by Corine Gantz
Chapter 30
The women here were as sick as they were desperate. Only six months ago, Althea would have been in no better shape than they were. Six months ago she too would have lied to the staff and to herself. She too would have secretly burned calories by walking around the hospital corridors or by taking her showers cold. She too would have cheated on the amount of food she was ordered to eat, and she too would have perceived the program as an impediment to her deepest and most profound compulsion, which was to not eat. But things were different now. She wanted to resist eating with every fiber, still, but she could no longer ignore the pathology of it. This, this disease, could kill her, was killing her and might as well because living with it was hell.
Also, things were different because, unlike six months ago, she now wanted things. There were more things she wanted than she ever would have thought possible.
She did not want visitors. She was doing this alone by choice. Annie had called her parents to let them know what was going on with her. Where was her mother right now, she wondered. Where had she been her entire life? She tried to imagine a future without her mother, and the ultimate of all rejections—the rejection of a child by her mother. This had been at the heart of all her fears and now that she was facing it, she felt safer rather than more vulnerable.
Abandoning the toxic connection to her mother was a death of sorts, and her only chance for freedom. This desertion allowed for something new, a reinvention. But despair came as she tried to envision a future that did not include Jared.. If she were to live at all, she would need to believe that, for a brief moment, in that chaste and careful way of his, Jared did love her. But most importantly, believe that she loved him--that feeling of love that had eluded her was something she was capable of.
Althea left the bedroom she shared with Valerie, a forty-year-old mother of three who never talked but spent her time doing push-ups and sit-ups in her room even though it was against the rule. She and Valerie were the oldest women in the department. Valerie’s teeth were rotted out from years of self-induced vomiting. Valerie scared her, disgusted her as only a person who represents your future can. Althea moved through the familiar white corridors of the hospital. In the elevator, she stood next to Veronique, a sixteen-year-old, eighty-two-pound girl with a head too big for her body. Another sick girl. The girl and Althea didn’t acknowledge each other. Althea tapped on a door and let herself in. She sat in the chair across from Madame Defloret’s mahogany desk, brought one knee to her chin, and waited for Madame Defloret’s phone conversation to end. Even here, the window had bars. Behind the bars, under the canopies of trees in the hospital’s garden, mentally ill people strolled.
Madame Defloret hung up the phone and smiled at Althea. “Althea, you have been with us ten days already. You’ve done well, my dear. You are a brave and strong young lady.”
Althea measured those words. Brave and strong. Yes, she had been brave and strangely strong. “Thank you,” she smiled. “It’s been as good as mental illness gets.”
“I can see you have a sense of humor. That’s wonderful! It takes a lot to embrace the concept of an illness as unflinchingly as you did. Not everyone dares.”
“Thank you.” Althea understood that she had been ready, that the shift had happened over the last six months without her even realizing it. Without living in Annie’s house, that crazy house where people argued, and food was rich, and children played, without Jared painting her and kissing her, without Paris and the abundant messy life of it, she would never had been ready.
“You and I have talked about a plan to move you to outpatient as soon as we, you and I together, would feel ready.” Madame Defloret added, “I suggest that the time has come.”
“I’m not ready to leave!” Althea said, suddenly terrified.
“You will need extensive therapy, but you don’t need to be hospitalized. It will be a long hard journey, at least as long as it took you to get here. Don’t expect immediate results, but I believe you can do it.”
“But I...” Althea’s throat was useless. “I can’t do it alone.”
Madame Defloret smiled kindly. “Things will be different now. We’ve discussed creating a support system that--”
“My parents didn’t even call. They don’t care.”
“In the interest of healing, you need to spend your focus those who do care.” The ringing of the phone interrupted her. “Yes,” Madame Defloret said. “In the waiting room please.” She hung up the phone. “As a matter of fact, you have a visitor.”
Althea looked at her hands, at the bars at the window, at Madame Defloret. “I don’t think I’m ready to see anyone.”
“Visitors can be an olive branch.”
Mom! Althea felt nauseous. “It would be throwing me into the lion’s pit.”
“He’s certainly not taking no for an answer,” Madame Defloret said. “Should I let him in?”
He? Althea curled up in her chair, ready to lick her wounds. Her hope was formidable. “Yes, please.”
The door to Madame Defloret’s office opened.
Jared seemed taller maybe, or thinner. He was closely shaved and had dark circles under his eyes.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Madame Defloret said as she got up and left the room.
In her chair, Althea didn’t budge. She had the sensation of sinking.
“No one wanted to tell me where you were,” he said with an awkward smile.
“Why? Why not?”
“They said a drug addict is bad for you.”
“Oh, Jared. I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know what she was sorry about.
“I looked for you. Then I went to rehab for a few days. Now I’m here.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she whispered. “I understand, of course.”
Jared kneeled next to her chair, took both of her hands, and brought them to his face. “I’m crazy. You’re crazy. Together, we would be less crazy. What do you think?”
Althea fiercely fought tears of yearning, despair, and joy all at once.
“But you have to promise me to get better,” he said.
