Lola Carlyle's 12-Step Romance

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

“I have roommates?”

  He nods.

  “Eww.”

  “You might want to avoid saying that to them,” he says, and heads for the stairs. “Now move it.”

  You would think, considering everyone here is supposed to be all screwed up and vulnerable to ridiculous things like chocolate and hairspray, that they’d give us some privacy, that they’d avoid sticking all the crazies in rooms together where they risk making one another more crazy.

  Case in point: I heave my own bags up two flights of stairs and follow Adam to my room, where there are three double platform beds lined up on one wall.

  “I’ll let you introduce yourselves. Meet me outside the dorm doors. Ten minutes,” Adam orders, and then leaves me there.

  Someone is lying faceup and surrounded by an almost visible funk, on the farthest bed.

  “Uh, hi…?” I say. Her eyes are open but the girl doesn’t move.

  “She doesn’t talk,” a voice says.

  I jump, look to my left, and find a tall girl with brown corkscrew curls; a rash of freckles across her nose, forehead, and cheeks; and intense, close-set blue eyes.

  “She just moans,” says the freckled girl. “And screams sometimes at night.”

  “Wow, that’s so Paranormal Activity 4,” I say.

  “Oh, you’re funny.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know how she does it—the not talking. She’s… There’s a term for it… Anyway, she’s mute by choice. Selectively mute, that’s it. Apparently she hasn’t spoken a word in years. She’s cross-addicted and co-occurring like most of us, but I think her big thing is heroin. And she looks like a cutter to me but she hasn’t said so. Obviously, ha ha. What about you? You look like a cocaine girl, or maybe crystal.”

  She grabs my hands, turns them, and starts to inspect my forearms.

  “OmigodIloveyourbracelet!” she shouts. “Tiffany?”

  “Cartier.”

  “Oh my God, let me see, is it from a boy?” She drops one of my arms and turns the bracelet over and sees the inscription: Daddy’s Girl.

  “Aw, from your dad?”

  “Yeah.” I stare fixedly at the letters while she fingers the chain.

  “You have a nice dad, then?” she says, rocking forward onto her toes.

  “Nice…? Yeah, he’s nice.”

  “Mine’s a fucker.”

  “Oh. Too bad.”

  “S’okay. That’s what drugs are for, right?” she says, and then laughs hysterically.

  “Ri-ight.”

  “Oh poor you, it’s only your first day. I’ll stop being such a freak.” She finally drops my hand. “I’m glad you have a nice dad.”

  Nice. Well. My fantasy dad—the one I lead people to believe I have, the one I wish I had—is quite nice. In fact he’s better than nice, he’s doting and extravagant and I have him wrapped around my finger. The real one, not so much. But that’s what imagination is for—I am using my imagination to manifest the better dad, and if I believe it long enough, maybe it’ll happen.

  “Well, he’s a busy guy but he’s fun. A couple of years ago he flew me to Prague just to have dinner with him.”

  He said he would, anyway, which in a way means he, too, is imagining a better version of himself, which means we are creating this illusion together. Sort of.

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah. He sent a jet, actually,” I say, warming to the story and figuring it’s a good place to boost my alcoholism cred. “It was just the pilots and me and a bottle of Cristal. The restaurant was French and we ate so much caviar—you know, with the little pancakes—that we didn’t have room for the rest of the food when it came.”

  My new roomie gazes at me, eyes wide. “What did you do with the food?”

  “My dad said we should be like the ancient Greeks…”

  “Huh?”

  “You know how they…” I make a finger-down-throat gesture. “They’d just get rid of it so they could keep eating.”

  “Early bulimia!”

  “Of an entire culture, I know. Totally. But, gross. We didn’t. We had it packed up specially with ice and stuff, and I took it to school for my lunch the next day…in L.A.”

  “Crazy.”

  “And of course I finished the Cristal on the way back, so I was pretty hungover and eating this five-star lunch from Prague—”

  “That’s a pretty expensive lunch.”

