Recovery Road (7 page)

I
call Cynthia a few days later, for one of our scheduled follow-up conversations. She’s impressed I’m still alive.

I give her the lowdown: I’m sleeping better. I’m not really craving anything. I’m going to Dr. Bernstein’s Teens at Risk support group, which I hate. Besides that, I go to school. I come home and watch TV. I hang out with Trish on weekends, (which amuses Cynthia to no end). She sounds pleased with my progress but tells me I need to go to AA meetings.

So I call Trish the next day and the two of us venture to a so-called “Young People’s” AA meeting.

Trish’s mom drives us in the Cadillac Escalade. It’s in the basement of an old stone church. We go inside. Not everyone there is actually young, but most are. It’s a boisterous crowd. People have tattoos, weird hair, piercings. Trish finds us seats along the wall.

There are some cute boys. That’s why Trish likes it. The two in front of us roll their skateboards back and forth under their chairs. They look like hardened criminals to me, but Trish is drooling over them. She’s all sexed up tonight, wearing super-tight jeans and thick, black eye makeup that
looks a little scary with her puffy face and multiple layers of foundation.

She looks terrible, to be honest. So do I, but I know enough to wear baggy clothes and keep my eyes to myself.

So we sit there and they do the whole AA routine. I remember it from rehab. It gets boring, though, and Trish can’t sit still and so halfway through we sneak out to the parking lot so she can smoke.

We stand in the cold, under the parking lot lights. Trish blows tight streams of smoke into the sky.

“If I don’t get laid, I’m gonna lose my mind,” Trish tells me.

I nod.

“Do you ever feel like that?” she says. “Or am I just insane?”

“Yeah, I feel like that.”

“How could you, though? You don’t even like any boys.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Like who? Name one.”

“This one guy.”

“What guy? A guy you haven’t told me about?”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

“Really?” she says, smoking. “Where did you meet him?”

“I met him a while ago.”

“Where?”

“At Spring Meadow,” I say guiltily.

“Spring Meadow?”

“It was after you left.”

Trish glares at me. “You met a guy at Spring Meadow?”

“Not there. At the halfway house. After you left.”

“And you like this guy? For real?”

I nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “No reason.”

“Were you hiding it?”

“No. I was just, you know, trying to keep it…low-key.”

“Keep what low-key? Did you do it with him?”

“No. Well…we fooled around a little.…”

“You
fooled around
with a guy at Spring Meadow?” says Trish. “Jesus, Madeline. Do you still talk to him?”

“Yeah.”

“And when were you planning on telling me this?”

“I don’t know.”

“That feels really weird to me. You know?” She turns away. She’s pissed. “You got with some guy? And you’re not saying a word about it? And meanwhile I’m slutting around, making a fool of myself? And you’re keeping your little secret romance to yourself?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Well, what’s it like, then? How could you not tell me?”

“It’s just. I think I love him.”

“And I don’t love people?”

“I don’t know. You’re more into…sex.”

“And you’re not?”

I look up at the sky.

“I can’t believe this,” she says, grinding her cigarette out on the dirty asphalt. “You’ve been holding out on me. This whole time. Keeping your pure love away from slutty Trish. I can’t believe this. You think you’re better than me, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You do. You totally do.”

“C’mon, Trish.…”

“And you’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am your friend, Trish,” I say.

Y
  ou better wake up
,” whispers a voice.

Someone bumps against my shoulder and I snap my head up. I’m sitting at a table, surrounded by Yearbook dorks.

Martin Farris is beside me.

“Is the teacher here?” I ask.

“No.”

I refocus my eyes. “Then why did you wake me up?”

“Because you’re gonna fall off your chair.”

“I happen to be good at sleeping in chairs.”

Martin goes back to his fascinating freshman swim team article.

“Why are you sitting next to me?” I ask him.

“There was no place else to sit.”

When Yearbook lets out, I can’t get out of there fast enough. I can’t lose Martin, though. For some reason he follows me down the hall.

“So…I…uh…” Martin says to me in a voice that is not his usual overconfident, robot dork voice.

“So you what?” I say back.

“I asked my friend Kaitlyn about you.”

“Yeah?”

“I asked her where you might have been last semester. She said you were in rehab.”

