Sisters in Sanity

by Gayle Forman

  “Are you angry at your father for divorcing your mother?”

  I slumped back in my seat, suddenly exhausted by her questions. I understood why Dad divorced Mom, because even though she was still out there somewhere, she was gone, and the doctors said that she wasn’t coming back—not the way she used to be anyhow. If Mom had died, I would’ve wanted Dad to get on with his life, not to spend his days moping for her, and I guess it was kind of like she had died. But another part of me wondered how he could move on without her.

  “Why wasn’t your mother committed?” Clayton asked.

  I shrugged again. Truth was, Dad was the only one who could legally do it, and he didn’t have the stomach for it. Grandma used to plead with him, crying, “Please, please, she’s my little girl.” Dad would cry back, “I can’t.” He’d fallen in love with Mom’s free spirit, and he couldn’t bring himself to clip her wings. And in case anyone thinks I’m in denial, it’s not lost on me that while my Dad couldn’t commit my totally nutso mom—even with everyone begging him to—all it took was a little nudging from Stepmonster for him to lock me up. But I wasn’t about to share that with Clayton. We’d had enough “honesty” for one day. In fact, I’d had enough of Clayton for one day too. I needed to get away from her, even if I had to burn a bridge to do it.

  “You know, if you’re so interested in my dad, maybe you should shrink his head. Oh, but you’re not really a shrink, are you? Just play one on TV, huh.”

  Clayton snapped my file shut and licked her pale, thin lips. We still had fifteen minutes left in the session, but she stood up. My little jibe had worked. It had also cost me a level. “I’m moving you back to down to Level Three. I’m disappointed in you. Very disappointed.” She stared at me with her best look of disapproval, trying to gauge how upset I was. Whatever. Level Four, Level Three—the only difference was I couldn’t wear makeup, which I didn’t anyway. And I couldn’t talk on the phone, which was just as well because my weekly five minutes with Dad were really awkward. Neither of us knew what to say, and half the time, Dad put a babbling Billy on the line to fill the silence.

  Demotion, promotion, it didn’t seem to matter. Now that I’d passed the three-month mark, I knew I wasn’t getting out of Red Rock soon. I got up to leave, but before I was out the door, Clayton went in for the kill. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to talk about your mother, about the ways in which her nature mirrors your own.”

  “What are you talking about?” I screamed, unable to control myself any longer. “My mom didn’t just stay out too late because she was playing in a band or because she didn’t like her stepmother! She was sleeping in parks, hiding from imaginary people she thought were trying to kill her. My mom got sick, like with cancer, but in her head. She has a mental illness, not a character defect. And I’ll never talk about her with you. Never!”

  I ran back to my room and threw myself on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably for my mom and for everything else I’d lost. I didn’t go to dinner, and none of the counselors forced me to go, either. After all, I was crying. They liked it when you cried.

  “Darling, darling, what is it?” Bebe asked. It was after lights-out, and I had my head jammed into my pillow, which was soaked with tears.

  “Brit, why are you so upset? You’re scaring me,” Martha said.

  “It’s lights-out. Can you all be quiet? Otherwise we’re going to get in trouble,” Tiffany whined.

  “Not as much trouble as you’re in if you don’t butt out and shut your trap, Tiffany,” Bebe snarled.

  “You guys are so nasty. I swear I’m going to tell Clayton.”

  “You do that and you’ll regret the day you were born,” Martha said in an uncharacteristic show of toughness. It would’ve made me smile if I hadn’t felt so awful.

  “Whatever,” Tiffany said.

  “Brit, tell us what happened,” Martha begged.

  I couldn’t talk. Didn’t want to say anything. Bebe and Martha just leaned over my bed, ignoring Tiffany’s dramatic sighs. Martha stroked my arm and Bebe whispered “Don’t cry, sweetie,” until I finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 13

  “This girl needs some cheering,” said V, who, along with Cassie, Bebe, and Martha, was standing over me at lunch. It had been two days since the horrible session with Clayton, and I was still feeling kind of wrecked by it.

  “You guys, don’t sit here. We’ll pay for it,” I said.

