Spin (3 page)

TGND’s been busy since I stopped watching TV all
day. She broke up with Connor Parks again and went on a woe-is-me bender. Then a
video of her sucking on a crack pipe surfaced. A few days ago, her parents took
her to a rugged, lockdown rehab facility up north, where she has to stay for a
minimum of thirty days. The footage of her entering a succession of clubs,
holding a flame to a pipe, and being dropped off at rehab is played and repeated
until even the anchors look bored.

I finally drift off around four in the morning,
only to be awakened at eight by Joanne looking pissed and holding the phone out
to me with a straight arm.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I say
groggily.

“It’s Elizabeth? From
The Line
?”

I grab the phone. “Hello?”

“Is that Kate?”

“Yes, this is Kate.”

“This is Elizabeth from
The
Line
? We met a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, hi. I remember you.”

“We were wondering if you could come in for a
meeting about a position that’s come up? Maybe this morning at ten? I know it’s
Sunday?”

“Of course I can come in for a meeting! Ten is
great.”

“Perfect. Come to the same place as last time?”

We say goodbye, and I spring toward the bathroom to
start getting ready. The sudden movement makes my stomach turn over, but I shake
it off and leap into the shower singing, for some reason, “I am, I am Superman!”
over and over at the top of my lungs as I lather my hair.

Whoever said there are no second chances in life
was a moron.

I
arrive at
The Line
’s offices twenty minutes early
with my hair brushed, my makeup done, and my clothes pressed. (I pick the suit
this time, hoping some of its respectability will rub off on me.) My stomach
still feels jumpy, but I chalk that up to nerves. At least I know I don’t smell
like alcohol, having loofahed every square inch of myself just in case.

At ten on the dot, Elizabeth appears in the
Sunday-quiet lobby wearing an extremely short gray skirt and a tight blue
sweater.

“Hi, Kate. How are you?”

“I’m great. Thank you so much for giving me another
chance.”

“Sure. So, you’ll be meeting Bob? You remember him
from a few weeks ago?”

I think back to the sea of faces sitting around the
boardroom table. Try as I might, I can’t remember Bob.

“Right, of course. Looking forward to it.”

“Good. His office is two floors down?”

I take the elevator to a floor where the decor
hasn’t been updated in at least twenty years. It’s
Miami
Vice
chic, and there’s something kind of seedy about the
atmosphere.

Seeing no one, I push the doorbell that’s recessed
into the wall next to a solid wood door. A few seconds later, the door buzzes
open, revealing a squat, blond man who resembles Philip Seymour Hoffman, which
is ironic when you think about it because PSH played a music magazine guy in
Almost Famous
and . . . Focus,
Katie, focus!

“Hi, Bob. Thank you so much for asking me back
after . . . well, you know. Anyway, I’m really excited to be
here.”

He gives me a tight smile. “Yes, well, when this
assignment came up we thought of you . . . for obvious reasons.
Why don’t we go to my office?”

OK, so it’s an assignment, not a full-time gig, but
everyone has to start somewhere, right?

I follow him along a dark hall to another
nondescript brown door. He swipes a key card. The room behind the door has a
long row of unoccupied fabric-divided cubicles full of abandoned coffee
cups.

“Is this some kind of call center?”

“You might say that. This way.”

He cuts to the right along a narrow passage through
the cubicles. As I turn to follow him, I notice a paper banner hanging on the
far wall. It reads:
GOSSIP CENTRAL: IF YOU CAN’T FIND
ANYTHING MEAN TO SAY, YOU CAN FIND THE DOOR
.

What the hell?

I realize Bob’s striding away from me, and I hurry
to catch up with him. At the end of the passage is another brown door. Bob
swipes his key card once again and pushes it open.

“Sorry about all the security. But given the nature
of the information we deal with, we have to take every precaution.”

Since when did album reviews become top-secret
information?

“Of course.”

Bob points to the chair in front of his
cheap-looking desk. “Have a seat.”

I sit down gingerly. When is this guy going to put
me out of my misery and tell me what my assignment is?

“So . . . I assume Elizabeth filled
you in?”

“Actually, not really.”

