My childhood was spent in a large house where we each had our own bedroom. We also had guest bedrooms, a great room, a living room, a family room, library, dining room, kitchen, hallways, pantries, sunporches, and way too many bathrooms. Sometimes hours—and, when I got older, days—passed without my seeing another family member.
Since leaving the Miller mansion, I’ve preferred snug spaces. After all there’s just me and the two cats I’ve never bothered to name. I refer to as them Cat One and Cat Two. For the Committee, whose house inside my head mirrors mine, the cramped quarters create a strain.The deal is that the Committee lives at my level of means. I live in a studio apartment.They live in a studio apartment inside my head.When we moved to New York, I gave up my car, so Sarge had to leave his ’57 Chevy behind.You get the picture. All to say, the Committee’s snug space has to accommodate Ruffles on her pillow and Betty Jane’s California King. This doesn’t leave much room for the other three. Sarge installed a triple bunk bed with the Boy on top, him in the middle, and the Silent One on the bottom so he doesn’t have to climb over anyone to get into bed after nighttime prayers.At least they don’t have pets. Not yet anyway.
I let the curtain drop and took another drag on my cigarette. I shouldn’t be smoking, but I liked to smoke. Cat One ran into the room and let out his siren sound, a warning that the vomiting was about to begin. I looked at the cigarette. Do I keep smoking and wait for him to barf up his Christmas surprise, or do I get up and chase him around with the newspapers? I’d always thought Cat One was bulimic. Cat Two? He’s just fat. Me? I have five people living inside my head.What do you think?
Being my mother’s daughter, I do manage to appear passably normal even though I don’t do cute outfits with matching shoes. I wash my pale Irish skin, brush my dark brown hair, and iron my black and blue clothing. The dark colors down to my footwear help me blend in. Even my workout clothes follow this color scheme.The only variation is the white beacon of Nike hope on my feet for the forty-five minutes a day I run, although my hope remains fixed on a smaller ass, not a brighter wardrobe. As for the rest of it, lipstick equals trauma in my world, because I have had to look at Betty Jane’s ruby red lips issuing one searing indictment after another for the last twelve years. So I don’t use it and rarely wear makeup of any kind. I walk through life looking like a permanent bruise on a bleached background, half the time so focused on what is going on in my head I don’t hear people talking to me. I’d probably go completely unnoticed if Ruffles hadn’t parked her pillow in the upper left corner of my skull. At over three hundred pounds, her bulk always causes my head to lean to the left. The first time I meet someone, they feel the need to mimic my left lean, as if to let me know my head isn’t on straight.
Appearances aside, most days the Committee’s chaos kept me discombobulated, but it rarely made me lonely. Holidays were an exception and required extra everything to keep the pressure from closing in. Fortunately, without my asking, the Committee found something to do that didn’t involve conversation or sound of any kind.
Christmas evening, when I lit up, I was hoping I could sit, smoke, and enjoy the quiet while I waited for everything to turn normal again. The shouts on the street helped. Watching the cat puke was an unexpected bonus.
I stubbed out my cigarette and started to light another one when the phone rang.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hey, it’s me,” said Sarah.
“Please tell me you’re not calling to find out what I am doing next Christmas.”
“No, I want to know what you’re doing for your birthday. I thought I’d fly out.”
I was born on New Year’s Eve.You might think it’s great that the whole world has a party every year on my birthday, but I’ve never been big on celebrations. I usually spend the anniversary of my birth avoiding the ghosts of the past. This year I was turning thirty. Entering a new decade would bring a multitude of ghosts and their friends. Having Sarah cross the country to see me safely over that threshold quashed any worries I had about yesteryear clamoring for attention.
Sarah was the only family member who’d ever visited me during the twelve years I’d lived on the East Coast. My parents would have come for my graduation, but getting them there together was complicated, and getting me on the stage was more complicated. I told them I’d decided to skip it.Then I made sure to charge my cap and gown on the emergency credit card my mother gave me when I started at NYU. I did so with the faint hope that someone might see the bill and show up. At least take me out to dinner.
