Paperweight (20 page)

Her face goes white, like I've slapped her.

“That's not what I meant,” she whimpers.

Rain looks up from her exercises. Suddenly, there is something here that interests her.

“Stevie.” Shrink jumps to Cate's rescue. “I need you to use your voice respectfully, please. I understand that you're angry.”

“I just meant that I feel messed up, like, inside,” Cate tries again. “Nothing happened to make me this way, so maybe I was born this way. And if that's true, then I don't really know if I'll ever get better.” She draws her knees to her chest and balances her forehead there, too afraid to look at me.

“Whether or not you had a traumatic event before the onset of your eating disorder , you have all experienced real loss as a result of your illness.” Shrink keeps her eyes on me.

“Fine,” I say tightly. “Okay.”

“Sometimes I think about all the time I've lost.” Ashley clears her throat. “And I get mad at myself for wasting so much energy on food and purging and everything. Like, so much time.”

“Me, too,” says Jenna.

I nod, and think what we are all thinking and not saying. Yes, the illness took away. It clawed at family and time and the very beating of our hearts. But it gave, too. For me, it was the
only way I could move through life blurry, without having to see things as they really were. It would have been too much that way, having to stare at my life head-on. It just would have been too much.

Sunday, July 20, 9:30
P.M.

THERE'S a knock at my bedroom door.

“It's me.” Cate pushes the door open and stands in the hall. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

She talks too fast. “I just wanted to say sorry. About group yesterday. I didn't mean to say anything about your brother. I just meant that sometimes it's hard to be sick when there's no reason.” The words are prepackaged. She's been mouthing them to herself in different combinations.

“It's okay.” I've been mouthing my own words. “I know that's not what you meant. I'm sorry, too.”

“And I wanted to give you this.” She takes another step and lifts up the corner of her T-shirt. Tucked between her jeans and
her pale belly is a pink plastic razor. Disposable, the kind that comes in a zillion-pack.

“For real?” I lunge forward on the bed and swipe it as soon as she holds it out. I roll my jeans up. My leg is disgusting: the hair is dark and prickly, not long enough to be soft. “Where'd you get it?” I ask.

“There are a couple floating around,” she says. “Just don't give it to anybody else, and don't get caught with it. And if you do get caught with it, don't rat me out.”

“I won't.” I roll my jeans down again. “Thanks, Cate. Really.”

The outside door slams open, and her eyes go wide. I shove the razor under my pillow just as Ashley comes in.

“Hey,” I say, too loudly. Cate rolls her eyes and flops onto my bed.

“Hey.”

“How was your meeting?”

“They switched my meds because I can't, like, sleep with these.” Ashley kicks off her Keds. “We'll see.”

Cate and I exchange glances.

“I'm gonna take a quick shower, okay?” I say.

“Sure. Can I go ahead and turn off the light?”

“Yeah. No problem.” I fumble around for my towel and pajamas, and at the last second, I slip the pink contraband in the nubby folds of my towel. I grin and speed walk all the way down the hall. I shut the bathroom door and strip quickly, without standing on tiptoe to get a glance of my belly in the mirror.

The water is hot, and my skin feels dry. I lather my legs with conditioner and drag the razor in careful, even lines. When I've finished a strip, I run my fingers over the smooth skin. The
razor reminds me of the single summer I went to camp, in the mountains of North Carolina. I was ten. Josh was at computer camp somewhere and my mother had to work in London and so she sent me away. She had my dad pack my outfits, complete with underwear, in gallon ziplock bags. One for each day, labeled with permanent marker.

The popular girls (there were popular girls even in the mountains, which should not have surprised me) were always trading things in the dark after lights-out: gum, scented lip gloss, folded paper sculptures that predicted who you would marry and how many children you'd have. I waited, stared at the upper bunk above me. Nobody ever passed me anything. Until now.

The water runs cold too soon. I reach for my towel, dry off, and change quickly into my pajamas. The thin cotton of my yoga pants clings to my legs. They're smooth, and for the first time all day, I feel good. I wrap the razor in my jeans and head back to my room.

It's dark, and I hear muffled sobs.

