Spin A Novel

CHAPTER 9

The Monkey on My Back





I’m standing at the edge of the path slowly, slowly lacing up my running shoes, trying to put off running as long as possible.

It’s after breakfast, and the air is already hot and cloying.

A heat wave in May! Go, global warming, go.

I’m here to run. I don’t want to, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to keep the resolution I made yesterday to run at least five minutes even if it kills me. Or was it six?

I adjust Amy’s watch on my wrist. I found it on my bed when I returned to my room after the commotion caused by Connor Parks’s arrival. Her simple gesture brought me to tears for the second time that day.

Alcohol-free Katie is getting too bloody soft. I need to get out of here before I lose all my self-control.

When I was done with the crying, I checked the web. Amazingly, no one seemed to know that Connor Parks was in rehab. And here I was in the perfect place to learn all sorts of confidential things about him.

Things were looking up.

I stand up slowly. My movement startles a bird from its nest. The loud thawp, thawp, thawp of its wings echoes through the forest.

I wonder what YJB is doing here. Does he really have an alcohol/drug problem, or is this just about Amber? And how the hell does the world not know he’s here?

Well, whatever the reason, I took care of that. Or rather, Bob did.

I can’t sit on this kind of scoop, he responded to the email I sent him. Even if it blows your cover, it’s worth it.

The story broke quickly. When I checked Amber Alert a few hours later, it had a red flashing headline that read CAMBER REUNITED above a picture of Connor and Amber with their arms around each other at some red-carpet event.

Amber Alert can confirm that Camber are now both patients at the Cloudspin Oasis, a $1,000-a-day rehabilitation center. As we were the first to report, Amber checked into rehab after a much publicized video showing her smoking crack appeared on a rival website (damn you, TMZ!). Insiders report that Connor also suffers from drug and alcohol addiction. All patients staying at the Oasis commit to a minimum 30-day stay. Conditions are said to be rustic but comfortable. The residents take part in both individual and group therapy. One can only assume that Camber’s reunion in such circumstances was bittersweet.

Surely this means my future at The Line is secure?

I place my earphones in my ears and queue up Matt Nathanson’s “Come on Get Higher.”

OK, OK. No more putting it off. One, two, three, run!

I take a couple of running steps, and it’s not so bad. It’s cooler here under the tall, green trees. Step, step, hup, step. Step, step, hup, step. It’s pretty, in fact. I should’ve done this a long time ago. I feel healthier already. Five minutes will be no problem.

Shit. I didn’t start the watch.

I stop and press the buttons to get the chronograph to show. Amy’s time from her last run is still displayed. Fifty-six minutes! How is that even possible?

OK, focus.

I clear the clock until the zeros appear. Beep! Run along, Katie.

Good. I’m in the woods. I’m running. I kept my resolution, big step for me. I just need to think of something to distract myself from the running.

My mind wanders to Zack, and a guilty tingle creeps up my spine.

I push the feeling back down. Our breakup wasn’t my finest moment, but that was a really long time ago. Besides, he’s married to Meghan. He married Meghan? How did that happen?

OK, this is not helpful. Think of something else.

Got it! I have to find something outside myself to appease Saundra and her desire for me to believe in a higher power. That tree’s really big. Maybe that’d work? Oh, Big Tree, will you help me stay sober even though I don’t really have a drinking problem? Will you help me play along with Saundra so I can stay incognito and learn things about TGND and her ex-boyfriend? What’s that, Big Tree? You don’t want to help me with my nefarious deeds? Can’t really blame you.

Shit. My lungs hurt. I must’ve been running for . . . what? At least five minutes. But maybe it’s less. Should I look at the watch? No, that’d be a mistake. I should run until I really can’t anymore and then look at the watch. Maybe I’ll make it up to ten minutes, and I’ll be way ahead of myself. Yeah, if I make it to ten, then I can take tomorrow off.

Step, step, hup, step. Step, step, hup, step.

What the hell is that pain in my shoulders? I know this sounds crazy, but it feels like there’s some monkey-sized thing sitting on my shoulders bouncing up and down.

Hey, monkey, get the hell off my back! I mean it, monkey! Go away, shoo! Fine, you want to play that way? I’m going to stop and you’ll disappear!

I stop running, and the weight eases off my shoulders.

What the hell was that? Running is making me cuckoo.

Well, at least I did it. I ran way more than five minutes, for sure.

I pull the earphones from my ears and look at Amy’s watch. It says I’ve been running for four minutes. Even with forgetting to start the watch there’s no way I ran for five.

Goddamnit. I did five minutes yesterday. I was supposed to do six today. Well, at least five and a half. But I can’t take another step, I can’t. Running clearly doesn’t agree with me. I mean, it has me talking to imaginary monkeys!

“Are you all right?” a deep voice asks me.

I turn around in a panic. There’s a man with short red hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose standing on the path. He’s about six feet tall, in his early thirties, and he’s wearing gray running shorts and a matching sleeveless T-shirt.

I’ve never seen the guy before. My mind spits out possibilities. New patient? Staff member? Escaped convict? Ax murderer?