  “We can live dangerously just this once,” V said, motioning to the others. “Sit down.”

  They sat down, all looking at me with a strange mix of worry and concern, which was nice but made me feel like a lab rat. Then they looked at one another and smiled.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “So listen, Cinderella, I have some good news.” Bebe said.

  “You’re going home?”

  “Not quite, darling, but nice of you to think it. No, this pertains to you, all of us really. We have a fairy godmother, you see. A most unlikely one,” Bebe said.

  “Who?”

  “My mother, of course. She has found her calling, hosting a cable show all about beauty spas. Could it be more perfect? Anyhow, as it turns out, there are several chichi spas in the area. Something about the red clay being therapeutic. Mother’s coming here to film them. So guess who’s getting a day at the spa?”

  “You?” I said.

  “Well, of course me, darling. But also you four.”

  “No way,” I said. “They’ll never let us go. Especially now, when they’re keeping such an eye on us. And I just got demoted, remember?”

  “Ahh, you underestimate the power of celebrity, even washed-up C-list celebrity. Mother has promised to grant an audience with the staff, and the counselors are all peeing themselves with glee. Even Sheriff asked if he could get an autographed picture. I had my mother specially request your presence. Trust me, they’ll do what she asks. All you need is permission from your own parents to go.”

  “Me at a girlie spa,” Cassie said. “My parents are gonna faint from joy.”

  “Yeah, all I have to do is tell my parents that I’m getting an anti-cellulite treatment,” Martha said.

  “Even if they did let me go, how am I gonna get permission? I’m demoted, remember. Level Three. No phone calls. Besides, my dad’s probably pissed that I’m not progressing fast enough.”

  “She’s coming in ten days. Write a letter today. And make it a good one, full of introspection. At the end, tug on his heartstrings and ask if you can go. If you mail the letter right away, your dad will have time to call in with permission.”

  “Unless Stepmonster reads the letter first. But even if Dad says yes, I can’t see Clayton agreeing.”

  “Clayton doesn’t make the final decisions on such things, my dear. The Sheriff does. And he’s gaga for Mother.”

  “Okay, I’ll write to him. Maybe as an added incentive, I’ll tell him I really want to cut out my streaks.” This wasn’t entirely untrue. In the months since I’d been at Red Rock, the magenta had faded to a rather putrid shade of orange and my roots were coming in under the black.

  “Speaking of which, I’m in desperate need of a cut,” V said. Her once-choppy locks were also looking a little tired.

  “That reminds me. I’ve always wondered where you got such a cool haircut out here. Did they let you go to a salon in town or something?”

  V and Bebe laughed.

  “You’re sweet, Brit. But if my hair turned out cool, it was purely accidental. I had really long hair when I got here, but I shaved it all off.”

  “What?”

  “I used the electric razors they give us.”

  “Wow, that’s so punk rock.”

  “You don’t have the lock on rebellion, you know.” V grinned at me in that snarky way of hers, which by now I’d learned was totally affectionate.

  “Ladies, can we get back to the subject at hand? A day out. A day of beauty. It’s going to be divine. You know what they say. ‘Look good, feel good.’�
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  You wouldn’t guess it to look at me, but I’m a sucker for pampering and stuff. Mom and I used to have do-it-yourself beauty days at home. But I’d never been to a real spa. And the thought of a day out gave me a burst of energy. All of us were really excited. Every time we passed one another in the hall, we’d call out, “Look good, feel good,” and laugh. Even the staff let us have our joke. Everyone was looking forward to the pending arrival of Marguerite Howarth, aka Ellis Hardaway, the resident villain on Lovers and Strangers for fifteen years before she was murdered by her half sister. No one even dared call Bebe “Rodeo Drive” anymore, for fear of offending her, I guess, and being excluded from meeting her mom. And Bebe herself seemed the most excited of all.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Mother,” she gushed. “She’s a major diva and a bit of a head case, don’t get me wrong. All actors are. But she’s a lot of fun, and she will simply adore you all.”

  As it turned out, we would all have to wait a bit longer to meet Marguerite. Two days before our big spa trip, she called Bebe to say she had just gotten a small role in a made-for-TV movie about figure skaters and wouldn’t be coming to Utah after all.