Turned out my mother didn’t bother to look at the credit card statement until a couple of months after I graduated. Sarah wouldn’t fill me in on the particulars of the conversation they had. She didn’t need to. The expletives Sarah uttered after I told her I had marched in the graduation ceremony said it all. After that, Sarah started reviewing my statements on her weekly visits to our mother’s house. She noticed everything.
After she had her first child, Sarah no longer liked to travel. Then she had the second one and she started saying, “I have my male alphabet—Doug, Elliot, and Francis—and the Bay Area offers everything you could ever need. Why would I want to be anywhere else?” One of Sarah’s goals in life was to be a better partner and parent than her role models growing up. Just thinking about doing a better job put her far ahead of my parents. But that wasn’t enough for Sarah.What she accomplished as wife and mother would put most spouses and parents to shame.
The thing was, Sarah hadn’t turned up on my twentieth birthday, and she only had her first letter of the alphabet—D—then. So why my thirtieth? I immediately ignored that thought, because if I asked her, Sarah would tell the truth, and I didn’t want any honesty to trump the happiness I felt at that moment.
When Sarah finished giving me her flight details, I said,“I’m glad you’re coming. See you next week at six p.m. Hanging up now.” I never said good-bye and I hated it when people said it to me, because I always felt like good-bye meant I would never see them again.
“Hang on, Holly,” Sarah interrupted.“For the short time that I am there, I’d like to set some limits around that Committee of yours.” What was about to follow bit into my anticipation of her visit. “I’d like to request that Betty Jane not be present for the birthday festivities.”
Before I could react, I felt what can only be described as an invisible hook around my waist and caught a glimpse of Betty Jane’s red lips pursed in a resentful line as she executed what Milton and I referred to as a hostile takeover.
“Who do you think you are to banish me?” shot out of my mouth in a sugary Southern tone edged with sour.
“Betty Jane”—Sarah’s voice sounded severe—“how dare you? I will not tell you again that you are not to speak to me.You return my sister immediately or I will take steps you will not like.”
Inside my head, the Committee and I exchanged worried glances while we waited for Betty Jane to respond. None of us had any idea what Sarah meant, but her voice made clear that whatever it was, she could make good on it.
“Do you understand me?” said Sarah.
Betty Jane immediately let go, but I felt the sting of her outrage as we transitioned.
“Holly?” said Sarah.
“Yes,” I whispered. Betty Jane had never backed down to anyone, and I didn’t know what scared me more: that she did it, or that Sarah’s threat made her do it.
“I am serious. No Betty Jane.”
Sarah still didn’t get that I couldn’t exactly banish someone who lived in my head, and for a moment, I considered telling her to forget it. But as funny as it sounds coming from someone living in NewYork City, I was lonesome and wanted physical interaction that didn’t include pretenses, wasn’t superficial, and/or didn’t have fur and four legs. I wanted my sister, my confidante, my friend, the one person who accepted me rips, tears, cracks, leaks, the Committee, and all. It was a tough blow to discover Sarah accepted all but one part of me.That transformed the idea of a fun birthday into
a day like any other day in my life, with me trying to muddle through while trying to manage Betty Jane. After all these years, I’d been successful on that front only when our desires matched.
I sighed. “Okay.”
“Also, Holly,” said Sarah, “it would be nice to meet your boyfriend.”
I had learned a long time ago that separation of church and state, as it were, was the best way to maintain secrets. My relationships always ended when the sex got boring and the guy wanted to know my middle name. Suffice it to say that my boyfriend, Peter, didn’t know about the Committee, that I had a sister, that New Year’s Eve was my birthday, and that I didn’t have a middle name.
I sighed again. “I’m sure he’d like to meet you too.”