  “I know, right? But my dad…he didn’t care, he just wanted to see me.”

  “Wow. Sweet,” she murmurs.

  “So sweet,” I say, ignoring the curdling feeling in my gut.

  “So, drinking,” she says, and then looks down at my arms again. “But no tracks. Didn’t think so, since you’ve arrived in no sleeves. I drink and I like my wacky tabbacky, as my mom calls it. It makes me”—she flaps her arms here like she’s going to take flight—“it makes me—woo! Like I still love to talk and all but I’m…I’m just cut loose and relaxed. And, well, I guess this is the end of all that. I’ve got a sex thing, too, but that’s not what I’m in for this time. And I don’t know, I think I’d like to keep one vice. Although, group therapy for sex addicts? Everyone knows that’s the best place to find someone to hook up with. Ironic, right? Woo! Am I in your space?”

  She is. She is right up in my face, but I can’t get a word in to say so.

  “I’ll try not to be in your space.” She takes a half step back, not nearly enough. “I have porous boundaries and apparently I’m a little intense. This is your bed,” she says, and points to the middle one. “The sheets are so soft you’ll just want to strip down and roll around in them. Last time, I bought one. ”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. They sell them—just like a Westin or Hilton bed. You can buy the Sunrise bed.”

  “Seriously? That’s hilarious.”

  I wheel my two suitcases across the ebony-stained bamboo floors and over to the middle bed. It’s not bad—done up with crisp white linens, four fluffy, down-filled pillows, and a duvet. Draped across the bottom is a bed-scarf woven in shades of blue.

  “Okay, this’ll work,” I say, continuing to survey the room.

  “Private balcony,” the girl says, following my gaze.

  “Really? What about when our friend here decides to jump?” I say, walking over to look outside.

  “Shh,” she says, coming up beside me. “She can hear. But anyway, there are thick bushes underneath, so it’d be really hard to die that way. I think all that would happen is you’d be scratched up, maybe with a broken limb or two. And you might get an eye poked out or something.”

  I try to picture someone planting the bushes on purpose, for suicide prevention, and shake my head. Wade and Sydney had better be grateful.

  “I’m Talia,” the girl says. “The mute is Jade—like the stone. That’s what I said when I found out she doesn’t—ha ha—doesn’t talk, get it? Anyway. I think she’s been seriously traumatized. Well, most of us have, but worse for her. Something really crazy, like somebody lit her on fire or killed someone in front of her or something.”

  I shiver.

  “I’ve been asking her, trying to get her to talk, telling her all my deep, dark secrets to encourage her, but so far nothing. Right, Jade?”

  Jade does not move, but I get the feeling that she is, in fact, listening to every word.

  “Anyway, our previous roommate’s parents yanked her from the program two days ago. They came for the family therapy sessions and I guess things got too real for them or maybe they thought she was going to spill a bunch of family secrets—they’re famous. I’m betting she’s very, very high right now. Or, like, dead. Wouldn’t that be creepy? To be sleeping in a dead girl’s bed?”

  I stare at the bed.

  Jade has not moved except to breathe.

  Talia has not breathed except to talk.

  “I bet it’s happened before. People checking out early, dying the next day because they went on a binge. We should do some kind of smudge
ceremony or something. And pray.” Talia plops down on my bed and bounces a bit.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Pick your deity—doesn’t have to be the Bearded One or anything. So what did you say your thing is?”

  She actually pauses for an answer.

  “Um.” I clear my throat. “Like you said—alcohol.”

  “Just alcohol?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  She shrugs. “Most of us are cross-addicted. Apparently we teens have an underdeveloped—ah, one of the cortexes? In the brain? Anyway, we have less impulse control than adults, less fear of risk, so we tend to try a whole bunch of stuff once we get going. But hey, if it’s just alcohol, yay for you. Won’t make the recovery any easier, though.”

  “Thanks for the reassurance,” I mumble.

  “So are you famous?” Talia asks.

  “Me? No.” This is the standard celebu-spawn answer, though most of us give it expecting people not to believe us.

