The Condition

by Jennifer Haigh

  He shook his head to clear it.

  Billy answered on the second ring. It took him a moment to recognize Scott’s voice. Well, no wonder. Scott hadn’t phoned his brother in years.

  If Billy realized this, he gave no indication. “What’s up?” he asked easily, as though they spoke every day.

  Scott pictured him settling into a sleek modern sofa, expensively leather covered. He’d never seen Billy’s apartment, but his mother had described it in abundant detail, a fact that drove Penny crazy. He felt a stab of envy for his brother, single on a Friday night. Free to chat up strange women in bars or, even better (this was a symptom of Scott’s descent into middle age), simply to be left in peace.

  At Billy’s, soft jazz played in the background. There was no other ambient noise. On Scott’s end, television vibrated the ceiling. Loud running in a southerly direction, from the kitchen to Ian’s room.

  “Listen, I want to run something by you,” said Scott. “What do you know about Ritalin?”

  “The hyperactivity drug?”

  “Yeah. Ian’s teacher wants us to put him on it.”

  “Have you discussed it with your pediatrician?”

  “We did,” Scott lied. “I want a second opinion.”

  A pause. “Scotty, I’d like to help, but you know I’m not a pediatrician. And even if I were, I haven’t actually seen him.”

  “You saw him at Christmas.”

  “I haven’t seen him clinically. It would be irresponsible for me to give you a medical opinion based on what you tell me over the phone.” He sounded less like a brother than a doctor worried about a malpractice suit. Good Christ, Scott thought. What a SISI.

  “Jesus, Bill. I’m not going to sue you.”

  Billy sighed. “All right. Fine. This behavior—the hyperactivity, the aggression, the stuttering—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Ian stutters?”

  “Um, yeah,” said Billy. “When he gets excited. You haven’t noticed?”

  “Oh, that,” Scott lied again. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “So tell me: when did you first—”

  “Bill, even as a baby he was tougher than Sabrina. Wouldn’t sleep through the night. That kind of thing. But he’s a boy, you know? I thought it was just the difference between boys and girls. Sabrina was a dream by comparison, Bill. A total dream.”

  “Let me finish, will you?” said Billy (blurts out answers before questions are completed). “The onset of symptoms. Was it before age seven?”

  Scott recalled the endless drive from California to Connecticut, a week of sleeping in roadside motels, the four of them crammed into a single cruddy room. The Golf stifling hot, Ian and Sabrina kicking each other viciously in the backseat. Ian had been five then, a screaming terror. With the same intensity he’d brought to teenage sexual fantasies, Scott had daydreamed of leaving his entire family by the side of the road.

  “Yes,” he said. “Definitely before seven.”

  “That’s significant,” said Billy. “It’s consistent with ADHD.”

  The water pump kicked in explosively, rattling the plywood wall. Scott ignored this, though he was easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.

  He pressed on.

  “Look, don’t tell Mom this. Any of it, actually. But especially this part: Penny has a sister who’s schizophrenic. Could that have anything to do with it?” Years ago, when he and Penny were living in Eureka, they’d made a weekend dope run to Portland and spent a night on her sister’s floor. JoAnn had been heavily medicated then, a bloated, silent version of Penny, her hair hacked into a spiky helmet. It seemed to Scott that she’d cut it herself. (In a fit of self-hatred. With a machete.) She had scared the hell out of him.

  “No,” Billy said. “Although, you know, it’s an interesting question. There appears to be some genetic basis for schizophrenia. And there is comorbidity with ADHD.”

  Scott let this slide past him, like a taxi with its light off. He had stopped listening at the word no.

  “Back to the drug,” he said. “Penny says there are side effects.”

  “Weight loss, sleep disturbances.” Billy paused. “On the other hand, certain questions arise with any drug you’re prescribing. You have to weigh the risks of the therapy against the consequences of leaving the problem untreated. He’s in what, first grade?”

  “Third.”

  “How’s he doing in school?”

  “Shitty,” said Scott. “They’re ready to kick him out. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “From public school? I didn’t know they could do that.”

