HJ smiles. “You won’t see us.”
“All right, you ladies have a good night.” He turns to leave but then stops. “Seriously, Joan, make sure the fire’s out by ten. And no lights or my new shift commander will see you.”
“Jesus, Tom, I’m not a rookie. We’re south of the fire rings for a reason. I’ve been doing this since you were in high school.”
“And you were in junior high.” He adjusts his belt. “It’s Sunday Shots tomorrow night at the Rockin’ Pony. You coming?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”
He grins. “See you there.”
As he leaves, Mom rolls her eyes. HJ smiles like she ate a canary.
“You’ve done this for years?” I say. “How come I never knew?”
“Haven’t for a while. Besides, you weren’t old enough.”
“I am now? If the magic number’s seventeen, that’s weeks away. And he said you were doing it in middle school. You were thirteen?”
“Age has nothing to do with numbers, Mel.”
*
Mom doesn’t like the cold, or being away from home, or worrying about getting in trouble with the police, but she likes being awake at night even less. She’s in her sleeping bag, snoring lightly, by eleven.
HJ and I are experts at staying awake but we’re nonetheless bundled up in sleeping bags against the cold. With no lights or moon, no one could possibly see us out here. Dad would have a fit. This is way worse than parking bikes in the house.
“I worry about you, Mel.”
Uh-oh.
“Is that why we’re on the beach, risking arrest, at …” I check my phone. “One fifteen?”
“Pffft. Tom wouldn’t arrest me. He knows he can always ask me for a dance and get a boost from a girl saying yes. Just not slow dances. You can’t tell I have four inches on him if he doesn’t pull me close. Then we look like a kid dancing with his mom.” She laughs. “Nobody wants that image in the room. Perfect recipe for going home alone.”
We lie quietly for a moment.
“Didn’t work,” she says.
“What?”
“Trying to change the subject.”
I’d forgotten how this outing started, with HJ abruptly washing off her game face like she had a new mission. Whatever it is, it’s starting. The most I can do is deflect.
“I worry about you,” she says again.
“Not as much as I worry about you.”
“I’m not the one doped up all the time! You put more drugs in your system than Grandma did when she was fighting cancer!”
Okay, it’s that conversation. I try to look on the bright side, that she can bring up Grandma Cece easily now. It used to be a big deal. When Grandma died, we lost HJ for a couple months.
“They suck all the life out of you, like there’s a wet blanket on you all the time.”
Usually I can get out of these talks all kinds of ways, but not trapped in a sleeping bag on a dark beach in the middle of the night.
I sigh. “I don’t like who I am without the meds—” Oops, that was a mistake. I should have stuck with one of my vague responses.
“But that’s who you are!” HJ rolls on her side to face me directly. “Those pills turn you into someone who wants to hang out with old people or stay at home all the time. You’re almost seventeen! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you try a beer! Have you?”
“Yeah. They’re gross.”
She laughs. “You get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.” Or lots of other things I’ve seen Aunt Joan get used to.
“I’m not telling you to drink. I just hate seeing you miss out on your teenage years because of those pills.”
We’ve had this conversation countless times, when Mom’s not around to stop her. Except I know the drugs are a scapegoat. Like how Dad thinks I’m unambitious and unmotivated and blames it on being surrounded by underachievers. Aunt Joan thinks I’m antisocial because of the meds. They’re both wrong. I’m naturally an antisocial underachiever.
HJ tried meds and didn’t like them. Her mood swings aren’t nearly as fast or extreme as mine, and she doesn’t get mixed states like I do. On the severity scale, HJ’s about a six, and the happy sex-crazed kind of bipolar disorder, not the angry delusional kind. With my medication cocktail, I’m a four and mostly on the depressed side. Without my meds, I’m seven or eight and prone to manic episodes. And Nolan, he—whoa! Stop right there …
Point is, some remember the ups and downs, and others forget. I’m lucky I remember. The forgetters, like HJ, they get right and then believe they don’t need meds anymore, completely forgetting how they came unhinged every other time they stopped. Or they miss the joys of being supercharged and forget the crushing lows. Or how the supercharging sometimes overloads and makes them do things they regret: go broke, land in jail, hurt people—themselves, or much worse.
“You’re not sick, Mel. None of us are.”