by Terri Cheney
“Did you see something you like?” Greg’s voice cut in on my reverie. “Well, there’s a magnificent Margaux,” I started to say, then caught myself. “But I’m not drinking tonight, so I’m sure you don’t want to order a whole bottle.” I put the wine list back in its place and folded my hands in front of me.
“You can just have a sip,” Greg said, and signaled to the waiter.
“No, really, I don’t want to drink tonight,” I said, but the waiter was already at Greg’s side taking his order, the fabulous Margaux. Then Greg’s cell phone rang again, and at least he apologized profusely this time before taking the call.
Within minutes, the bottle was at our table and Greg had nodded his approval of the label and the waiter was removing the cork and starting to pour. I started to tell him that I didn’t want any, but Greg put his hand over the phone and said, “Just have a sip.” And by then the glass was half-full. And calling my name.
I was distracted for a moment by a sudden commotion at the bar. One of the long-legged blondes had spilled a drink all over herself, and apparently found it hilarious. Her laughter rang out over the general din, attracting the attention of all the men around her, several of whom were eagerly patting her body with napkins. “I wish I could be that oblivious to what people think of me,” I thought to myself. But the jealousy only lasted an instant. I knew that I could. The difference between a lady and a tramp, in my case, was probably no greater than a few glasses of wine.
I picked up the glass by the bowl and held it up to the light. It was a classic Margaux, deep ruby red with purple undertones. When the light struck it just right it almost glowed scarlet. The last time my wrist had been this close to that particular shade of red, it had been swimming in its own blood. The warm bathwater had glowed scarlet too, for a time. That was over six years ago, and I hadn’t tried to harm myself since. Nor had I had a drink in all that time. I was more than just sober now. I was verging on sane. And for all of my qualms about normal—what to wear or how to behave—the truth was, I actually liked being sane.
I liked waking up in the morning knowing that more likely than not, I would probably meet all my commitments that day. I wouldn’t have to cancel, to come up with excuses, to weather disapproval and sidestep shame. I would remember everything I had done the night before, and it would probably be boring and a trifle routine. After so many years of not knowing what fresh hell was next, how I adored boring and a trifle routine.
At that moment, Greg set his phone down and turned back toward me. “Sorry about that,” he said. Then he picked up his glass. “To us,” he said, and I froze. Greg had never been the least bit romantic before, never come close to suggesting that “we” might ever be “us.” How was I not supposed to drink to that? And yet I knew that there would be no we, no us, no me anymore if I did. Greg would find himself sitting alone with a stranger, someone he had never met before and definitely never invited to dinner. She might be terrifically entertaining at first, might even rival the blonde at the bar in brazen allure, but after that, who knew? All that was certain was that however much fun she had tonight, I would be the one to wake up with the hangover and all the bitter memories. Or worse yet, with no memories at all.
So with infinite care I brought the glass halfway to my lips, then let the stem slowly slide all the way through my fingers, an inch at a time until the tiniest sliver remained in contact with my skin. Then I let go. The glass dropped to the table and shattered. Wine instantly engulfed the white tablecloth, spreading between me and Greg, a bright bloody red.
Greg didn’t embarrass or accuse me, he simply called the waiter over to change the linens. “And bring her another glass,” he said. This time I spoke up loudly enough for him—for the whole restaurant, no doubt—to hear. “Thank you, but no,” I insisted, and the “no” suddenly echoed in one of those odd, quick interludes of silence that occasionally descend on a noisy crowd. I didn’t mind. I was rather proud of that no. It deserved to be heard. It may have sounded like no to a glass of wine, but in truth it was no to a great many things. And yes to a great many more.
18
The valet sprang into action the second my car pulled up to the curb. He opened the door and extended his hand to help me out, unfurling a sleek gray umbrella and complimenting me on my shoes, all at the same time.
“Pretty hot,” he said. “Ferragamo or Blahnik?”
