Tonight, sleep shows me images of my friends from home, Ruby and Amala. I’m in Amala’s house, it’s packed, music’s thumping, and I’m late, I guess, but I find them in the kitchen. Ruby’s wearing a plastic birthday crown with a plump pink jewel in the center. I hand over her present, which makes her shriek in delight, and we all take shots that taste like lime, syrupy sweet. Then I flash to the back porch holding smoke in my lungs, giggling upstairs as I slide his shirt over his head, feeling like a perfect vixen, but I scream back at my subconscious—No, no, make this stop.
I’m outside, and everyone knows what I did, though I can’t remember how it happened. Amala sobs as a crowd gathers to watch the drama, and I’m across the lawn from them. The silly tiara looks so wrong on Ruby’s head as she wraps an arm around Amala, trying to calm her. Amala’s long hair swinging, her face contorts as she screams, “How could you do this to me, Vivi? Get out of my fucking life!” And I’m gone. I’m gone.
I gasp awake in my bed at Richard’s house, palms and forehead damp.
A nightmare, a memory. A thing can be both.
I stare up at the ceiling. White, white, white. The emptiness of it aches.
By the time the sun is winking midmorning, I’m on a ladder in the center of the room.
“What the hell is this?” My mom stands in the doorway with her arms crossed in a parental way that does not suit her.
“I found a fantastic inspiration image in a magazine. An accent wall, but the ceiling. Don’t worry. I called Richard.”
“You what? He left that number for emergencies.”
I know, I know. But this was a Code Blue, bring-the-paddles emergency. I told him I couldn’t sleep in this goddamn room. Too much blank space, like the walls are white noise, and it’s screaming at my eyes. I could hear snippets of Mandarin in the background—serious voices, probably talking about stocks or bonds or, as I like to call them, soul-sucking tokens of a life lived for the wrong reasons. But Rich hurriedly said those five magic words, even if his tone was, frankly, a little rude: “Do whatever you want, Vivi.”
So I did. When Thomas Hardware opened, I was right there, waiting on the bus bench with a to-go cup of coffee from Betty’s. I chose rollers, painter’s tape, a big container of Starry Night blue and a smaller one of Sterling. Then I found a ladder in Richard’s garage and started in the center of the ceiling, rolling out long strokes, and now it looks like a navy-blue hole in an infinitely white universe—totally worth the crick in my neck, the numbness in my arm, and the feeling that my spine is made of creaky metal instead of flexible muscle and bone.
“Vivian,” she says, prodding. “Are you kidding me?”
“I had an itch. Remember last winter, when you decided the bathroom needed sophisticated wallpaper immediately? Like that. Besides, Richard was glad for the free design advice and labor.” I mean, he probably was. He should be!
My mom is narrowing her eyes at me. “Are you not sleeping well?”
“I’m sleeping fine. Are you?” The passive aggression beneath my question is, Don’t symptomize my sleeplessness as part of a greater problem, because you have artist’s insomnia, too, and when you don’t, it’s usually because of an all-natural sedative called vino.
“Not wonderfully, no.” She sighs, resigning herself to my whims, as everyone eventually does. “Well, I’m walking to the farmers’ market. Just wanted to make sure you were up for work.”
“I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
When she’s gone, I climb down from the ladder and scrub off a few flecks of navy paint from the hardwood floors. I strewed newspapers all over the floor of the bedroom, but I didn’t have time to line them up perfectly—too eager to begin my ceiling’s “darkification.” I unbutton the extra-large men’s oxford I use as a painting smock to reveal a divine romper. Basically, it’s like my vintage-style bathing suit—halter-necked and tight, only the shorts are a little longer and it’s made of floral-patterned cotton. I slide my feet into sassy gold flats because I’m already an alchemist today, turning a blank-slate ceiling into a good night’s sleep, aka gold. Then I throw on a fedora and a cardigan with elbow patches, giving myself a little chuckle as I pass by the mirror. You simply have to laugh at yourself when you look like a grandpa on the top layer and a 1940s woman vacationing on the French Riviera underneath. That is to say, fabulous.
I make my usual cliff-side stop. Today, I stand right on the edge, so close that one step forward would be like the final move in walking the plank. I rest a pill on the pad of my thumb and then flick it with my middle finger. Thank you for your service, little pill, but you are no longer needed! With that, I run toward town, skipping through the moss and grass, howling a victory cry—“AYE-YI-YI!” The ocean echoes my sounds against its waters, I know it does, because even the ocean recognizes that I am a wild creature, a spirit child of a vast and star-drunk world. HURRAH!
They call these pills lithium, and I like the way the word feels against my mouth—soft, unassuming, even soothing. Lith-ee-um. When the doctor first prescribed lithium, I wondered how the drug companies named it, like if there’s a committee that tried to decide on pretty, calming words. I wondered how they picked “lith” like Lithuania, lithograph, monolith. It means “stone” in Greek; I looked it up. And lithium was the weighty stone that pulled me back down when a wild, thrashing windstorm tore me away. But lithium isn’t the brand name; it’s a chemical element abbreviated Li on the periodic table, but I think it should be Line because it collected my highs and lows into a nice, flat line.