“That’s right,” I say, walking a little faster.

“She laughed at me. She said everyone in the whole school knew about it, and why was I so stupid?”

“That’s kind of what I thought too,” I say.

“And then I started thinking about it,” he says, trying to keep up. “And it all made sense. That’s why you go to the library. Because you used to hang out with Jake and Raj and those guys. But they usually skip out and smoke weed during lunch, so you go to the library and do the crossword puzzle and sleep.”

“Good work, detective,” I say.

“So then I was thinking you probably don’t have anything to do on weekends, or anytime really, and maybe I should offer to do something with you.”

I keep walking.

“Not anything big,” he continues. “Just like, maybe you need someone to hang out with. Or go somewhere with. Or something like that.”

“And you were going to volunteer yourself for this duty?”

“Sure. Why not? We could go to the mall. Go ice-skating or whatever. It’s not like I’ve got that much going on right now.”

“No kidding? A cool dude like you has nothing going on?”

He frowns at this but continues his speech. “I just thought I should offer. It was Kaitlyn who suggested ice-skating.”

“Ice-skating?”

“Yeah. She said girls like that.”

“God, you really are a dork.”

“Or a movie. Or whatever.”

“And this wouldn’t be a date?”

“Not at all. It would just be…helping you out. A good deed. Because you probably don’t have any non-stoner friends. Obviously you don’t. You probably don’t have
any
friends now, if what Kaitlyn said is true.”

“So you’re offering yourself as a dork-replacement-friend sort of thing.”

“No. Actually, I don’t think I would want to be your real friend. You’re not very nice. But I could spare a little time to help someone, you know, in a difficult situation.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“It
is
thoughtful of me. I just…we could even just sit around and do crossword puzzles if you wanted.”

“No offense,” I say, veering away from him, toward the parking lot. “But that sounds like the worst idea ever.”

B
ut in fact, doing crossword puzzles with Martin is not the worst idea ever.

The worst idea ever is going with Trish to the hospital to visit her ex–best friend, who is paralyzed.

I’d agreed to this before our little fight. And now that Trish has guilt-leverage on me, there’s no escape.

My mom has to drive us, because Trish’s Cadillac is in the shop. I explain to my mom it’s a “recovery” errand, that going to see the person Trish crippled in a drunk-driving accident is the responsible thing to do. Mom is pretty freaked out by the idea. So am I. But we go.

We pick up Trish at her house and drive across town to Providence Hospital. Of course I have been telling my mom that Trish is a really important friend and is super nice and normal and not screwed up at all.

When my mom sees Trish in person, with her swollen face and her bizarre haircut, she is slightly horrified.

But she says nothing. That’s one thing about my family. We have good manners.

My mom drops us off at the hospital and we go in. Trish
wants to get a bunch of candy at the little store inside. So we wait in line and get a huge box of Hot Tamales and Mike and Ikes and Jujubes and stuff like that.

“Haley likes Hot Tamales,” she tells me. Then she opens the Jujubes and starts eating them herself. She eats a couple at a time. Her mouth fills up with them.

We walk deeper into the hospital. Trish knows the way. It’s creepy walking down the long hallways. There’s no windows, no air. Trish isn’t bothered. She’s being her usual flighty self, walking too fast and not paying attention to where she’s going, or who she’s knocking into, unless it’s a cute doctor, or any other guy between the ages of fifteen and forty-five.

We ride the elevator to the eleventh floor. Trish is downing the Jujubes. I’ve never seen someone stuff so much candy in her face. It’s scary and it makes me nervous about what’s to come.

The elevator door opens. We get off. We walk down the hall. Trish is moving very fast now. I have to run to keep up.

We get to Haley’s room and Trish goes barging in, but the room is empty, the bed is empty.

“I know where she is,” says Trish, pushing me aside and continuing our frantic march down the hall. We come around the corner and there she is, in her wheelchair, a meek-looking blond girl with a small, sad face. She is just sitting in the hall, doing nothing. The look in her eyes, when she sees us, is of deep fear.

