by Terri Cheney
My personal trick is fist-clenching. I press my nails into my palms over and over, as fast and as hard as I can, until my skin is pockmarked with gouges—deep red crescent moons that will eventually fade, but hurt like hell at the time. Pain is always a useful distraction, but any kind of rhythmic movement seems to ease the need to talk.
Little did Julian know how much he had helped by seating me on a stool that swiveled. I just love swivel chairs when I’m getting manic. I can whip back and forth and all the way around if I need to, and it almost absorbs the excess energy that would otherwise come out of my mouth.
I calculated the odds before me. Three complete spins were about all I could safely insert into the conversation without appearing bizarre or intoxicated. I took a deep breath, held it, then spun away: once around, twice around and by the third revolution I had lost most of the urge to talk. It was all I could do to stay upright on my chair. To my complete surprise, the men had continued right on talking without me. They talked about Shaquille O’Neal and silicone lawsuits and Julian’s new Mercedes. I had lots to say on all of these subjects, but I just swiveled back and forth instead: little half swivels, not so much that you’d notice, just enough to release a little pressure.
I actually stopped talking. I actually listened. So I knew that I wasn’t all the way manic, because when you’re all the way manic you never listen to anybody but yourself. I was maybe three-quarters of the way up, I figured, where the urges are sometimes negotiable and swivel chairs can still make a difference. At three-quarters up, my mind is running fast, but not so fast that I can’t, with an intense effort, shut up and listen. But I listen with triple the intensity of normal people. I practically suck the thoughts from their brains. By the time the words are finally out of their slow, sane mouths, I not only know what they mean better than they do, I’m ten questions ahead.
I’ll never know what my next move would have been that afternoon—if I would have just sat there, smiling and swiveling as the men talked on without me; or if I would have burst out into a frenzy of flirtation. I’ll never know because Julian’s alarm clock suddenly went off and he dashed out of the kitchen. And then I heard it—that sound, the one against which all women, however sexy or pretty or willing, are powerless: Chick Hearn announcing the Lakers pregame show.
A couple of the men paused long enough to grab a brownie and say good-bye. Then I found myself sitting all alone at the center island. All alone, with no one to charm, and worst of all, no one to talk to. Sure, I could swivel all the way around now, but what was the point of struggling to keep quiet when there was no conversation to interrupt?
The kitchen was dark now, and I realized that I wasn’t alone. There were voices coming from a little alcove on the other side of the room, voices that I hadn’t noticed while I was preoccupied with the men. High-pitched and overlapping, punctuated by bursts of squeaky, giggly laughter. I’d completely forgotten: the other women.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit there spinning until the Lakers game was over. It was a difficult choice: whether to join the men, knowing that I would be ignored for the next few hours; or join the other women, knowing that I was three-quarters manic. In my case, other women and mania are incompatible. At some point on my way up the mood scale, seduction becomes my primary purpose and other women are the enemy. Old women, young women, beautiful, ugly, scrawny, curvaceous—it doesn’t matter. Other women violate my fundamental right to be the only woman in the room.
But at least women talk. All women talk. So I took a last few spins on the swivel chair, and headed across the room toward the enemy camp. There were six of them, in varying degrees of pretty: three brunettes and two blondes and one sort of in-between. One of these, I knew, had to be the woman in charge, the woman I would have to cozy up to for the next several hours, or at least until the Lakers game was over and Julian was free again. And then it hit me. There was a very good chance that the woman in charge might also be Julian’s woman.
My morality, like my memory, gets increasingly fungible the closer I get to mania. So what if Julian already had a girl? I wasn’t trespassing here, I was invited, by the greenest pair of eyes I’d seen in years. It’s a well-known fact that God makes green-eyed men for one purpose only: to remind me that love is a chemical imbalance, too. That perilous highs and desperate lows and extravagant flurries of mood are not always symptoms of a broken mind, but signs of a beating heart.
If nothing else, my fourteen years as a litigator had taught me how to walk into almost any adversarial situation without showing fear. No matter how hard my heart is pounding, I can almost always extend a hand that’s cool and steady, and briskly state my name in a voice that doesn’t quiver. “It’s just opening argument,” I reminded myself as I walked up to the women’s table and put a tentative hand on one of the empty chairs.
One of the blondes saw me and waved me over. She was the younger, prettier one with the pricey hair extensions: a good bet for Julian’s girl, I thought. And sure enough, her tone was just a bit overeager when she turned to me and asked, “So you’re a friend of Julian’s?”
“We’re neighbors,” I replied, then, “And how long have you known Julian?” But the blonde’s attention had been diverted, and I was left with nothing to do but smile into the empty air. So I listened. I quickly learned where to get the best bikini wax in Aspen; which private schools are really, truly private; and how to deduct at least half a tummy tuck from my taxes, before the pretty blonde turned back my way and said, “Some of us were wondering—we’ve got a bet going on, in fact—who does your color?”
Finally, I thought. A topic I could ace. Like all true redheads, I’m rather vain about my hair. I figure God would not have made me so conspicuous if he wanted me humble. So I grinned back at the blonde, and replied, “Actually, nobody does my color. It’s natural.”