But I’m better now. I’m best, even! Besides, I still take my other pill because that one keeps the shadow creatures at bay. Last year, they curled their inky arms around me until my Technicolor world became crackling gray static. Until I felt nothing but blankness.
My phone buzzes in my bag, and I’m delighted to see that it’s Jonah, who is one of several elixirs I use. When I kiss him, it’s like a sedative, a warm feeling that rushes through my whole body and soothes my busy brain. His prudishness makes anything I do seem filled with intrigue, which is a bonus. He was scandalized that I’d perform a particular act on him in the outdoor shower after a beach trip last week. But I won him over to the idea. “Helloooo.”
“Viv?” This is not his voice, subdued and casual. He’s panicked. “Are you at work?”
“About to unlock the door. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Can you—God, I hate to ask, I can’t believe I’m asking. Can you get to Patterson’s in the next few minutes?” I open my mouth, but he doesn’t pause. “My mom went there this morning, and I thought it was a good sign, but Mr. Patterson just called and said she had some kind of breakdown in the baking aisle or something, I don’t know. He said I should come get her because he doesn’t want her to drive home, but she took the car, and I have the littles here, and Naomi’s at her internship and Silas didn’t pick up the phone at work, and I . . . I . . .”
It takes my mind a moment to catch up, but, when I get there, I shove my keys right back in my purse. “Jonah, listen to me. I’m going to Patterson’s, and everything will be fine. Get one of the neighbors to hang out with the littles for, like, half an hour, then run over here, okay?”
“Okay.”
I hurry down the street, thanking my half-hour-ago self for putting on flats instead of heels. Inside Patterson’s, there’s a man with a gray mustache pacing near the entrance. He’s wearing a green polo shirt with some kind of vegetable logo, perhaps Mr. Patterson himself.
“Hi,” I say, trying to sound calm and adultlike. “I’m a friend of Jonah Daniels. He’ll be here shortly, but he sent me in the meantime.”
“She’s in the back room—door to your right.” He shakes his head, bewildered and clearly questioning himself. “I don’t even know what happened. Found her collapsed to her knees, holding a box of bread crumbs and having what I think was a panic attack. I wasn’t sure what to do. I gave her an empty paper bag to breathe in like they do on TV.”
I give him a nod with a look of severity that I hope says: If you tell anyone about this incident, it would be very poor form, indeed, and I will start rumors about wormy produce and salmonella!
The supermarket break room is where cheerfulness goes to die, so I’m not sure what he was thinking, sticking her in here. There’s a brown plaid sofa that is outdated by half a century, a refrigerator, two vending machines, and a lot of notices posted on the cabinets. Jonah’s mom sits upright in a plastic chair behind a round kitchen table, her hands folded in her lap. I’m glad to finally see her in person instead of just in pictures, even if she looks so sad. I know this feeling of being a ghost in your own life—no one sees you, no one feels you, so you stay still as if you could actually disappear at any moment.
“Hi.” My voice sounds abrupt even though I’m striving for gentleness. “I’m Vivi.”
She glances toward me, managing a weak smile that I know as Jonah’s—the one when he is trying his best, but the sadness beneath will not be squelched. “Oh. Hello. Goodness.”
She brushes her hands over her shirt like she’s trying to tidy up. “My kids have told me so much about you. I feel like I know you.”
“I feel like I know you, too, but I’m so glad to meet you in person.” Sitting in the plastic chair closest to her, I look for the littles in her face. Grief has lined her eyes with an irritated pink, but she’s lovely—fair hair and blue eyes like Leah and probably a little too thin. “Jonah’s on his way, but I was just down the street, so I wanted to sit with you until he got here.”
Mrs. Daniels’s voice breaks as she covers her face with her hands. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Eh. I’ve seen worse.”
She gives a harsh laugh of self-deprecation, gesturing from her head to her toes as if summarizing her present situation. “I doubt that, but you’re sweet to say so.”
I hold my left wrist up to her and slide my sleeve down. The scar runs like a pale river, crooked and winding down my arm, and I feel, as I always do, the desire to erase it. This is perhaps the only time I’ve been grateful for proof of my former desperation.
Her eyes narrow, and she cocks her head—not in disgust, but in curiosity. I find myself relieved that she’s not repulsed by something so ugly. I mean, I’m not sure if the scar itself is ugly—I’ve never thought about it—but it represents something scary and bottomless. She whispers again, hollowed out this time. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m better now. I have been for a while.”
“Did you . . . did they make you take medicine?” She sounds like a child, afraid that the doctor will give her a shot, and I don’t blame her. “I’m sorry—please forget I asked. That was unconscionably rude.”
“I don’t mind. Yes. They did. An antidepressant.”
“And that helps?”
