The Pisces(7)

I asked my doctor for Ambien. The Ambien helped me sleep. But in the mornings the goo was right there, waiting for me. I was already in it. It was becoming more dense. One night I took nine Ambien. I was not trying to kill myself so much as vanish. I just wanted to go to sleep and be transported into the ether, another world. I guess that vanishing would have meant death, so perhaps it was an attempt at suicide? But I felt afraid of death, or at least, afraid of dying. Was there something that wasn’t death but wasn’t here either?

I woke up fourteen hours later, ravenous. Doughnuts! I had to have doughnuts. Stoned from the Ambien, I got in my car and the rest was a blur. I must have blacked out. I only remember waking up on the road, parked, wearing my nightie, with doughnuts strewn around the car seats: powdered, cream-filled, a jelly. I didn’t even like jelly. Cars were honking behind me but I couldn’t figure out what to do. So I just stayed parked like that in the middle of the road and went back to sleep on the steering wheel.



Then I woke up again. Now a police officer was leaning into my car on the passenger’s side. He asked if I could get out of the car. I climbed out hazily. I remember thinking a dumb joke about cops and doughnuts. Then I realized: it was the same cop who had come to my house about Jamie’s nose.

“Hi,” I said.

He gave me a Breathalyzer to test my blood alcohol levels. Those were normal. Then he searched the car for drugs but couldn’t find any.

“I’m really feeling sick,” I said. “First the breakup, now some kind of flu. I was going to get the doughnuts for the sugar. I must have fainted. Anyway, if you just let me go home I’ll be okay.”

“Ma’am, I can’t let you drive in this condition. Is there anyone I can call to come get you?”

I thought of Jamie. He was usually my emergency contact. But I didn’t want him to know I needed anything from him. I wanted him to think I was just fucking fine. But I did feel sick. Also scared. Would this be my second strike? Would they send me to jail? I just wanted to be left alone. I felt that if the cop left me alone, I could pull my car over to the side and rest a little longer and I’d be okay. I didn’t want anyone seeing me like this in my nightgown.

“You can call my sister,” I said.

I gave him my sister Annika’s number. I didn’t tell him that she lived in California. He left her a voicemail saying I had gotten sick on the road and asking if she could come pick me up. She was going to be confused.

“Anyone else we can call?” he asked.

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “I’m much better now.”

“I’m going to have to ask that you pull your car over on that next side street and park it there. You can gather up your doughnuts and I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Fine,” I said. “You know where I live.”





6.


“You have to get the fuck out of there,” said Annika. “I don’t know what that was with the doughnut incident, but something isn’t right.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Listen, Steve and I are going out of town for the whole summer. Yoga conference in Provence, then Budapest for two weeks, a month in Rome, and another conference. Oh, and then Burning Man with one of Steve’s start-ups. We need a house sitter and someone to watch Dom, love him, give him his medication. You should fly out here. Spend the whole summer. Get the hell out of the desert. It’s a nightmare for you ayurvedically.”

“I don’t know if I can afford to take the summer off,” I said. I usually did summer work for the library, even when school wasn’t in session.

“Yes, you can,” she said. “What happened to the money that Daddy left you?” Annika was actually my half sister, nine years older, but we had the same father. He had left us each about $20,000 when he died in his sleep at eighty-six.

“I spent it on psychics. The rest I’m saving for when I die alone. The cremation,” I said.

“I’ll pay for your cremation. Also, I will pay you to live here. I want you to treat yourself well while you are out here. Farm to table, spa, all that shit. You need to forget about Jamie. I know he’s at the root of this, even though you won’t admit it. You were always fucking crazy about men. You don’t think I remember when that poet guy dumped you in high school and Dad found you naked in the basement asleep with a steak knife?”



“It was a butter knife,” I said. “I was trying to open a jar of peanut butter. I was bingeing.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I spoke to the cop. You broke Jamie’s nose? They want you in therapy and I’m going to arrange it. Group, I think, something for codependents. I’ll ask my guy if he knows of anyone good. You need to be around women, no men, and you need to do the work.”

“A group? Annika, no—”

“Good, so it’s settled. You’ll come out here June fourth and stay until September tenth. I’ll be back for a week before Burning Man and we can hang out. And I’ll pay you double what you would make at the library to watch Dominic. I would be paying someone anyway.”

“I’m not doing the group,” I said. “And I’m not taking your money. But maybe I can come out there. I have to check with the library.”

“Do you want them to press charges?” she said. “If not, you’ll go to therapy. Also, I’m paying you, so stop.”