“Well, you’ll have to leave immediately because
there’s no telling how long she’s going to be in there. Everything’s all
arranged, and the staff’s expecting you. It’ll be a minimum thirty-day
assignment if all goes well, but I’m warning you, it might be longer. We’ll be
covering your expenses and paying the usual per-word rate. We’d like five
thousand words, but we’ll discuss the final length once we know what you’ve
got.”

He picks up a bulky envelope from his desk and
hands it to me. “Here’s the background information we’ve been able to put
together. It’s pretty extensive and will hopefully give you a place to start. Of
course, you can’t drink or do anything else that’ll jeopardize your stay. If you
get thrown out, the contract will be forfeit. Do you have any questions?”

What the fuck is this guy talking about?

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand. What’s
the assignment? Where am I going?”

Bob gives me another tight smile, but this time
there’s an undercurrent of glee in it.

“You’re going to rehab.”

Chapter 3

Houston, We Have a
Problem

S
o, here I
am a day after my meeting with Bob, the Philip Seymour Hoffman look-alike,
sitting on the smallest airplane I’ve ever been on. Cocktail service begins in
five, and our flying time will be a total of forty-two minutes. We’ll be flying
at an altitude of twenty-two thousand feet, and yes, the flight will be this
bumpy the entire time. Now remember, folks, if the mask falls from the ceiling
because of a loss of cabin pressure, place it firmly over your mouth and breathe
normally. In case you weren’t aware, there’s no smoking on this flight.

Now, let’s see. Is there anything I’ve
forgotten?

Oh yeah . . . I’m on my way to
rehab.

Turns out that besides being one of the editors of
The Line,
Bob is also the editor-in-chief of
Gossip Central,
an up-and-coming gossip magazine
in a world of up-and-coming gossip magazines. Its niche is obtaining extremely
inside scoop on celebrities. It made a name for itself when one of its reporters
posed as a nanny for a movie star who has a penchant for adopting children from
Third World countries. Apparently, a lot of people want to know what brand of
underwear she wears. By supplying such details,
Gossip
Central
’s market share grew quickly, and its circulation now
surpasses the population of New Zealand. Or, at least, that’s what its website
says.

Apparently, Bob had been trying to get something on
The Girl Next Door for years. The problem is that she doesn’t hang out with
anyone who isn’t quasi-famous, and that includes her hairdresser, makeup artist,
and publicist. After several fruitless attempts, the idea was shelved, and
Gossip Central
moved on to other, more accessible,
targets.

And then, TGND went to rehab.

No one was quite sure where the idea came from.
Someone (Bob told me there were several people taking credit) shouted it out
during the weekly editorial meeting, and the idea immediately caught fire. “We
should follow her into rehab.” “That’s perfect!” “Whoever came up with that
deserves a promotion!” “It was my idea.” “No, it was my idea!”

Once Bob calmed everyone down, they spent a lot of
time discussing the thorny issue of who to send. It had to be someone who could
convincingly appear to need to be in rehab and also write a kick-ass article. It
couldn’t be anyone obviously connected with
Gossip
Central,
but it had to be someone they trusted. They racked their
brains before putting the idea on the back burner when TGND escaped from
rehab.

You know the rest of the story. I showed up
half-drunk and disheveled for my interview. They loved my work before they met
me, but then they met me. TGND’s crack video surfaced, and she returned to
rehab. Bob had a moment of clarity: what if the writer actually needed to be in
rehab herself? Then she’d fit right in, and might even have a chance of striking
up a friendship with TGND. Now who did they know who fit that bill?

So that’s why they called.
Gossip Central
wanted to hire me to go to rehab to spy on/befriend
TGND and write about it. They’d pay the cost of my stay ($1,000 a day) and $2 a
word. And if I did a good job (and dried out, he implied), they’d reconsider me
for the position at
The Line,
which still hadn’t
been filled.

When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I agreed to
do it.

Embarrassingly quickly.

I wish I could say the decision was a difficult
one, that the thought of going to rehab undercover to dig up dirt on a young
woman in the middle of self-destructing gave me pause. I wish I could say I was
indignant that Bob thought I’d agree to do it, or that I could convince anyone I
needed to be in rehab. But that wouldn’t be true, and the first step to recovery
is admitting that I have a problem, right?

So, OK, I do.

I want to work at
The Line
so badly I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get into Bob’s good
books. And if spying on TGND in a sober environment for a minimum of thirty days
is going to get me there, well . . .
so be
it.