Say the words, Viv. She won’t tell Jonah; she needs to hear it, just spit it out. It’s the right thing to do, do it, do it. “It really does. The first kind they gave me was a nightmare.” That first kind set me off, untethered me and sent me flying. It began the windstorm. “But this one . . . I feel like myself still, on it.”
“I’m just so tired. I’m so, so tired all the time.” A tear slips down her face, all the way down till it drops off her chin, and she doesn’t brush its trail away.
And I remember being in that jungle, lost in the darkest, wildest part of it, where fearsome beasts and carnivorous plants lurk between every tree. All I could do was lie down on the wet leaves. Bugs crawled up my legs, and I couldn’t care enough to brush them off.
“Oh man, do I know that feeling. But the medicine made me feel enough to get angry,” I say. I don’t add that the anger makes you powerful. I stood up and sickled myself the hell out of there, hack by hack, slicing through the vines. I screamed until my face turned purple because, by then, I was a fearsome beast, too. I had lived through the blackness and solitude and emerged roaring at everything in my way.
She stays quiet for a few beats. “I only feel angry at myself.”
“Well, maybe that’s a start.” The room is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator as background noise, and I realize there’s something important she needs to hear. “By the way, I think your kids are the definition of marvelousness, and I’ve been wanting to tell you that. Based on my own mother’s experience, it seems hard enough to raise even one semi-normal child, and you made six truly magnificent ones.”
“Yeah,” she says, voice bitter. “Some mother I am.”
“Hey.” We both look up to find Jonah in the doorway. He’s winded still, though I can tell his breathing is slower than it would have been after running here. I wonder how long he’s been in the doorway.
His mom goes repentant immediately, as if his mere presence is accusing her of something. The tears form again in a blink. “I told Jim I could drive myself home, but he wanted me to sit here. I’m so sorry, kid; I don’t know what happened—I was fine one minute, then my chest felt so tight, and I couldn’t breathe. I just wanted to make cookies for you all, and—”
“Mom, hey. Hey.” Jonah crouches down to her as I clear out of the way. “Don’t apologize. You’re fine. We’re all fine. Let’s go home, okay?”
“But . . . the cart . . .”
“I’ll get cookie supplies later.” He guides her up and out the door, his hand hovering by her lower back. In the parking lot, we walk on either side of her like bodyguards protecting a star from the paparazzi. Jonah opens the passenger door and shuts it after his mom slides in.
“I’m sorry for asking you to come here.” He says this under his breath as we walk around the car, and the wind whips my cardigan enough that I pull it closer.
“Don’t be. I told you, Jonah: I’m not intimidated by other people’s pain.”
He runs his fingers along his brow, pressing hard enough to leave red marks for a moment. “I think I need to tell Felix.”
“I think you should ask your mom what she needs. Talk to her.”
Jonah looks up at the sky like the answers will rain down on his face, clearing away the dusty pollen of grief. But it never rains in Verona Cove. “I think I should have told him a long time ago.”
“Fine. Whatever, Jonah.” I snap my fingers. Maybe he heard me, but he’s not listening to me. “I’ve gotta go to work.”
“Hey!” he calls. “What did I say?”
“Did you not even hear me? Stop acting like she has no agency! Holy Mother Earth, Jonah! Just . . . ask her questions.”
His hands rise, a backing-off motion. “Okay . . . God.”
As I storm off, I can hear his arms slap against his sides, and I’m sure he’s tossed them up in frustration. Then I hear the car start, but I don’t look up as they drive off, because he doesn’t deserve it.
To the deepest, most cellular level of my being, I resent people who believe that depression is the same as weakness, that “sad” people must be coddled like helpless toddlers. So to think that Jonah—my own boyfriend, my friend, my lover, whatever he is—would believe that he knows what his mom needs better than she does? That her grief makes her unaskable, voiceless, unreliable? This is very hurtful.
My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it. Jonah Daniels has his own grief, but he doesn’t understand what it feels like to waste away in a castle dungeon where you have been chained to crumbling walls. And, when the dragons close in, you only think: Good. Let this be over.
I’m so worked up that my hands are trembling a bit, so, clearly, I’m in no condition to work at a pottery shop. Imagine the shards, the precious handiwork mishandled by a shakingly indignant former sad girl.
Instead, I need to focus on me, on my joy, on my goals. I need a Vividay, which is like a holiday, only better. As long as I can think of a good excuse, my mom will let me borrow the car and then I can drive to San Jose. It’s three hours south of here, but I’ll tell her I’m in desperate need of decent shopping. Which is sort of true. San Jose is home to a Vespa store, and that’s what I need right now. I can already feel it, my body pressed into the California wind at forty-five miles an hour and rising, and I’ll wear a scarf around my hair like beautiful women in convertibles in old movies. I’ll drive the one that goes the fastest, so fast that I outrun every dirty memory scattered like litter behind me. I’ll drive it all the way back to Verona Cove, and I will speed past Jonah Daniels, as living proof that sad people can do anything. Living proof that we can ride again, better than before.