“Right,” I replied, a bit flustered, trying to find my footing on the wet pavement. I wondered if he was expecting a tip. But you weren’t supposed to tip at private parties, were you? It had been years since I’d been to a big Hollywood bash, and I didn’t know what to expect from anyone or anything that evening, especially myself.
I covered my confusion by giving the valet the sexiest smile I could manage. He seemed satisfied, abandoning his post to escort me up the long, slippery cobblestone path to the front door. I was extremely grateful for his steady grip on my elbow, grateful just to have a man, any man, at my side while I approached the buzzing crowd ahead.
Two uniformed guards stood on each side of the door. I had been invited to the party only the night before, so there had been no time to deliver my invitation, the proof of my legitimacy. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t on the list. It was up to me and my sassy shoes to convince the guards, the other guests, and most of all myself that I belonged there.
If only I had a date beside me….
The umbrella became redundant once we reached the covered porch, as did the valet, unfortunately. I thanked him as sweetly as I could, braving the awkward moment of tipless leave-taking with a bright, stupid smile. Watching him walk away in those snug rented pants, I felt a brief but violent urge to run after him and throw myself on his mercy. But I was trapped in the crowd’s surge toward the door, where a guard waited, hand outstretched.
“Invitation?” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t actually have one. You see—”
“Name?”
I gave it. He flipped through the list. The crowd behind me was getting impatient. I could feel their collective irritation burning a hole in my back, straight through my shoulder blades to the guard’s stubby little fingers, which were still rifling through the pages. He straightened up and spoke to the empty air above my head.
“Not on the list,” he said. “Next.”
If you haven’t worn high heels in a really long time, they can make you awfully cranky. So it wasn’t entirely my fault that my voice had a decidedly peevish edge to it when I finally snapped to and remembered my training.
“Look here,” I said. “I’m with the host. I’m a lawyer. I’m his lawyer, in fact, and he was expecting me an hour ago. I know he won’t be happy that you’ve kept him waiting this long.”
“But you’re not on the—” he started to protest. I cut him short.
“Of course I’m not on the guest list. This is business, not pleasure.” I opened my purse and started to poke around in it. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the law offices of…” I combined several names from several different well-known firms. “I’ve got a card in here somewhere.”
“But your name’s not—”
I clicked my purse shut. The lawyer approach clearly wasn’t working. It was time to shift gears, and fast. “Give me a break, okay? My feet are killing me in these shoes.”
I lifted my left foot and rubbed it slowly up and down my right ankle. He shook his head, grinned, and waved me through. Just in time, because the truth was I didn’t have any cards of any kind in my purse. Since this was technically a date, not business, I had assumed that lipstick, a comb, and breath mints would come in far handier than proof of my J.D. But I’d forgotten one of the cardinal rules of Hollywood: Never confuse beauty with credibility.
I used to be deadly credible. I reveled in the quick changes of expression my business card would elicit, from surprise to respect to a tinge of fear, depending on the person’s past experience with lawyers. But always, no matter what, the card made a dif
ference. I may not have been the prettiest girl at the party, but people, especially men, took me seriously.
So what the hell was I going to do now, with only a MAC sheer plum lipstick to my name, if someone asked me about myself? I looked around the room. In every direction, I was surrounded by drop-dead beautiful women. I smoothed my own dress: a relic from my past, but until now reliable. I looked classic, perhaps even chic in the right lighting and as long as my zipper stayed shut. But my dress wasn’t going to be doing the talking for me. If I stayed, I was going to have to talk, to flirt, to charm, to cajole. In other words, to party.
Damn my new medication. Just when I most needed the brazen, spitfire sociability of mania, I was stable. Stable and sane and oh so very boring in comparison. Just like my dress.
A waiter passed by with a tray of drinks. Alcohol is one of the surest, quickest ways I know to precipitate a dangerous upswing in my mood. Two martinis and I’m in manic wonderland, going on about the virtues of the olive and the lore of vermouth and any other subject that catches my fancy to a spellbound audience that gradually thins out as the oration wears on. But while my thoughts may have lunged at the passing tray, my body stayed put in stability, too slow and too sane to chase after a fleeting whim.
