Spin A Novel

CHAPTER 19

The Last Thing I Have to Do





In group the next day, Candice raises a hand and announces that she wants to tell us why she tried to kill herself. No surprise that everyone is immediately on the edge of their seats, their faces shouting tell-me-tell-me-tell-me. We’ve reached rock-bottom as far as new stories are concerned. Even Connor’s stories of snorting cocaine off starlets’ asses are starting to wear thin.

The only one we haven’t heard is the one everyone has tried to get out of Candice since she came back from the medical wing with bandages around her wrists.

Saundra looks concerned. “Candice, if you’re not ready . . .”

“No, I want to.”

Oh, thank God. I thought for a moment Saundra was going to talk her out of it.

“Remember, Candice, this is a safe space.” Saundra looks around the room, giving The Director and The Banker a particularly hard stare.

Candice crosses her legs. She’s wearing white lacy socks that disappear into a pair of black ankle boots. In fact, her whole look today is kind of Molly Ringwald circa Pretty in Pink.

“I’m not stupid, you know. I know most of you don’t like me and make fun of me behind my back. The Former Child Star is what you call me, right?”

A shiver runs down my spine. Has she been reading my journal?

She raises her chin. “But that’s not why I did what I did, OK? It wasn’t because of any of you. It was because of me. Do you know that this is the fifth time I’ve been to rehab? I’ve spent two hundred thousand dollars on ‘taking it one day at a time’ and ‘Kumbaya’ and It’s. Not. Working. I don’t feel any different inside. I still want to use whatever I can get my hands on, and I know, when I leave here, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

“So, that’s why I did it. To make the feeling inside go away.” She pounds her chest. Hard. “But I couldn’t even do that right. I’m still here, and nothing’s changed. And I don’t know what to do.” She hangs her head dramatically.

The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. And then The Director starts to applaud in a slow, mechanized way.

“Oh, bravo,” he calls. “Well done.”

Mr. Fortune 500 starts to clap too. Pretty soon, half the room is clapping and throwing out wolf whistles. I even hear someone, I think it’s Connor, shout, “Encore!”

Saundra raps her hand on her chair. She looks upset and angry. “Everyone, please! This is completely unacceptable! How can you violate Candice’s trust after everything we’ve worked for . . .” Her voice trails off as she catches sight of Candice.

Because Candice isn’t crying, or upset, or ashamed.

She’s taking a bow.

I lean back in my chair in amazement. Despite being exposed to Amber’s antics over the last four weeks, I didn’t see it coming. I have to give her props, and so I clap along with the rest of them, despite the dirty looks Amber shoots me.

A few moments later, Evan and John appear to break up the disruption. Candice goes quietly. At the door, she blows us a kiss over her shoulder and says, “How do you like me now, bitches?”

“We’ve almost completed your program,” Saundra says near the end of our session on Day Twenty-nine: Letting Go. “Do you feel ready to go home?”

Shit. I’ve been worried someone would tell me to leave before my work here was done.

“But I’m only up to Step Seven.”

“You don’t have to finish all the steps while you’re here. You’ll continue working on them in your AA meetings once you leave.”

“Right.”

Saundra looks like she hopes I’m joking. “Katie, it’s very important that you keep up with meetings once you get home. Thirty in thirty is the minimum we recommend.”

“Yeah, I know. So, you really think I’m ready to go home?”

She nods. “We’ve made some good progress on identifying the roots of your addictive patterns of behavior. We had a real breakthrough with your family, and we’ve started working on your sobriety plan. So, yes, I think you’re ready. But it’s important that you feel ready, as well.”

“And if I do?”

“Then there’s just one more thing you have to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Confess.”

I join Amber for a late lunch, setting down my bowl of clam chowder on the table. She’s eating a grilled cheese sandwich, taking small, even bites in a way that reminds me of Rory.

“Where are the boys?”

“Saying goodbye to Ted.”

“Shit. I missed the singing?”

She smiles. “You can sing for me tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I finished my program, and since I’ve been a model patient lately, my therapist said I could leave tomorrow if I wanted.”

“Huh.” I swallow a spoonful of my creamy soup. “I’m leaving tomorrow too.”

“That’s great,” she says with mild enthusiasm.

“So, we’re both leaving tomorrow?”

“Sounds like it.”

I put down my spoon. “Then tell me something, why don’t we seem happier about it?”

