“Just remember, Holly, next time you want to change, don’t rely on hope. Rely on me. I deliver.”
“What have you delivered? Unemployment? We’re running out of diners in Manhattan.”
“I have delivered the possibility of a new life,” said Betty Jane.
“A new life I didn’t ask for and don’t want. Besides, I didn’t hear anything other than maybes and training. I didn’t hear paycheck.You’re smoking crack if you think we can become a voice-whatever for a cartoon.”
“Well, you have a choice, Holly Miller. Get Sarge to transform our stultifying routine into one that will actually result in
something, or give up and try to find a diner in Queens that will hire you.Without me.”
I scanned the inside of my head.“Betty Jane, what did you do with Sarge?”
“Why, he and that frankincense-smelling man took the Boy on an excursion.”
“Like I believe that,” I fumed. “
What did you
—Oh!”
Mike stood in the doorway to the diner.
“How long have you, uh, been . . . ?” The puzzled look on his face told me he’d heard some if not all of my side of the conversation with Betty Jane. I froze.
“Did you lose your job?” said Mike.
“Of course I lost my job,” I snapped.
Maybe he didn’t hear anything.
He smiled warmly and I felt oddly at ease and awkward at the same time. I took a drag on my cigarette and looked him over. Not bad. He and Walter were about the same height, but Mike looked British with his straight, tight black jeans, leather jacket, and pale skin. And I liked the dark, wavy hair that was just long enough, but not so long it would get restrained in a ponytail. Betty Jane smirked. I flashed guiltily on Peter even though he was still punishing me for New Year’s Eve.
“You up for this?” said Mike.
I waited for Betty Jane to seize control. She merely yawned and moved on to the next finger with her nail file.“Up for what? All I heard was training. I need to earn money. Pay rent.”
Mike’s face appeared confused. Then he smiled warmly again and I felt that rush of recognition that said your frequency had just been aligned with the other’s. The kind that fans a flame of things to come. The kind that you know is more reality than hope.
I exhaled the tension from my body while he watched me.
“We talked about that earlier, remember?” He tapped his lips with his forefinger and pointed at me. I felt naked. “Well, if you can manage the training, your next job could be as the lead voice on
The Neighborhood
.”
“What is that anyway?” I asked.
“You don’t remember?” He paused and I gestured for him to continue instead of acknowledging the unspoken words.
“
The Neighborhood
is an animated comedy centered around Violet Dupree, a scheming Southern belle who spends her days stirring up trouble, forcing her neighbors to constantly question their own values.” I pulled a face. Sounded like Betty Jane to me. Misreading my thoughts, Mike held up his hand. “Make no mistake, the character of Violet has a good heart that always triumphs in the end.”
No wonder Robbie had pegged Betty Jane for this part. It was almost as if someone had crawled into my head, studied her, and created this character of Violet. Sans the good heart, Betty Jane was Violet. Doing this would be no stretch for her.
“Even though we’ll maintain humor throughout,” Mike continued, “the show is not going to be a sitcom that features unusual or improbable events. We’re going to take on themes ranging from the everyday, such as friendship, to more serious issues, including gender roles, women’s liberation, and drug abuse, and deal with them in a humorous way.”
“Sounds like you’ve repeated that part of your spiel more than once,” I said.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “Anyway, it’s my show. I handle the creative aspects.Actually, I call all the shots—script, direction, you name it. The buck stops with me.” He smiled.“And your Southern voice is exactly what we’re looking for.”
I felt Mike watching me and realized he was probably waiting for me to say something. So I pointed at his feet. “Nice
shoes.” He had on red Converse high-tops, just like the Boy always wore.
“Thanks,” he said.
“So what would I have to do?” I ignored Ruffles’s surprise, because the question surprised me too. But there it was, hanging between me and Mike Davey, director with the red Converse shoes like the Boy always wore.
“You need to take a lot of classes and prove to us that you can do that voice when it counts.”
Classes sounded easy. I was a good student, after all.
“Do I get paid?”
“Not until you get the part. Anyway, I already spoke to a friend of mine who’s an agent and told her to expect your call.” He handed me a card. “She’ll set you up with all the training required. Her contact details are on the back, and that’s my number if you have any questions.”
Betty Jane remained nonchalant inside my head. I accepted the card and said, “So, what’s a PA?”
“Ah, you mean Robbie? He is Walter’s personal assistant. PA. He’s going to make ten thousand dollars if you deliver. Nicely done, by the way. Robbie deserves it. Even I’ll admit PA’s get paid shit.”
Well, that was the first time Betty Jane had actually done anything nice for anyone. On second thought, he got the money only if I could manage this.What a bitch. Even if I had no interest in it, she knew I wouldn’t say no if doing so meant disappointing someone else.
“This voice-over thing isn’t for us,” said Ruffles inside my head. Betty Jane rolled her eyes. I lit another cigarette and inhaled. I wanted Mike to leave and I wanted him to stay.
“You’re going to have to give that up.” He pointed at my cigarette. “My voice-over artists don’t smoke. It’s a strict rule.”