It was definitely time to move on. I wasn’t manic enough to compete with a room full of models. It’s a measure of my insanity that I sometimes think I am.
I pushed my way through the heavy cleavage to the foot of the staircase, then up to the first floor. I tiptoed to the nearest door, which opened onto a magnificent master bath: spotless, sterile, and mine, all mine. I pulled the door shut behind me and locked it.
I was wearing my Swiss watch that night, the tiny gold one with multiple functions, including a little alarm I use for my medications. I carefully set it for ten minutes, then emptied my purse onto the counter and faced the mirror. Ten minutes all alone with the cool Carrara marble, or at least until someone came knocking. Ten minutes to splash cold water on the back of my neck and figure out what on earth I would possibly say if someone asked me what I did for a living, which was bound to happen eventually.
“I’m sick for a living” didn’t quite sound right. “I live on federal disability” was true enough but no better. I could always just say I’m a lawyer. That was true, too, but highly misleading. I still have a valid professional license, but I rarely practice law anymore. Manic depression makes it too easy for me to screw up, and I’m terrified of screwing up. I worked too many years at too many big firms, where mistakes are considered mortal sins and you could go to hell for a typo.
I snapped open my compact and leaned in closer toward the mirror. I have no illusions about my abilities when my meds aren’t working. When I’m manic, I think every case is a surefire winner, and every client a potential lover. So I never practice when I’m manic, if I can help it. I also don’t practice when I’m depressed. I simply can’t. I’m brain-dead from the neck up, and the rest of me is paralyzed, overwhelmed by the sheer effort of blinking.
When, on occasion, a job presents itself during saner, more competent times, I jump for it. I almost always win. And so I almost always wonder, everyone around me wonders, why I can’t just keep on practicing long enough to make a decent living? Just enough so I wouldn’t have to pray each night for food and rent for one more month, please God, just one more month. But always, after I’ve aced that final deadline, a reaction sets in: sometimes mania, sometimes depression, frequently suicidal. Nothing, not even a pitcher of martinis, can destabilize me so completely.
It took me sixteen years to realize this. Sixteen years of reassuring myself on the way to work every morning that there’s no such thing as a happy lawyer. It was just this particular case I was working on, this client, this judge, the latest Supreme Court ruling, the airborne viruses in my corner office. Perhaps if I tried another firm. So I tried another firm, several other firms in fact, each one bigger and better and more prestigious than the last. I landed higher-profile clients and took long, exotic vacations, and made a considerable amount of money. And I went to parties, a whole lot of parties, for every cause imaginable, or no cause at all. I billed the time regardless.
It was all about client development then. Every warm, sincere handshake, every sweet “tell me more” represented another tenth of a billable hour to me. I never squandered my smiles. So I wasn’t in the least bit lying back then when I whipped out my card and announced “I’m a lawyer.” That’s what I was. That’s all I was.
If you nurture it long enough, a lie can become a life. Bad nights don’t surprise you much after sixteen years. You come to expect them. You just don’t expect them to go on forever. I should have known that the bout of depression that finally ended my career was the worst one yet, when I ran out of business cards and didn’t have the energy to order new ones. Nothing mattered to me at that point except the pain, and the pain was everywhere. No matter how hard I tried to hide it behind crisp suits and careful makeup, it showed in my face and body. Strangers kept asking me if I was sick. I couldn’t fool anyone, not the senior partners or the clients or the court, or most of all, myself.
I took a lengthy leave of absence, and then I left for good. Gradually, I was dropped from the mailing lists: the artsy invites, the special passes, the comp tickets slowed to a trickle. Eventually, they were replaced entirely by bills.
