I study his face. He seems sincere but this could be another joke. One more prank on the crazy girl. I look around to see if anybody is watching or laughing or filming us, but nobody’s paying any attention.
“I’m not asking for your social security number or anything. C’mon. I want you to look up whatever soldier I find and see if he sounds good for the project. That’s it.” Michael touches my arm lightly. “I won’t give out your number.” And then he says something else, honest and a little raw, something no one at Cranbury High would ever say out loud. “I’ve only got like one real friend here. Tyler.”
The silver Accord flies into the parking lot. Mom will be rolling up in ten seconds.
Even though it completely goes against my judgment, there’s something about this boy. He could be a candidate for L.V., at least. I take a deep breath and give him my number.
“Wait! Let me punch it into my phone.” Michael moves so fast he almost drops his cell. “Okay, say it again.”
The Accord is at the curb. And there’s Mom. Staring at me with a look of wonder on her face.
I repeat my number. “My mom’s here.”
Michael yells to me as I walk to the car. “Don’t forget to check your phone tonight, okay? I’ll text you!”
Inside the car, Mom turns to me, ecstatic over the fact that I was talking to someone. “Is that a new friend?”
“No,” I say. “Just somebody I have to do a history project with.”
“Well, he seems nice,” she says.
“How could he seem nice?” I snap. I’m not being fair, but the hope in her voice does something to me. It cranks up the guilt for the way I am. Sick. Defective. This is what she’s reduced to: joy at the simplest of my social interactions. That’s how little I can give her. “You saw him for what, all of two nanoseconds? And you’re gonna have to call the office tomorrow. I missed my three afternoon classes.”
This deflates her. As planned. “Again? Why?” Mom asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “I just had a headache and fell asleep in the library.”
“Oh, Cath. Next time, baby, just head straight to the nurse’s office. You can’t keep getting these unexcused absences.” She takes a deep breath and squeezes my hand. “I’ll call first thing tomorrow. Want to take some Advil?”
A different guilt quenches my anger. She tries so hard. Always.
I turn my head toward the window and push down the lump in my throat. “No thanks,” I say. “Headache’s gone.” I take a deep breath. “His name is Michael. You’re right. He seems pretty nice.”
Mom glances over at me and smiles before turning up the volume on a Bonnie Raitt song. “This IOP thing, Cath, I have a good feeling about it. A really good feeling.”
There’s that hope again, but this time, I keep my mouth shut.
St. Anne’s Outpatient Day Hospital is situated in the commercial, non-quintessential part of town, tucked behind an upscale housewife’s dream strip mall: Target, Loft, White House Black Market, Whole Foods and that store that specializes in swanky fartwear, Chico’s. Makes a lot of sense. While Jimmy gets his head straightened out, Mommy can bang out some errands.
The Day Hospital is a plain one-story building marked only with a number to identify it inside this small industrial park of corrugated metal warehouses and loading docks. Mom parks next to the dirty white St. Anne’s van that must’ve just unloaded my chemically imbalanced colleagues from Cranbury High. Maybe we can all sit at one big unhappy lunch table at school. Over brown-bag lunches we can share funny stories about our suicide attempts, vomiting or cutting. Just what Mom wanted for me—new friends.
The little waiting room is empty, as is the darkened hallway with its four closed doors. A petite young woman steps from behind the reception desk. “Hello,” she says, her long brown hair falling like a veil over her face. “You must be…Catherine. Catherine Pulaski?”
I nod.
“I’m Vanessa Capozzi. I’m a social worker and manage the IOPs,” she says, smiling brightly. “I’m all ready for you.” She picks up a clipboard loaded with forms. “Would you follow me?”
She leads me and Mom down the hall to the first closed door on the right. Vanessa’s hair lies like brown silk on her back, reminding me that I haven’t touched my hair since this morning. I run a hand through its stubby ends. It’s getting a little long; I should cut it again. A return to Rodrick at two hundred dollars a cut is not in the budget, so I do it myself and Mom helps out with the back. It’s not great. But I don’t really care.