Althea looked at his beautiful, manly hands encircling her thin wrists. A wave of disgust shook her. Of course, she had to get better. She had to stop this right now. The old way wasn’t necessary anymore. She was no longer alone. He wanted her whole, not broken. Not sick. She was going to do this for him, for herself. Althea stood and let Jared hold her in his arms. The scent of his shirt was like coming home. She looked out the window, and it all came rushing in, the warmth of the sun like a caress, the sound of the birds, the wind coming through the trees, the smell of the wet grass that was being mowed. Now. Right now. It was so simple. And she could feel all of it.
Lola’s hair stuck to the back of her neck with sweat. She had hurried up and down the stairs, washed several loads of laundry, finished last-minute shopping, her heart bouncing in her chest from activity and fright. Everything was coming together; everything was falling apart. Jared and Althea had emerged from their respective treatments and announced they were moving in together in Jared’s apartment on rue de Cambronne. Annie and Lucas were careful to show no signs of affection in public, but the pink on their cheeks and the smiles on their lips showed how thrilled they were to be catching up with ten years of unattended lust. Annie’s happiness was a beautiful thing to watch. Was her own life coming together or falling apart? Lola wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she, Mark, and the children were going home. They were leaving Paris the next day.
Of course, Mark’s arrival changed absolutely everything. Had he not found her, she might have stayed in Paris eternally. But he had found her. As long as she was away from Mark, it had been possible to convince herself that running away was a legitimate response to her problem. But watching Mark be reunited with Lia and Simon, she was appalled by her own cruelty to him and the children. Her cruelty and selfishness, she realized, had been a by-product of fear. The fear had led to what Lucas called cowardice. Yes, she
had behaved in a cowardly way that now disgusted her. But if there was one thing that those six months in France had changed about her, it was that she now realized she never needed to feel like a victim again, or act like one. She could take action, make demands, draw lines. She had made a pact with herself to never be a coward again. That which she feared most, she must now do. What she feared most to say, she must now say.
She contemplated the beautiful small bedroom that had felt so safe. The woman who had entered that bedroom six months ago was no longer. She liked the new Lola much better. She fastened the last suitcase and left her bedroom. In the stairwell, the smell of cooked lamb and spices, the lamb for Annie’s party, was overwhelming. Lola’s heart was unbearably heavy for leaving. She had burst into tears three times this morning alone. Yet she needed to go through the motion of helping Annie. Everybody, in fact, moaned over the undertaking—Mark especially, who could not fathom why they could not leave before the party and why he was made to wait to get his family back home. Lola’s desire was to stay until after the party for Annie’s sake. In the old days she would have yielded to Mark’s desire. In the old days, barely six months ago.
Everyone was expected to help, and everyone did, though no one understood why Annie insisted it had to happen. Why this party was so important to her, no one dared ask. Lola suspected that Annie was celebrating the death or the birth of something deeply personal, too personal to talk about. By throwing this party, Annie seemed to be officially reclaiming her life.
In the stairwell Lola was too slow to prevent Simon from hurling a tennis ball at Laurent’s head. “Simon, you’re on my team, dimwit,” Laurent shouted. Simon hollered gleefully and ran away without acknowledging her presence. The boys ran wildly throughout the house, shouting and arguing, and Lola wondered how lonely it would be for Simon without them. He would go to preschool, of course. He was an active boy, she had discovered, a fearless boy who liked balls, and guns and fighting. He was not a boy who needed to be protected from life.
Earlier, the children had rolled up the salon’s big rug, gathered every pillow in the house, and brought those outside to the garden under the giant canvas canopy that now covered the garden. They had hung lanterns and set out small tables made from cardboard boxes covered with fabric. Inside, the tent looked roomy, cozy and exotic, and straight out of Aladdin’s world. She found Lia under the canopy arranging flowers. She looked lovely in her party dress, a sari made out of crimson and pink silk. She looked exactly like a princess, yet gone was the princess attitude. Gone was the frown, too. Lia had learned that bitchiness did not serve her well in a house full of rowdy boys, which was a testament to her adaptability. She may want to turn back into a diva once back home surrounded by mini divas, but things were going to be different now that Lola was done being afraid of her children. Children craved guidance and boundaries, Annie had said. Wimpy mothers made for confused children. And she had learned at Annie’s school of motherhood that she need not fear losing their love if she asserted herself.
“Honey, did you decorate those tables yourself?” she asked Lia. “They’re beautiful!”
Lia’s face glowed. “I’m going to be an interior designer when I grow up!”
“You’ll be a talented one.”
“You think Daddy will like the party?”
“Whether he does or not, we’ll enjoy it, right?”
“I’m happy Daddy’s here.”
“I’m glad too, my love.”
She was.
She and Mark had shared her small bed, and under the daisy-sprinkled canopy, they had talked and talked. Even about the painful stuff. They had cried and they had held each other, but they had not made love, not yet. Not until her anger subsided. Not until they came to an understanding of how things should be from now on, or how things should never be again.
