Walking on Broken Glass Page 7

  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.

  Could I dump food in my stomach now?

  Cathryn took Theresa and me to the cafeteria while everyone else attended group. Theresa lifted not one but two eyebrows when the server asked if she wanted her sandwich on whole wheat.

  “Lady, if I cared about eating stuff good for me, I wouldn’t look like this,” she pointed to her hips. “Do you have fries? Chips just won’t cut it.”

  We carried our trays to a table. Cathryn sat with us and drank her iced tea. I ate my turkey avocado wrap. We didn’t have to squirm in awkward silence because Theresa's frantic food fest entertained us. Theresa didn’t eat her food, she assaulted it. She surfaced for air long enough to shovel in fries between bites of her hefty club sandwich. It left her little time to verbally bombard us. No problem for me. I just wanted to eat without fear the meal would be a repeat performance.

  Theresa swooped in on the few bacon crumbs on her plate, then leaned across the table and bared her teeth at us. Not a pretty sight.

  “Got any leftovers?”

  “Well, just a few,” said Cathryn.

  A few? I rolled my eyes. What a diplomat. An entire afternoon snack waited between her teeth.

  “You can pick up a toothpick on our way out. I have to show Leah where to go for her next appointment, then you and I will go back to the floor.”

  “I don’t need no toothpick.” Theresa raked between her teeth with her thumbnail. “How's this?” She pushed her top lip up, and I dreaded to think of the extent to which Theresa could push the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

  Bits of green still lingered in a few places, but Cathryn looked at her watch. “We need to get moving. You can finish cleaning up when you settle down in your room.”

  As I walked toward the place Cathryn directed me, I heard Theresa shout, “Catch you later, Miss Two Shoes.”

  I opened the door to find those predictable white walls again, platinum shag carpet, two semi-stuffed wingback chairs, and no windows. Anxiety rippled the skin on my back, perched itself on my chest. I’d seen these “we’re so sorry to tell you” rooms in medical hospitals where doctors bring families to deliver tragedy.

  Maybe no one would show up. Maybe Cathryn goofed and confused the rooms. Maybe I officially lost what brain cells I hadn’t already destroyed.

  What's the protocol for waiting in a nearly empty room? I sat in the chair closer to the door. The air-conditioner vents shivered when the thermostat kicked off; otherwise, the silence loitered in the room like an unwelcome guest. I made a deal with myself that if no one appeared after I counted all the ceiling tiles, then paced for two hundred steps, I’d leave.

  Trey pounced in at ceiling tile number seventeen. I didn’t yet know his name. I just knew he caused my first official almost heart attack.

  13

  Is the sky falling?”

  Trey's resonant voice might have startled me. But his mere appearance had already pushed my short-circuited heart right through my open mouth. I popped up, as my quirky Aunt Joycie used to say, “faster than a pimple before prom.” My grandmother, often appalled by her daughter's unpredictable perceptions, promised us she took the wrong baby home from the hospital.

  I eased back into the chair. “No, but I think my heart rate might be.” By then my eyes had bounced back into their sockets so I could survey this intruder. He wore a suit, definitely atypical attire from what I’d seen so far, and he wore it well. No tie, but a starched pinstriped shirt. His light brown hair was flattop military style. Instead of carrying a leather briefcase though, he had a navy blue backpack slung over his left shoulder.

  He didn’t smile. In fact his lips could have been carved into the space above his chin. He walked over to the other chair, turned it to face me, sat, unzipped his backpack, and withdrew a slim manila folder.

  “So, Leah,” the words rolled out of his mouth as he crossed his right leg so his ankle landed on top of his left knee. “My name is Trey. Today, I’m here to introduce myself and ask you a few questions. We’ll be talking more in other sessions.”

  “Do people in this place ever have last names?”

&
nbsp; He still hadn’t made eye contact with me because he spoke into the now open folder perched on the crook of his leg. He coaxed reading glasses out of the inside pocket of his tailored suit, slipped them on, and continued to stare at the papers in front of him. “Is that important to you? To have a last name?”

  “Well, it sure makes alphabetizing easier,” I said. The room felt colder. I curled my feet in the chair and hoped the hospital also treated frostbite.

  He glanced at me, reached into the backpack again, pulled out a black Mont Blanc fountain pen, and scribbled in the folder. He stopped writing, shoved the pen in his breast pocket, and scanned my face.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

  Again with the asking things they already knew the answers to. “It was a slow summer. I needed a change of pace.” I yawned and didn’t bother to hide it behind my hand. When was this going to end? A nap. That's what I needed. When were those scheduled? I stared at Trey, who examined the fingernails of his right hand.

  He glanced up, still expressionless. “Do you always joke about serious issues in your life?”

  I hated this guy. He had the personality of a bran flake, the warmth of an unlit match, and a lifetime supply of questions.

  “Yes, but I’m very serious about the funny issues, so I figure it all balances out,” I replied.

  To say that he was void of expression may somehow suggest he was capable of one. I did not have evidence to that effect. Trey could have been a mannequin temporarily bestowed with the ability to breathe. His sea-green eyes provided the only splash of color in his barren face. He did not speak. I remembered playing those staring games with my friends. The person who looked away first lost. I bet Trey never lost.

  “Are we finished now?” I hoped he would send me on my way. To my nap. And a Nutty Buddy. Maybe two.

  “Finished? I don’t think we’ve even started, do you?” He reached into his inside pocket again. Probably to fish out his pen to record my unwillingness to comply. No pen. Out came a Mickey Mouse Pez dispenser. With a swift click, he pinned back Mickey's ears. “Want one?”

  Was this a new psychological profile? Would accepting or not accepting candy from a therapist offering a smiling Disney character provoke a Freudian response I might later regret?