“Natural. Really?”
“Really.”
“Not even highlights?”
“Never.”
“How extraordinary,” she said. Not “How lovely,” or “How lucky for you,” or anything else that might have easily translated into a compliment. Then she smiled at me, sweet as a lemon tart, and said, “I think we require proof,” while the rest of the table burst into giggles.
“Well, there’s only one surefire way for a redhead to prove that she’s…” and I faltered, then blushed to the roots of my suspect hair. If only this table was filled with men, I thought. Then this whole conversation would have been deliciously naughty, and I would have been completely in control. But mania distorts everything when women are around. It sabotages my senses, so all I can see are arched eyebrows and all I can hear are sneers where none, most probably, exist. Then again, maybe they do. I never know for certain, and it’s the not knowing that drives me mad.
I needed air. I needed space. The heightened sensuality that I had prized so much an hour before, when I was flirting with the men, was no longer titillating; it was torture. I could feel every rung of the hardbacked chair as it pressed up against the small of my back, sharp and unforgiving, while all around me the women’s voices crackled like a summer storm. Nannies was the subject now. Nannies who never showed up on time. Nannies who wanted too much money. Seductive nannies, nannies who tried to steal the silver. The search for the perfect nanny.
The urge to talk, to interact, was still strong upon me, and I longed to join the conversation. So I thought about nannies, thought hard. I strained my memory for nanny anecdotes. Nothing came to mind. I had nothing to say.
It wasn’t possible. My manic persona has a great many voices, but none of them is silent. And yet, my tongue lay slack and heavy in my mouth. I didn’t care if the nannies stole all the silver. I didn’t care if the Mercedes handled better than the Porsche, or which dermatologists made house calls at night, or how many pounds of carry-on luggage the Concorde allows. I thought of the mounds of bills piled high on my own kitchen table: doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, insurance, all the shrill, nagging
reminders of my mental illness that I faced each morning over cold cereal and coffee. The search for a perfect nanny seemed absurdly easy somehow, in comparison to the search for sanity. Now there was a topic worthy of discussion.
But the room was whirling too fast for me now, too many names I didn’t recognize and places I’d never been and problems I wasn’t rich enough to afford. I could barely trace the outline of the huge oak tree that grew just outside the kitchen window. Some of its branches, I knew, reached all the way down into my own backyard, but they were hidden from my sight by the darkness and the angle. It would be quiet over there, I thought. Blissfully so, now that the drums had stopped. There would be no twittering voices, no faint, fragrant subtleties to provoke and confuse me. The only other woman was the one that I might, or might not, choose to see in the mirror. Strange, but the option of leaving had not occurred to me before, not while Julian, or the promise of Julian, still lingered in the vicinity. But all at once I knew: it was time to go home.
I stood up abruptly and told the blonde, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave now—I’m expecting a call.”
“At least have some dessert before you go,” she said, pushing a plate in my direction. “Here, take some strawberries. They’re awesome.”
“I know they are. But I think I’ve already had more strawberries than is good for me today.” I turned and walked away. And I kept on walking, across the kitchen, through the foyer, and out the front door. I hesitated briefly when I reached the front gate, remembering his laughter; remembering his eyes. But I shook my head and kept right on walking, through the gate, down the street, and all the way up to my own front door. And I didn’t really breathe freely again until I heard it lock safely behind me.
Then, at last, came the quiet. Thick, womblike quiet, wrapped all around me. It was just what I’d wanted—or was it? The silence magnified every sound: my heartbeat throbbed in my ears; I could almost hear my blood squeezing in and out of my capillaries. But mostly, I could hear a whiny voice in my head, asking me over and over again: “How could you leave without saying good-bye?”
I knew the answer to that question, but I didn’t want to hear it. The truth is that I had to leave, because in the state I was in I never would have settled for a mere good-bye. I would have insisted on exchanging numbers with Julian, or arranging to get together again sometime soon. And I simply had no business doing that—not now, not like this, not when I was so unstable. I thought back over the day. From the moment I awoke, and every minute thereafter, I had been a quivering mass of volatility: up, down, irate, flirtatious, contentious, giddy, seductive, paranoid. I’d assumed half a dozen different personalities between daybreak and dusk. No wonder I was so tired.
I went into the bathroom, undressed, and methodically removed all my makeup. The face in the mirror was pale and quiet. You could never imagine it teasing a strawberry into submission, much less flirting with six different men at once. Freshly scrubbed and shiny, it looked like—well, like the girl next door. Which was just how I wanted Julian to think of me. It was all I’d ever really wanted, in fact: to be somebody’s girl next door.
The girl next door isn’t crazy. She may have her quirks, but at heart she’s an innocent, simple and pure. Life touches her lightly; it doesn’t leave scars. But instability like mine needs considerable distance to pass for mere quirkiness. A next-door neighbor would be much too keen a witness. He was certain to see through all my best disguises by sheer proximity. So there was no way I could risk getting any closer to Julian. He was far too close already.