Their plane was leaving in twenty-four hours. Mark was out under the pretext of finding an Internet connection, but she suspected he needed to get out of the house where the chaos was overwhelming. Annie’s disapproval for Mark, for which of course Lola had no one to blame but herself, was palpable. Mark had been nothing but friendly and pleasant with everyone. He and Lucas had charmed each other right away. Still, it hadn’t stopped Annie from fuming the instant she entered a room he was in. Lola kissed Lia on her braided hair and walked out of the tent and into the kitchen and braced herself for Annie.
The heat of the last few days had given way to a humid and rather threatening weather, but Annie was steadfast in her decision to have the party outside, even if the storm decided to break. Tonight, rain or not, there would be over a hundred people, adults and children, under the canopy. They would eat, drink, and dance until the early light of the morning. Then there would be croissants and coffee for everyone who had made it through. It would be a party to remember.
Annie had been cooking for two days. A Méchoui, an entire lamb, had been roasting for hours in the kitchen’s giant fireplace, sending its extravagant aroma through the sixteenth arrondissement. She was also making piles of couscous and had baked Tunisian pastries and Moroccan buns with anise seeds. The food would be rich and sweet and heavy and happy and excessive all at once. It would be wonderful. If only Annie could stop being so angry. Lola had cried and cried today, and she was not done crying. But sentimentality was not Annie’s way.
Lola entered the kitchen where it was as hot as the inside of a furnace with the strong aroma of mint and roasting lamb clinging to every part of the room. Annie’s elbows were up as she stirred taboulé in an immense pot. She looked a bit like a witch by her cauldron. Lucas and Jared walked in and out of the kitchen, carrying baguettes, cases of wine, and crates of fruit. At the table, Althea was chopping and peeling carrots, turnips, and zucchinis with a glow in her eyes that was new and beautiful.
“The floor, Annie, look at the floor!” Lucas bellowed. The kitchen floor was caked with mud from everyone’s back-and-forth and resembled the pavement of a train station on a rainy day. “It will never come back,” Lucas insisted.
“The floor has seen worse,” Annie said. “Look at my hair. Now that’s worrisome.” Her hair was frizzy from the steam and all over the place. “I look like Don King’s mama.”
“Your hair is the most beautiful thing I’ve even seen,” Lucas said as he huffed and puffed under the weight of the last case of wine.
Lola approached Annie at the stove. “I’m done with the packing,” she said. “How can I help?”
Annie continued stirring without looking at her. “I don’t need help,” she responded coldly.
Lucas and Jared dropped the last box and left the kitchen.
“Please, don’t be mad,” she told Annie. “I’m sure you need me.”
“I better get used to being on my own.” Annie stirred the contents of the pot with violence. “You can’t even help yourself. Tell me how in the world you’re going to help me?”
At the table, Althea sat still and looked up at Lola in a way that said, “she’s going to blow,” and promptly put down her peeler, wiped her hands and left the kitchen.
“Come on, Annie,” Lola began, her voice weakening already, but she was not a coward and she was going to tackle this. “This couldn’t last forever. You know that.”
Annie turned on her feet, both comical and threatening, a wooden spoon tight in each hand. The frizz of her hair sprinkled with what looked to be fresh parsley.
“And why not? You’re happy here and you’ll be miserable there.”
“You might not approve...”
“Rushing back home solves absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s idiotic.”
“But it’s no more idiotic than what you’re doing,” Lola said, her tone more confrontational than she had meant it to be.
“And what might that be?”
With amazement, Lola heard herself speak. “Well, for example, renting out rooms to people and expecting them to live their lives according to your whims and desires.”
“That’s a low blow.
Well, fine, Lola. Run back to stupid Beverly Hills. Go paint your toenails for hours on end and wonder where your life went.”
“Annie,” she said softly, “we’ll still be friends.”
“A phone call every so often is not friendship, it’s pitiful! You’re not doing what’s right for you, only what works for Mark.”
“What is it I should do, since you have all the answers?”
“You came here to start over, remember? That was the whole point. Look at Althea, she’s starting over! Right, Althea?” She turned her head and saw that Althea was gone. “All you’re doing is crawling right back to the womb.”
Lola felt heat rise to her neck. “Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to let him walk all over me. I’m not going to let anyone walk all over me.” She paused and said, “Starting with you.”
“Me? I walk all over you?”
“That’s right. You can’t have tantrums every time someone disappoints you. It makes it very hard to be around you.” Lola regretted her words immediately.
Annie stopped, set down her wooden spoon, and sat at the table. She put her face in her hands and her back began to shake. Lola thought she was laughing at first, but soon she was appalled to realize that Annie was weeping. She sat next to her.
“Are you all right?”
“Is that why people leave me?” Annie said through her sobs, “because I’m too horrible to be around?”
Lola wasn’t sure which “people” Annie was referring to, but suddenly there was nothing amusing about Annie’s fit. Her sorrow came from somewhere deep. Lola wondered if she should rub her back. “Of course not. I’m going to miss you terribly.” Lola searched for the right words. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had. You’re not pushing people away. I take it back. I’m sorry. It’s the opposite. You attract people. People love you. I...love you, all right? Gee, I wish we didn’t have to go through this.”
“Sorry I’m making you uncomfortable,” Annie said. She lifted her tear-streaked face toward Lola. “So why are you so damn uptight? Give me a hug and cry a little.”