  “Really? You look like you might be. You’ve got the thing. And I heard you met Koch. Plus, your hair! Is that strawberry blond your natural color? Of course it isn’t. This is California. You know who you look like, though? You look exactly like the woman—that soap star who was all over the tabloids with her porn star girlfriend. Julie? No…Jules,” Talia continues. “Jules Carlyle. You’ve both got that feline thing going on.”

  “It is my natural color, actually. Speaking of famous, anyone interesting here right now?”

  “Couple of reality stars, some former child actors, a model,” she says. “There’s always someone, and a lot more since Koch took over the place. ’Course there are people on staff who think Sunrise is going to hell because of him.”

  “Really,” I say, suddenly feeling my Level card as a sharp weight in my pocket and simultaneously worrying that there’s been no mention of Wade—what if he checked out early like this roommate of theirs? I will put a hit on Sydney if that’s the case. “So no one major…”

  “Oh! Actually, one of the boys from that series—Drift?—is here. He’s pretty major.” She raises a hand and snaps her fingers repeatedly, right next to her ear. “Ahhh…what’shisname…Miller…”

  I try to remain casual. “Wade Miller?”

  “Oh! Yeah. Yeah, that’s him.”

  Okay, no hit man for Sydney.

  “Is he… Does he seem all right?”

  “I heard prescription drugs,” Talia says. “Opiates. They say he was in the infirmary detoxing for days. But then again, we don’t see them much.”

  I’m wrestling with the idea of sweet Wade from Ohio getting so sick from drugs that he had to detox for days, and thinking of Sydney’s description—pale, skinny, sweaty—and then adding that to the silence from his team, when her last sentence registers.

  “Wait. We don’t see who?”

  “The boys.”

  “What do you mean we don’t see them?”

  “Well, we see them but we don’t see them—you know, because they have us sign that ‘no fraternization’ contract—”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, you signed it. It basically says you’ll be booted if you’re caught screwing around with someone. The programs are separate and we’re discouraged from hanging with each other. I mean, there are some supervised social events and stuff, and it’s not like you can’t have a conversation, but the staff are breathing down our necks the whole time. Too much potential for trouble otherwise, especially with people like me around, ha ha. I have to say I’d really like some of that kind of trouble. I have not had a chance to get my freak on at all.”

  “I’m…sorry to hear it…”

  “Anyway, I have an art class in five and you’ll be off to therapy. I hear you have Madam.”

  “Madam?”

  “Yeah. Not because she’s French or anything, but because she’s, you know, like a madam. Of the whips-and-chains variety. And she will whip your psychological ass.”

  I frown.

  “It’s, like, her mission in life to make everybody break down. You know, it’s the ‘tear you apart then put you back together’ method. Of course, you’re supposed to be much stronger once put back together but, woo! Not fun! Whatever you do, do not try to lie to her. No one can lie to that woman. You look a little pale; are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I can handle it. You have her?”

  “Ha. Not this time. My doctor this time is a sweetie. Total earth mother. Guess they figure if you’re a repeat patient, they need to try a new approach.”

  “What about Jade?”

  “Well, I have no idea how she even does therapy—smoke signals?—but no, she doesn’t have Madam. They probably think she’s too fragile.”

  This time, I groan out loud.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s only an hour of your life. Well, an hour every other day. And it’s for your own good.” Talia picks up her bag and moves to the door. “Gotta go,” she chirps.

  Scary therapist, strange roommates, no-fraternization contract, different program from the guys…when I find Sydney we’re going to have a serious talk.

  “Wait,” I say, and Talia pauses.

  “Yeah?”

  “About the…the boys. When do you see them?”

  “You sure you’re not a sex addict, too?”

  “Uh, not so far.”

  “There’s still time. Ha ha! Anyway, the boys are at the evening meetings, and you’ll see them on weekends at the big Family Group extravaganzas. Plus they have their meals in the dining hall right after us, so we see them in passing, but they keep us so busy it would take a major effort even if you did want to fraternize.”

