Olivia's Trek (1) (7 page)
Olivia Carter
“Once we get off the plane, we’ve only got a short drive, about an hour, to reach our destination. Things will work out.”
I step off the plane like I’m wading through sticky glue, my boots feel so heavy as my three companions form a triangle around me until we get outside where the brightness of the sun and sheer blue of the sky make my eyes wince. For once I miss the dark and rain.
“Welcome to Utah, Olivia,” Dr. Nate says as he beckons to me to get into another black sedan that has drawn up beside us. “You’ll probably find it interesting to know that the word Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means ‘people of the mountains’ in the Ute language.”
“Why would that interest me?”
“Well, your mother was Native American, wasn’t she?”
“Guess so.”
“We’re going to my rehabilitation facility called Cedars and you’ll stay with us for a bit while we give you all the help you need.”
“I don’t need help,” I mutter darkly under my breath as the car door shuts behind me and the blacked out windows give my eyes a break from the surrounding brightness.
The car winds its way through the slick, rock canyons, aspen and pine forests. I’d seen pictures of the red rock cliffs in magazines before, but this was something else. My eyes are barely able to take in one type of scenery before it totally changes again. There are more notices for national and state parks and monuments than I’ve ever seen in any other region in the country.
Dr. Carmichael’s voice fades into the background as he tells me that our route follows the Colorado River then approaches the La Sal Mountains through Castle Valley. Flashing images of the Carters’ Upper East Side apartment, the feel of the thick carpet on my bare toes, the smell of Victoria’s alyssum bath oil completely overtake me. Alternating waves of nausea and abdominal cramps have crept up on me. I need to concentrate on the outside and focus on what Dr. Carmichael is saying as we travel through the Manti-La Sal National Forest.
“Motorists will wind their way up to an elevation of 12,700 feet and then drop into the red rock canyons of the Colorado River plateau. That’s where Cedars is, Olivia.” My nose is starting to run and my muscles ache.
The enormous rocks, cliff walls hundreds of feet high, and sandstone spanning across the landscape, send me to sleep.
*
I’m sitting slumped in the back seat on my own. My mouth is all dry apart from the right hand side where I’ve obviously been drooling.
Gross.
As I reach up to wipe it with the back of my hand, a lady in a peppermint green golf top and beige chinos holding a folder with my name on it pops her head into the side of the car and beams the broadest smile I have seen in a long time, enhancing her perfect lovely white teeth.
“Miss Carter. Glad to see you’re awake. Welcome to Cedars, my dear. My name is Cynthia. Come and follow me and I’ll escort you to your room. You must be tired, so let’s get you all settled in and then I can show you around.”
Her soothing voice is full of compassion and charity and I automatically trust her like the old Olivia would. Quickly I tell myself that everyone is here to trap me, hold me against my will and stop me from making the choices that I’m free to do. So much for fucking liberty.
Ava and Asher Forrester Payne always described state of the art spa facility type of places. This looks like some kind of luxury campground. I’m surrounded by waterfalls, green shrubbery and a large red hut to which beaming-smile-and-white-teeth is headed like she’s on a mission.
I’m starting to feel shivery and jumpy as Cynthia leads me through what looks like a five star hotel lobby reception area and then down a long whitewashed corridor with an eclectic mix of pictures hanging on the walls. She must have sensed that I’m not feeling too good as her pace quickens.
We turn around a corner and she unlocks a white door.
“This will be your room while you are staying with us, Miss Parker, before you are ready to go on a trek. I hope you’ll find it to your taste and comfort.”
Huh? What happened to the white straitjackets and locked wards that you see on late night TV? Trek? As in hiking? I must be tripping. Sure, good luck with that one.
Inside the room I look at the white walls, white ceiling and white bedcovers on the white double bed. Everything is so white here, but not at all clinical or scary. It’s modern and makes me feel clean and pure. There’s some kind of tall white statue at the end of the bed. I think it’s a giraffe made of wires and there’s a huge bright ocean blue painting on the wall opposite the door. I stare at the picture and feel like I could walk right into it. A tall vase holding four pale lilac-colored lilies sits on the white rectangle bedside table. My mother loved lilies.