  “She wanted me to tell you how sorry she was. And she’ll send some samples,” Bebe said, practically spitting out her words.

  “I’m so bummed. I wanted to meet her,” Martha lamented. V shot Martha her harshest arched eyebrow, shutting Martha up.

  “I’m so sorry, Bebe,” I said. “Parents. They are clueless.”

  “Unbelievable,” added V. “And they wonder why we’re a little out of whack.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “maybe they should send all our parents to boot camp.”

  “I can just see fancy Ellis Hardaway workin’ the brick pile,” Cassie said.

  Even Bebe had to chuckle at the thought of that.

  A couple days later, V sidled up next to me while I was building a wall. Though Clayton kept trying to separate us, V bristled at being told what to do, so every now and then she’d wend her way over to visit me. “It’s tragic that Bebe’s mom bailed, but she should have known better. We all should’ve,” she said. “Parental visits are a rarity here. There’s even something in the brochure about how the therapy works best when the troubled girl is removed from her familiar context completely.”

  “The better to make you miserable. But I thought your mom came,” I said.

  “She swung by once when I hit Level Five for the first time. She was at some conference in Vegas, so she had to come.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He works for the United Nations. As a diplomat. He travels a lot. Anyhow, Mom did visit, but she couldn’t do that now. Not since Alex.”

  “Who’s Alex?”

  “Where would you get your gossip if it weren’t for me?”

  “Dunno. I’d be lost, I guess.”

  “Right. Alex was just some girl here. She hated it as much as we all do. And she wrote her parents all these letters about how awful it was, how dirty it was, how the therapists were all bogus. The only difference was that Alex’s parents believed her. Can you imagine?”

  “Crazy concept. Trusting your child.”

  “I know. Insane. Anyhow, her parents came by for a surprise visit. It was summer and blazing out, and we were all in the quarry in the middle of the day. The place was a dump as usual. Her father freaked out right there. He was screaming about suing this place for malpractice. They took Alex home that day.”

  “I wish that would happen to me.”

  “It’s the ultimate fantasy. But now drop-in visits are pretty much banned. Parents have to sign a contract when they enroll you, promising to abide by the ‘therapeutic guidelines’ and swearing not to sue if you get killed in Red Rock’s care.”

  “No way.”

  “That’s not the exact wording. But there is a contract, and it says you can’t visit without prior permission.”

  “How is it that you know everything?”

  V smiled mysteriously. “I have my ways,” she said, and then before I could ask her about those ways, she was on the other side of the quarry.

  There were parental visits, of course. I mean most parents did want to see their offspring now and again. And family visits were a good “motivator.” It was amazing how after a few months at Red Rock, even girls who had terrible relationships with their parents were dying to see them. So Red Rock set up pre-arranged visits, called them therapy, and then charged extra for them. “Family Intensives” were held four times a year at a nearby hotel. Parents hardly even saw the school—they came by for an hour-long tour and a meal. The joke of it was, the week before the visits, we were all taken off the quarry and turned into maids, scrubbing the dingy halls, bleaching the skanky bathrooms. And when the parents came for lunch, the meal was catered. Not a very realistic view of life at Red Rock.

  Of the five of us, only Cassie’s parents had come to one of the meetings, which Cassie said wasn’t too bad. One perk of Family Intensives was that you got to stay at the hotel where they held the thing, which meant a whole weekend of TV and swimming pools.

  “And TGI Friday’s. I had potato skins for dinner every day,” Cassie said.

  We had just finished a group therapy session, and the counselors announced which girls would be on the list for the next Family Intensive a few weeks later in March. Naturally, none of us was included, and Cassie was trying to make us feel better.

  “The therapy part was the pits. All the parents sittin’ around gettin’ teary about how messed up we are and how glad they are that we’re on the road to recovery.”

  “And let me guess, there wasn’t any talk of how your parents might have contributed to any of your problems, and I’ll bet none of you guys had the guts to bring that up anyhow,” Bebe said. She was still pretty bitter about Marguerite’s aborted visit.

