Pearl

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

  “I know you’re having a tough time, but I’m here to help you. I just want to talk. I also spoke to your uncle and have some things to tell you.”

  I cross into the office, but don’t sit down.

  “Come on, just a little farther, take a seat. I won’t bite.”

  No, but I do, I think childishly. Nothing he can say can comfort me. I was wrong when I told Terran about being so low, so broken, rock bottom, about not being able to fall any further. I’m on a permanent descent, spiraling down, down, down.

  Impatiently, he continues. “I know this is a really hard time. Loss is never easy. Grief is even harder. But there are things that can help. I can offer you tools to deal with your sadness. We can get through this together.”

  I don’t want anything from him. Understanding my pain would necessitate relating my life story. I’m not willing to relive it; he of all people should know that if I look back, there’s no chance of me moving forward.

  “What did my uncle say?” I ask.

  “Funeral arrangements have been made for next weekend. He’ll send a car. He says he expects you to continue classes until then, and you can stay at the hotel with them.”

  My shoulders creep up to my ears. My body tightens. Cut and dried, so Uncle Gary. No sorry you lost your mother. No card or flowers. What am I? Worthless? Do I matter to anyone? Anger ignites like a swiped match. “I have to go.”

  Dr. Greenbrae stands up. “Pearl, in order for you to stay here at Laurel Hill, you have to go to classes. You missed a few days, and while those are excused, you’ll have to resume on Monday, until you leave for New York. Do you understand?”

  I nod.

  “You could really use some help. I’d like you to come back tomorrow after class. Can you do that?”

  I shrug. “Do I have to?”

  His temple twitches. “No, you don’t have to, unless you skip any more classes or I hear from your head of dorm or uncle that you’re causing problems.”

  The anger explodes and rockets through me. “Is that what this offer to help is all about, to prevent me from becoming a problem?” I turn to leave.

  “Despite what you may think, I’m here to help,” he calls after me.

  I don’t entertain that as a possibility. As I march back to the dorm, I struggle to draw a deep breath. The taut balloon of my fury deflates with the reminder of the fire, of how sometimes it’s so hard to simply breathe.

  I get back into bed, and sadness curls under the sheets with me. I glance up at the poster of Frida, wondering what I’d look like if she painted a portrait of me. Shattered. Fragmented. Crushed. I stay in bed through the afternoon and dusk, losing myself in Frida’s gaze, missing dinner and study hall. Grant once again creeps in beside me late at night. He doesn’t say a word, just holds me steady, and I crawl into the ticking of his heart.

  Charmindy’s alarm clock, alerting her she has to get ready for a theater rehearsal, returns me to consciousness. I roll over and breathe deeply into the pillow where Grant’s head rested just hours before, smelling faint traces of his shampoo. The sun, streaming in through the window, for all its effort, surprises me with its unceasing quiet, a reminder that not even the brightest star can call me back from the depths of loss I’ve reached.

  Saturday is lonely. On the other side of the door, I alternatingly hear ordinary life and snippets of laughter and long breaths of silence. That evening, I slip out of bed to take another pill and discover it’s the last one. I scroll through my memory of Dr. Greenbrae’s office to see if there’s any evidence of him being a psychologist or a psychiatrist, the latter able to dole out prescriptions. My mother was a champ at getting pills for various aches and ailments. It can’t be that hard to score some more.

  I toss back the remaining chalky white pill. As I sweep away from my body, my mind switches sluggishly from painful memories of my mother to pleasant ones of Grant. I feel caught between two tides, one pushing and one pulling, and I can’t gain enough purchase to move in one direction or the other.

  In my mind’s eye, my mother lies fast asleep beside me. As I roll over to get warmer, her bare arm reveals the crook of her elbow, covered with red pricks and bruises. I sit up, alarmed, and watch her chest subtly rise and fall. On the floor beside her loops a belt next to a syringe.

  I see an image of Grant: Snow falling all around him, dusting his hair, as though he’s in a snow globe. He reaches for my hand. I am warm and safe.