“Hey, Haley,” says Trish, talking about as fast as a human can talk. “This is Madeline, the girl I told you about? We lived together in the halfway house? We’re friends and we hang out, because we’re both sober now and drug free and we’re supposed to be friends with other sober people so that’s what we do. She’s very nice and she’s smart like you and gets good
grades and I think you guys will really hit it off. I brought you these too, Hot Tamales, I know you like them, I know they’re your favorite. I also got Mike and Ikes, the fruity ones. And some Jujubes.”

At this point, Trish grabs my arm and yanks me forward.

I step up to the wheelchair and reach out my hand. But Haley can’t lift her hands. She’s paralyzed from the neck down.

I drop my hand. Haley stares up at me. Her face is the saddest thing I have ever seen.

A nurse comes around the corner. She hurries toward us. She doesn’t look happy to see Trish. “You girls are a little late, aren’t you? Visiting hours are over.”

“I wanted Haley to meet my friend Madeline,” says Trish. “I think they’ll really hit it off. They’re both sort of the same type and they’ll probably be great friends. Won’t you, Maddie? You like Haley, don’t you? You guys could, like, play chess on the computer or something.”

Trish is losing her shit. She can’t stop talking. “I can’t play chess at all. I’m terrible at games. But Haley’s good at things like that, aren’t you, Haley? You used to love Chutes and Ladders when we were kids. And Monopoly. You always wanted to play that. I always got bored playing board games. I just can’t sit still, I guess.”

The nurse grasps the handles of Haley’s wheelchair and backs her away from us. She does not look happy with Trish.

“Can you feed her these Hot Tamales?” says Trish abruptly, trying to hand the box to the nurse. “She really likes them.”

When the nurse doesn’t take them, Trish lays the box on the front tray on Haley’s wheelchair.

I suddenly realize that the nurse considers Trish a crazy person. Haley does too. The nurse wheels Haley away, leaving me and Trish standing alone in the hallway.

In the elevator, Trish can’t speak. When the door opens, she takes off through the lobby, practically running toward the exit. I run to catch up, and when I do, she stops suddenly, turns, and collapses into a chair by the door. She lowers her head and starts rocking back and forth. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I sit down too, I put my hand on her back to calm her.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she moans to herself. She curls up into herself, pulling her fists inside her sleeves.

“It’s okay, Trish.”

“Do you see now?” she says, her face bent down almost to her knees. “Do you see now what I’m talking about?”

“Yes,” I say, though I don’t really.

“I did that. I
did that
,” she says to the ground. “And people want me to get a job? They want me to move forward with my life?” She covers her ears with her wrists.

“It’s okay,” I tell her.

“I just wanna be dead,” she whispers into the carpet. “I do. It’s all I ever wanted. I don’t want to be here. I swear I don’t.”

Then she jumps up and runs out the door. I watch her disappear. I have no idea where she’s going.

I dig my phone out and text my mom that we might be a while.

T
wo days later I’m riding in Martin Farris’s car. We’re going to the mall. I have apparently decided to let him be my dork-replacement-friend.

Martin parks in the underground parking lot and we go inside. He’s dressed up a bit. He’s wearing new, uncool Nikes, uncool jeans, and some sort of golf shirt.

We walk along the main concourse. It’s a Friday night. Martin wanted to come on a weekend night because he thought weekend nights were probably the hardest for me.

“That’s probably when you partied the most,” he said on the phone.

“That’s right,” I said back, though in fact I “partied” about the same every night.

We cruise the mall. There are other people milling around. People on dates. It’s pretty embarrassing, but I follow Martin around, like girls are supposed to. That’s how I live now. I do what I’m supposed to do.

Martin steers us to the Cineplex. We look at the movie times and study the possibilities. One of the other movies finishes and a stream of people come out.

Suddenly, all I can think of is Stewart. The two of us slouched in the back of The Carlton theater, our feet draped over the seats.

And then I know I can’t do this. No movies. Not with Martin Farris.

“I don’t think I want to see a movie,” I say.

“You don’t? Why not?”

“Because.”

Martin is confused. And a little hurt. “I thought that’s why we came here?”

I avoid meeting his eye.

“Is it because you’re with me?” he asks. “Because this isn’t a date. I know that. Not at all.”

“I just don’t want to,” I say. “I want to do something else. I want to go ice-skating.”

“But you said you hated ice-skating.”