  “If he doesn’t go on Ritalin, they’re going to put him in special ed.” Scott hesitated. “Look, you saw him at Christmas. Based on that, if he were your kid, would you do it?”

  A long pause.

  “He did seem agitated at Christmas,” Billy admitted. “I think Mom was concerned.”

  Concerned. Drewspeak for ready to hurl the little monster out an open window.

  “I know he’s a handful,” Scott said lamely. “Mom isn’t used to that.”

  Billy chuckled. “She raised you, didn’t she?”

  Scott felt a knot of resentment in his throat. Reluctantly he swallowed. Billy was five years older; he would remember, if anyone would. And who else was there to ask?

  “Was I like that?” he demanded. “Like Ian?”

  Again the chuckle. “Are you kidding me? You just about landed her in McLean. The way you and Gwen used to pound on each other—” He broke off. “Hey, have you heard the news?”

  “What?” said Scott.

  “Are you sitting down? Gwen has a boyfriend.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Some guy she met on her dive trip. And Mom is freaking out. All hell is breaking loose.”

  That Sunday morning Paulette ate breakfast in her nightgown. This was something she did just once a year, when her old friend Tricia James came from Philadelphia to visit. In Tricia’s honor she had brewed a pot of coffee, though her second cup had made her jangly. (She had switched to chamomile tea at menopause.) With Tricia, coffee and nightclothes were a tradition, an unconscious reenactment of their roommate days at Wellesley, where they’d guzzled coffee and spent a great deal of time in their pajamas. Paulette and Tricia had not forgotten. They would always remember the girls they had been.

  We’re closer than sisters, they liked to say, and in Paulette’s case it was certainly true. Her actual sister had moved to New Mexico ten years ago—to take advantage of the spectacular light, she said; to mix her own paints with desert sand. Martine lived in a house with two other woman artists, and Paulette had never been invited to visit. They spoke twice a year, on their birthdays, and every Christmas Martine sent her a painting. Paulette knew from their brother that Martine had once again succeeded, that her paintings hung in a gallery in New York and sold for thousands of dollars. That Martine hadn’t told her this wounded her deeply. Paulette loved nothing more than celebrating accomplishments (those of her family, of course, since she had never accomplished anything herself). In her mind, this was what accomplishments were for.

  Tricia James was of the same mind. This shared belief mortared their friendship. For three days Paulette had allowed Tricia to praise Billy, Gwen, and Scott. She responded with kind words about Hadley, Patrick, and Eleanor. This was the way she and Tricia had always operated. To prattle on about their own children would have been gauche.

  At Wellesley their classmates had been struck by their resemblance. Though one was blond, the other dark, they had similar features and identical petite figures. Frank had once remarked, to Paulette’s horror, that she and Tricia would feel exactly the same in the dark.

  She had never repeated this to Tricia.

  They both enjoyed telling the story of how they’d met: how they’d glimpsed each other in the dining room wearing identical seal-skin skirts, butter yellow cashmere sweaters, kitten-heel pumps, and Hermès scarves. Showing up in identical dresses would have been embarrassing, b
ut putting together the same entire outfit down to shoes and scarves, was simply delightful. Paulette Drew and Tricia Boone, strangers to each other, had both burst out laughing. They were nineteen, and filled with identical feelings: hilarity, recognition, joy.

  For a time it seemed they would put together whole identical lives. Both left school to marry. Like Frank, Walter James was handsome, charming, virile; and for a brief, delicious time Paulette and Tricia had both been courted. In Frank’s old jalopy—Frank and Paulette in the front seat, Wall and Tricia in back—both girls had been kissed. They had fallen completely and hopelessly and simultaneously in love.

  Both had three children, though Tricia’s had come at closer intervals. Pregnancy had not agreed with her, and her attitude had been soldierly; she was determined to get it over with. And here was where their paths diverged, because Tricia, with her live-in nanny, could afford to get it over with. Tricia had married a man with earning potential, a man interested in making money.

