I struggle to get out the door with my burdens and push my damp, stringy hair out of my flushed face.
“Seems like everyone got wet today.”
I look toward Greta’s voice. She is sitting back on her bed, perfectly dry and happy as a clam, a closed chemistry book next to her, a notebook opened on her lap, a CD case dismantled so that she can read the album notes. She’s in her silk robe, and only the corkscrew-curly wisps around her face suggest that she might have been out in the foul weather at some point. In the background, the new Guns N’ Roses album, Use Your Illusion I, is playing, and their ilk has never come out of this Bobby Brown room before. Greta also bought Use Your Illusion II. It’s next to her chemistry book. I didn’t figure her for a Guns N’ Roses fan, and I bet that Francesca and Stacia have also bought the albums. They’ll all hate the music, and I’m glad the three of them wasted their money. I wonder where they got the idea to buy what they did.
As I turn away without responding to her, I picture myself as her mortician, messing up the lipstick on her gray and frozen mouth.
This makes me smile.
chapter EIGHT
The following afternoon, I’m still happily surprised the dye worked as well as it did. I am walking back to Tellmer from my last class, chemistry, and I continue to look down at my pants with satisfaction and no small amount of amazement. The bleach spots that marred the black folds are essentially gone. Yes, there are faint traces of the staining out here in the bright sunlight, but I’m very confident few will notice them.
I’m very confident that Greta will not notice.
She, of course, matters the most. And when I picture her confusion growing over the passing days as I continue to appear in all manner of freshly washed, non-bleach-speckled clothing, I chuckle to myself, and then laugh out loud.
I rarely feel this kind of accomplishment. My pride is of the weak sort, the last-ditch effort of my character to protect the fragile shell of my dignity, and in its timidity, it’s always scuttling in haphazard apology for cover.
Today, however, in my resurrected clothing, I feel like I have bested Greta, and therefore I’m glowing inside. I’m radiant. I’m magnificent.
The fine day matches my mood, sure as if I control the weather with my emotions. The storms that drenched Francesca, Stacia, and me ushered out the heat and humidity, and now it is classic fall in New England, the sky a piercing blue, the sun a brilliant light bulb covered by no lampshade of clouds. With the arrival of this dry air, and the nights about to turn colder, the leaves are going to start to change fast. Soon the color show will begin, and I tell myself that this year, I will stop to enjoy the distinct seasons.
Buoyed by my current sense of accomplishment, I know that I will not miss the opportunity. In fact, I can do anything I set my mind to. My mood is an inner change of weather ushering out my dull, trudging affect. I am the brilliance that has come across this campus, across the earth itself. I am as resplendent as the sun and everyone knows this because, like the sun, I am sending out waves of energy in all directions, touching and enriching everyone’s lives.
I want to feel this way forever. And ever. And ever. And I will. This is my new state of being. From now on, I will wake up every day and be in this wide open space of awesome inspiration and actualization. No more dim corridors with closed doors for me. No more grim worries about anything. No more insanity. In fact, I will stop taking the lithium for I do not need it. I am no longer crazy. I am reset to factory settings. And accordingly, I decide that these black clothes have to go. I don’t want to be on the Greta side of having too much color, but enough of these dour, depressing togs. I will get a job during the month of January when we are off from school and I am back at home. I will save my money, and just before I return to Ambrose, the seat of my rebirth, I will go to the mall and I will buy blue jeans and tops in yellow and red and gold, and sweaters that have subtle patterns. I will trade my heavy black lace-up boots for more reasonable ones, ones that perhaps have a little heel on the back. I will even get my hair recolored so that it is all its natural shade of mahogany, and after that is done, perhaps I will get some strands of blond added in, just around the face.
As I picture myself in new clothes with new hair, I can feel myself sliding into place for the first time in my life, no longer half-cocked and at odd angles in the company of so many who have smooth fits around their jambs. I will be one of them. They will call me Bo, and they will sit with me at lunch, and even if I am never in Greta’s group, she will be so taken by my improvement, she will not just leave me alone, she will even smile at me a little as we pass on the stairs.
When the summer comes, I will even have a proper birthday party for the first time. I will invite friends over to my mother’s house and we will have a cookout. These girls and boys my own age will be everyone I meet at my paying job, not internship, at a law firm’s legal library in July and August. My contemporaries will all be smart and on their way to good colleges. And I will not be embarrassed by where I live. My mother, having been inspired by my own example, will throw out her magazines and deep clean our home, no more clutter, no more frivolous purchases. She will hang new drapes and get new countertops in the kitchen before my party. She will start wearing age-appropriate clothes. She will stop smoking. She will settle down with a nice, slightly pudgy man who has a kind smile and a good heart. He will be only a year older than she is, and they will primly hold hands on the sofa and do nothing else in their bedroom.
My mother was right. Ambrose was the absolute perfect place to send me. My doubts during that first day, and in the subsequent couple of weeks, have been dashed by this uncovering of my true self, and as soon as I go home for Thanksgiving, I will make an exit interview appointment with my psychiatrist. Dr. Warten will look up in shock and awe at me as I enter his office with a confident smile on my face, a spring to my step, and nothing black on my body, not even the belt threaded through the loops on my new jeans. I will sit down across from him and place my unfinished bottle of lithium on the coffee table between us. I will tell him that I want the seventeen pills left inside of it to be given to some other patient who needs them, a donation from a previous sufferer to one who remains in the trenches. Dr. Warten will tear up at my shining example of complete recovery and my beneficence to those in need. He will take the pills and tell me that I am such an inspiration to him and so many others. I will be modest, but I will rejoice with him. I slew the beast, I conquered the enemy, and now, at the end of my book of trials, I will enjoy smooth sailing into the warmth of the setting sun for the rest of my days.
And my greatness will not stop there.
Later, after college, I will write about my hard time and my moment, this moment, when all became clear. I will go on talk shows like Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Jenny Jones, and morning shows like the Today Show and Good Morning America. I will become a nationwide spokesperson, a courageous woman who breaks down prejudices and taboos to talk about mental illness. I will do speaking tours. I will advocate at the White House and in front of Congress. My entire life will be in service to others, and when I am on my deathbed, I will have nothing to apologize for, nothing to be ashamed of. I will die an old lady with a fine reputation, and my funeral will be at the National Cathedral because that is the only church big enough to handle the mourners. The anticipated weeping will require a pallet of Kleenex to be delivered prior to the service, and even still, they will run out of tissues.