The Last Resort

by Marissa Stapley

  “I understand,” said Grace. “Did any of your colleagues ever go to therapy, to talk about the things they saw—people hurting themselves, their families?”

  The throat ache was getting stronger. Johanna could only shake her head.

  Grace waited a moment, then leaned forward. “You do realize this is your chance, don’t you?”

  Johanna pressed her back against the couch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You can spend the next two weeks being closed with me, being defensive, maybe becoming confrontational because you are one of the helpers, and that means you don’t go to therapy, right?”

  “Was one of the helpers.”

  “But I’m a helper, too, Johanna. I can help you get out of this, but only if you accept that talking to someone like me will help you in all areas of your life, not just your marriage.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, ever. What happened in my office.”

  “Repressing trauma isn’t healthy for the mind. It can lead not just to problems with intimacy, but to other very serious issues. Psychosis. Hallucinations. Manifestations of physical ailments. Have you experienced any of these?”

  “That’s not fair,” she said, “for Ben to have written about what happened to me on his intake forms. It’s my story to tell.”

  “Or not tell. Or avoid telling. I didn’t get any of this from any forms. Your headache on the first night—”

  “Was a migraine. I get them regularly and have for some time. Well before the—the incident at work.” Johanna broke eye contact and looked down at Grace’s bare feet, her perfectly painted toes. Johanna’s own toes were painted apple red, and chipped. She hadn’t even bothered to get a fresh pedicure before she came. She noticed a drip of Mango Punch paint on the nail of her big toe.

  “When did the migraines start?”

  “I don’t remember,” Johanna said, automatically.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Johanna looked up at her. “Listen, I don’t know what you want from me. I just need a little more time, and it will all be fine.”

  “And you’ll go back to work?”

  “Not that. But I’ll—I’ll find something else to do. I’ll move on, but in my own time.”

  Grace folded her hands on her lap. “My instincts tell me you’ve made suppressing your emotions a habit, in part because of the work you do and in part because of the person you are, because of your past—your childhood, maybe? I don’t know, but we could get to the bottom of that together if you’d let us start.”

  “What happens when your instincts are wrong?” Johanna said. “What happens if I had the perfect childhood in a house with a picket fence and two perfect parents and—” Johanna realized she was about to cry. “Fuck,” she said.

  “Johanna. It’s going to be okay. All you have to do is reach for what you need. What is it that you need? What is it that you want?”

  Grace picked the rock back up and held it out, but Johanna didn’t move. She saw the pool and the water ripples from the day before. She felt a chill down her spine. Do you have a secret life, too, Grace? But instead, “Why do you do this?” Johanna said. “Why is it so important to you? At this point, why do you even have to get down in the dirt with a dozen couples every two weeks? Why do you even bother?”

  “Because without the work, we have nothing.” Grace looked momentarily surprised, as if she hadn’t meant to say that.

  “But you two are so perfect. Aren’t you?” She wasn’t mistaken—Grace’s eyes were guarded now. And Johanna felt guilty. Grace was a nice person. She shouldn’t be doing this to her.

  “We want to guide as many couples as possible toward what we have,” Grace said, and it sounded like a script.

  “Which is what, exactly?”

  Grace looked down at the rock and was silent. “A happy marriage. A fulfilling relationship that helps us build the foundation we need to live the lives we want to live. But in order to achieve that, one of the first steps is getting in touch with what we really want.” She looked up again and she seemed more certain than before. “Which brings me back to the question I asked you earlier. I’m going to keep asking until you can answer. What do you want, Johanna?”

  She pressed the rock into Johanna’s hand and their fingers touched. Johanna closed her palm around it and remembered herself at the market the day before, her hands on top of a pile of Frida Kahlo fridge magnets while she tried to get a better look at the woman a few tables up. The woman who had had dark hair, like Grace’s, but uncombed and crammed inside a baseball cap, with wisps frizzing around her neck. She had been wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses but her long, tanned limbs and her easy, white-toothed smile had seemed familiar. And her voice. A voice she knew. Johanna had moved toward her, pulled as if by a magnet. Is that Grace Markell? she had wondered. Could it be?

  The woman who might have been Grace had seemed so at home at the market, so much more comfortable than she did at the resort, and yet completely out of place—which was how Johanna felt almost all the time. A stranger, no matter where she went, but desperate to find the one place she belonged. When the woman had suddenly started to move through the trees like a nymph, Johanna had followed instinctively, recognizing an escape route when she saw one, desperately wanting one for herself, too. She had ignored the underbrush that tore at her ankles. The skin was still smarting today, and Johanna had developed some sort of rash.

  Eventually, Johanna had seen the woman’s hat on the ground. She had bent over to pick it up. She had continued to move, staying as far behind as she could, wincing at the way the dead branches crackled under her feet and at the tingling pain in her ankles, as if dozens of fire ants were biting her.

  And then, all at once, the woman had stopped and tilted her head up, like an animal sensing a predator and sniffing the air. “Hello?” she had said, and Johanna had stood still, far behind her, closing her eyes and hoping to disappear.