“Are you okay?” I slap the wall, feeling for the light switch.

“Don't turn the light on.” Her voice is broken, thick with tears. “Close the door?”

“Okay.” It's pitch-black once the door clicks behind me, and wavy gray lines rise up in front of my eyes. “But I just—do you need anything? Do you want me to call one of the nurses or something? Are you sick?”

“No,” she says quickly. “I just . . . my dad called tonight and he said they're definitely coming for my Ninety-Six. They'll be here tomorrow.” She sniffs. “I don't want them to come, Stevie. I'm not ready—” The sobs drag her words under.

“Did you tell Kyle?”

“He can't do anything. They're—my—
parents
.” The bed shakes beneath her.

“Hold on.” I drop to my knees and find the drawer. Cram my folded jeans and T-shirt and bra into it, and feel around until I find the pointy metal underwire. Then the pills. The sleeping pills are slick, with shiny plastic coatings. I take two, and slam the door shut.

“Here.” I feel my way across the room, moving slowly, awkwardly. My big toe slams into the side of her bed. I swallow the pain. “Move over.”

The bed creaks beneath her, and I sit on the edge. “Swallow these.” I find her hot wet hand in the dark and press the pills into her palm. I hear her gulp them down. She says something—I'm not sure what—in shuddery gasps.

“I'm getting in,” I say, and slide in next to her. “And you better not hog the covers.” I pat the mattress until I find the bunny. I wedge it between us.

She laughs a little at the ceiling. Her body is still shaking. The pillow is wet, but I don't know if it's from my hair or her tears.

“Sorry,” she says.

I roll onto my stomach and rest my hand on her, in the crook of her elbow. I wait for her to fall asleep. I can feel the throbbing of her pulse, steady beneath her skin. Her breathing evens out after a while.

“Yeah. Me, too,” I say.

Monday, July 21, 5:45
A.M.

ASHLEY is still sleeping when I wake the next morning. I'm careful not to disturb her. I sit up so slowly that a minute, maybe two, goes by before I can see the red digits on the face of her clock. Time for weight and vitals, exactly. My body has slipped into the routine here without asking my permission.

“Ashley? Time for vitals and stuff, okay?” I slide out of bed and slip the toes of my right foot under my left pajama pant leg, just to check. The skin is still smooth. I smile in the dark.

“We can walk over together if you want.”

She makes another mushy sound and buries her head beneath the pillow.

“Okay.” I find my way to my side of the room and find my jeans bunched up in the drawer. I tuck the razor in the very back,
between layers of sports bras. I dress in the dark, run my fingers through my hair, and rub the crusty sleep from my eyes. I think about waking Ashley again before I leave, but then I remember that her parents are coming today. They are moving this way like low yellow clouds before a storm: Her mother applying lipstick in the airplane bathroom. Her father checking his cell one last time before a mauve-lipped flight attendant with plastic hair asks him for the third time to
put it away, please. Sir.

I let her sleep.

“Stevie? Can we check in briefly, please?” Shrink waves me down after breakfast. She's signing charts at the nurses' station.

“Oh. Yeah.” I draw my belly button toward my spine, or try to. It's does nothing; my stomach is disobedient. Somewhere in me, the acidic, stringy pineapple is growing. The quarter of a cold, hard waffle sits unmoving. I try to focus on something else, anything else.
Distracting
, as Shrink would call it. I assess her clothing: loose jeans, white T-shirt. A fitted blush-colored blazer. She looks comfortable.

“Are we supposed to have a session?” I ask.

“Well, it's been an intense couple of days for you. Just want to see how you're doing. Want to take a walk?”

“On
red
?” I jangle my wrist in front of her nose.

She gives her head a little shake, but I think she's smiling.

Outside it's hotter than usual, the clay hard beneath my feet. I run two fingers over my mother's face. It's hot enough that I should be sweating. At home, I'd be sweating. We walk along the edge of the yard and I toe the line between the grass and decorative stone like it's a tightrope.

“So how are things going this morning?”

“I'm kind of worried about Ashley. Her Ninety-Six starts today.”

“Worried that it's going to be a difficult time for her?”