  “It's only a piece of candy, not a lifelong commitment. If you don’t want it, just say so.”

  The apple juice syndrome. That intense confusion and struggle over something so trite and stupid had found me again. And I suspected, somehow, Trey could detect my ridiculous one-woman bargaining over a piece of candy.

  “You just don’t seem to be the Pez type. Or maybe it's just seeing Mickey decapitated. Anyway, thanks, but no.” I pushed out my best saccharine smile and feigned a relaxed state, in a positive and expectant sort of way, to end this blather.

  Mickey went back into the pocket, but this time out came the pen, poised over the still open folder. Trey peered at me over the reading glasses.

  “So, let's try this again. Tell me how you came to be here. No jokes. No evasions.”

  “Miller Lite. I drank way too much of it, way too many times. And that's not a joke. I wish it was. But it's not. Besides, don’t you know all this anyway? You have my chart.” My weary voice fell on the floor like wet clay. My resolve to model Trey's stoic demeanor waned in the tedium of answering a question that no longer seemed a mystery. Counting the ceiling tiles again seemed a riveting alternative to this boring inquisition.

  “Leah,” Trey scratched the pen across the paper for a few lines, “we’ll be working together in family group therapy. I’ve read the chart. I’m not interested in the person on this paper.” He slid it into his backpack. “I want to hear your voice tell your story. I want you to hear you tell your story. Really, there aren’t that many new stories anyway. They’re all variations on a theme. It's the theme we’re going for here. You’re an English teacher. You’ll catch on.” He relinquished a crooked smile.

  My Grams used to say babies weren’t really smiling; they just were delighted to have passed their little gas bubble. I was Trey's little gas bubble.

  He shrugged on his backpack. “We’ll talk tomorrow afternoon during group. You should be on the schedule with everyone else.” He looked at his watch. “Cathryn will be here in a few minutes to walk you back to the floor.”

  I didn’t have to wait long. When Trey opened the door, she stood on the other side. They exchanged polite greetings yet jockeyed past one another in the doorway as if afraid one might magnetize the other. Trey nodded in Cathryn's direction and mumbled, “She's all yours.” Then he sprinted around the corner. I watched as she watched him dash away. She didn’t turn her attention to me until Trey's backpack disappeared.

  I almost crashed into the wall after I catapulted out of the chair. I must have looked like the kid dropped off with the sitter whose mother had just appeared with the sweet promise of predictable normalcy.

  “I am so glad to see you,” I told Cathryn, and I meant it. We both laughed. Now that was frightening.

  On the return trip to the floor, Cathryn told me Carl, my father, and Molly had all called for a progress report. I wasn’t allowed phone privileges yet, but family and friends could call in for an update. Not having phone conversations proved to be a blessing rather than the curse I’d originally thought. I didn’t have to regurgitate my every waking and sleeping moment. I didn’t have to listen to the outpourings of sympathy, anger, or guilt from anyone else. Blameless. What a deal.

  She summarized the calls, starting with Carl who wanted to know if I was medicated, sleeping, and/or anxious to see him. “A rousing chorus of ‘No, no, and no,’ on those,” I told her and she didn’t ask me to elaborate. Molly wanted me to know she was praying for me, for Carl, and for anyone who had anything to do with my successful sobriety. Even though I hadn’t given much positive thought lately to God, I felt comforted knowing I had my personal prayer warrior going into battle for me. And I knew Molly was fierce. She’d be kicking evil butts all over the place on my behalf.

  And then there was my father. Cathryn said she spoke to him the longest. I wasn’t surprised. My dad didn’t know a stranger. And he and Carl were the best of friends. He said Carl was the son he never had, a curious statement always made out of earshot of my brother. Dad loved football and food and family and friends. Together or separately. After my mother died, he added Johnny Walker Red and Chivas Regal to the list.

  “Your dad said if you needed anything—food, money—just let him know. He’ll get it to you.” Cathryn paused. Her voice softened as the elevator whirred to the next floor. “And he said to tell you he loves you very much.”

  My shoes blurred as I stared at them through eyes brimming with tears. How deeply had I disappointed him? I hadn’t allowed myself to think about him until now. After Mom died, he was like a man who’d spend days preparing a Thanksgiving meal only to watch it all rot because no one showed up. When he visited, he’d shamble around the house, following me from pantry to kitchen to laundry room to kitchen again. I learned not to stop too short or turn too quickly. He wanted so desperately to be needed.

  “What can I do? Do you need to hang any pictures? I can do that for you. I’ve been looking at your garden. I could put more cypress mulch around the bedding plants in the front. How about a trellis?”

  I’d tell Carl, “My dad's coming next week. Don’t fix anything. In fact, break something if you can. Are any pipes leaking? Faucets dripping?”

  I didn’t think he’d call, at least not so soon. I didn’t want to think about him, figuring out how to fix his daughter. I doubt if he’d talked to Peter. He and my brother heard life through separate radio channels.

  Maybe it was better Dad didn’t have to prepare my mother for this disgrace and failure in my life. I pictured him standing in his kitchen, surrounded by the new, fingerprint-proof, stainless steel appliances and emerald-green granite countertops my mother had selected only a few months before she died. He’d be talki
ng on the cordless phone while he sat on a wicker stool near the raised bar. Neither one of them ever bought into the concept of cordless phone freedom. They’d hover near the phone base as if secured by an invisible line. My mother would tell me to “hold on” when she’d hear the microwave beep. She’d set the phone on the counter, ignore my screechings that she could carry me with her, and then return after she’d pulled out her cup of hot water for her tea. After several fruitless attempts to yank my parents into some degree of advanced technology, I surrendered. My father still ignored call waiting and usually erased messages on the answering machine in his attempts to listen to them.