“I want to try it,” I lie, “I think it sounds like fun.”

Martin leads us down the escalator to the ice rink. I don’t know how to ice-skate. I’ve never even
thought
about ice-skating before.

We rent skates. We sit together on a wood bench and put them on. Martin is not speaking to me now. I’ve hurt his feelings. I should probably apologize. Or maybe he just needs to get over himself. He is a geek, after all. He said so himself.

With our skates on, we stand at the edge of the rink. I like the way the ice looks: perfectly flat, perfectly white. I like the bracing cold of it.

Martin is smart enough to know I don’t want help, I don’t want any hand-holding or other physical contact. So he leaves me to fend for myself.

I take my first cautious steps onto the ice. I think I’m going to take off and go flying around the rink like the other people, but in fact, the minute I step forward, I fall. And then I can’t get up. And when I do, I fall again.

It’s the skate blades. They bend over to the side. I stand up and try again and I fall backward this time, hard, on my ass.

Meanwhile, Martin has already glided off into the flow of the other people. He’s totally skating.

I crawl to the wall and pull myself up. He completes a lap and comes up behind me.

“Jesus, Martin,” I say. “How do you do this?”

“You have to hold your ankles straight,” he says.

“How do you do
that
?”

“You have to flex your muscles a certain way.”

He offers his arm and I hold on to it. I try again. I get a little speed going and then I fall again. I slide a few feet and then stop, sprawled on my back on the ice.

“This isn’t fun,” I say. “Why do people think this is fun?”

Martin helps me up and I try again, complaining bitterly the whole time, though the truth is, I don’t mind it that much: falling, sliding to a stop, lying there on the cold whiteness.

It numbs me. Which I like.

Afterward, we go back to Martin’s car. We pull out of the Lloyd Center parking lot.

“I guess we should head home,” says Martin.

“We don’t have to,” I say. “It’s only nine thirty.”

“Yeah, but what are we going to do?”

“Let’s go downtown,” I say.

“What’s downtown?”

“Life, Martin. The world.”

We drive over the bridge into the city. Martin doesn’t know anything about downtown. I have to tell him how to get there, what streets to take, where the cool places are.

We drive by Pioneer Courthouse Square, which is where the street kids hang out. I used to hang out there myself on occasion. I see some people I know standing around the MAX station. I see Jeff Weed, one of the local pot dealers, in a trench coat that has the word
subhuman
spray-painted on the back of it.

“See that guy?” I tell Martin. “That’s Jeff Weed.”

“Is that his real name?” Martin says, gawking out his window.

“And there’s Bad Samantha.”

Martin can’t believe I know these people. He stares at them like they are aliens from outer space. “Are these the people who gave you drugs?”

“They don’t give you drugs,” I say. “You have to buy them.”

I direct Martin to a different block and we park. As amusing as it is to watch Martin geek out, I feel a little unsettled myself. What if Jeff Weed tries to talk to me? What if Bad Samantha recognizes me? We almost got in a fight two summers ago.

I keep my head down as we slip inside the Metro Café.

Martin is not prepared for this scene either. He didn’t know that young people actually go places other than Math Club or their next-door neighbors’ basement to play video games. He doesn’t know what to make of the stylish downtown girls. Or the cool skater dudes.

He orders a decaf latte. I get a triple espresso. I make him pay, and we find a table in the back and sit there, not talking. Martin mostly stares at people: two sexy girls in miniskirts, a boy wearing makeup. At one point, a loud, drunk girl wanders
in and starts kicking someone. Her friends try to restrain her and she kicks them too. A manager appears and tries to wrestle her out the door.

“See that girl?” I say to Martin, sipping my espresso.

“Yeah?”

“That was me.”

When he drops me off at home, Martin thanks me for taking him downtown.

“You can go there yourself, you know,” I tell him.

“I don’t think I’d go there myself. But I’m glad I went.”

I get out. I look back at Martin as I close the car door. He’s staring out the windshield thinking about everything he just saw. He’s probably realizing for the first time how utterly clueless and sheltered he is.

“Night, Martin,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Night.”

I wave and walk up my driveway. By the time I’m inside I’ve forgotten the entire evening.

Stewart will be home in four days.