It was just as well, I told myself. All my clothes were outdated anyway. But the real problem wasn’t that I had nothing to wear. It was that I had nothing to say. Being an attorney had made me very unhappy. But not being an attorney made me invisible, in my eyes at least. My whole adult identity had vanished, along with the money and trappings that had so clearly defined my prior existence. In their place was a formless, shapeless, terrifying blob: the nonbillable hour. How was I supposed to fill it? Would it never end?
As if on cue, my watch alarm went off and I jumped, practically toppling off my high heels. Ten whole minutes gone, and all I’d accomplished was to chew off my lipstick and revive the worry lines between my eyebrows. And damned if there weren’t traces of tears in the corners of my eyes, threatening my mascara. Tears for what? I didn’t miss the life. But God, how I sometimes missed the lie.
A little magic with the mascara wand, a fresh slick of lipstick and a spritz of perfume, and I looked like a new woman. I spun around, watching my skirt whip nicely around my thighs. There wasn’t a hint of inappropriate curve to my hips when I turned and looked sideways in the mirror. Everything was where it should be, for a change. Everything except me. I looked at my watch. Five more minutes gone. I had to get out of this bathroom.
I gathered up the items I had dumped out onto the counter: lipstick, comb, mascara, compact, and stuffed them back into my little purse. There would even have been room for a couple of business cards in there. Why on earth didn’t I take any with me? I knew the answer, even though I found it hard to believe. The card was a lie, a false front, and I was sick to death of lies. I was stable, the medication was working. What was wrong with reality? I had a choice, I realized. I could go downstairs and simply tell the truth about who I was and what I did. I knelt down on the bath mat and said a quick prayer: “Dear God, please let me tell the truth and please let it be okay.” And with that, I went downstairs.
The party had grown while I was shut away in the bathroom. People lined the staircase, overflowing onto the landing. I was only a few steps away from the bathroom when I heard someone call my name. It was the host. “Where have you been?” he shouted. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Here, I want you to meet some people.”
He introduced me to six or seven strangers and asked me if I wanted a drink. “Mineral water, please,” I said, sticking with stable, and then I turned back to his guests.
“You look familiar,” said the man on my right. “What do you do?” There it was: first question, first encounter.
“You look really familiar, too,” I said, stalling. “Where could we have met?”
&n
bsp; “I own a gallery on La Brea,” he said. “Do you collect?”
“I used to,” I said. “Back when I was a…” “Lawyer” was on my tongue. I improvised. “Lover. An art lover. I really used to love art.” A hot flush crept over my cheeks, and I dropped my eyes. This was harder than I thought. Fortunately, the host came back at that moment with my drink, and started talking about a mutual friend. When he left, the gallery owner returned to the same question.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “So tell me again—what do you do?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m manic-depressive,” I said. “And I’m writing a book about my experience.”
“Excuse me? I didn’t quite hear you.”
I repeated it loudly, emphasizing the words manic-depressive. I was suddenly the center of the circle’s attention, with a half dozen pairs of eyes turned toward me.
No one spoke for several seconds. Then a tall man across the circle said, “My therapist thinks I might be manic-depressive. How can you tell?” I started to answer, but the woman next to him interrupted: “My mother’s bipolar. They just found out, and put her on lithium. She’s, like, normal for the first time in her life. Is it true it’s genetic?”
I nodded, but before I could speak the gallery owner put his hand on my arm and said, “You know, I could tell just by looking at you that you were going to be interesting. Wasn’t Van Gogh bipolar, too?” The tall man said, “Yeah, but Byron is the ultimate manic-depressive. That’s why my therapist thinks I might be. He says I’m Byron-esque.” The pride in his voice would have been touching if it weren’t so silly. But I held back my laughter, because questions were now peppering me from all sides: What’s it feel like to be manic? Do you have visions? Could I get manic if I tried? and so forth. I answered what clinical questions I could about the best friend, the boss, the stepson, the lover. Of the seven people in the circle, five of them had some connection to the disease, and they all craved information.