I shut off the light and got into bed. It was quiet, so quiet I could hear the clock in the next room ticking, so quiet I could hear a faint whisper of hope. Nothing’s impossible in the dark and the quiet. If I’ve learned anything from life as a manic-depressive, it’s that things never stay the same for very long. The cruelest curse of the disease is also its most sacred promise: You will not feel this way forever.
I closed my eyes and pictured myself walking up to Julian’s front gate in my prettiest peach cashmere sweater, hair tied back with a satin ribbon, a girl-next-door glow on my face. I knew it would never happen, of course, because dreams are one thing and manic depression is another. But I let myself slide off to sleep anyway, believing—just this once—in maybe.
6
The room was a cheery one, as institutions go: daisies on the wallpaper, canary yellow sheets. It looked just like a first-class spa—which it ought to, at those prices. My insurance wasn’t going to cover it, but that was nothing new. This was back before any kind of mental health coverage had gone into effect. Care of the psyche was considered elective, on a par with plastic surgery.
Even if insurance had covered my stay, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was so afraid that my employer would find out the truth about me, I never submitted any bills. It was early in my career, and I was still angling to land a big case. So no one at the law firm even knew I was in therapy. My cover? Ongoing dental problems that forced my absence from the office for a couple of hours each week.
Perhaps I was being too cautious. My firm, after all, was one of the most liberal in Beverly Hills, famous for espousing humanitarian causes, for championing the rights of the poor and the weak. But weakness in a client is one thing; weakness in a lawyer is something else altogether. In my second year, all the junior associates were given hand-tooled leather copies of The Art of War for Hanukkah, because that was how we saw ourselves, as modern-day warriors, and warriors are never allowed to be weak.
So I slunk in and out of my therapist’s office. I knew that I needed to be there, but I didn’t quite know why. I had no official diagnosis. All I knew was that something was wrong, terribly wrong, and had been for almost a year. My body wouldn’t move. Every gesture felt leaden and labored. Even breathing required an effort of will. Worst of all, I couldn’t answer the phone. The message slips kept piling up and up until stacks of little white papers littered my desk. And yet, I somehow managed to keep my job. Unhappiness in a lawyer seemed to be the norm, nothing worth getting upset about.
My therapist acknowledged the demands of my practice, but that was only a part of it, he said. There was more to my misery than met the eye. Just what, he didn’t know or tell me. But every Monday and Thursday, he would sit in his big brown swivel-back chair and nod as I cried my way through half a box of tissues. After a while I almost forgot he was there. I left reality behind in the waiting room and began to speak my fantasies out loud: how I wished everyone in my law firm would die and leave me, at last, alone, or how I wished I could fall asleep one night and never wake up.
Finally, he spoke. “Personally, I hate ultimatums. But professionally, I feel I have no choice but to tell you that unless you agree to be hospitalized, I will be forced to commit you myself.”
“You—you’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t be more serious. For three months now, I’ve listened to you talk about death as if it was some kind of romantic adventure. That’s simply not normal cognition.”
“But it’s not supposed to be normal,” I said. “I was just fantasizing—no, free-associating would be a better term. That’s what you’re supposed to do in a therapist’s office, right? Free-associate?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Your fantasies are the key to your subconscious,” he said. “And your subconscious obviously wants to die.”
“But I can’t go to the hospital,” I said with frustration. “I’ve got an appellate brief due at the end of the month, and three motions in limine next week.”
To my surprise, he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you promise to check yourself in voluntarily, you can leave whenever you like.”
“What kind of hospital are we talking about?”
“There’s a very nice place not far from here. Exclusive, quiet, beautiful grounds.”
“And what would I be expected to do if I went there?”
“Whatever you like. Read, rest, putter around in the
garden. We’ve come a long way since The Snake Pit, you know.”
“But it’s still a mental hospital—won’t there be a lot of lunatics there?”
He smiled. “Come on, you ought to know better than that. Rich people are never crazy, they’re colorful. And it ought to be a healthy change for you, after being surrounded by lawyers all day. Maybe it would help if you thought of it this way. Your brain is like a Ferrari—it’s a world-class instrument when it’s running right. But it’s highly temperamental, and sometimes it needs a good tune-up. You wouldn’t take a Ferrari in to a Jiffy Lube to get serviced, would you? No, you’d take it in to the Ferrari shop, and let the experts tinker away. Let’s let the experts take a look at you.”
How well he knew me. It was not for nothing that of all the towns in all the world, I had settled in Beverly Hills. Nor was it any great surprise that I had insisted on a first-rate education. I knew the truth: snobbery was part of my character. I wanted—no, I expected—the best. Not out of a sense of entitlement, though. I thought of it as self-protection. For as long as I could remember, I had always been far too sensitive to my surroundings. Dirt and squalor made me physically ill, even if I was simply watching it on TV. If money could not buy happiness, at least it could buy harmony. Simply by wielding a credit card, I could manipulate the surface of things—substitute symmetry for dissonance, balance for distortion.
I took refuge in aesthetics. I hoped, in fooling my eye, to fool myself as well; and quite often, I succeeded. Better yet, I learned to fool the world by letting my possessions speak up for me. As in, I am successful enough to own a Porsche: I must be well-adjusted. Or, Look at my Armani suit: how well my life must fit me.