Vanessa swings open the door, revealing a cluttered office and fresh Ikea-type furniture. “Please, have a seat,” she says. Piles of paper and folders cover the desk and floor. Empty bookcases await the contents of the large brown boxes beside them. Stepping over the crap on the floor, Vanessa smiles and shakes her head. “Sorry about the mess. We’re not quite finished unpacking yet. Next week you won’t recognize it.” She pulls an elastic off her wrist and throws her hair into a ponytail. That movement is as familiar to me as breathing, and I feel a sudden jolt of sadness. Long hair belonged to normal Catherine.
Vanessa riffles through a metal bin on her desk and pulls out a folder. I see my name handwritten on the top tab. “Okay,” she says, and takes a deep breath. She can’t be older than twenty-four. “Let’s talk about logistics first, get that out of the way. Our van picks up our kids right from Cranbury High at two-forty. You could take that, Catherine, or you could drive here from school. Parking is not a prob—”
“Catherine won’t be driving,” Mom cuts in sharply. “We have only one car and I need that for work.”
Mom fails to mention the other pertinent fact: I don’t have a license. I could’ve gotten my permit a year ago in September when I turned sixteen. But the lithium/Prozac incident put my driver’s license on indefinite hold. This past summer, I brought up finally going for my permit to Mom, but she shut me down fast. I know what she was thinking. Mania plus car equals disaster.
“I don’t think Cath is crazy about taking the van,” Mom says, not realizing the pun.
“Ba-da-bum,” I chime in, but neither woman gets the joke. So I add, “I’m not crazy about the van.”
Vanessa smiles, but Mom almost visibly recoils from her accidental reference to my mental state. She plows forward. “So I’ll just drop off Catherine and pick her up. The law office I work at is right here in Cranbury.”
“Great!” Vanessa says, and embarks on the highlights of my IOP adventure: the completion of a daily mood rating checklist, the “DBT” (which means only God knows what), followed by the main event, group therapy. Vanessa explains that the group is led by a social worker and that a new topic is chosen every day. “Confidentiality is the keystone of our group discussions. We stress that repeatedly. I can’t lie and tell you that in my experience there has never been a breach. But right now, I think we’ve got a good group of kids in that regard.”
Of course, the question on my lips is: What is Vanessa smoking? Does she seriously think I would confide one measly thing to a bunch of mentally ill strangers who go to my very own school? The question isn’t will there be a “breach” but how soon and in what manner? Text or Twitter or Tumblr? In the bathroom or the parking lot or the car on the drive home?
But I nod like it all sounds kosher. It’s my standard MO. On the outside, I go with the flow. Five-days-a-week intensive outpatient program? Sure! Another new prescription? Bring it! Group therapy? I’m all in! Because the opposite would be to confide, and we all know that any meager whining on my part isn’t going to unscramble my DNA and correct my abnormal brain function. And of course, the other, real reason for my Ms. Compliant act is that it raises no suspicion about my future plan involving my shoe box.
Vanessa smiles at me. “Well, unless you have any questions, you’re done with me. Dr. Yu wants to have a chat with you. He’s our staff psychiatrist and will do a quick evaluation. He’s already been in contact with Dr. McCallum, so it shouldn’t tak
e too long. He’s directly across the hall and waiting for you. See you tomorrow!”
I say good-bye to Vanessa and cross the hall into an identically messy office. A young guy in jeans and a polo shirt is glued to his phone but pops to his feet when I enter. He sticks out his hand like we’re meeting at a party. “Hi, Catherine. I’m Dr. Yu. Have a seat.”
And we’re off. The eval doesn’t take too long. Dr. McCallum has fully informed Dr. Yu of my status and I know all the standard questions and answers by heart. Mom must’ve been hovering in the hallway because as soon as I open Dr. Yu’s door to leave, she’s there, fluttering her hands. “Oh…I just wanted to say hello to the doctor. Can you wait for me by the door?”