F
orty-two minutes and four mini bottles of Jameson and Coke later (hey,
I can’t drink
at all
for the next thirty days, and
I’ve never been a good flier), the plane lands, and I disembark a little
unsteadily onto the sunny tarmac.

I grew up about forty minutes from here in a town
nestled at the base of a ski hill that’s so small it doesn’t even have a real
supermarket (just the Little Supermarket, where everything is twice as expensive
and has twice the calories). There’s no McDonald’s, no main street, no town
hall, and no courthouse. It does have a liquor store and a Santa’s Village, but
that’s about it. Unemployment’s through the roof, the high school’s twenty miles
away, and most of the residents don’t ski, despite the highest elevation in the
east sitting at their back door.

My parents are an exception: educated and middle
class, they fell in love with the outdoor life and moved to the town in a fit of
hippieness in the late seventies to set up a commune with some like-minded
friends. Six months, four broken friendships, and two divorces later, only my
parents remained in the half-finished house nestled on a back road in a
back-road town. The house was finished just before I came along. By the time my
sister arrived a few years later, we even had indoor plumbing. Mom teaches
English at the high school, and Dad is assistant manager at the ski hill.

I left town the day after high school graduation
and never looked back. Fame and fortune hadn’t followed, but I was surviving. I
was eking out a living in a city that spat out wide-eyed, small-town girls like
cherry pits.

I haven’t been home in four years.

When I stumble out of the terminal, a pretty woman
about my own age is waiting for me. She has caramel-colored hair that falls to
her shoulders and round brown eyes. She’s wearing khaki pants and a dark blue
polo shirt with a white Cloudspin Oasis logo on it.

“Hello, Katie, I’m Carol, the intake administrator
for the Oasis.” She speaks in the local, drawn-out accent I’ve worked hard to
get rid of.

“Hi, Carol. Thanks for picking me up.”

That might’ve come out, “Sanks for sticking me up,”
though I’m not exactly sure.

“Have you been drinking, Katie?”

Hello! Of course I’ve been drinking. I’m supposed
to be an
alcoholic.

“I had a few drinks on the plane to steady my
nerves.”

Schdeady me nervsss.

“Well, we’ve got about a half-hour drive to the
lodge.”

“I know. I grew up around here.”

She smiles. “Then you’ll feel right at home.”

Absofuckinglutely.

We climb into the van, and Carol maneuvers it onto
the highway. I fiddle with the radio dial, searching for the station I listened
to growing up. It comes in faintly through the crappy radio. The Plain White-T’s
are singing “Hey There Delilah.”

Feeling oddly happy (I’ve got a good song + drinks
buzz going), I roll down the window and breathe in the smell of the mountains.
Maybe all woods smell the same, but this combination of loamy earth and tangy
pines smells like home to me.

Seven songs later, Carol slows down to make the
turn into the driveway that leads to the Cloudspin Oasis. Three cars are parked
across the road. A group of dingy-looking men holding cameras and smoking
cigarettes are lounging on the hoods. As we stop at the gate, one of them rises
half-heartedly and walks toward the van. I smile at him, but he flaps his hand
in disgust when he realizes I’m not worth the effort.

Carol pushes a button on a two-way speaker attached
to a metal pole and mumbles something that sounds like “hot soup.” The gates
creak open and she drives through.

“Why are the paparazzi here?” I ask innocently.

She glances at me. “Sometimes we have famous
patients staying here. Just ignore them.”

We drive down a long, curving driveway lined with
huge pine trees. Carol stops the van in front of the entrance to a large
timber-framed building with a long wing on each side. The building looks new,
new, new, with green siding and crisp white trim. There’s a lake behind it, and
the pine-covered mountains rise steeply from its shore.

I get out of the van. The familiar earth and pine
smell is more pronounced, making me feel oddly at ease.

What does it say about me that rehab smells like
home?

Carol pulls my suitcase out of the back of the van
and wheels it toward the entrance.

“Katie, you understand that once you begin the
program, there’s no leaving for thirty days?”

“So they tell me.” I try to sound serious, but I
feel like I want to laugh.

I guess the cocktails on the plane haven’t quite
worn off.

I try again. “I want this. I’m sure.”

“Good.”

