Paperweight

For all the Stevies—and all the Shrinks who walk beside them.

Friday, July 4, 1:34
P.M.

TWENTY-SEVEN days to freedom, and I am caged. Suspended in a boxy aluminum prison with gray cloth seats and the synthetic stench of piña colada swinging from the rearview.

Josh—sorry! Josh
ua
—would say I'm being a drama queen. I imagine him saying things like that sometimes. It's not like I can actually hear his words out loud, or he comes to me in my dreams, or some bullshit like that. But if I'm really still, I can almost hear him. The closer I get to the Anniversary, the more I'm trying. I pretend that he's next to me on our rotted wood balcony before dawn, when my shallow breath rattle is the only sound. I conjure him up in the middle of the night, and he's sitting next to the bed when I'm dizzy and sick with Eden and booze. I imagine him rubbing my back in easy circles, whispering these sweet French
lullabies our mother used to sing. I can almost feel the warmth of his hand.

I wish he were here now to calm me. I am a hostage in the passenger seat of a white minivan, trapped next to a strange woman with cotton candy hair the color of ginger ale. She is telling me about her granddaughter's masterful performance in the role of Velma Kelly in her middle school production of
Chicago
. As if we were old friends, as if I didn't see her activate the child lock the second we pulled out of the airport parking lot.

In old movies, men in white coats cart the crazies away. I get a woman in a white minivan.

“—just such a
vivid
performance.” Cotton Candy's pearly pink acrylics tap the steering wheel at exactly the ten and two positions. “She really trans
formed
herself into the part. Bill—that's my husband—got the whole thing on the camcorder.”

I glare out the window at the infinite stretch of two-lane highway. The flat New Mexico desert looks like a kid's drawing: swirls of waxy blue sky over jagged red dirt, leaning cacti like somebody just plunked them down without bothering to make sure they were screwed in right. I even see wavy heat lines like when Josh and our dad used to barbecue behind the house on Broad. But then I blink and they're gone.

“She's the only one in the family with any creativity.” Cotton Candy laughs and shakes her head. Her hair doesn't move.

The van veers onto a long, skinny dirt road. To the right is a pasture, the only green I've seen in hours. Beyond the green is a dusty riding ring with several horses tethered to a fence. There are a few square stucco structures with flat roofs scattered across
the grounds. They are old and unevenly spaced, like dice slung across a sandy floor and forgotten.

“We'll get you situated at the villa and then I'll take your bags to your cottage,” Cotton Candy says.

Villa? Cottage?
She makes this place sound like an all-inclusive resort. I almost order a complimentary cocktail. Last night's buzz is starting to wear off.

The bruise above my left eyebrow throbs, and I scrutinize my reflection in the window. The knot has morphed into a purplish welt that looks like Italy, only horizontal. I'd cover it with my hair if I had any. But I got sick of it last week, the way it was wavy in some places and flat in others, like it had no idea what to be. So I got Eden to crop it close to my head. Now uneven, razored layers fall lifelessly around my skull. I can't remember the last time I showered.

The road dead-ends into a circular drive in front of a large stucco building. It's similar to the others but imposing, with a slanted red tile roof.

“There are nineteen other girls with us right now, four girls to a cottage. You'll be in Cottage Three. Great girls in Cottage Three. Just
great
girls,” Cotton Candy chirps. “They'll be
thrilled
to show you the ropes as you're getting settled.”

God, I hope there's a secret handshake.

“So this is the villa.” She parks the van and turns to face me. She's an ex-smoker, redeemed—I can tell from her fake blue-white teeth and the hairline cracks snaking from her pursed lips like barren riverbeds.

“I'm so happy you've chosen to take this step, Stephanie.” For a second it seems like she's going to grasp my hands in hers,
maybe try to pray with me. But then I think she sees the look on my face and decides against it. “We all are.”

“It's Stevie. I go by Stevie.” My voice sounds hoarse. Weak, even though I'm suddenly furious. Why didn't Dad tell them when he called? Stevie. Never Stephanie. I am not her.

“Stevie.” She sounds uncertain, probably because she's just noticed the outline of my mother on my left forearm. “Stevie,” she tries again. “Welcome to the first day of your recovery.”

I hear a click and try the handle. The passenger door opens.

I lower my gray flip-flops into red dust and squint into the light. There are two sets of cement steps that lead to a wooden front door with a twisted wrought-iron handle. Between the sets of stairs is a tiered stone fountain that's choking on weak spurts of moldy water.

It reminds me of something I saw on that sucky home renovation show Josh used to half watch while reading for one of his psych classes. That's how smart he was: classes at the university at seventeen, and still he could watch TV and read at the same time.

“Seriously, Josh,” I said, lowering myself to the dingy mustard-colored carpet in the living room. It smelled like cat pee and cigarettes. After our mother left, we moved to this run-down apartment on the west side of town. It was nothing like the airy Victorian house the four of us had shared on Broad. Josh and I christened the new place
Le Crâpeau
, which we decided was Franglais for “the Crap Castle.” “Can't we watch something else?” On the coffee table was an unopened bag of salt and vinegar chips. Our mother would never have allowed them.