  My mind flashes to my mother: A knock at the door wakes me from sleep. She answers it, and the police take her away in handcuffs.

  Grant returns: Across the room in the library, head bent over a book, his hand scratching over a sheaf of white notebook paper, a wisp of hair chasing the pencil. He looks up and smiles at me.

  My mother appears again: indifferent as to whether or not I go to school, indifferent to whether or not I have friends, indifferent to my existence.

  Then there’s Sorel’s voice, and she’s shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

  My eyes open heavily and then drop closed like a thick curtain. “Wait, I’m not done.” I didn’t get back to Grant. I try to dive back into the pill-induced semiconscious, but Sorel interferes. I groan.

  “What the heck, PJ, are you on something?” she whispers.

  “Let me go back,” I hear myself say.

  “Go where?” she asks, confused.

  Reality stubbornly tries to snap itself back into place. I take a breath. “I must have been dreaming,” I say evasively, opening my eyes partially.

  “Bullshit. What did you take? Did that doctor give you something? Want to share?”

  I shake my head as I prop myself upright.

  She stares at me intently, eagerly.

  “I had some leftover pills from the fire and some I snagged from Christmas vacation. Whatever,” I say dully. “I just took the last one.” A feeble voice tells me that I should pause and forget about it, but instead I add, “Know where I can get more?”

  “What were they?”

  I shrug. “Some kind of codeine.”

  Her eyes light up. “Mitch.”

  Hell no. But when I remember I have to go to the funeral, I don’t disagree.

  “Get dressed; we’ll go see what he’s got. But I get half.”

  “Whatever you say, Sugar Mama.”

  Still in pajama bottoms, I stumble downstairs.

  Terran sits imperiously upon a chair in the common room, decorating a poster for one of her causes. She scales down her nasty sneer to just a dirty look.

  Connie appears in the doorway to her apartment. “I see you’re feeling better, Pearl,” she says sweetly.

  “Hardly,” I murmur.

  Sorel puts on a big, fake grin. “I just thought she could use some fresh air. Get her out, stretch her legs a little. We’ll be back in a bit,” she says in a faux chipper voice, as if I’m not there, but I may as well not be. I feel myself a few steps away from another fall, but where I’ll go this time, I have no idea.

  Chapter 26

  The landscape sloshes and slops with early spring in the northern reaches of New England. The slush on the ground as we approach Mitch’s house chills my feet. By a shed toward the side of the yard, Sorel’s Volvo waits for her. She knocks loudly on the door.

  Through the slatted blinds, Mitch’s mouth spreads wide, revealing a missing tooth. “Well, well, well, look who we have here,” he says, opening the door.

  The house smells of stale beer and an indistinct rankness, like the underside of a mat of moldering leaves in the woods.

  “Hey, Mitch, how’s it going?” Sorel gives him a hug, then takes off her coat.

  He shrugs. “Better now that I’ve got company.”

  From the living room, I hear the television set, riddled with gunfire and shouting. He opens the fridge and tosses Sorel a beer. “Who’s your
friend?” he asks.

  Even through the mud that has been the last week of my life, I certainly remember him. Maybe he really had been too drunk to know what he was doing on Valentine’s Day.

  “This is PJ. She came with me to a party you had a while back.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember you now. Red lips. You’re that pretty girl. Still going out with that tall kid?”

  I nod vaguely. Am I? Where is Grant? I only feel his presence by night. How is he sneaking into my room anyway? Am I imagining it?

  “Want a beer?” Mitch asks.

  “Sure.”

  Sorel lights a cigarette. I take one from her pack without asking. The pills are better, but the beer and nicotine soften the sharp edges of agony. I sit down on the couch. The TV hypnotizes.

  Mitch asks, “So what brings you here today? Checking on your car? Don’t worry, I won’t sell the junker. I still think you’re crazy for trading in that new BMW.”