She gives me a bright smile. “’Cuz we’re stupid?”

“I think we’re in shock.” I give myself a shake. “No more therapy, no more group, no more Saundra. This calls for a toast.”

I raise my glass toward hers.

She grins and follows suit. “What shall we toast to?”

“Fortitude.”

“Fortitude?”

“Yeah. Strength and endurance in painful or difficult situations.”

“Sounds about right.”

We clink glasses, and I down the rest of my grape juice. Not quite my usual toasting fare, but one can’t be picky when celebrating one’s last day in rehab.

I slap my glass down on the table upside down, like it’s a shot glass. “So, what do you want to do on your last afternoon?”

She wipes away her milk mustache. “Skip group?”

“Excellent idea. I just have one thing to do first.”

I wait nervously for Henry near the front door. He and Connor are finishing up their goodbyes with The Banker. Typical guys, there’s not a tear in sight.

As I watch Henry throw his head back and laugh I have a moment of doubt about what I’m about to ask. But he’s the only person in this place since Amy left who I feel comfortable enough with. And if another message gets sent at the same time, so much the better, right?

When the last palm has been slapped, Henry and Connor walk in my direction. Henry’s wearing a rugby shirt over his cargo shorts. He looks about twenty-two.

He flashes me a smile. “Hey.”

“Hey. Hi, Connor.”

Connor nods hello distractedly. “You seen Amber?”

“I left her in the caf.”

“Righto. Catch you later, man?”

“Later. What’s up, Kate?”

I nibble on the end of my thumb. “Um . . . well . . . I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Hey, that’s great.”

“Yeah, it is. Amber’s leaving too.”

“Really? I never would’ve thought that she’d leave before Connor could.”

“Yeah, that surprised me a little too. But he’s got, what, eight, nine days left?”

“Eight days, four hours.”

“But who’s counting? Can we sit?”

“Sure.”

We walk to the library and sit in the armchairs where we had our first real conversation. It seems fitting, since after tonight, this will probably be our last conversation.

Henry looks at me expectantly. I don’t know what he’s expecting, but I’m sure it’s not what I’m about to say.

“Um . . . I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“Sure.”

“But you don’t know what it is yet.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Well, you might consider it an imposition, and please feel free to say no . . .”

“Just ask me, Kate.”

“OK. Well, you know about the twelve steps, right?”

He waves his hands at the books that surround us. “It would be hard not to.”

“Right. So, one of the steps is that you have to admit, like, the ‘nature of our wrongs’ to another person, and well, usually, it’s to a priest or something, but I don’t believe in that so . . .”

Oh. My. God. I sound like a Valley girl.

Henry furrows his brow. “You want to confess your wrongs to me?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Isn’t that kind of personal?”

“Well, that’s kind of why I wanted it to be you . . .” I pause. Here comes the hard part. “Because, um, I think it’s important to confess to someone you trust but who isn’t really a part of your life, so I can confess, and start to move on.”

The unsaid words “without you” hang in the air between us.

“I see.”

“And I trust you . . .”

His face is expressionless. “And I’m not really a part of your life . . .”

His measured words hit me like individual punches to the chest. Bam, bam, bam, bam. But hey, I asked for this.

“Will you do it?” I force myself to ask.

He looks away. “Yeah, all right.”

“Thanks. Are you free after the movie tonight?”

“Won’t you be breaking curfew?”

“I don’t think that really matters anymore.”

He turns back to me and it’s like he’s looking at a stranger. “OK. This is your show.”

I guess it is. But then, how come I don’t know how it ends?

After Henry leaves, I spend the rest of the afternoon in the library working on the list of things I’m going to confess to him.

I don’t really know why I’m even going through with this step, but I feel like, somewhere along the way, all of this went from being a big joke to being something important. Maybe it was the sessions with my parents, or maybe it’s the things Saundra’s been saying since I got here. It’s not that I think I really, truly, deeply have a drinking problem, but I can see why someone might think I do. And regardless, I need to make some changes in my life. Clearly.

Besides, all this soul-searching is somehow easier than thinking about the blank expression on Henry’s face when the reason I was asking him to take my confession sunk in.

Well, he’s better off without me. He’ll know that once he’s heard the worst about me. And since nothing’s ever happened between us . . . no harm, no foul, right?

So, I’ll confess my sins, and he’ll walk away, and then I can just be the girl he went running with while he babysat Connor in rehab, and he can be one more guy I pushed away before things got messy.