My boyfriend, Peter, was an enigma. Half of him was a tall, sexy, urbane devotee of Tim Gunn and Project Runway, mimicking him down to the suit, tie, and slicked-back hair. The other half was a serious graduate student in religious studies. I met him at the diner where I worked as a waitress when he came in early one morning to try to stave off his post-all-night-partying hangover with greasy food. He never would have noticed me if not for an off-the-cuff reference to Kierkegaard I made.We’d been together for only two months and, as the antithesis of all his previous girl-friends, in height, weight, intelligence, looks, and so on, I found myself wondering, hourly, if we really were in a relationship. Luckily, we hadn’t yet reached the point where the stardust had worn off and/or I’d lost my ability to charm him with my witty repartee. I’d been there with previous boyfriends enough times to know no stardust meant you had to actually learn more about each other or hop off the train. You can guess which choice I always made. But I wasn’t ready to let Peter go yet.
Meeting Sarah would definitely accelerate our journey to that fork in the road.
I called Peter immediately after Sarah and I hung up. His big New Year’s plan included Times Square, the most populated place in the country, me, and all of his friends. He’d mentioned it a few weeks earlier and my response had been the same one I had for most things I didn’t want to do—remain noncommittal and pray for a solution. When Sarah called and offered me one, I figured God was having a light day.
“So, my sister is going to be here on New Year’s Eve,” I said.
“Cool, she can come with us to Times Square,” said Peter.
“Well, the thing is”—I hesitated—“she’s arriving at six o’clock in the evening and leaving the following morning. She was kind of hoping we could do a quiet sister thing.”
I heard Peter breathing on the other end of the phone and asked the obvious question: “Are you mad?” He remained silent.
“Are you?” I asked again.
He still didn’t answer.
“I’ll see if I can work it out,” I said,“but if not, you’ll be with your friends.”
“Yeah, that’s why I have a girlfriend.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
The day before New Year’s Eve, Peter still thought Sarah and I were spending the next evening with him and half the world in Times Square, and Sarah thought Peter had other plans.
I grew up with a woman who excelled at igniting roaring blazes with one word; and I’d had the pleasure of Betty Jane, who’d lived inside my head for the past twelve years and was equally good at setting fires. I probably had other options, but when desperate, you go with what you know.
I took a seemingly innocuous comment from Peter—“The jeans you wore the other day look better on you”—and doused it with verbal gasoline: “You think I’m fat.”
“Don’t be difficult—”
“Fat and difficult.” I raised my voice several octaves for effect. “What else?”
And with that, I ignited the roaring fight that got me out of introducing my sister and my boyfriend.
Most people would probably think I’m a horrible person for doing this; they’d probably also think one night in Times Square was not a big deal. Maybe I am a horrible person, but I live in a crowd. I didn’t need to extend it by standing in the middle of a much larger one. Not to mention that I’d be with people I didn’t know well enough to dislike; a boyfriend who didn’t have the first clue about me; my sister, who’d probably expose me in her attempt to protect me; and Betty Jane, who was liable to pull something really awful because she’d been excluded. If you were in my shoes, even if you said you wouldn’t, when the time came, you’d be willing to do anything to avoid that situation. Trust me on this.
When I opened my eyes on the morning of my birthday, Betty Jane raised her glass in a toast. I thought she’d forgiven me for her impending banishment. Then, as I buttoned my work uniform, she said, “I’ve told you many times that style doesn’t flatter your figure, or maybe Peter was right, and you’ve put on weight.”
“He never said that,” I said. She arched one eyebrow. “I said it.”
Betty Jane smiled. “Never mind.”
I stood five-foot-three if I held my head up straight. My waitress uniform with its tie at the waist drew attention to my long torso and short legs, making me appear squat and fat. Betty Jane had an eye for clothing that flattered. I didn’t. But Betty Jane and I had been playing the game of retribution in the form of insults thinly veiled as truth for a long time. Only she played it much better than I did. She knew all my weaknesses and played on them like Beethoven on a fortepiano.The notes were soft or hard depending on her anger. Commenting on my weight meant her hands were crashing down on the keys.You couldn’t find an ounce of excess fat on my body if you put me under a microscope.
