I Liked My Life(70)

“Not by me.”

“Better not be you. I won’t let this slide as typical teenage stuff. You have a head and a heart—I expect you to make choices that account for both. The next time I hear of your involvement with anything like this I will take away your car, your allowance, and your cell phone. Permanently. Don’t experiment with people’s hearts. Do you hear me?”

Eve nodded in agreement and retreated to her room, but I was still palpably mad as I wrote in my journal that night. In high school, good looks protected me from being an overt target, but my reading obsession made me a sidebar spectacle. I remember opening my science book one day to a picture of a giant penis taped on the inside cover. Sprawled across the top were the words Have you ever seen one of these before? My head jerked up in surprise; everyone howled with laughter. Worse than the shock and embarrassment was my secret fascination. I hadn’t seen one, not up close. I blushed, upping the entertainment value. The idea that Eve, my Eve, had been involved in such terrorism horrified me. My journal that night used words like disgusted, embarrassed, and furious. I meant to describe what Eve had done, not her as a person, but I know she won’t interpret it that way.

I attempt to intervene. Flip the page. I’m now so high up that my messages often take more time than the situation affords. Flip the page, I say again. Flip the page. To my relief, she does, and I take in the cool rush of having impact. I’m not ready to give it up.

December 25, 2014

Christmas fell on a Thursday this year. We were about to leave for church when Eve said she thought it was stupid we only went on holidays.

“I feel more spiritual when I go for a long run than I ever have at church,” she declared. “And what does it say about us that we pretend we go on days we know our neighbors will be there? We’re not religious; we’re, like, hypocrites.”

I love when she takes a stance and articulates herself like that. Brady and I looked at each other—she had a point. So we made a pact to replace church days with mandatory family runs. It was a liberating moment.

Then tonight, Brady surprised me with the most beautiful diamond earrings. His note read, “May these earrings put some sparkle in your life, like you do in mine.” Each one is probably a carat and a half. I didn’t dare ask if Paula had anything to do with it because I feared my pride would be compromised if she picked them out and I still kept them.

Eve rubs her ears. She’s been wearing the earrings. Brady said they look ridiculous on a girl her age, but Eve argued everyone assumes they’re fake. The reality is no one sees them. With camp over, Eve’s entire circle is Brady, Rory, Paige, Dr. Jahns, and a weekly call from my sister. She’s wholly alone, and the only person who realizes it is me—the person who caused it. For all my good decisions and noble sacrifices it took only one moment, one bad call, to end it all.

Eve puts the forbidden journal away and heads to the kitchen that she already cleaned. She thinks back to the last time she changed her sheets. Yesterday. Brady is bringing takeout tonight, so there’s no reason to cook. She’s already done an hour of yoga and showered. She decides to paint her nails, but even using the full manicure set, feverishly setting about buffing and cuticle clipping, the whole process takes thirty minutes. A devilish thought sets in. She opens the fridge with the side of her palm, careful not to smudge the fresh paint, and scouts out an open bottle of wine. Brady now drinks a glass with dinner, postponing the strength of bourbon until they’ve said good night. A bottle lasts him three days; there’s no way he’ll notice a missing glass and Eve knows it. She looks at the microwave clock. It’s three in the afternoon. One glass, she reasons, no biggie.

But I know better. Every alcoholic starts somewhere. There’s always a first; one moment where the line of what’s acceptable is crossed, motivated by trauma or boredom or both. For my mother I picture it happening after one of our vacations on the Jersey shore. We rented the same house for a week each June, when the prices were lower because the water was still freezing. Our cottage was a revolving door of visitors who’d come up to celebrate and relax, then pass out on the couch overnight. Each day had a theme and it started at lunch—Mai Tai Mondays, Tequila Tuesdays, Wildcard Wednesdays … it was the late seventies.

Eventually the week would end and we’d drive home. Dad went back to work. Meg and I walked to the YMCA for summer camp. Mom unpacked everything and did laundry. At some point I imagine it struck her that there was no reason her vacation had to end. So she rummaged through the Walmart bag of leftover booze and mixed a screwdriver. Just one. Just to suck the monotony from her chores. That night no one noticed. So Mom adjusted the line of normalcy—one midday drink was okay. Then that line was tested, resulting in a new line. Then a new, new line. Within a year she was having a full-time affair with Carlo Rossi, all fueled by that first transgression.

I refuse for this to be Eve’s moment. I know better than to lecture. My best bet is to offer an alternative. Read, I suggest. Read. Eve gave up reading for pleasure the day she got a cell phone. Something needed to be cut to account for the hundreds of texts and endless phone conversations that comprised her budding social life. I was devastated books took the hit. Read.

Eve stares at the bottle so long the refrigerator door beeps. The last thing I need is to turn into a closet drunk like Kara, she thinks, slamming it shut with such force that everything rattles. I don’t know whether Eve came to that conclusion on her own or made out my faint protests until she marches toward the living room bookshelf. She ditched The Celestine Prophecy after only thirty pages because her grief was too raw for anything offering answers. It likely still is. Lesson learned. I zip through titles, looking for a book that will swallow her so completely Brady will have to physically take it when he wants her attention. If I succeed, this will be the beginning. I’ll create a lifetime reader, something I failed to accomplish when I was alive.