Some Kind of Miracle (17 page)

Dahlia glanced at the card, spotted that the guy was some kind of -ologist according to what it said there, and then she stuffed it into the vast black hole that was her purse. Real low-class move, she thought. Soliciting business from the bereaved. The guy smiled a saccharine smile that Dahlia knew had to be the same kind of smile he gave his Aunt Helene to convince her to leave him the money instead of Dahlia.

In an instant she peeled the rattletrap van out noisily and headed home, trying to figure out how in the hell she was going to pay her bills.

S
he could already see there was something wrong as she drove up to her carport. The front windows of the house had swirls and
x
s drawn all over them in some slimy substance, and as she opened the door, she saw that the TV screen in the living room had been defaced the same way.

“Sunny?” she called out, and the angry edge in her voice reminded her of the way Sunny’s parents used to call out to her after she’d committed some destructive act as a teenager. The door from the kitchen into the backyard was open, and when Dahlia walked through the kitchen to close it, she saw that the black glass door of the microwave had the
x
s and swirls drawn on it, too. She touched the marks and realized that the
x
s were made with soap, in the same way schoolkids used to soap up people’s windows on Halloween. Dahlia rubbed her fingers on the flaky sub
stance, then held them to her nose. Yes, it was soap. Through the back door, she could see Sunny holding a shovel and standing by a mound of dirt in the garden, and she hurried out there.

Sunny spoke without looking at her. “Natalie Wood used to look at her own face and then fix her makeup in the blade of a knife,” she said as Dahlia approached. “So I buried all the knives, too.”

“Sunny…”

Sunny spun on Dahlia now, her eyes wild. “That’s why she died! Because they were making the rules about who lives and who dies, and they saw her in the knife blade. They were on the other side of it. You don’t have to worry, because I saved you by putting all the knives in the ground.”

“You buried my knives?”

“Spoons, too. You can see yourself in both sides of the spoon. Ever notice if you look at yourself on the inside, you’re upside down? That’s so they can disorient you.”

“Sunny, I need that flatware. I can’t afford to—”

“Get plastic. It’s the only way, and it’s also the reason they use it in hospitals. And if you’ve ever seen your reflection in the microwave, it’s because they’re there too, so I took care of that. The basic rule is this: If you can see yourself, they can see you. Oh, my God, give me your purse! Right now!”

Dahlia clutched her purse to her chest. What in the hell was Sunny going to do now? It would take days to get the house cleaned. And who knew what this poor woman was capable of doing next? No. Dahlia had to correct the mistake of bringing Sunny back
here. Fast. She was destroying the house and everything in it and threatening to get worse.

Sunny’s face was blotched with red and her eyes were full of fire as she pulled the purse out of Dahlia’s grasp. Dahlia watched wordlessly as Sunny shook the purse madly, dumping the contents on the ground, then ferreted through everything until she found what she wanted. A compact and a lipstick. She opened the compact and, using the lipstick, drew little circles and
x
s on the compact mirror. Then she broke the mirror off of the compact and threw it in the air. It landed in the bushes. Dahlia, who had been frozen, knew she had to do something to stop this.

“Sunny, listen to me,” she said, and as she grabbed her cousin’s shoulders, she felt Sunny trembling. “I made a mistake. I brought you here because I thought I could help you and because I thought you needed a break from being in that place in San Diego, but this is not working. You need to be in a place where you can have your medicine controlled, have a more regimented life, be among people who are like you. I was wrong thinking I could handle this. You have to go back. So here’s what we’ll do—”

Just then the doorbell rang. Who in the hell could it be? Dahlia hurried through the house to the front door and pulled it open to a blast of purple and fuchsia in a breathtaking bouquet of flowers held by a hollow-eyed deliveryman.

“You Miss Gordon?” he asked, and Dahlia nodded, taking the flowers and putting them on the coffee table. Flowers? Who on earth would be sending her flowers? Seth. Maybe Seth wanting to make up, she
thought, tugging at the little plastic pitchfork that was strategically placed among the splashy-colored flowers. She removed it and the card it held. “Hang for one second,” Dahlia said to the deliveryman, and as she walked, she opened the envelope to pull out the card.
Faith loves your song. It’s going to be on her next CD. You’ve got a sure hit. Contracts to follow. Harry.

