are a few other things I’ve discovered about Edie, too. Like, even if I was allowed to have a razor, there’s no need. She’s obviously had laser hair removal on just about every part of her body—yes, even down there. Ouch! Her toenails grow at an alarming rate, and she had eyelash extensions when I first got here. The regrowth on her head is a medium brown, not blonde, and the stylist in me cringes when I see those roots. I usually pull her hair into a high ponytail under my cap.
I’ve been told that she goes by Edie Chatsworth-Jones and that her mother’s name isn’t Darling; it’s Clarice like in Silence of the Lambs. Different Clarice, same feeling of horror.
And I’ve been told that she was committed to Livingston the first time a year and a half ago for downing a fistful of Klonopin and a bottle of vodka in a guesthouse on her parents’ property. Marv and Claire had been understandably horrified, but shortly after leaving Livingston that time, she’d convinced them (and a few doctors, too) that she hadn’t really wanted to die. It was a cry for help and attention, she argued, but no one is suggesting that this time around. Not after she added thousands of miles and a razor to the equation.
After lunch I have an appointment with one of a handful of doctors who treated Edie a year and a half ago. This time it’s with Dr. Lindbloom, a psychotherapist who likes to drop the word Mensa into conversations like the golfer used to drop “double-eagled on the eighth.” Since I have amnesia, he goes into detail about what that means practically every time I see him.
He’s a short, nerdy-looking guy with brown corduroy pants and a wiry ponytail that would benefit from a sharp pair of scissors. If I liked him and could give him a professional consultation, I’d recommend that he massage his scalp with jojoba or argan oil, but I don’t like him. He doesn’t seem to like me either, but I don’t want to cause trouble for myself. I have two more months before I’m adios, amigos. Dr. Barbara (aka Bobwyre) tells me that my discharge paperwork is moving along, and barring any unforeseen problems, my release date is October fourth. I like Dr. Barbara. She’s been Edie’s shrink for a long time. I think I can trust her, but “unforeseen problems” worries me, and I don’t want to say or do anything that could add more days to my sentence.
“I’m reading Rhonda’s notes and it looks like you are reluctant to participate in group therapy,” Dr. Lindbloom says.
I’m lying on a leather couch that feels and smells like a saddle. “I participate plenty, but I don’t like role-play.” My eyes are closed and I reach into my pocket and pull out my squeezy ball. “I’m shy.”
“You weren’t shy when you were here before.”
I don’t know if it’s me or if Edie got on his bad side when she was here before, but unlike the other doctors, I’ve only seen him once a week since I got let out of ward C. Folks generally like me, and I reckon the world is filled with people who don’t like Edie. “Well, I don’t recall bein’ here before.”
I hear him shuffle some papers before he asks, “What comes to mind when I say ‘Hawthorne’?”
A tree. “Nothin’.”
“Hmm.” He makes that sound a lot, sometimes dragging it out because he thinks I’m “malingering,” which is a fancy word for faking. He’s right, but he is not the medical director or chief physiatrist, Dr. Ryan, and he can’t do much about it but stick to the treatment plan. That doesn’t sit well with him, and it seems to me as if he thinks he can trip me up and catch me faking just to prove he’s right.
“Hmm… What do you think when you hear ‘Magnus’?”
I think it sounds like Magnum and that makes me think of condoms, but I doubt that’s what he means. Although I’d love to see his face if I said it, but I can’t. I have amnesia. I probably shouldn’t know about safe sex. “I don’t know what that means.”
He turns on the sound of blaring horns in heavy traffic. “What word do you associate with this sound?”
“Big city.”
“What big city?”
“New York.”
He turns off the recording. “Hmmm… Why did you say New York?”
“Because you asked.”
“Can you imagine yourself in New York?”
“Yes.”