I look towards a door on the other side of the room and, on cue, Cynthia wanders over to it and opens the door to a huge beige tiled room. I get up to have a look. Its very different to the traditional colonial style bathroom we have in Fairmont County. There’s a showerhead in one corner of the room, a toilet on the other side and a sink. No glass doors and no bath. Just a small mirror above the sink in which I catch a glimpse of my face. Holy hell, the sheer red of my newly dyed hair takes my breath away. My face has streaks of black all over it from my tears earlier, with jet black kohl rings around both of my eyes, and my lips are still jet black, too. I’ve looked like this all this time and no one here has batted an eyelash.
As if she can read my mind, Cynthia says, “It’s a wet room Miss Parker. We don’t have any baths here anymore. We’ve had some unfortunate incidents in them in the past, but let’s not talk about that.” She beams that large smile at me again.
“You’ll find some comfortable attire in the drawers, so why don’t you try the wet room, have a shower and refresh yourself and then you can wander down to the lobby, and have them page me and I can show you around.” And with that she sashays out of the room, closing the big white door behind her.
I squeeze my hands between my legs and flop over onto the bed. I need to close my eyes, but I’m vaguely aware of my head starting to thump, my throat feeling painfully scratchy and dry, a cramping sensation in my stomach and waves of nausea running through me. I try and think of what I’ve taken in the last two days: an eightball of coke, a few joints, vodka, tequilla, Red Bull, champagne, oh, and Oxycontin. I feel like I’ve got the flu.
I must have drifted off, but I am woken by my shivering, jittering body. My bones and muscles feel as if someone has poured lead into them. I can’t move, but I can’t keep still at the same time. I think I’m going to be sick. I need to get out of here. As I force my aching body into a sitting position, the door opens and in comes Cynthia with a tray of food. Ignoring me she puts the tray down gently and moves as if to go out of the door to leave me.
“Help me. Please? I need to leave here. I feel awful. I need a doctor. Something is really wrong with me. I need my uncle.”
“Miss Parker, you’re withdrawing. We expected this. Unfortunately Dr. Carmichael has been held up with a situation, but there’ll be another doctor along soon. Just try to calm down and relax until then. Do try the food. It is lovely.”
Anger erupts from somewhere deep inside of me and before I have any control, I hear myself screaming, “Didn’t you hear me, you crazy bitch? Something is wrong with me and you’re droning on about food. Well, here’s what I think of your fucking food.”
I launch myself at the tray, kicking its contents all over the white walls and floor.
“Like I said, a doctor will be along to see you shortly.” Cynthia turns around without any register of what I’ve said or the language I have used, leaving the room.
I launch myself at the tall vase knocking it off the table. It doesn’t break, but the lilies lie limply on the top of the table, water dripping from the table to the floor. I head for that stupid giraffe sculpture thing next, knocking it over and kicking it with every force I have in my body. I look across at the white bed and the white pillows which now have black streaks from my unwashed face and head to rip everything off the bed when the door opens again. Oh great, it’s Tweedledee and Tweedledum from my journey earlier, Cynthia, and behind them someone else.
“Get out of my room now!” I scream so viciously that I can feel the veins popping on my temples. This seems to exacerbate my headache and its accompanying anger, so I shut my eyes temporarily to steady myself.
“That will be all, guys. I’ll take it from here.”
“Are you sure, Dr. Carmichael? We can hang around outside if you want.”
“No need.”
Who the fuck is this joining the party now?
I look up and can’t believe it. It’s the angel who was sitting outside my hospital room when I’d been in the car accident—except this is no angel. He can’t be older than 25, wearing a surfing t-shirt, combat shorts and Havianas, but it’s the same white blonde hair that’s hanging in wet ringlets, and there’s no mistaking those vivid, azure blue eyes.
“Olivia, my name’s Gabriel Carmichael and I’m a doctor. Calm down, okay? I know you don’t feel well at the moment. Now, let’s take a deep breath and talk.”
Not feeling well? Talk? Who the hell is this joker? Jesus, I know its my mind playing tricks on me … One minute the guy’s an angel, the next he’s a doctor and he’s got the same name as the older doctor-dude on the plane. Why can’t he just be a big bag of white powder?