A hit. With a stolen song. A song that came from that lunatic in her yard who was burying her silverware. Someone who didn’t give a goddamn about having a hit. She was more interested in ripping apart the contents of Dahlia’s purse, which Dahlia hurried outside and knelt to retrieve now, so she could get some money out of her wallet to tip the deliveryman. And as she gathered up her checkbook and her keys and her makeup, a business card landed at her feet. It was the card Helene’s nephew, the guy with the beard, had given her an hour before. It said
Joe Diamond, psychopharmacologist.

As Dahlia handed the deliveryman a few dollars, she could hear Sunny rummaging through kitchen drawers, probably moving on to soaping up cake cutters, metal spatulas, and serving spoons. Now Dahlia was feeling panicky. Maybe she should call this Joe Diamond. Call anyone who might be able to help. In desperation she hurried to the phone and dialed the number on the card.

She didn’t have any idea how she’d pay a doctor, how Sunny paid for anything, but the kitchen drawers were all pulled out, her chrome teakettle was soaped up, the house was under siege, and she had to call somebody fast. After three rings she heard what she
recognized as Dr. Diamond’s gentle voice on his answering machine promising to return the call as soon as possible, and then there was a beep.

“Dr. Diamond, I’m Dahlia Gordon,” she heard her own voice quaver as she tried not to cry. She could hear Sunny moving into the bedroom. “We met at Helene Shephard’s. I’m the one with the Toyota van. Please call me. I have a real emergency on my hands.” From the clattering sounds, she guessed that Sunny was now going through Dahlia’s makeup drawer.

“Try to see through
this
, you lousy sons of bitches!” Dahlia heard Sunny say as she put the phone down. Now she rushed to the door of her bedroom to find Sunny digging into every possible cosmetic container that had a mirror and smearing it frantically. Dahlia watched her take a small travel mirror into her bare hands, break it, then throw the pieces into the wastebasket. Dahlia couldn’t remember feeling this afraid since she was a child. The tears rose in her eyes, and she sat down on the bed.

“Sunny,” she said. “Listen to me. I am going to help you find someone who will get you into some shape to make the trip back to San Diego. You can’t do this to me anymore. Or to yourself.”

“You’re right. I can’t do it anymore. But it isn’t me.” Sunny ripped the lid off a pretty little leather lipstick case and flung it over her head. “This isn’t me,” she said, making a pronouncement as she looked in Dahlia’s eyes in a way that made her almost seem lucid. As if she were telling Dahlia that the drugs and the shock treatments and the years of institutionalization had taken away every shred of who she once was.
But then Dahlia realized that wasn’t what she meant at all when she lowered her voice and whispered, “It’s the studio fucking audience.”

In a stucco building on a corner of Encino, in a small third-floor office, Joe Diamond watched Sunny, whose eyes darted all around the office looking everywhere but at him. Dahlia had just finished telling him everything she knew about Sunny’s condition, information that she was embarrassed to admit had a twenty-five-year gap in the middle. Sunny would correct her from time to time and then stand up and pace. Now the affable doctor turned all his attention to Sunny, his eyes following her everywhere she walked.

“You take yourself off the medications because you hate the side effects. Is that right?” he asked. No answer. “Sunny, can you tell me the reason for your non-compliance? Why do you stop taking the meds?”

“Um, could you possibly get rid of those framed photos on the shelves?” Sunny asked, looking down at the floor now. “I can see myself reflected in them, and you know what that means.”

Joe Diamond walked over to the shelf, which held several photos of his family, and one at a time he laid each of them facedown.

“Better?”

“Better,” Sunny said. She was trembling visibly.

“Ever try just lowering the dose?” he asked.

“Doesn’t work. I even smell those pills and I’m a zombie,” she said.

“What if I offer you a medication that might let you
play your songs and not see the studio audience?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t work that way,” she said. “Never works. Doesn’t work. Pills do not work, and I won’t take them. I am an adult. Not a guinea pig. I have a right not to take medication.”

“That’s absolutely correct. You do have that right. But with rights come responsibilities. If you don’t take medication and you hurt yourself or anyone else, there are consequences. Do you understand that?”

“I understand that you have chrome knobs on your cabinets and if I get close to them I’ll be able to see my reflection in them, and you know what that means.”

The doctor turned to Dahlia. “I’m going to tell you what I think is going on with her, but you may not want to hear it.”