  A splash. Johanna had opened her eyes and the woman had vanished. Was it a splash she had heard, above the cracking of the branches, the pounding of her heart, the heaviness of her breathing? She had looked around and felt panic rising. What if she had fallen? Johanna had stepped forward and seen a wooden sign to her left, the writing on it faint: Cuidado. She had searched her memory for the meaning of the Spanish word. Take care. She had stepped forward again, until she was at the edge of the world, maybe. But really, she had been standing on a small platform jutting out over a swimming hole way down below. A crocodile was painted on a sign to her left. Foliage and vines plunged over the pool’s edges and the sun flowed in and settled down there. A cave, but upside down. Johanna had looked beside her feet and seen the discarded tank top and shorts, the woven bag beside them. Her cheeks were a hundred flaming suns. She leaned forward, lost her footing for a moment and felt disappointed when she didn’t tumble headlong into the water, taking away all confusion, all choice, forcing whatever was going to happen to just happen. The woman was swimming in the pool below, back and forth, determined. The sunlight illuminated her, like she was under a spotlight.

  I want to be like that, Johanna thought, staring down at her. I want to be that free. She raised her hand to shield her eyes. She had no power over herself now. She couldn’t have walked away if she had wanted to, even though she knew she should, even though she knew she was invading a private moment. The woman in the water had turned her body and started to swim in the other direction—and that was when Johanna got a clear view of her face. It had felt like a lightning bolt: it was her. It was Grace. She was almost sure of that—and she was certain Grace was terrified. Johanna had felt so sorry then, for causing that fear. She had backed away and fled the way she had come.

  And then, as she ran: a man up ahead on the path. He had on a hat and sunglasses, too, and he bent his head down as Johanna passed. She was too embarrassed to look at him anyway, so the memory
of him was nothing but a shadow—although she had been sure there was a cellphone in his hand, that just a second before she saw him he had been talking into it. She had started to run, had crashed out of the jungle and one of the women at the market had shouted at her as she ran. “The cenote is closed! You can’t swim there!”

  Out on the road she had chased a colectivo, her legs feeling dream heavy. She had been relieved when the colectivo stopped for her, and disappointed, too, as if she were being forced to wake from a dream. Back to reality and away from the strange and unreal world she had inhabited, for just a moment.

  “Johanna?” Grace said.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you still in here with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you given my question some thought?”

  “I’m fine.” She struggled to make this seem true.

  “That’s not what I asked.” Grace sighed, shifted in her chair. “A prescription was found in your luggage, and it wasn’t in your name.”

  “What?” This shifted her thoughts, tipped them like a jug pouring out cold water. The memory of the cenote disappeared entirely. She tried to calm down. “I thought I’d just misplaced them.”

  Grace’s tone was firm. “I know it feels like an invasion, but this is for your own good. It’s time to confront the real issue. It wasn’t a good decision, Johanna. Bringing a prescription across the border that’s not in your name.”

  Johanna flinched. She put the lava rock down. It knocked hard against the table. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she said, feeling foolish. “I’m just so used to—carrying them with me.” She closed her eyes. She really didn’t want to talk about this. Anything but this.

  “You need help,” Grace said, her voice gentle. “You shouldn’t be taking prescriptions that aren’t yours. If you get another headache and you need something, you can visit the nurse. Meanwhile, I have an idea.” Grace wrote something down, then handed Johanna a slip of paper. Anger management. Group therapy. 1:00 p.m. Main villa, meeting room B.

  Johanna blinked a few times. “This is what you think I need? Anger management?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m not angry. I’m...something else.”

  Grace stayed silent.

  “What if I say I won’t go?”

  “What if I asked you to trust me, just this once?”

  Johanna thought of all the bargains she had made with herself, over the weeks, months, years. Just this once was a mantra. Maybe just this once, it would work.

  A timer dinged softly, and Grace leaned over and touched a small Venetian glass clock Johanna hadn’t noticed when she sat down. Another perfect item. Perhaps Grace had more of them than she knew.

  “Our time’s up.” Grace picked up her clipboard. “I’m booking you in for an enrichment session with me later. You can talk about what you felt at the anger management group then. Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes.” Just this once.

  * * *

  Johanna walked down the basement stairs slowly, like a teenager dawdling on the way to class. Two men passed her on the stairs, then a woman. She meandered down a hallway with wooden floors and terra-cotta sconces on the walls, each filled with a succulent plant and a dim light. Eventually, she stood in front of a door that said Meeting Room B until she realized that she was either going to have to go in or admit to Grace Markell that she lacked the courage to trust a stranger.

  She pushed the door open and entered. It was like a college tutorial room: white screen up front and a large U-shaped table facing it, with chairs lined up around it, half of them filled with people Johanna couldn’t bear to make eye contact with. There was a window on one side of the room that looked out at a garden. There were benches, hammocks and a fountain, but no one was out there. Johanna took the seat closest to the door just as Ruth said, “All right, I don’t think there are any more stragglers. It’s time to begin.” She rolled up the sleeves of the lab coat she always seemed to be wearing.