I take a deep breath and inch forward toward him, “Look I just want to go, okay? I don’t belong here. I need a doctor. My uncle will go crazy if he knows how ill I’m feeling and that you’re all pissing around with me. Now if you don’t mind, get out of my way and get me a cab, please.”
The angel’s eyes harden and he says, “When’s the last time you had a shower?”
“What? What the fuck has that got to do with anything?”
Right, I’ve had enough of this crap and these freak people in this freak rehab facility. I’m getting out of here. As I edge my way towards the door, both the angel and Cynthia, with her unchanged expression, move toward me.
“Olivia, you’re here to stay whether you like it or not, so you might as well cooperate. You’ve been sent here by a judge. There are lots of people who can really help you if you give it a chance.”
“I don’t want anyone’s fucking help. Now get away from me,” I shriek in a high-pitched panic.
The angel moves fast and has me in a vise-like grip from behind, and before I know it, he’s dragging me screaming and shouting towards the wet room, and my frantic efforts to escape only result in me kicking off my shoes and his grip tightening on me when he turns on the shower on both of us. I don’t know how long we are standing under the water, but it feels so good and acts as an antithesis to my cramping gut and throbbing head. After some time, I feel his grip loosening while he still holds me with one hand and uses his other hand to push the shampoo dispenser, and massages the liquid into my head.
“Cynthia, please can you pass me a washcloth?” he shouts.
I totally forgot about Cynthia. So that means she’s been sitting in my room the whole time.
Cynthia walks over with a washcloth and hands it to him, her expression still unchanged from the very first time I met her in the car earlier this afternoon.
“Here, Olivia. Use this to wash off all that black makeup from your face. Let’s see what you look like underneath.”
I do as he says and, as I do so, my legs buckle from under me and I can’t stop sobbing. Oh God, how did I end up here, in this state, in this place, alone with strangers? I did nothing to deserve this. As the black streaks from my makeup accumulate on the washcloth, my vulnerability grows.
“Just let it all out, Olivia. That’s it. Don’t hold it in.”
He holds me and supports my slumped and shivering body, rocking and reassuring me gently as sobs rack me. Everything I’ve held in about my mother, about Lucien, pours out of me until I have nothing left inside of me.
Cynthia steps into the wet room with some towels and the angel switches off the shower.
“Kid, Cynthia is going to help you get out of these wet clothes and get you into something more comfortable.” And with that, the angel sweeps out of my bedroom.
I’m shivering more than before and my cramps are getting stronger. I willingly let her help me peel the clinging, soaking clothes off me and stand helplessly as she towel dries my body and hair like a tired child. I continue to stand there as she undoes all the cornrows in my hair one by one.
I put on cashmere shorts and a t-shirt after pulling them up to my nose to inhale their fresh clean scent, like a spring breeze.
I sit on the bed and Cynthia sits beside me brushing my hair. “Miss Parker, this is such a harsh color you have in your hair, my dear. What color is your natural hair?”
“It’s a sort of dark brown, almost black,” I say quietly.
“Well, when you feel better, how about we go about and try to fix your hair a bit, maybe closer to its natural color?”
I feel hot tears pricking behind my eyes at the kindness of this stranger in my room as she picks up the hairdryer and starts drying my hair.
I feel utterly exhausted by the whole day’s events and crawl into the bed where Cynthia tightly tucks me in.
“Miss Parker, you might start feeling unwell again, but please try not to worry. There are lots of people around and you are not alone. When we see that you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms yet again we will be in to see you immediately. Now try to get some sleep.”
My mind is swirling, bile sits at the base of my throat burning my gullet. As I close my eyes and drift off I’m sure I can smell my momma’s incense.
*
Gabriel Carmichael
I jolt upright from the loud sound of my pager going off as I try to read the newspaper. Great. Some new kid no doubt. What I don’t get is that they pour all this crap into their bodies without a second thought. My dad always told me that nothing comes for free. How can they not know the trouble they’re getting themselves into?
Oh well. It’s my last few months here and my last road trip before I’m back at work in Manhattan. In a proper hospital, where I can get back to surgery again. Just gotta keep that thought in mind.