Bright Side (5 page)

(Kate)

I wake to my cell phone buzzing on my desk and it’s
way
too demanding for this early in the morning. I squint my eyes and through the sleep my clock reads 6:47am. My first thought is Gus. It’s always Gus. But it’s not even 5:00am in California. It can’t be him … unless he’s been out all night, which is entirely possible. I strip the covers back and shuffle over to see what’s so important.

It’s a text from Maddie:
U left stuff here. B here b4 12 2day
.

“And good morning to you,” I yawn at the phone. It’s way too early for that many abbreviations.

I stretch and decide now’s as good a time as any to check out the showers down the hall. I wear my beach flip-flops in the shower because Gus told me I could pick up some nasty foot fungus if I don’t.

By 7:10 I’m out the door and headed for Maddie’s. If she’s going to summon me at the butt crack of dawn she’d better be prepared to receive me.

She answers after my third round of knocking wrapped in a fluffy white robe and one of those sleeping eye cover things pushed up on her forehead. “Kate? It’s 7:25 in the morning.”

“Um, yeah?”
Duh.
“Were you sleeping?”

“Yes.” She’s pissed.

“Sorry. I thought your courtesy wake-up text was permission to come over.” I’m in a great mood and trying to joke my way through this. It’s the only way to deal with her shit this early in the morning.

“I woke up early because Princess needed to go outside and I texted you before I went back to bed.” She barks a condescending laugh. “Really, Kate, don’t you know anything about dorm life?” I can see that
she enjoys the hell out of talking down to me, but to be honest it’s pretty damn entertaining, funny even. “It’s common courtesy to silence your cell phone at night or your roommate is going to grow to hate you. It’s one of the first rules in dorm life. If it was silenced,
like it should have been
, my text wouldn’t have woken you.”

And because Maddie’s one of those people who thinks everyone hangs on her every word, I indulge her
. “Thanks Maddie I’ll keep that in mind.”
For crying out loud, I slept in the same room with Grace for nineteen years, so I probably know a thing or two about common courtesy and space sharing
, I want to add. But I bite my lip.

And because Maddie’s also one of those people who clearly can’t see when they’re being a jackoff, she grins. “You’re welcome.” And then shakes her head and gives me a pitiful look. “What am I going to do with you?”

You could throw my shit out the front door so I can leave because you still haven’t had the common courtesy to invite me in
, runs through my head. But then I remember to put myself in Maddie’s shoes. What would I think of me? She doesn’t really know me, just what’s happened to me. Maybe she thinks I need to be looked after, and this is her version of good intention. Whatever.

“So, I’ll just grab my stuff and get out of your hair.” I’m kind of done screwing with her. She’s not funny anymore.

“Oh, right.” She steps aside and gestures to a pile of clothes on the sofa.

“Awesome,” I say as I scoop them up. “Thanks for not throwing them out on the curb or, you know, setting them on fire.”

She screws up her face in confusion. “I wouldn’t do that.”

She doesn’t know my sense of humor yet. “Kidding. I’m kidding Maddie. Lighten up.”

Her face smoothes out, but she still looks hurt. I feel kinda bad. “Since you’re already awake, you wanna grab something to eat?” Guilt’s prodding me. I feel it like a sharp poke in the ribs.

She’s super eager and that surprises me. “Sure, just give me a few minutes to get ready.”

“No problem, take your time.”

If I’d known she’d take the
take your time
comment so literally I would’ve said,
no problem, you have fifteen minutes
. An hour and thirteen minutes later she sashays her ass out of the bathroom dressed like she’s ready for a night out on the town. That’s another thing about Maddie; she doesn’t know how to dress down. I’m in sweats, a Sleigh Bells T-shirt, and running shoes and she’s in a strapless minidress and strappy, platform sandals.

“Wow, nice dress. But dude, it’s just breakfast.”

“Oh Kate.” She shakes her head as if to say,
Oh silly, silly immature Kate.
“You never know when you’re going to meet Prince Charming. You always have to look your best.” She takes in my ensemble. “This is something you’ll learn in time.”

P
retty sure I won’t.
I guess everyone has different definitions of prince charming. My definition might be based a little more on substance and character—call me crazy. 

The dress she’s wearing shows a lot of skin and it’s the first time I notice how startling thin she is. Like
bone
thin. I can’t help but blink my eyes away. It’s like some sort of internal coping mechanism’s been triggered to protect me from scary shit.

Suddenly Maddie is bubbly and happy. She talks nonstop all the way to the café about her visit to the gym yesterday and the hot, rich guy that got her number.

I nod in all the right places. Somebody’s on a man hunt. And she’s accepting all applicants with a big wallet, a penis, and a beating heart. Good luck with that.

The scene at the café plays out in much the same way as the sushi joint: Maddie orders a lot of food.
But unlike the sushi place nothing here goes to waste. She inhales a plate of eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon
and
ham, as well as three pancakes the size of dinner plates, all dripping in syrup. When I don’t eat the sausage links that came with my eggs and toast, she eats those too. This chick could compete in eating competitions. She must have lightning fast metabolism.

When we return to the apartment I grab my clothes off the sofa. “Thanks again for putting up with me for a few days, Maddie.”

She holds up a finger and begins walking away. “Just a minute, I’ll be right back.”

I stand there less than a minute before I remember that I didn’t have my razor in the shower this morning. I must have left it in Maddie’s shower. While I’m waiting for her I may as well grab it. The guest bathroom door is shut but she keeps Princess in there when she’s not home. I slowly open
the door, but as I do I hear the contents of Maddie’s belly empty into the toilet with a disgusting splash. The smell is overwhelming. My own stomach heaves. “Maddie, are you all right?”