We enter the building through a heavy oak door. The
reception looks like the lobby of a hotel, with a round check-in desk in the
middle. The decor is a mix of honey-colored wood and robin’s egg blue, and the
whole space is filled with natural light coming from the huge skylights in the
ceiling. I place my hand on the back of one of the upholstered sofas to steady
myself. It feels stiff and formal.

“This is Dr. Houston, the head of the medical
staff,” Carol says, referring to an attractive man in his early forties who’s
standing behind the counter. He has black hair, hazel eyes, and chiseled
features. He’s wearing a white coat, and there’s a stethoscope poking out of his
right pocket. She pronounces the name Houston like the street, “house-ton.”

“Welcome to the Cloudspin Oasis,” he says.

I shake his proffered hand. It feels cold.

“I’m Katie Sandford.”

“Nice to meet you, Katie. Just so you know, we ask
that patients not use their last names, to protect their anonymity.”

That suits my purposes exactly.

“Sure.”

“Good. Carol will help you check in. Once you’re
done, you’ll come to my office for your medical assessment.”

“Okey dokey.”

He frowns. “Katie, have you been drinking
today?”

Come on.
Doesn’t
everyone arrive at rehab drunk, or high, or both? Aren’t they all finishing off
their last hurrah in the parking lot? Like what’s his name in that movie, the
one where the main character hid in rehab because his one-night stand died of a
drug overdose. What the hell is that movie called? This is so going to bother
me. Ah, got it.
Clean and Sober.
Michael Keaton.
Phew.

“Just a little.”

Carol pulls a stack of forms from under the counter
and hands them to me. “You’ll need to fill these out. You can take them to that
table over there.” She points to a desk tucked into the corner of the lobby.
“Let me know when you’re finished.”

“Right.”

I walk/sway to the desk and sit down. It’s made of
a single piece of cherry wood that’s so polished I can see my reflection in it.
My hair is windblown, and my eyes aren’t completely open.

God, I look like hell! No wonder everyone keeps
asking me if I’ve been drinking. Well, at least I look the part.

I read the first form. It’s in legalese, but as far
as I can tell, I’m agreeing to give up my right to leave for thirty days. Once I
sign it, the only way out is to be thrown out.

I thumb the end of the pen, click, click, click,
unwilling to write my name across the bottom of this paper.

What’s the
hesitation?

It’s just . . . thirty goddamn days.
That’s a long time.

Do you want this job or
what?

Of course.

Then sign the form
already.

All right, all right.

I take a deep breath and sign on the dotted line.
Thirty days in rehab. Done.

I work through the rest of the pages, filling in my
personal information and medical history until I come to a page entitled “Are
You an Alcoholic?” As I scan the questions, I begin to feel queasy. Drinking in
the day (OK, the morning) isn’t usually my thing, and it’s starting to catch up
to me.

I walk the forms back to Carol.

“Are you all done?”

“Do you think I could finish these another time?
I’m not feeling too well.”

She looks sympathetic. “Of course. Let me take you
to Dr. Houston’s office.”

A wave of nausea passes through my gut, and I grip
the side of the counter.

“Do I have to do that now? Can’t I just go to my
room or something?”

“I’m sorry, Katie, not yet. It’s important that we
give you a medical exam first.”

I breathe in and out deeply, and the nausea
retreats. “All right, let’s get it over with.”

“Of course. Follow me.”

She leads me to the wing to the right of the lobby,
where I thankfully spy a bathroom. I push open the door and Carol follows me
inside. The sight of the toilet bowl speeds up my nausea, and I fall to my knees
in front of it, taking long slow breaths. And for a minute I think I might be
OK. That I might not throw up in front of this woman I don’t even know. But then
the nausea returns, and all the drinks and the two packages of nuts I consumed
on the plane are leaving my body in a long liquid stream.

That’s the last time I drink and fly.

Carol crouches by my side, holding my hair and
rubbing my back. If I wasn’t feeling like such shit, I might laugh at the fact
that this relative stranger is performing boyfriend duty. But instead, I feel
like her kind hands are invading my privacy in the worst way.

Now, if cute Dr. Houston were
here . . . Oh God. Not again.

When I’m finally done, I rinse the burning,
metallic taste from my mouth and dry my face off on a piece of paper towel from
the dispenser.