I plop onto a plastic chair by the reception desk. There’s still not a soul in here. But then the front door swings open violently and a tall black girl with a gray newsboy cap storms in and up to the empty desk. She wears denim cutoffs, gladiator sandals and a loose, silky gray T-shirt that exposes a smooth shoulder. After two seconds, she whirls around to me. She’s got one of those perfect symmetrical faces, and the dancer still in me notes that she moves with natural grace.
“Is anybody here?” she asks me. She looks frazzled as she snaps the strap on her Longchamp bag.
“Vanessa is in her office,” I offer.
“Who’s Vanessa?” she asks.
“The social worker. I think she’s in charge here.”
The girl shrugs, her shoulders brushing the gold hoops in her ears. “I don’t know her. My intake was with some guy.” She looks around nervously. “This is my first day. I’m an hour late.”
I do a quick scan of her arms. There are no ladder scars, the cutter’s signature tattoo. What’s wrong with her?
Vanessa must’ve heard our voices because her head emerges from the office. “Hey, Kristal! Why don’t you come into my office? You can fill out the DBT and then head on in to Room Three. Oh yeah”—Vanessa points to me—“this is Catherine. She’s new too. She’ll be joining group tomorrow.” Vanessa vanishes back into her office.
Kristal looks at me. “You sure you don’t want to start today?” She flashes the most radiant smile I’ve ever seen. This girl could get signed to a modeling contract.
I shake my head and offer an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“I don’t blame you,” she says, our eyes holding as her grin fades fast. She looks down the hall. “I do not want to do this.”
I connect with the undercurrent of fear in her voice. “Me neither,” I say softly but easily—the first two totally honest words I’ve said in weeks, maybe months. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Our eyes lock again and she gives me a sad smile before walking slowly down the hall. “Jesus, help me,” she mutters.
In the living room, my phone choos like a train, and I look up, startled.
The guy at the Apple Store who programmed my phone thought it was weird that I had no contacts to import. When I had to pick a chime to notify me of incoming texts, I left it up to him. I didn’t care, because I knew I wouldn’t be getting any. Riley and Olivia were long gone.
That still feels strange to say. We used to be inseparable, like the Three Musketeers. We met in Miss Ruth’s Ballet Babies class when we were four, and that was it. Life was sleepovers and dance classes and picnics in Riley’s huge backyard overlooking the Long Island Sound. We had rituals and secrets and traditions, like squeezing Olivia’s cold, clammy hands for ten and only ten seconds before we took the stage for a recital, and wearing—for our entire sixth-grade year—a friendship heart necklace that Riley’s mother had custom-made into three pieces. (My piece is still in my jewelry box.) Or roasting our own candy concoction (M&M’s buried deep inside jumbo marshmallows) in Riley’s fire pit.
In middle school, we graduated to boys and shopping and hip-hop classes. We texted furiously. Each June, we bought one new lip gloss, eye shadow and glittery nail polish that the three of us shared for Miss Ruth recitals, and we spent hours straightening each other’s hair.
When Grandma died the summer before high school, Olivia and Riley swooped in, hung by my side 24-7, and even sat in the second pew, directly behind me, so they could squeeze my shoulder and pass me tissues during the funeral Mass. Afterward, they came to the house daily bearing treats—brownies, Hubba Bubba bubble gum, licorice, ring pops—fully embracing their Red Cross duties, because grief and sadness due to death were normal and expected. Catherine Pulaski was still socially A-OK in their books.
But when I failed to rebound, when I headed south into the world of lethargy and darkness, when a psychiatrist prescribed medications, I became someone who scared them.
Someone crazy.
That was official confirmation that I was too great a risk to my friends’ social standing. And they began to slowly peel themselves away during our freshman year. It was in September of sophomore year that I realized they were gone.
My phone choos a second time, and across the kitchen table from me, Mom’s head pops up from her slice of pizza, her eyes big and happy. Chimes from my phone have become extinct—audio artifacts from another age.
I open the pizza box and retrieve my third piece, sliding the reloaded paper plate along the vinyl tablecloth back to my spot. I fold the slice and take a bite. I wonder how Kristal did at the IOP today.
