Chapter Twenty-Three
Day one after the revelation, I make an appointment with a therapist in Leesburg. She came highly recommended by my GP.
The waiting room is painted a neutral shade of light gray. The furniture bought together and looking contrived and pretentious. The magazine selection ranges from Popular Mechanics to Home and Garden to Town and Country. Nothing to excite the patients, nothing to scare them either; all I want to do is vomit in the fake ficus pot.
I didn’t sleep last night, just sat in the kitchen and watched the front door for no reason. My cell phone danced across the kitchen table with calls from Roy and my aunts and, surprisingly, Proctor and Gavin. I knew they were all terrified I was hacking my wrists to bits with a kitchen knife. I wanted to. I even laid all the knives out on the table in front of me and spoke with them, like they were conspirators in my imagination. They’re still there, lined up like a torturer’s play kit, waiting for me.
The doctor—I realize I don’t remember her name—has opened the door and waves me inside her office. Like her waiting room, she’s gray and calm and serene in a way that makes me want to slap her silly. Is that normal? Probably not.
After the introductions are made, and she clarifies her approach to therapy for her fucked-up-in-the-head patients, she settles back and waits. I guess I should speak now. I do not.
“Why are you here?”
Hearing those three words, I realize she will not be able to help me. There’s too much backstory to fill in, too many details she will never understand. I talk to her about how my emotions are numb. She explains this is normal and expected when one is going through a mental trauma such as divorce or death or any loss. I almost laugh. How mundane. Would my story shock her? Would she refer me to another therapist? To a psych ward? Or a medical study eager to know the effects of inbreeding in humans? I remember reading in school about the Pharaohs marrying their sisters, keeping the bloodline pure. Well, here I am, more Stanwyck than the Stanwycks themselves.
On the drive home I tried to notice the fall foliage but didn’t. I’m like the static on the old TV set we used to have. When I was little, before Reggie had cable installed, we had an antenna strapped to the chimney to bring in the TV signal. I remember turning the knob to tune in the channel and how the static had a particular noise. Right now, inside my head, a constant static blocks everything out.
When I pull up to my house, Roy’s leaning against his Mercedes, looking a decade older than the night before. “I want to talk,” he says.
“I’m talked out,” I reply and walk past him.
“I need you.”
Agony opens up inside me and threatens to wrap its arms around me and pull me into its depths. I trip and right myself. “Don’t,” I warn as he reaches out his hand to me. “I can’t. I can’t.” And run inside and slam the door behind me.
I make it to the bathroom seconds before I dry heave into the toilet. I’m nauseous if I eat. I’m sick if I don’t eat. I am misery. Too tired to make it upstairs, I grab the afghan and curl up on the couch and sleep.
For a full twenty-four hours, I sleep and, when I do roll off the couch and check the time, I’m only doing so to calculate when I can go back to sleep again. I use my hands on the steps to help me make it up the stairs and remove clothing on the way to the shower. My hair first, next I quickly use the razor so as not to get too attached to it, and shave my legs and pits. The sudsy washcloth glides over hip bones too pronounced and rib-bone peaks with valleys in between.
I step into too-loose jeans. They used to fit, but now hang off my hips like boyfriend jeans. Just to spite me, my breasts ache, my nipples like hot pokers. When I walk into Mangler, my aunts do their best to comfort me. I’m naked without my secrets, like a tortoise without its shell.
“I need things normal, okay?” I plead with my eyes.
“Okay, dear.” Aunt Mae lines up the delivery orders for the day. “Things are picking up with everyone getting their linens for Thanksgiving.”
“And this.” Aunt Stella places a manila envelope before me. “From the photographer in New York.”
A large label with my name and address, and Mario R. Stain typed in the left corner with the studio address. I’d forgotten about the photo shoot and my plans to use the money to renovate my aunts’ home. That was before the revelation.
“Perhaps it would be best if you canceled.” Mae brings me a cup of coffee along with a chocolate-covered donut. “There’s a dozen waiting for you in the back.”
Her voice is too hopeful. “No, thanks.” Almost past the doorway to the back room, I stop. “Thank you, for everything.” I don’t wait to hear anything they have to say.
I stop off at the market/gas station on Atoka Road and get an egg salad sandwich. It tastes better than chocolate chip cookies. Eggs used to make me retch; now I’m thinking of having another one. Who am I?
My cell vibrates in my back pocket. “Vincent.”
“Love, whatcha doing?”
“Deliveries.”
“Ah, well, do you still want me to go with you?”
The modeling… “Yeah, I do.”
“The family’s in Paris, so the apartment is all ours. Ben’s driving us.”
Ben’s the family chauffeur, who usually drives Vincent’s mother. “Great. Can’t wait.” I sound like a death row inmate giving my last words.