In other words, I was not forgiven.
She raised her glass again at that thought and I realized that there was more than orange juice in it. I’d never seen Betty Jane drunk before, but having witnessed the combination of my father and a bottle of booze on many occasions while growing up, I recognized a mean drunk when I saw one. But I’d chosen to comply with my sister’s wishes, and I left the responsibility of containing Betty Jane to Ruffles.
On my way home from the diner, I made my daily stop at the A & P grocery store. I believed that shopping weekly would force me into choices I might not like. How was I to know on Tuesday what I would want to eat on Saturday?
I stood in front of the cereal boxes debating with Ruffles and Sarge about whether Sarah would want Cheerios or toast for breakfast. Then Betty Jane slurred, “She banished me. Don’t get her anything.”
“I can’t believe you silenced her with a bottle of gin,” I said.
Inside my head, Ruffles held up her hands. “Hey, I did the best I could under the circumstances.” Betty Jane controlled the Committee, so they couldn’t banish her any more than I could.The only other option was to make her unavailable. Getting her drunk accomplished that and then some.
“Can you at least take the bottle away and hide it?” I asked.
I closed my eyes. Sarge reached for it. Betty Jane slapped him as she stumbled toward her bed, upending and draining the bottle on the way.
“Jesus, she’s smashed,” I said. I shook my head.“Quick, before she goes down, cereal or toast?”
Chatting in front of the Cheerios with myself went unnoticed in a big city. If I let down my guard like this back in Palo Alto, Nancy from my mother’s bridge club would spot me and tell Marjorie and Kate, and the next thing you knew all the families would be sitting poolside at some neighborhood barbecue whispering about me instead of their monthly Botox treatments.
Living in New York definitely had its abject moments, but when the woman standing next to me pulling a box of Rice Krispies off the shelf didn’t even glance sidelong as I discussed Betty Jane’s inebriation along with the pros and cons of cereal versus toast, those moments didn’t seem so bad.
We decided on cereal and toast, and I also bought the makings for a salad and pasta. On the way to the checkout, I grabbed a thirty-dollar bottle of wine and a coffee cake in a box. We’d need something to stick the candles on later. Then I decided I should start the new year w
ith a new toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss and walked over to the dental hygiene section.
I picked up two packages and said,“Do you know the difference between unwaxed and waxed floss?”
“I read that dental tape is better,” said Ruffles.
“Is it?”
“Is what?” I turned and saw an A & P clerk standing next to me.
I shook my head and threw both packages into the cart.
By the time I arrived home, Betty Jane lay sprawled on her bed in a drunken stupor inside my head. Her incapacitation made the Committee unable to speak and participate. I knew the rest of the Committee would give me a pass on this one, especially since the solution to the “how to keep Betty Jane out of Sarah’s face” problem came from Ruffles. Hopefully, nasty remarks and a hangover would be the extent of Betty Jane’s retribution.
The upside of Betty Jane’s drinking was that her hangover should keep her in bed for at least a day after Sarah’s departure, which would give me time to apologize to Peter, grovel if necessary, and then initiate a passionate reunion. Milton had warned me once about the consequences of using this method to restore harmony in a relationship. He said, “Do this and you become more enmeshed in the fantasy, when the reality is that the relationship wouldn’t exist if you ever thought about what made you stay.” This time, I ignored him.
I checked my watch, two o’clock. I had four hours to kill before Sarah arrived.
It was just past ten o’clock. Sarah and I sat under the covers in my bed. We’d had all our conversations like this while growing up—me against my pillow and Sarah with her back against the wall and legs hooked over mine.“Holly,” said Sarah,“Mom asked me to ask you when are you going to get a real job and support yourself like most people your age do? She thinks you wait tables to spite her.”
Sounds Like Crazy Page 2