  Recently, while having her hair colored, Paulette had flipped through a magazine and read a fascinating statistic, that the tallest men in the workforce earned the highest salaries. Lulled by the hum of the dryer, she’d thought of the unusually tall Walter James. While Frank spent endless years in school, Wall had worked as an investment banker at Goodman Schering; back when Paulette and Frank were still living in dilapidated graduate-student housing, Wall had built Tricia a house in Bryn Mawr. On a tight budget, with a workaholic husband, Paulette had raised her children singlehandedly; she’d hinted to her parents that help would be welcome, but her father was only formerly wealthy, while Tricia’s remained so to this day. Paulette had watched from a distance as Tricia lived the life of a prosperous young wife and mother—the life Paulette had expected to lead, almost certainly would have led, if Frank hadn’t appeared one night at a Wellesley mixer and hijacked her wagon for good.

  Now, their children grown, the two friends saw each regularly. Each spring Tricia came to Concord for a weekend. In the fall Paulette spent a weekend in Bryn Mawr. These visits began with a hug and a kiss, a quick assessment and readjustment. In Paulette’s mind Tricia was still a young woman, but those first moments reminded her otherwise. More than any other person in the world, Tricia reminded Paulette of her own aging. You look wonderful, they told each other, and in a way it was true. They were both slender, beautifully dressed, carefully coiffed. They cared for their bodies like museum treasures, precious artifacts saved behind glass. But they were nearer sixty than fifty, and no amount of maintenance could change that.

  It was the oldest friends who mattered most. With each passing year, Paulette realized this more deeply. She thought of her brother Roy, retired to Arizona, to golf with other men who were also—she loathed the expression—senior citizens. Roy had arrived in Phoenix with an entire life behind him, a career, a marriage; to his new friends he’d always been old. Not so with Paulette and Tricia. Strangers might mistake Paulette for an old woman, but Tricia knew that the years had changed her very little, that she was much the same person she’d been at twenty: her stubborn hopefulness, her bottomless capacity for disappointment, qualities that came braided together like a hank of hair. This was Paulette’s basic nature—my foolishness, she called it—and she hadn’t outgrown it as her mother had predicted she would. Like everything else, maturity had disappointed Paulette. She believed there ought to be some benefit to the grotesque business of aging, some thin compensation for all it took away. She waited for wisdom, but wisdom did not come. On the downslope of her life she wanted the same things she’d always wanted, with undiminished intensity; and suffered just as profoundly when those things did not appear.

  Because Tricia understood this, Paulette still needed her, still cherished their time together despite the inevitable comparisons between Tricia’s life and her own. Tricia’s children were healthy, her marriage intact. Though whether Wall, who’d once grabbed Paulette’s rear end as they danced at a friend’s wedding, had been 100 percent faithful, Paulette had her doubts. (Did Tricia trust him? Was this the reason she was still married after all these years, while Paulette was alone?)

  In between the museum and the Ibsen play, the lunches and the shopping, a conversation was taking place, a conversation centering, always, on husbands and children. Given recent events—three days of anxious brooding, fear, and stifled rage—Paulette would have preferred to avoid these subjects entirely; but with Tricia that wasn’t possible. Their friendship was too old, its customs too entrenched.

  A packet of photographs lay on the table between them. Show and tell, Tricia had announced as she took it from her pocketbook. They had sorted through the photos together, Paulette making appropriate noises of amusement, appreciation and delight. Tricia’s daughters were lovely, blond like their mother; they hadn’t been attractive children, but in adulthood had come into their own. In one photo Tricia stood arm in arm with Hadley and Eleanor; it was immediately apparent where the girls had gotten their good looks, and where Tricia’s had gone. Paulette wondered how Tricia could stand it. Would she, in Tricia’s position, have envied her beautiful daughters? Was some weak part of her grateful to be spared the sort of humiliating Christmas photos Tricia submitted to, the pain of fading as her daughters blossomed? Was she glad that Gwen had not grown up?

  I am not a generous person, she thought,

  More photos. Tricia’s daughters each had two children. Patrick and his wife, both attorneys, had none. Tricia found this vexing, though she’d been a good girl and held her tongue. “I can’t imagine what they’re waiting for,” she’d confided to Paulette. “Claire is thirty-four, the same age as Patrick. The same age as Gwen.”