  “I’m going to kill Sydney.”

  “Sydney?”

  Oops, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

  “Just a friend from school,” I say.

  “Oh,” Talia says, somehow seeming to bounce even while standing still in the doorway. “For a second I thought you meant Sydney Sydney.”

  “Sydney Sydney?”

  “Yeah. You know, our former roommate?”

  “Your former…”

  “Sydney Leoni.”

  Shiiiiiitttttt.

  “She was pissed about the no-boys thing, too.”

  Chapter Six

  So, I get the purse, then kill her.

  If she’s still alive, that is.

  Because she did fall completely on her face at some opening. I wasn’t talking to her at the time, but I heard they found cocaine on her, so she might actually have a problem, as opposed to it being a onetime thing followed by an overreaction of her parents that she went along with in order for the chance to ditch the last couple weeks of school, which is what she told everyone.

  Either way, she’s gone and I’m solo.

  Maybe I should retract my supposed alcoholism and get out of here. Nobody said anything about hard-core therapy or male/female segregation, or roommates, and although it seems obvious now, I didn’t realize I’d have to lie constantly once I got here.

  Plus Mr. Adam Mentor Dude is super uptight, and what is the point of going through all the pain to get bouncy butt cheeks if there’s no one to appreciate them? (It’s kind of like that thing about the tree falling in the forest. If a quarter bounces off my butt cheeks but there’s no one to see it, did it really bounce? If Wade is here but I can’t rescue him, is he really here?)

  Worst of all, to get busted as a fake alcoholic would be horrifying. My mom would lose her mind, my dad would be even more certain never to speak to me again, Wade would think I’m a total idiot, and it would probably be all over the internet, making me a laughingstock and pariah all at once.

  On the pro-staying side, I have put a lot of time and energy into this project.

  And it would be nice to be pampered a little, and gain muscle tone.

  And if I leave, I’ll just have to go back to my boring life where there is no chance at all to help Wade, much less make him fall in love with me.

  And it looks
like my mom would make a big freaking deal about it no matter what, and then probably send me back, either here or somewhere worse, without the gourmet food and the possibility, at least, of saving Wade.

  And leaving might be kind of like chickening out.

  So in that sense, staying is a matter of bravery.

  And selflessness.

  And honor.

  Exactly.

  And really, how hard can it be? I’ve dealt with therapists before. Mom made me go during the divorce, and if anything it was more boring than scary.

  Talia was exaggerating. Everything will be fine. I just have to get through the first couple of days, and then the rescuing, relaxing, and getting-fit part starts.

  Besides, no one said it’s impossible to see the guys.

  Everyone else is just too busy dealing with their co-occurrences and cross-addictions to try. Whereas I am not hampered by such trivialities and can focus my full arsenal of undiminished talents on the project.

  I am a celebu-spawn, after all. And though we celebu-spawn are universally disparaged and generally expected to come up short in looks, talent, and moral fortitude and very often do crash and burn, we survive in a world that is completely wack, so we are also smart, resourceful, creative, and endlessly determined to get what we want.

  Do not mess with a celebu-spawn, in other words.

  Do not mess with me, because I will find a way to get what I came for: Wade Miller.

  I just need to orient myself, get through a bit of red tape, and then figure out a way to explore. Obviously we do get some free time if Jade is allowed to lie around on her bed like a lump of congealed angst.

  Yes. Onward.

  I stand up, lift my suitcase onto the end of my bed, and open it.

  “So what should I wear for therapy?” I say, glancing at Jade. “Topshop? Prada? Full body armor?”

  Her gaze flickers to me and then back to the ceiling.

  “You really mute?” I say. “Or just don’t feel like talking?”

  I detect a smirk.

  Ha. She’s totally normal. I knew it. Talia is the world’s biggest exaggerator.

  “Seriously,” I say, taking a step toward her bed, “you can talk to me if you want.”

  I’m about to take another step when she sits bolt upright and hisses at me—hisses—loud and sudden as if she’s a snake and I just stepped on her tail.