Fight or flight? Fight or flight? I can’t run anymore, so I guess it’s going to have to be fight.

Only, I don’t know how to fight.

“I got a cramp,” I say.

Idiot! Now he knows you’re helpless.

He looks sympathetic. “In your side?”

But he doesn’t sound like an ax murderer. Is this his MO? Distract me with kindness before going in for the kill?

“Kind of all over . . .”

And yet you keep answering his questions. You are a moron.

“Did you just start running?”

“No.”

That was better.

“Well . . . if you’re OK, I’ll be off.”

Shit. Maybe he was being nice, and I’m totally overacting?

I try to make my face seem friendly. “Thanks for stopping.”

“No problem. See you around.”

He pushes some buttons on his watch, and I watch him as he lopes off through the woods with the easy gait of a long-time runner.

Well done, Katie. A nice man asks if you need help, and you scare him off. No wonder you’re single.

Shut up, monkey.

“I think I found my thing,” I say to Saundra in therapy later that morning. I’m wearing designer-knock-off black yoga pants topped by a pumpkin-orange hoodie. My hair is tied back and still wet from my shower.

She gives me a puzzled look from across her desk. “Your thing?”

“You know, my replacement-for-God thing. Like you asked me to.”

“It’s not supposed to be a replacement for God, Katie. It’s supposed to be what you place your faith in so you can work the steps.”

“Right, I know. I get it. Anyway, I think it’s running.”

She shakes her head. Her miniature-dog dangle earrings dance. “I don’t think a higher power can be a sport, Katie.”

“It’s not the sport. It’s how I feel when I’m doing it.”

“You feel good?”

“No, I feel awful.”

“That doesn’t sound like a promising beginning.”

“But that’s just it. It’s the only thing I can think of that takes me outside myself. It’s the only thing that’s bigger than me . . . like when I was running today . . . well . . . this is going to sound crazy . . .”

“Don’t worry about that, just tell me.”

“Well . . . I was running earlier, and all I had to do was five minutes, or maybe six . . . anyway, that’s not important . . . so, I’m running, and I’m hating it, and I hurt everywhere, and I’m trying to distract myself by thinking of something that could be my higher power when it happened.”

“What happened?”

I hesitate. She is so going to think I’m bonkers.

“The monkey showed up.”

She stares at me blankly, her hand poised above her yellow pad.

“It sounds crazy, right?”

“I’m sorry, Katie. I was just surprised. Keep going.”

“It wasn’t an actual monkey. It just felt like there was one.”

“What was the monkey doing?”

“It was sitting on my shoulders.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“I don’t get it.”

Neither do I now that I’m saying it out loud.

I try again. “I don’t know. It felt like it was something outside myself. Something I can hold on to.”

She contemplates me. The dogs wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. “I think what you experienced is a feeling that runners often get when their muscles are oxygen-deprived. What you need to find is something permanent. Something that’s always there. It can’t be something transient.”

“Well, that’s what I’m going to use as my higher power,” I say petulantly.

“Then we still have a lot of work to do,” Saundra replies gently.

After lunch, I wander to the library, hoping desperately that something a little less taxing and depressing than Hamlet has magically appeared on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

A mad hope.

Sobriety, Moment of Clarity, Working the Steps, it goes on and on, and there’s not a beach read among them. I know we’re supposed to be working on ourselves (that’s why I’m killing myself through running, right?), but this is taking it way too far. Reading any one of these books would stress me out, not dry me out. No surprise that most of the books look like they’ve never even had their spines cracked.

“It probably doesn’t matter which one you pick up,” a man says behind me. “I’m sure they all say the same thing.”

I turn around. It’s the potential-murderer guy I met on the running path earlier. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a blue-gray Oxford that matches his eyes. He has a book tucked under his arm.

“What’s that?”

His eyes twinkle. “Don’t drink. Don’t do drugs.”

“Good point. What are you reading?”

He shows me the cover. It’s Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs’s really bleak tale about his depraved childhood. It’s full of gay sex, drugs, and Oedipal feelings. I bet he’s a fun person to party with.

“There’s no way you found that here.”

“Mr. Drink and Do Drugs? Of course not.”

“Didn’t he dry out in his next book?”

“Really? How disappointing.”

We exchange smiles and move toward the comfy navy armchairs tucked into the corner of the room. As we sit down, I catch a whiff of his aftershave. It smells spicy and expensive.

“So, how did your run end up?” he asks, tapping the fingers of his left hand against his knee.

“End up? Oh no, you saw the end of my run.”

He smiles. “It’ll get easier if you stick to it.”

“That seems to be the theme of this place.”

“Right. But I can promise you that it’s true for running.”

“And for the rest of it?”

A bleak look crosses his face. “Who the f*ck knows? I hope so.”

Who is this guy? He’s definitely not a patient.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

I gather my courage. “Well . . . I know this is going to sound . . . odd, but when I was running, I had this weird feeling in my shoulders . . .”

He nods. “Like something was sitting on you?”

Oh, thank God.

“Yes, exactly. Do you know what that is?”

“Maybe your muscles weren’t getting enough oxygen?”