Mom is watching me, a thread of mozzarella hanging off her lip. “Aren’t you going to get it? It’s probably Michael.”
My usual irritation at her meddling merely bubbles tonight. “Mom, you got cheese.” I point to my mouth. “I told him I’d talk to him tonight. It’s not even six o’clock.”
Mom wipes her mouth with a paper towel since I forgot to get napkins at the 7-Eleven next to school like she asked me to. I can see her battling herself—Dr. McCallum has urged her to back off a little, to let up on her hovering. Defeated, she nods and bows her head for another bite, exposing the stripe of silver along her parted brown hair. Nice ’n Easy 6C Natural Light Golden Brown is calling. In the last year, she’s gone almost totally gray. It’s the accelerated aging process, aka Catherine years.
I rise from the table and head into the living room, where my backpack lies on the floor next to the sofa.
“Cath!” Mom calls out, alarmed “Where are you going?”
I return to the kitchen and Mom sits down again.
“I’ll see what he wants,” I say.
Michael texted at 5:47 p.m. “Hey, Cath. You free?”
“What’d he say?” Mom asks eagerly.
Deep breaths, Catherine. Deep breaths. I say, “He wants to ask you to the prom.”
Mom laughs.
“He just wants to talk about our project,” I add.
Mom jumps to her feet, pizza abandoned on her plate. She can barely suppress her joy. “I have some wash to do,” she says, and rushes to the basement door. “Feel free to call him if that’s easier than texting.” She disappears down the stairs, surely congratulating herself for giving me my “space.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I mutter. She treats me like an alien now, like I need to be educated on how to act. On what’s normal here on Planet Earth.
My phone choos again. Michael texts: “Found a soldier. Jonathan Kasia. From Waterbury. Has parade and Little League field named after him. Google him. Let me know what you think”
I don’t text him back. The truth: I’m a little scared. I don’t know if I can trust him. Even with something as stupid as texting. He might show somebody what I wrote. I better make my answers as neutral as possible. That’s my plan. Yet I can’t get myself to respond. Instead, I put away the rest of the pizza, take a shower, do some math homework and bring my dirty clothes down to the basement, where Mom is folding a mountain of towels and sheets.
“I need the laptop,” I tell her finally, dumping the clothes on the concrete floor.
My access to the laptop is limited. Mom takes it to work and only allows me to use it at night when she’s in the same room. It pro
bably stemmed from my Mediterranean charging spree, along with Dr. McCallum’s concern about “social media and its impact on our teens, especially ones who might be more vulnerable. Like Catherine.” My new phone with its Web surfing capabilities troubled her, but apparently, the security of tracking me outweighed the danger. When I got the phone, she must’ve realized it was futile to try to police any social media attempts on my part, but she still keeps trying.
“You need the laptop for your project? With Michael?” she asks. “Just research, right? No Facebook or anything?”
“Just research,” I say. Actually, I have no interest in what the Cranbury High community posts on FB, with their endless selfies and relationship status bullshit. In kindergarten, I had to write a book “All About Me.” Mom helped me write paragraphs on my favorite color, hobby, animal, food, book and holiday. We taped pictures of my family—Mom and Grandma and me—to its construction paper pages. My “All About Me” white binder still sits on my bedroom bookcase, gathering dust. FB is just an online version of that same narcissistic kindergarten project. Look at me! Isn’t my life great? Count my friends. Count them. I have more than you. This is what I’m doing this very freaking second. My Photoshopped iLife is so much better than yours! LOL!
At 8:59 p.m., Michael texts again: “Did you get a chance to look at Kasia? ” It’s the smiley face that does it. This time, I peck back immediately, “Looking now. Will get back to you in a few”
I type the info that Michael texted into the Google search bar and click on a Web page filled with text and photos of a good-looking guy in uniform. Mom sits opposite me, checkbook and bills spread out before her. Her spot across the table is actually an improvement. Six months ago, she would’ve been seated beside me, jumpily watching each page I pulled up.
The Weight of Zero Page 3
