The Pisces(39)

I enjoyed being coy now, the elusive one for once. The independent one.

That’s ok, I wrote, really, but thank you. I will see you when I get back.



Then I got another text. This one from Claire.

how shall I kill myself?

I grabbed Dominic and got a car to her apartment in West L.A. I saw, for the first time, where she lived. It was not at all what I expected. I knew that her ex-husband had kept their home in Pacific Palisades and she had taken an apartment, but I had imagined a grand courtyard with a fountain: something small yet charming, Old World Spanish with luxe modern interiors. But this reminded me of my place in Phoenix and that I would be going back there. The complex was big, old, and musty, and there was a pool drained of water. A sign hung on the gate read CLOSED.

When I went in she looked completely different, her hair greasy, unwashed, and piled high on her head in a bun, instead of the flowing curls I was used to. Under her eyes were big circles, the faint purple color of the underside of a shell. They were deep and I imagined lying down in them. She was wearing a T-shirt inside out and sweatpants, no bra. Her breasts sort of hung there, facing down.

Depression is real, I thought. It’s a real disease.

I don’t know why I thought that then. Like, that it just dawned on me. I’d had depression my whole life too but more of a dysthymia—a general malaise. I had never thought of it as an ailment that manifested physically. At least, it had never affected my physicality in the way that it seemed to have affected Claire’s. Or maybe it did and I simply couldn’t see it. Maybe this was what I had looked like when I broke down after Jamie. Maybe this is what people saw when they saw me.

“Are your kids here?” I asked.

“Arnold has them, thank God.”

I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though the depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men.



“You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced.

“I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because truthfully I didn’t. “I’m probably not the best person to talk you out of suicide.”

I was trying to make her laugh but she didn’t.

Suicide was one of those things that, having been suicidal, in retrospect, I felt like I could talk about without being judgmental. But at the same time, there was no rational reason I could see giving her to live. Could I say that I was once suicidal but things were better now? Could I say that I was glad I had lived? The thing was, I hadn’t really known I was suicidal until I woke up with the doughnuts. Also, even if things were better now, were they ever permanently better? Who was I to put that pressure on her to stay alive?

But what kind of person didn’t try to talk their friend out of killing herself? I didn’t want to tell her that she had to live for her children. I knew that she felt bad enough about them already. I could have told her what an amazing and fun and funny person she was, but I knew that right now it all felt to her like just a performance. Her charming personality was only more heaviness—another mask that she was going to have to pick up again to prove she hadn’t lost it in the depression. The only reason to put it on again was out of fear that she might never get it back. Otherwise, there was no real reason to have to put on a heavy costume every day. It was too tiring.

“Would you sleep over?” she asked.

I felt claustrophobic. I thought about Theo.

“I can’t,” I said. “The dog.”

“The dog can sleep here. We can get him some food.”



“I know,” I said. “But his medicine is at home.”

“I’ll give you money for a car to go back and pick it up.”

The thing was, I could easily do that. I didn’t want to tell her that I was abandoning her for the swimmer. If anyone would understand that I was shirking the duties of friendship over a boy, Claire would understand. But in this situation maybe she wouldn’t. Also, I didn’t want to hear myself say it.

“I don’t think that will work,” I said. “I’m sorry.”





30.


I went late to see Theo. The fact that he had other plans the night before, and I didn’t know what they were, made me feel insecure. Instead I spent extra time cuddling with Dominic, the dog’s head draped over my arm so that his neck fit snug like a warm puzzle piece. I pretended that I preferred to be with the dog and could take or leave seeing the swimmer entirely. But I was playing a game: I knew that Theo was not mine alone. I mean, he said he didn’t have a girlfriend, but he was so beautiful. Of course there were other women. Everything I saw in him that I liked was available for others to see. But the way he treated me, with such reverence, made me feel like he held me above all others or anything else. If there were a gaggle of younger girls, I was his special older woman. Still, I couldn’t help but play a little bit of a game just to make him wonder.