The Pisces(68)

I needed help. There were two hours until group. I needed some kind of emotional methadone, some advice at least about what they had done to tone down their withdrawals. I showered quickly, then walked from Venice to Santa Monica, afraid that if I took a car I might vomit or shit inside of it. Stopping at CVS to buy Pepto-Bismol, I felt terrified, like an alien, as though I were Theo on land. This trip to CVS was so unlike last time—the urinary tract infection where I had felt that strange closeness to myself. Now I was totally estranged and out of my body, as though I had no idea how to move. I saw my feet walking, felt my heart pumping, but I didn’t know how I was breathing on my own—how my lungs knew to breathe and my heart knew to beat.



* * *



—



“Well, I did it again,” said Diana. “I slept with one of the tennis pros again. This time an even younger one. Barely eighteen. It’s like they’re just passing me around now. I don’t know how everyone in my social circle is not going to find out.”

Everyone looked at her in awe as though we were watching a soap opera. Sara was popping cashews like popcorn.

“I just—I don’t even know how it happened. It was like I was in a blackout. One minute I was getting into my car, the next minute I was talking to him. Then he got in the car with me and we started making out right there in the club parking lot. I took him to the Loews on the beach and got us a room, because only tourists go there and I knew we wouldn’t see anyone. The whole thing lasted less than an hour. He didn’t even ask for my number.”

“Did it come on spontaneously? Or was there any moment leading up to it where you noticed the idea in your mind? Anything that could have been a trigger?” asked Dr. Jude.

“Besides the fact that he was eighteen with rock-hard abs? And wanted me? No. Oh, there was a moment—the night before. I was at a party with my husband, an industry thing. And I looked at him from across the room. He was dressed up in a tux and I was wearing a cocktail dress. He was talking to a director, a famous one. And if there was any moment where he should have seemed attractive to me—it would have been that moment. But I looked at him and just thought, ‘I do not want that man. I do not want him at all. And I am going to be trapped with him for the rest of my life.’ And I felt like I was sinking. Like I was sinking through the floor.”

What was wrong with us? There were women on the planet who so easily accepted their paths. They were destined to like what they were given, and were given just enough, so that everything fell into place. Those women instinctively knew how to get a man and keep a man, each man interchangeable with the next: a torso, a dick, a pair of hands. Those women knew how to embrace whichever assembly-line man they were given. They knew how to breathe new life into him day after day and see what they had as special. They were like living psalms. There were no holes in their lives. Those women had never met a void a day in their life. They simply didn’t see any.



“Can I just say something?” said Sara. “Diana, I’m sorry, but if I had a husband who took good care of me—and I looked like you—and had young children who loved me, I would be so happy. I would just—be happy.”

“Dr. Jude, I’m feeling judged,” said Diana. But Sara didn’t stop.

“Stan left again. We got in a fight about a historical documentary. The Roosevelts. He said that I was the most annoying woman he had ever encountered and then he just left. I don’t know where he is staying. Maybe the spa? Maybe another woman’s house? I don’t know who would want him. We were supposed to go to a workshop this weekend. An ‘Opening the Heart’ course—a refresher for me, and basics for him. I was so excited. I was finally going to have a workshop boyfriend. I paid for both of us and everything. And you know what? I don’t even want to go now. I don’t want to open my heart! Now I’m going to have to go by myself. I’m going to be the woman alone again.”

I looked around the room and felt sad for all of us. We were built differently from other people—constructed in some fundamental way that was unlike those who could cope with love. Maybe we felt the same emotions as everyone else, but we felt them more intensely. Sappho felt more too, this I knew. Sappho was one of us. If she wasn’t overwhelmed by emotions, why then would she have needed to sing?

Chickenhorse said she had canceled her date with the guy from the dog park. She said that she had gotten a weird feeling from him.

“Weird in what way?” asked Dr. Jude.

“I don’t know. He was wearing one of those newsboy caps. And when I thought about the cap, I felt triggered. I just don’t trust any man in one of those caps. It’s like a flashing red no.”

“What is it specifically about that hat? Have you had a negative experience with a man in one of those hats in the past?” asked Dr. Jude.



“No,” said Chickenhorse. “The truth is…maybe it’s me. I know you want me to start dating again. I know you think I’m ready. But I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready.”

I wondered if this was what recovery looked like, the only option for women like us. Was it better to be somewhat sane without a man than to be crazy with one? Dr. Jude seemed to think it was possible that we could date consciously, eventually come to be in healthy relationships. She believed in us, and our ability to get better. But I didn’t believe in us. Chickenhorse didn’t believe in us either.