When dinnertime comes around, I fold up my notes and take my usual seat next to Amber in the cafeteria. Connor and Henry sit opposite us. We all seem a little out of sorts, like nobody wants to acknowledge that this is our last night together.

Near the end of dinner, Amber says, “So, I’ve arranged a pickup tomorrow if you want a lift back to the city.”

“You’re going to drive back?”

“I don’t like to fly if I don’t have to.”

“OK, sure, thanks. What time?”

“Right after breakfast.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Henry stands abruptly and picks up his tray. “Should we watch the movie?”

Connor eyes Amber across the table. “We’ll catch you later.”

Amber’s gaze is locked on his. “Yeah, later.”

Henry and I walk to the common room. Candice and Muriel are sitting together near the screen, whispering conspiratorially. I wave to Muriel. She looks affronted and whispers something emphatically to Candice. A match made in rehab heaven.

The lights dim, and in keeping with the perpetual romantic comedy theme, tonight’s movie is a BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Anne, the smart middle daughter of a foolish baronet, falls in love with a poor, handsome naval officer named Frederick. Her family is very much against the match, and they part. Eight years later, a now rich Frederick moves back to the neighborhood, still angry with Anne for ditching him all those years ago.

As we watch the movie, I’m hyperaware that Henry is sitting next to me, and of what we’re going to do afterward. Maybe it’s just the melodrama unfolding on the screen, but it seems like a part of my life is ending, and I’m feeling every second of it.

I shake these thoughts away and try to enjoy the movie, which is quite good and faithful to the book until . . .

“No, no, no,” I mutter under my breath.

On screen, Anne is running through the streets of Bath, trying to find Frederick after he confesses his constant love in a letter.

I give a snort of disgust. “This so did not happen in the book.”

“What? Women didn’t run after men in Austenian England?”

“Of course they didn’t.”

Anne finally catches up to Frederick and tells him that nothing will keep her from marrying him this time. They kiss (a sweaty, panting kiss in the middle of the street!), and it’s the end. As the lights go up, I rant to Henry about the need to modernize a story that was perfectly good just the way it was written.

Henry gives me a teasing smile. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because the original was perfection.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’ve never read it?”

“Do I look like a girl?”

“No, an English grad student.”

“Touché.”

We lapse into silence as we both remember what comes next.

“You ready?” I ask.

Henry puts his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. His expression is the same inscrutable one from earlier. “Sure. Should we go to the library?”

“No. Follow me.”

We walk along the path we’ve run on so many times, finding our way by the light of the moon. The air is still warm from the day, and it’s a clear night. A thousand galaxies are half visible through the canopy of trees above.

I’m looking for a particular place, a tall maple that dwarfs the sky, a tree that always astounds me whenever I run past it. I can see it up ahead, its leaves blowing gently in the breeze. We reach it and I drop to the ground, crossing my legs.

Henry sits down in front of me. “So, what do I do?”

Please, don’t hate me.

“Nothing. Just listen.”

I take out the paper I wrote on this afternoon. It doesn’t contain the whole truth, it can’t, but it’s mostly there. The worst of me is there.

I take out my iTouch and turn it on so I can see the harsh words on the page. It glows brightly, making a cocoon of light around me. I can almost imagine I’m alone.

I clear my throat. “This is my confession. I am a liar. I keep people at arm’s length. I use alcohol as a shield. I have betrayed my friends. I have betrayed people who aren’t my friends . . .”

I read slowly until I get to the bottom of the page, giving each sentence its due. Then I turn it over and read everything I wrote on the back too.

Henry listens. I can hear him breathing, but he doesn’t say anything.

I get to the end. “I am a liar,” I repeat, reading the last thing I’ve written. The last and the first thing about me are the same.

Do you get it, Henry? Do you get it?

I use my left hand to clear the leaves from the patch of ground between us. I snap off the iTouch and reach into my pocket for the lighter I brought with me. I hold it to the edge of the paper, waiting for it to catch.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Henry says.

“Shh.”

The fire catches hold. I drop the paper onto the patch of cleared ground, watching the flames eat away at the lines I wrote. The charred bits break away and float up toward the trees.

I watch until it’s all burned away. Until there’s nothing left.

“What now?” Henry asks.

I try to meet his eyes, but it’s too dark to see.

“Now, we forget that any of this ever happened.”