“Everything alright, love? You sound a bit off.”
Roy, my aunts, everyone has been right. I do need to speak with someone, but it’s not doctors I need, but Vincent. “Do you think you could come over tonight…I need to talk.”
“Ohhh,” his reply is immediate. “Roy problems? Has he gotten kinky on you? I’m your man, love.”
I giggle. Impossible. “See you at eight.”
“Ciao.”
And the hours roll on, and I keep breathing, and the world keeps spinning. When I get home, I clean my house and steer clear of my knife-centric kitchen table.
Vincent knocks and comes right on in like he has since I’ve lived here. He catches me with a spray bottle of Clorox, cleaning the kitchen counters.
He’s but a breath away from a witty comment when he stops. “Love, you look like World War II footage or backstage at fashion week. I should have gotten two pizzas.” He holds the large box up high, like a waiter. “The way you like it, all meat.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Extra cheese and no vegetables.”
“Thanks.” I point him in the direction of the counter. “I can’t eat.”
“It’s not because of the news reports, is it?”
My stomach drops. “Did something happen to Roy?”
“No, no. It’s all over the news about the tattooed man at Jason’s party. He was some heavy in a Mexican gang. The reports say a rival gang took him out and Jason was involved with moving drugs and human trafficking. Explain’s why they were killed.” He goes over to the kitchen table. “I guess no Oscar for him. Though I’m sure Hollywood could spin this into Jason being the victim. So.” He points to the table. “Either your knives have gotten together for a revolt, or you’ve become a serial killer.”
“We’ll eat in the living room.”
He lets it drop, follows me with the pizza, and plops on the comfiest chair. He opens the pizza box, sliding two giant slices onto his plate. “So what sordid business do you have to tell me?”
Am I selfish by telling him? But where did shielding people ever get me, or them? “It’s pretty messed up. If you don’t want to know, I won’t be offended.”
He’s midway swallowing and pounds his chest dramatically, like he’s choking. “Messed up is my middle name.” He pulls off the crust and hands it to me. “You always love this part.”
I do, and I take a bite, and it doesn’t upset my stomach. “Promise you won’t say anything until I’m finished.” He nods, and I lean back and tell him everything.
The wine bottle is empty and the pizza cold when I’m done telling my story. I want him to say something, but he’s sitting there like his brain has been fried.
Finally, he says, “Is that it?”
“Yep.”
“Forget it, love. It’s Chinatown.”
I burst out laughing and crying, all at the same time. It was the perfect thing to say, and I’m lighter, freer, and even a little giddy. “Roy is more handsome than Jack Nicholson.”
“And you have Faye Dunaway beat six ways from Sunday.” He leans his elbows on his knees. “So the knives on the table…are you going to cut yourself?”
“No, it’s…” I heave out a big sigh. “It helps to have them out in the open instead of hidden away.”
“But you want to do it?”
“I do.”
Abruptly, he rises and sits next to me. “Come on. Let me see the scars.”
I open my arm and point toward the most recent cut in the crook of my elbow.
He inspects it. “Are there more?”
“Yes, but I’m not showing you.”
He gives me his best I’m innocent face, like I imagine Puck might look. “Are they the same quality?”
He’s unbelievable. “I didn’t realize I had to meet your standards.”
“Sorry. My sister knew a girl at boarding school who was a cutter. She would cut whole words into her flesh.” He mimics the action. “Had to wear long-sleeve shirts year-round. Those”— he points towards my arm—“those are mere scratches. An insult to cutters.”
I’m shocked. How can he make light of this? I could kill myself. I could…what? Wouldn’t I have already? He’s right. Isn’t it time to let go of sad little Daisy and her troubled past? Big Fucking Deal. I cut. My father is more than likely my uncle. Suicide and incest run in the family. What can I do about it? Not a blessed thing.
“You know,” he continues, “by Middleburg standards, your story is pretty tame. Incest is high up there on the taboo list, but you didn’t have anything to do with it. Not like Bunny Phillips and his World War II re-enactments pretending the Nazis won.”
The locals steer clear of Upperville when that’s going on. “Or when old Mrs. Frazier took up nudism.” I shake my head. “That wasn’t pretty.”
“Her son took her to Malibu.” Vincent puts his feet up on the coffee table. “They do that kind of thing there.”
“So you don’t think I’m tainted?”
“No.” He gives me an incredulous look. “What does Roy think about it all?”
“I’m not seeing him anymore.”
Vincent quickly looks at my bare engagement finger. “He loves you.”
“I know. I can’t right now.”
“Well, I’m moving in until we go up to New York.”
We’ve never been huggers, but I give him the biggest hug of my life, and we settle in and watch a Korean film. It’s disturbing and completely fucked up and exactly what I need.