“Yeah. But not just that. She's been all over the place lately. Up and down.” I don't tell her about the crying last night. Too personal. “She won't sleep all night and she has a ton of energy, and then it looks like somebody sucked the air out of her.”

“Ninety-Six can sometimes be tough. But it also has the potential to be incredibly rewarding. To make space for healing.” A glossy non-answer, straight from the brochure. She should be riding a horse when she says that.

“But I don't think Kyle gets how upset she is.”

“I hear that you're concerned about her, Stevie.” When we get to the edge of the riding ring, she stops at the fence and rests her forearms in the space between the bars. The rusty paint is chipping, and I run my fingers over the irregular border. “I can assure you that Ashley's treatment team will continue to give her excellent care.”

“Don't do that.”

“Do what?”

“That.
Assure you
, and
excellent care
, and stuff. I'm just telling you she's upset. I'm telling you like a normal person.”

“Okay.” She looks at me in a real way. “I hear you, and I'm glad you let me know. But I want you to be able to focus on yourself, so I'm telling you that we will take care of her. But I do hear you.”

Ashley's parents are scheduled to get to the villa after afternoon snack, during the second reflection time of the day. Ashley and I
sit together on the patio, her back to the lawn so she can see them when they come through the doors. We're bouncing together like birds on a wire, our eyes furtively clicking from each other to the door each time it opens.

“Is this dress okay?” Ashley wipes her palms on a melon-colored T-shirt dress. She curled the hair around her face with a skinny silver wand this morning. She's wearing too much mascara, but I don't tell her that.

“Yeah. You look great.” Around the lawn, it seems like everyone is on alert: sitting a little more upright, a little more tense. Some of the girls roll their jean shorts down to an acceptable length. Some roll their shorts even higher. It's quieter than usual out here.

“It's always like this when a new set of parents come.” Ashley wriggles her painted toes. “Isn't that weird? It's like, it's my parents, but everybody gets nervous or something.”

“Yeah. Weird.” Somehow I'm nervous too: my stomach keeps flopping around in my gut like a dying fish on land.
It's not my mother walking through those doors. It's not her.

Ashley's parents are only partly what I expected. When they come through the doors, the mother is wringing her hands, which I didn't think anybody did anymore. She's older than I pictured, wearing mom jeans and a perfect white shirt and a black blazer. Gold drips from her wrists and knuckles and ears. She could be pretty beneath all the makeup. The father is what I imagined: tall, good-looking, wearing a golf shirt that's meant to look casual and unbearably expensive at the same time. He smells like woody cologne and tobacco.

They're not so bad
, I think first. And then I remember what they've done.

“Hey, Mama. Hey, Daddy.” Ashley stands up and her face freezes in this kind of panicked grin. I reach for her hand and squeeze it. It is sweaty and limp.

“Hey there, Ash.” The mother's voice breaks a little. She doesn't move, except for the hand-wringing.

The father clears his throat and looks at me.

“Oh. I'm Stevie,” I say. “Ashley's friend.”

“Pleased to meet you, honey,” says the mother.

The father nods.

“Stevie and I are roommates, too,” Ashley chirps. “She's from Atlanta.”

“Outside of,” I say.

“That's lovely,” says the mother. She stretches her neck and looks around the grounds. The other girls are trying to pretend they're not watching. But everyone is staring at the strange animals roaming the grounds—and we all know what parents are capable of.

“Well, this is just . . . lovely,” the mother says again. “The grounds are beautiful, Ash. You didn't say how beautiful it was here.”

“Should be, given what we're paying,” grunts the father.

Ashley tenses.

“How was Spain?” she asks. I've never seen her so careful.

“Well, we left early, you know,” says the mother. “To come here.”

“Right,” says Ashley. “Sorry.”

The four of us stand there. The father checks his cell phone and doesn't try to hide it.

“I should probably go journal or something,” I say.

“No, that's okay!” Ashley says. So I stay and watch them watch each other. They look like confused strangers standing in a lopsided triangle, like the one Ashley made out of yarn. It makes me wonder what makes anybody family. I think that maybe for some people, family is just the people you're standing next to when awful things happen.