  Paulette studied the photo. Patrick looked paunchy and bloated; he had lost his beautiful curly hair. Poor Patrick, Paulette thought. She’d always had warm feelings toward the boy. She would never forget his kindness in taking Gwen to the dance.

  Because Tricia expected it, she went to the parlor and took her lone Christmas photo from a drawer in the highboy; she still hadn’t gotten around to buying a frame. In it, the family stood around the Douglas fir, Paulette at the center, her handsome sons on either side. In the foreground stood Ian, Sabrina, and Gwen.

  Billy, Scott, and Sabrina photographed beautifully; to the others, the camera was less kind. Gwen looked rumpled and stocky in her hideous sweatshirt; in the glare of the flashbulb her face was very pale, with no lips or eyebrows. (Lipstick! Paulette thought.) Ian’s shirt was decorated with stains. And Paulette simply looked old.

  “Oh, how precious,” Tricia said dutifully. “I assume Scott’s wife took it?”

  “She’s the best photographer in the family,” said Paulette.

  “Apparently so. She’s never in the picture.” Tricia held the photo at arm’s length, squinting; like Paulette she was too vain to wear her glasses. “Scotty’s little girl is going to be a beauty.” She didn’t say, but surely noticed, that Sabrina was now as tall as her aunt Gwen.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” Paulette agreed.

  “So fair. Like her mother?”

  “Yes,” said Paulette. “Penny is fair skinned.”

  “I can’t believe how handsome Billy is. Honestly, what’s the matter with girls today? I can’t believe no one’s reeled him in yet.” Tricia studied the photo. Finally she reached for her pocketbook and took out her glasses.

  “Oh, my heavens,” she exclaimed. “It is Scott!”

  “Well, of course,” said Paulette, puzzled. “Who else would it be?”

  “Oh, this is remarkable. I wasn’t going to say anything, because it seemed so silly. I was sure I was mistaken.” Tricia removed her glasses. “As I was driving here, I had the strangest experience. Somewhere in Connecticut, I saw Scotty on a billboard.”

  Paulette frowned.

  “It was advertising some type of school, I believe. At first I thought, Tricia, you’ve lost it completely. You’re seeing things. But, darling, I was right! It was your Scott.”

 
; Paulette shook her head as if to clear it. Too much caffeine, too many photos, the intense effort not to think what she’d been thinking all weekend. And what was this nonsense about a billboard? She felt pressure behind her eyes, a migraine building. To her horror she was near tears.

  “What’s the matter, darling? Have I upset you?” Tricia reached across the table for Paulette’s hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Paulette grasped Tricia’s hand, more tightly than she intended. “Tricia, I have to tell someone, and you’re my oldest friend. Something terrible has happened to Gwen.”

  THE PHONE had rung on Friday morning, while Paulette was paying the housecleaner—a new girl who also did the Marshes’ next door. Guadelupe was a pretty brown-skinned girl who spoke five words of English, so the transaction was slow going. Yet her price was reasonable, and she did an impeccable job.

  Paulette rushed for the telephone. She was of the generation that couldn’t simply let it ring, as her children exhorted her to do. Billy had long pestered her to buy an answering machine, but Paulette found the idea unappealing. She couldn’t bear the sound of her recorded voice.

  “Billy, what’s the matter?” she asked immediately. Her son was a creature of habit; they spoke in the evening at six o’clock precisely. He had never, in her memory, called on a weekday morning.

  “Relax,” said Billy, who did not, himself, sound very relaxed. “Everything is fine.”

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry,” she explained. “Tricia is coming this weekend, and the cupboard is bare.”

  “Okay then. We can talk another time.” He sounded relieved to be rid of her, as though she’d kept him on the phone for hours. As though she had called him.

  “Billy, you sound edgy. What’s going on?”

  “I spoke with Gwen last night. She sends her love.”

  “That’s nice, dear.” Paulette glanced at her watch. “How was her vacation?”