  “I did that so you wouldn’t be tempted to go for a joyride,” Sorel jokes. “We were just taking a walk and thought we’d stop in and say hello.” She glances at me, slouching on the couch. “PJ just got some bad news, and I thought getting off campus would cheer her up. Change of scenery, y’know?”

  “What happened to Miss Cherry Pie?”

  I take a long sip from the can.

  “She found out her mom passed away.”

  I know what Sorel plays at. I may be sitting here quietly, but that is what I always do during these transactions. I keep quiet and let Mama do her thing.

  “Ah, man, I’m so sorry.” For the first time Mitch looks genuine. “That sucks. Was she old? Sick?” he asks.

  Sorel looks to me, truly not knowing the depth of the answer. Even after the trouble with Terran, I never fully admitted or announced that the woman on the Shrapnels poster was my mom. Sorel can find her way to a fraction of the truth, the glitzy, punk rock version, but she doesn’t understand what it meant to live with JJ and, now, endure the aftermath.

  “I dunno,” I say softly.

  Their heads dip and bob as if trying to make sense of what I said.

  “I hadn’t seen or heard from her since last summer. Yeah, I suppose she was sick.” After all, therapists and doctors classify alcohol and drug addiction as a disease.

  “Well, Miss Cherry Pie, if there is anything I can do, you let me know.”

  Sorel glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “Actually, do you have anything?”

  Mitch leans back in his easy chair, stretches his arms overhead, and puts his ankle up on his knee. “You came to the right place. Come with me.” He gets up, and we follow him down a dark hallway to a room at the end. The smell that I’ve tried to ignore since arriving grows stronger. When he opens the door, a greenish glow emits from the room. A large glass tank stands against one wall.

  “Spidey, I brought company,” Mitch says to a tarantula creeping along a branch behind the glass. “Sorry about the smell. I need to clean her tank.” Mitch crosses the room and rustles among some boxes and bags on top of a dresser.

  Sorel turns to the glass and baby talks to the spider. “Isn’t she just the cutest thing?”

  Creep city.

  Mitch sits down on the mattress that rests on the floor and dumps a bunch of little bags out on the bed. In his hand, he has a large baggie half-filled with medium-sized blue pills.

  “You only need one of these at a time, but they’ll do the trick,” he says with a gap in his smile. He fills two of the smaller baggies with the pills and puts everything away, and we return to the living room. I finish my beer. Mitch and Sorel settle back on the couch, and per drug-deal etiquette, we pretend our purpose is more than to score. I want to leave.

  “Wanna split a joint?” Mitch asks as if we plan to stay all afternoon. He lights one up, and as Sorel passes it, thoughts of Grant overwhelm me. I close my eyes as I take a hit, thinking of the king-size bed, of walking hand in hand, of the kiss. Mitch’s voice cracks me back to the present as I pass the spliff back to him.

  His voice is mellow when he says, “Tell us about your mom.”

  No, not that. I don’t want to think about her. Not right now. When I’m alone and in my wonderful world of pharmaceuticals—they buffer the blow from being too direct—but not right now. Not in this smelly house with some loser guy who keeps calling me Miss Cherry Pie. I blink my eyes open against the gravity of the question and the pulp of the weed.

  “Yeah, tell us what she was like,” Sorel says in a dreamy voice as she pulls her legs in toward her chest and tilts toward me on the couch.

  There’s nothing to say.

  “I don’t feel good. I better get back.” But there will be no going back. Ever. Instead, I dash to the bathroom and dry heave until I throw up some of the beer. My head spins as I rest it on the dingy tile.

  “PJ, you OK?” Sorel calls. I wipe my mouth and look past myself in the mirror. I feel hollow inside. Completely empty, but not hungry. I slowly open the door, and the smell of the spider’s tank nauseates me once more.

  “I just need some fresh air,” I say.

  “How about something to eat?” Mitch asks. He pulls out a bag of chips and takes a handful. Sorel does the same.

  “When was the last time you ate?” Sorel asks.

  I shrug.