I expect her to look sweaty or stricken, like the victim of some sort of freakishly violent food poisoning. She’s sitting on the edge of the tub holding her long blond curls back delicately hovering above the toilet careful not to touch anything. It’s the oddest thing. She looks purposeful and poised. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I pray to the porcelain god I huddle on the floor in front of it slumped over in submission. I’m a damn mess.  

“What the hell, Kate?” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before quickly flushing. Her face flushes red and I can’t tell if she’s pissed because she’s embarrassed or pissed because she’s, well, just pissed.

“Sorry Maddie. I didn’t know you were in here. I thought I forgot my razor and I was—”

“You could have knocked!”

I’m speechless as I watch her scrub her hands, rinse her mouth with mouthwash, and then fix her hair in the mirror. If I didn’t just witness her deposit $14.95 worth of
brekky into the john, I wouldn’t believe it looking at her now. She’s completely unaffected and it creeps me the hell out. The alarm starts blaring in my head like an air raid siren. All the pieces fit together now: the binging at meals, the obsession with working out, using the bathroom immediately after eating, her frighteningly thin body – she’s bulimic.

“Maddie, we seriously need to talk about this.” I gesture to the toilet, because I don’t want to put her on the defensive by putting a name on her issue.

She shrugs with one shoulder, which tells me she’s not into this conversation at all. “There’s nothing to talk about.” The irritation is gone from her voice. And I think I liked the anger better, because now she’s impassive. And you can’t talk to impassive people. They put up walls that deflect everything.

I follow her out to the living room. “Maddie, listen, no judgment … honestly. Please just let me help you with this.”

She lets out the most emotionless laugh I’ve ever heard. “You’re going to help me? That’s rich. What are you, eighteen?”

“Maddie, you’re my aunt, my family. I care, okay, that’s all I’m saying. How long has this been going on?”

“Little Kate, you’re so naïve.” It’s the patronizing, I’ll-talk-to-you-like-a-five-year-old tone again. But I don’t care, because at this moment all I want is to get through to her.   

“
Naïve
? Maddie, you just threw up your goddamn breakfast in the toilet …
on purpose
.”

“Kate dear, it’s
nothing
.” Her face is cool and nonchalant.

I shake my head but I don’t take my eyes off hers. This can’t be real. “Dude.” It’s pleading and sad.

She shakes her head back at me. “Kate, I only binge and purge every now and then. It’s not like it’s a habit. Sometimes I just get really hungry. This way I can eat a lot, but I don’t gain any weight. It’s a win-win.” She’s trying to convince me with her dazzlingly white smile.

“Dude, it is not a win-win. You’re screwing with your body. Bodies don’t like to be screwed with. At some point they rebel.” A person knowingly doing harm to
his or her body is a pet peeve of mine. A lot of people would give anything for a healthy body. Your body is a temple. You don’t shit on the temple.

She dismisses me with a wave of her hand like she’s done so many other times this week. I’m losing her. She won’t listen. And I don’t have any frame of reference, no inside knowledge on the topic. I don’t know what to say, so without thinking I say the same thing I always say to Gus about his smoking, “You should quit.” I feel stupid when I say it.

Her eyes are burning with anger now. I’ve pushed her too far. She takes a deep breath and says, “Kate, I think you should leave.”

Yup, definitely overstepped my bounds. I’ve
outed her secret and she’s furious, rightfully so. I need to give her some space. I gather my clothes and head for the door. “Thanks again for not burning my clothes.”

I wait for her response, but there’s nothing. Not even
you’re welcome
or
kiss my ass.
It’s the oppressive silent treatment. It sends a shiver through me. I look back, and suddenly I’m not in the room with Maddie anymore; I’m in the room with Janice Sedgwick. Maddie has taken on the image of my mother; even the way she’s carrying her weight on her left foot and has her arms crossed. They could be the same person. My mother wasn’t a monster. She just couldn’t always help it. When she didn’t take her meds she wasn’t herself, and when she did take her meds she wasn’t herself. Mental illness is no joke. There were times she was loving and kind. The rest of the time she was angry or indifferent. Anger and indifference are completely different, but when you’re a kid on the receiving end of either they’ll break your heart. I learned early on not to take it personally, but when she did it to Grace, it shattered me. I tried to make sure that never happened. On the rare occasion that I failed,
I hated myself for it
.

I need to get out of here.

I walk out the door, and just before it shuts behind me, I say, “Please get help.” I don’t think she’s heard me until I see her shoulders slump a little through the crack.

Back in my dorm room I research bulimia on my laptop for an hour. I stop after that, because it’s depressing. My head is full of questions.

It’s lunchtime and even though eating is the last thing I feel like doing after the past hour’s reading, I’ve got to get out of this room. I need to think about something else. I’m fairly good at compartmentalizing my life. If something bad is going down I can focus on it for a while and then put it on the back burner when I need to. Managing a childhood like mine taught me that helpful lesson. I can’t let the bad consume me or it would eat me whole. The bad stays in the bad corner of my mind, I don’t let it through the door to mingle with the good, because the bad is a goddamn party pooper.

So I go across the hall and pound on Clay’s door. Peter answers. “What’s up Pete?”

He nods his head stiffly. “Kate.”

I reach out, take Pete by the arms, and shake him good-naturedly. “Relax Pete. Hey, is Clayton around?”

Peter opens the door wide and I see Clayton lounging on his bed reading a magazine.

“Hey Clayton. What’s up? I’m just headed down to the cafeteria to grab some lunch. You
wanna come?”

“Good day, Katherine. Sure. This article is dreadful. It’s putting me to sleep.” He stretches and sets the magazine on his desk. Sometimes I wonder if Clayton was British in another life. Who else but the Brits say dreadful?

I look to Peter still holding the door. “You wanna come, too, Pete?”