All Dahlia wanted to hear was that the doctor could and would give Sunny some knockout pill that would make her docile so Dahlia could deliver her back to the Sea View. The medicine man had been right. This was way more than she’d bargained for.

Joe Diamond went on. “The only patients I’ve seen who have symptoms this severe and make it are the ones who have a strong advocate, a partner in their daily progress who acts as a touchstone for them. This disease is a monster, and nobody should have to fight a monster alone.”

Dahlia was afraid of where he was going with this, and she felt edgy and uncomfortable as he looked at Sunny now, thought about what he was going to say, and then asked her, “Sunny, what if I gave you some
thing new to try and the three of us were a team—you, me, and your cousin? She’d be the captain, and she’d make sure that you took the new medication for just a period of weeks so we could begin to get some kind of an accurate picture of how you respond to it.”

“Whoa! The captain?” Dahlia said, her eyes wide. “I don’t even have a plant in my house. I’ve never even had a cat. I can’t be the captain. I mean, I’m all for her getting better, but…I’m an out-of-work songwriter trying to survive as a masseuse, and I’m just in your office today because I made a mistake and took her out of the place in San Diego. She needs someone like the nice guy down there with the little cups who shows up every day and passes out the drugs.”

There, she thought. That made my position pretty clear. But the doctor seemed to ignore what she’d said, and he never took his eyes from Sunny.

“Sunny, why don’t we all talk about putting you on a new antipsychotic for a month or six weeks, just enough time to get an idea if it’s effective, and then regroup, with Dahlia not necessarily supervising but helping.” Now he was backpedaling a little, playing both of them to get the desired result, Dahlia thought. Pretty smart of him to make it sound as if Dahlia’s job wouldn’t be that big after she told him she couldn’t and wouldn’t handle it. But there was no way on the planet she was going to get sucked into being Sunny’s nurse, especially now that she’d seen what kind of damage Sunny could do. Songs or no songs.

“I’m not taking anything new, with her or without her,” Sunny said, and Dahlia almost cheered “Amen.”
There you go, Doc, she thought. She just gave you the big “No way, José.”

Joe Diamond sighed. “Sunny, do you know what meds you were taking when you stopped?”

“Navane, Haldol, Thorazine, Stelazine. Take the cup, suck it up, lose your brain, get pimply and quiet, drool and limp. I’ve been in shock therapy, rock therapy, dance therapy, and one very cute attendant in one of the hospitals even gave me fuck therapy. I liked it,” she said, laughing, “but he got fired when they found out he was giving it to everyone. Girls
and
boys.”

“Would you let me prescribe a drug I think might help?” Joe Diamond said. Whoa, Dahlia thought. This guy won’t quit.

“No.”

“Sunny,” Joe Diamond said, and then he waited until she looked at him before he went on. “Let me ask you this: If you were locked in a room that only had one door and I gave you a key ring with hundreds of keys, wouldn’t you try every key until you found the one that worked so you could escape?” he asked quietly. Sunny didn’t answer. Nice one, Dahlia thought. That key-ring analogy was pretty good.

“You would,” the doctor said softly, “and I’m willing to give you the key ring to get you out of the prison you’re in. The first key may not work, but if we keep trying, maybe we can get you to a place where you can play your songs and not see those people on the other side of every mirror.”

“Ha!” Sunny said. “They’re there no matter what I take. I have never
not
seen them. Just because they
don’t bother you and you may not see them doesn’t mean they didn’t do away with Natalie Wood and Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly and Princess Di. Beautiful women who looked in the mirror a lot.”

“What if I told you the drug might make those people on the other side of mirrors disappear?” he asked. His voice was kind.

“I don’t need it. If I play my songs loud enough and sing along, I don’t need any meds. And anyway, I have to pee,” she said. She looked over at Dahlia with her hand raised as if she were a child and Dahlia were the teacher.

“I’ll get you the key,” the doctor said, getting up and walking to the door of his office, “but I have to warn you, there are mirrors in the ladies’ room.”

“Dahlia will come with me, and she won’t let me look.”

The doctor looked at Dahlia, and she nodded reluctantly and sighed. How in the hell did this happen? Now she even had to take the patient to the bathroom. The key was on a large round metal ring, and Dahlia took Sunny’s shaky arm and walked her out the door of Joe Diamond’s office and across the hall.