“Shouldn't you be writing?” Josh said from the couch, an eighteenth-century French love seat. Like the rest of the furniture, it used to be hers. It didn't exactly fit with the slatted plastic blinds and ugly fluorescent lighting. “Or at least locking yourself in your room with writer's block?”

“Ben says there's no such thing as writer's block. Only writer's ‘I really, really, really don't want to do this.'” Bennett Ashe was a novelist friend of our dad's. They'd met when Dad started a men's writing group and advertised it in the local paper, where he worked as an arts and leisure editor. Since then, the group had been predictable: Tuesday nights in our kitchen, bourbon, and too many
In my next novel
s to count. Ben was the only real novelist among the group, if you didn't count the three manuscripts stashed at the bottom of Dad's desk drawer like dirty magazines.

“How's, uh . . . the class?” It's not what he wants to ask. Or who he wants to ask about. But there is an unspoken rule between us, and he obeys it.

“Good, I guess.” Ben taught a narrative prose seminar to community college kids over the summer and had agreed to let me audit the course. Dad swore that it had everything to do with my talent. Nothing to do with the fact that Ben was basically family—and pitied me for being motherless. Right.

“I could take a look at some of your stuff, if you want.”

“It's not ready,” I said quickly. “Later, maybe.”

I stretched out my legs, pressing my palms into the carpet and feeling the scratchy fiber fingers struggling beneath me. I took a slow, deep breath and tensed the muscles in my legs with intention. The leg lifts had to be exact or they wouldn't count.
One, pause, hold, and down. Two, pause, hold, and down.

Josh ignored me, staring at the Spanish-style mansion on the screen. It was in Miami, surrounded by palm trees. There was even an infinity pool in the backyard. The owner's shirt was unbuttoned so far you could see his chest hair.

“Look at that fountain in the front there. Nice, huh?” Josh reached for the bag of chips and tore it open. It belched salt and acrid vinegar. My stomach twisted with guilt.
Too much salt
, she would have said.
Too much fat.
Josh didn't care. He acted like it didn't matter, like she was never coming back. “Come on. You love these.” He tilted the bag toward me.

“I don't,” I spat. “Besides, I already ate.” I switched legs. Faster now, double time. I was efficient. A machine. I made sure to breathe through my mouth, so not even the smell of the grease could penetrate me. I was a fortress. “This show is for bored housewives, Josh. Seriously.”

“Shut up.” He tossed the remote at me, hard, and it whacked me in the shoulder. I grabbed it and switched to A&E. “And it's
Joshua
.” Changing to his full name was the first order of business after he'd gotten his acceptance letter from the university. He probably thought it would make the real college kids forget he was seventeen and a virgin.

“Sorry,” I snorted. “This show is for bored housewives . . . Josh
uuuuaahhhh
.”

Now Cotton Candy opens the front door and ushers me inside. “After you.”

A blast of air-conditioning slips under my clothes, leaving a million tiny goose bumps in its wake. It's colder in here than it was on the plane. I can feel my body kicking into overdrive.

Good.

“You can think of the villa as your home base. You'll eat your meals here and spend time between group and other activities. The cottages are for sleeping only. Staff locks them during the day,” she explains in a hushed voice as she leads me down a long Spanish-tiled hallway.

We come to a giant room divided by a nurses' station. One side is a dining room with five round tables in light-colored wood. The other side looks like the rec room at Summer Camp for the Criminally Insane and Hopelessly Screwed: mismatched couches facing a television, tables scattered with crayons and construction paper.

Along the back wall, glass-paned double doors look over a patio and a small yard. Beyond that are the riding ring and the pasture, then the emptiness of the desert. I've reached the very end of the earth.

“The other girls are in group right now. You'll meet them at afternoon snack.” Her voice echoes a little and the hall starts to sway. I screw my eyes shut and brace for the fall.

“Careful, dear,” she says, steadying me. She's got surprisingly quick reflexes.

“I'm fine,” I say hastily, jerking away. When I open my eyes, the hall is straight again. “I'm fine.”

She presses her lips together until they vanish. “The nurses will get your vitals, take some blood, and do an EKG before your evening meal. But Anna wanted to meet you first, say hello.”

“Anna?”
Do I know an Anna?

“Anna. Your therapist.” Slowly, she leads me to an office door on the left side of the hall. “You're lucky. Anna's one of the best we've got here.”

Lucky? She's twisted, I'll give her that.

We're standing in front of the door now, and my chaperone raps on the wood three times, fast.
AnnaAnnaAnna.

“Come in.”

Cotton Candy nods at me, then at the doorknob. “Go on in.”

I reach for the knob with a shaky hand. Only it isn't really me. I'm detached, a spectator in a cold, dark theater watching an unsuspecting victim approach her end.

Don't do it!
I want to yell.
It's a trap!
But the girl on the screen doesn't hear me. Just twists the knob and steps over the threshold. They always do.