  “Well now, what was I s’posed to do? Blame my folks? Come on, they’ve darn near sold the farm tryin’ to fix me.”

  “You live on a farm?” Bebe asked snidely.

  “It’s just an expression,” Cassie said, looking wounded.

  Cassie’s parents had gone haywire trying to degayify her. After a family vacation in Corpus Christi, when they caught Cassie kissing a surfer girl, they sent her to some gender dysphoria expert they’d read about online, only she turned out to be a shrink who mostly worked with transsexuals, so then they switched to a therapist who specialized in “fixing” gay kids, and it was that guy who referred them to Red Rock.

  “Why not blame your parents?” Bebe asked. “Mom didn’t give you enough attention. Dad didn’t give you enough love and now you’re a big ole lesbian.”

  “That ain’t true,” Cassie said. “I don’t even know that I’m gay. I think I’m bi, but if you think about it, so’s everyone. We’re just tryin’ to figure things out.”

  “Not me, darling. I don’t go for girls. And might I remind you that you got caught making out with some surfer girl? I’d say that qualifies you as a dyke.”

  “And you got caught doin’ lord knows what with your pool boy, but that doesn’t make you a slut in my book.”

  “You’re right. All the other guys I’ve done, that qualifies me as a slut.”

  “Bebe, stop it,” I said.

  “Oh please, not you too, Cinders. You’re not going to turn yourself into a doormat for these drones.”

  “No, I’m not,” I insisted. “And neither is Cassie. And just because you’re pissed off at your mom doesn’t give you the right to dump on everyone else or to tell Cassie that she’s gay or not gay.”

  Bebe gasped as if I’d hit a nerve. “I have the right to say what I think,” she said.

  “What are you, ten?” I knew Bebe was bummed, but I couldn’t stand to watch her take it out on Cassie.

  “Oh piss off, Miss Bad Girl.” Bebe stared me down as if only she could see the real me. “You think you’re such a rebel,” she said, “but you’re really just a goody-two-shoes.”

  “I don’t
have to prove anything to you,” I said, fuming.

  “That’s all you do—try to prove stuff,” she shot back.

  “Spare me the cheap psychobabble,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I get enough of that around here.”

  “Well maybe you need some more.”

  “No, maybe you do. Look, Bebe, I know you’re angry, but enough with the bitchiness already,” I said. “We are all so over it.”

  “Well, I guess my fifteen minutes of sympathy are up,” she said sarcastically. “Fine. Whatever. Just you wait until it’s your dad that cancels on you. Oh, but that probably won’t happen because he doesn’t even want to see you in the first place, does he?”

  “Bebe darling?”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Go to hell.”

  Bebe and I iced each other that night and all the next day. I was furious with her, but I also knew I had to let it go. When you’re surrounded by enemies, you can’t really afford to hold grudges against your friends. Bebe realized the same thing. Two mornings later I found another of her notes stuck inside my shirt pocket.

  I’m a bitch. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.

  Forgive me? BB

  I did, of course. I knew how frustration could build until you were ready to explode. Sometimes you just had to lash out at someone, and it was safer if we did that to each other. I also knew that what Bebe said wasn’t really about me or meant to hurt me. But her words hit home. In his letters, Dad did keep promising to visit. He was all gung ho, talking about making it a family trip with Billy and the Stepmonster, and while I had no desire to see her, I still wanted Dad to prove me wrong and show up. Although, having sunk down to Level Three, I wasn’t really in any position to have a family visit anyway. Despite the fact that I had been trying to “work my program.” Sort of.

  V kept telling me to fake it, that all I had to do was open up in CT. It didn’t matter if what I was opening up about was total crap. So I invented sob stories about how alienated I was at school, how mean the other kids were to me. I even squeezed out a tear in one session. The counselors were impressed with my bravery and—get this—honesty. I thought for sure I was going back to Level Four, but I must have really pissed Clayton off, because even with all my feigned progress, I remained stuck on Level Three. I wasn’t going to see Dad in March and the next Family Intensive wasn’t until June—June! It was starting to look like was I going to be stuck at Red Rock for the summer. And what if they made me stay for my senior year?