  The windows opened out into the garden, but the air was stagnant in the room. Johanna wanted to pour herself a glass from the ever-present jug of cucumber-and-lime-infused water sitting at the front, but now that everyone had taken seats she didn’t want to stand and draw attention to herself.

  “Okay,” Ruth said from the front of the room. Her lips were again painted bright pink, in contrast to her austere, clinical clothing. “Welcome to session one of anger management group therapy. You’re brave, all of you, to be here. Can you say that with me? We are all brave to be here.” There were a few reluctant mumbles but no one quite got the timing right and Johanna didn’t even attempt it.

  “We have an hour,” said Ruth. As if having an actual hour were some kind of special gift. Johanna found herself scowling into her lap. “All the work is completed before we leave this room. Does that make sense?”

  A few nods. Johanna picked chipped polish off a fingernail. Made perfect sense to her. She’d sent clients to anger management hundreds of times and it almost never worked. She looked out the window into the courtyard and felt frustration rising. You couldn’t even see the ocean from here. What was the point of hosting these retreats in Mexico when most of the time, they all could have been anywhere?

  “There are no rules in here. This is your chance to talk, to get it out, to be angry if you need to, to cry if you want to, and this is also your chance to call each other out, to work with each other, to express it when anger manifests itself as hurtful or disrespectful, to be open about how you’re making one another feel. This work is going to elicit an emotional response but you’re going to need to listen. Any questions?”

  A pause that stretched, then festered.

  “You’re all very uncomfortable, I can tell. And that’s normal. But anger is normal, too, guys.” Please stop talking to us like you’re our volleyball coach, Johanna thought. “Everyone feels it. In fact, most people feel it every single day.” Behind her, there was the sound of a door opening and footsteps. “Oh—we have one more joiner,” Ruth said. “Hello there—um?” She consulted her clipboard. “I don’t think you signed up.”

  Johanna was surprised to see Shell, the woman from the first night on the terrace. Her burnished hair was tied back in a low ponytail and she wore white linen pants that draped over her legs as if they had been custom-made for her. She didn’t look like she belonged here—not in this room of angry and confused people and not at this resort. She was too perfect. Except for the desolate sadness of her eyes. That was unmistakable to someone like Johanna.

  “Miles sent me,” Shell said. She handed Ruth a slip of paper similar to the one Grace had given Johanna, then walked around the table and sat beside Johanna. Their eyes met and Shell looked away quickly.

  “Okay, let’s get back to it.” Ruth checked her watch. “Anger.” She looked up at them. “It’s an adaptive emotional response to hurt, injustice, fear and frustration. It’s natural, but we still need to deal with it. Because anger can be destructive—especially in relationships. No matter what, you can’t attack the person you’re in a relationship with.” Ruth swiveled her head, looking each group member in the eye. Everyone looked away from her. “Who thinks they belong here?” she asked.

  A few hands rose. Johanna kept hers in her lap.

  “Okay—how many of you feel you need to hold in your anger, or a part of who you are? Hold yourself in until you feel like you might explode—and then, eventually do?”

  Johanna didn’t move.

  “How many feel they are arguing constantly with spouses, children or co-workers?” Johanna clenched her hands into fists in her lap. This was bullshit. “Anyone experience reckless disregard for rules, physical violence, such as hitting, loud shouting, door slamming, threats of violence against people or property, out-of-control behavior, such as breaking things or reckless driving?”

  Reckless. Johanna star
ed fixedly out the window, at a statue of a woman holding a jug at a benign angle; the water flowed slowly and the woman’s marble head tilted down to watch it with tenderness. The grass around her was brown in patches. What had this place been like before? She imagined wild beach and jungle, imagined things back the way they should be.

  “Focus is important, everyone,” Ruth said, and Johanna realized she meant her, that she was watching her pointedly. “I can close the blinds if the view is distracting,” Ruth said.

  “What view? Please, no, we’ll suffocate,” Johanna murmured, and beside her she saw Shell Williams smile for just a second.

  Then Shell spoke. “I have a question. I argue with my husband and I sometimes feel angry with him. But the rest of that doesn’t apply to me, so why am I here?”

  “Shelly, it’s not productive to distance yourself from the group. You’ve just indicated that you have experienced one or more anger issue—”

  “It’s Shell. And I indicated that I have one of the issues.”

  “You don’t have to experience all of them to potentially have a problem. Got it?”

  Shell didn’t reply. Johanna was sure that if they made eye contact again, they would both burst out laughing. She also knew there was a very thin line between laughing and crying.

  “Okay, now listen up. We’re each going to share the last time we got really angry. What exactly happened, and why? But you have to be succinct. I’ve got a timer here.” She held up a blue egg with a happy face on it. “Five minutes is the maximum. Let’s start with you. Dave?” She indicated a heavyset man across from Johanna who was wearing a red golf shirt and khaki shorts.