“That’s what Saundra said.”

“Who’s Saundra?”

How can he not know who Saundra is? Now I’m really confused.

“You’re not a patient, are you?”

“Nope.”

I cock my head to the side. “But if you were on staff, you’d definitely know who Saundra was . . .”

“A leading character, is she?”

I smile. “Kind of. She leads group, and she’s my individual therapist.”

“That sounds like a lot of therapy. Does it get boring?”

“Sometimes, though it can be entertaining listening to some of the other patients.”

Nice. I just said I enjoyed listening to other people talking about the most painful moments in their lives. I’m a bad, bad person.

“I’d hate it,” he says.

“Listening to others, or talking about yourself?”

“The latter.”

I flex my feet, trying to stretch out my calves. “That’s pretty definite.”

“When you know yourself, you know yourself.”

“What made you so enlightened?”

He gives me a rueful smile. “Well . . . when every girl you go out with says the same thing, you can either accept it or put your head in the sand.”

“Every girl?”

“Yup.”

“But don’t women like the strong, silent type?”

He shrugs. “Apparently, not so much.”

“Maybe you just need to be with someone who’s spent time in here. After listening to twelve narcissists spill their guts day after day, you learn to appreciate someone who can keep the cap on.”

“So, you’re saying I should focus my dating strategy on women who’ve spent time in rehab?”

Yo, dum-dum, you’re a woman who’s spent time in rehab.

“No . . . I guess not,” I stammer, a blush spreading across my face.

I stand up stiffly. Less than five minute of running has left me feeling achy in places I didn’t know I had.

He rises too, and we stand there inside an awkward silence.

“Well,” he says eventually. “It was nice talking to you . . . um . . .”

“Kate. Or Katie. Whichever.”

He extends his hand. “OK, Kate, Katie, whichever. Nice to meet you.”

I place my hand in his. A shiver crawls up my spine.

“It’s nice to meet you too . . .”

“E.,” Amber says, coming up behind me.

He drops my hand. “Hello, Amber.” He gives me a nod. “See you later, Kate.”

He strides past us and leaves the library without looking back.

“What was that all about?” I ask Amber.

“I can’t believe he brought him to rehab. That little f*cker.”

“Amber? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

She blinks slowly. “E. is Connor’s personal assistant.”

“Does he have a drug problem too?”

“E.? Hah! No way. Connor just can’t live without him, the big f*cking baby.”

“But I wasn’t even allowed to bring my cell with me, let alone a whole other person.”

“Connor always gets what he wants,” she says in a resigned tone.

“But isn’t dealing with your own shit kind of the whole point of rehab?”

She makes a face. “Welcome to the lives of the rich and famous.”

I notice the time on the clock on the wall. Group starts in five minutes.

“Shit, it’s almost three. We’d better get to group.”

Amber mutters her assent, and we walk to group together. We sit in our usual folding chairs next to Mary and just-returned-from-the-medical-wing Candice. Candice is babbling on about how hot it is to a bored-looking Mary. The tight, white bandages on her wrists give me the creeps.

Amber slumps next to me and gazes out the window. A minute later, Saundra walks to the head of the circle and clears her throat to get our attention. “Today I want to talk about the moment you realized you needed help, when you hit your bottom.” She turns toward me. “Katie, I don’t believe we’ve heard from you yet. Would you like to share what it was that brought you here?”

Jesus. Don’t I do enough sharing in therapy? Am I going to have to spin this bullshit in front of an audience too?

“I don’t feel like sharing today, Saundra.”

“Participating in group’s an important part of getting well, Katie.”

“Ah, why don’t you leave her the f*ck alone?” Amber says, shifting her focus away from the window.

“Language, Amber, please.”

Amber sits up straight and stares intently at Saundra. “You want someone to participate? Fine, I’ll f*cking participate. All right? That make you happy?”

“What would you like to tell us, Amber?”

“I’ll tell you what everyone’s dying to know, how about that?” Amber looks around her. She has everyone’s full attention. “Don’t you all want to know how I got here?”

Uh, yeah. I really, really do.

“How did you get here, Amber?”

“Young James Bond, that’s how,” she replies loudly. “That’s right. The big star who’s drying out somewhere in this building can take all the credit.” She half sings, half yells these last words, maybe hoping that Connor can hear her, wherever he is.

“You can’t blame another person for your addictions, Amber.”

“Oh yes, I can! ”

“There’s no need to shout.”

“You wanted someone to share, right! Well, I’m sharing. I’m putting it out there for everyone to see!” She waves her hands around in big sweeping gestures. “Can you see it? Am I sharing enough for you? Am. I. Sharing. Enough. For. You?” She flings her arms out wide.

“That’s enough, Amber.”

“But it isn’t. It’s never enough. I can never have enough.”

“I think we’ve all had enough,” Mary says.

The Director and The Judge twitter at Mary’s remark. Amber shoots her a dirty look and storms out of the room.

Bloody Mary. What did she have to go and do that for? This was just getting interesting.

I glower at her, but she doesn’t notice, high on the laugh she got out of the impossible-to-please boys.

At least someone’s getting high in here.