  Mitch scours the cupboards. “Sorry, Miss Cherry Pie, all I got is chips.”

  I crunch the orange chip; it tastes like dry cardboard in my mouth.

  After Sorel finishes her second beer, she asks, “What do I owe ya?”

  “Grocery money.” Mitch laughs.

  Sorel smiles indulgently.

  “Next time you girls come over, I want to be able to give you some proper food. OK?”

  Sorel hands him two hundred-dollar bills, which I know is generous for what he gave us, but then again, she’s filthy with money.

  Once back outside, my stomach instantly feels better, but my head and heart are far, far worse. As I think about swallowing one of the pills, mass times density rushes back like a smashing wave. I slosh through a slushy puddle.

  “See, Mitch isn’t so bad,” Sorel says.

  I snort.

  “He’s a good person to know,” she follows up.

  I pocket my half of the pills, thank Sorel, and disappear upstairs.

  In my room, the Shrapnels poster above my bed signals sorrow, quickly reminding me why I want to dissolve. Oblivion. I swallow the blue pill and get into bed, urgently hoping to find a cloud to carry me away.

  This pill causes more fitfulness than the others, but at least it dulls my inner world to a bearable grit. I descend into memory once more, my mother always the star.

  As the effects of the blue pill hit a plateau, I feel marooned, as if stranded on an island with a guidebook to my childhood and I have to read and reread every painful detail. I want to dive into the water around the island, with the promise that it will caress me and wash away my feelings, but there’s just a dull, numb awareness of every atom, cell, and tissue fissuring in my body. I want that drifting, easy feeling like the other pills gave me. Maybe one isn’t enough.

  The next morning, I prepare for classes, bracing myself for Shale’s wrath. However, today, instead of standing blankly in front of my canvas, I gather paints in blue black, lampblack, and charcoal, along with a muted tone of red. In broad brushstrokes, I paint myself, spilling blood, leaving plenty of negative space.

  Shale grunts over my shoulder, and the next day I repeat the exercise, a spare rendition of my image in the darkest, most empty colors.

  Again, at the end of class Shale grunts and dismisses everyone but me. “Pearl, this is indulging an idea; you’re doing yourself a disservice. What you’ve painted here is merely a sketch. An outline. To see who you are, you must go deeper.”

  I want to shout at him, but I keep my voice st
eady as I pack up my bag. “You have no idea how deep I’ve gone.”

  “No. I don’t. All I know is that you need to go further.”

  I throw my bag to the floor. “Further? There’s nowhere left to go. My mother just died. I am alone. I have nothing. I am—” I close my eyes, and there I see myself, tears streaming down my face, shaking. I go over to the oils, fill my palette, and get an assortment of brushes.

  “I will write you a note for your next class,” Shale says and takes his post over my shoulder.

  Each day, I wake to unwelcome, bright morning light filling the dorm room, courtesy of Charmindy, who opens the blinds before she leaves. Sloughing off the hangover from the pills I took the night before doesn’t get easier. I follow this routine until Friday. The only thing getting me out of the dorm is the possibility that the girl I’m painting in the studio will start to look like me.

  Chapter 27

  The black sedan retraces the same route that carried me away from my old life and my mother, so many months ago.

  As I approach Manhattan, the glare of the setting sun makes it so I can see my reflection in the car window. I’m imprinted on the skyline, but the girl doesn’t look quite like me. Once a person visits New York City, the pulse, the chaos, the characters never leave; maybe I’ll find myself there. A single tear drops from my eye, running down the inside of the door like a raindrop, then disappearing.

  The car leaves me in front of the Saint Regis. Apparently, my uncle wanted to avoid media involvement at his home if word got out, so he has us staying in a hotel.

  I take a deep breath of the city air, diesel and charred pretzels, steam from the vents in the sidewalk, and the aromatic scent of perfumed spring blossoms. It smells like home, and for a minute, I consider bolting. I could make it here. I always have. I could find a job. If my mother found places to stay, so can I.