“This?” I held up the cigarette. “Not even an issue. I barely smoke.” Betty Jane smiled triumphantly as Ruffles’s visage changed from cherubic pink to hospital gray.
After Mike left, I waited a few minutes and lit another cigarette.
“There has to be a catch,” said Ruffles. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life.”
“There is a catch,” I said, “and her name is Betty Jane.”
{ 3 }
I
heard about dissociative identity disorder during my last term at New York University when I attended a guest lecture by Dr. Milton Lawler.These talks offered me the opportunity to fill my time and earn extra credit for attending. I always showed up to get the credit, but I stayed only if the topic held my interest.
I glanced at the flyer on the lap of the person sitting next to me. “
DID and MPD
by Dr. Milton Lawler.” A lecture of acronyms. I expected to depart in less than ten minutes.
After he was introduced, Dr. Lawler surveyed the crowd through his rimless spectacles; then he said,“What is dissociation?”
Separate from a group
, I thought to myself. Like anyone familiar with Latin, I could dissect the word and get a basic answer. Maybe I’d go in five minutes.
A hand in the front shot up. I’d read somewhere that people who sat in the front always got high marks. I never sat in the front and I had a four-point GPA. Go figure.
“Yes,” said Dr. Lawler, pointing at the questioner.
“Dissociation is a mental process that produces a lack of connection
in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.”
Know-it-all.
“A textbook answer,” said Dr. Lawler.
“He agrees,” said Ruffles inside my head.
“And dissociative identity disorder, DID?” said Dr. Lawler.
“Multiple personality disorder, MPD,” said the know-it-all. “That’s what it used to be called.”
I caught my breath. I knew what multiple personality disorder was. Sarah had given me a copy of
Sybil
when she discovered my secret. I’d read the book and was relieved to report to Sarah that I wasn’t Sybil. There were parts of the book that resonated, though, and because of that, I decided to stay.
I watched Dr. Lawler speak. He certainly looked like the textbook picture of a psychoanalyst, with his burgundy corduroy pants, brown tweed jacket with a sweater vest underneath, and oxblood leather walking shoes.
As I assessed his attire, Dr. Lawler’s discussion of DID and MPD nipped at my thoughts like a stalker horse. The proverbial critical-stage attack came when he said something about co-consciousness and a level of shared awareness, of existence and behavior, among the personalities. I began to listen to what he was saying.
“In DID, levels of co-consciousness vary from person to person. Some people are completely unaware of what the other personalities are doing and/or thinking, while others are completely aware. Regardless of the level of consciousness, the system of dissociation is in place to cover up specific trauma and nothing more,” said Dr. Lawler.
I felt like I did as a small child when I sat in the middle of a conversation between my mother and one of her sisters. I knew they were talking about something of interest; and I knew if I
made one peep or moved one inch, I’d be unceremoniously tossed from the room. But if I remained statuelike, they’d forget about me and talk in hushed tones about things I didn’t understand while I strained to hear every word.
The person sitting next to me raised his hand. This surprised me. People in the back rows didn’t ask questions. “Are you saying that people can dissociate, or switch personalities, without losing their sense of time and place?” said my neighbor.
“If they are co-conscious, the dissociation serves to shield the person from painful events in the past without compromising awareness of what is occurring in the present. Therefore, the understanding of time and place remains coherent, but the trauma remains hidden.”
“In a co-conscious setup, where do the personalities go when they are not in control?”
“It all depends on the complexity of the co-conscious system,” said Dr. Lawler.“For example, in some cases, the personalities remain in the host body awareness, ready to step in at any time. In other cases, the personalities can be independent and leave for periods of time. However, even in these cases, they hover somewhere around the awareness and can return if the situation requires.”
“Sounds crowded.”
“It certainly can be if the number of personalities is large. In fact, the larger the number, the more difficult the condition is to manage and the more it impacts daily life for a variety of reasons. One being the anxiety and stress this condition places on the individual, and the other, more critical one being that the personalities represent a specific aspect of the self and do not necessarily have the same moral compass as an integrated person. These are some of the many reasons why the treatment goal is always integration.”
Inside my head, the Committee sat together on the couch, listening with interest. Usually only Ruffles attended lectures with me.
“Can someone with DID lead a normal life?” asked my neighbor.
“Absolutely. In fact, there are many people with dissociative disorders holding highly responsible jobs, contributing to society in a variety of professions—the arts, and public service, and so forth—appearing to function normally to coworkers, neighbors, and others with whom they interact daily.”
I felt like I did when a random memory of one of those conversations between my mother and my aunts happened across my adult mind. The confusion finally disappeared and I understood everything.
“Human beings are very complicated. The person next to you is weirder than you can possibly imagine,” Dr. Lawler said with a mischievous smile.The person sitting next to me laughed along with the rest of the class. I laughed too, but not for the same reason. The guy who asked the question had no idea whom he was sitting next to.
While things were wrapping up, I read Dr. Lawler’s bio on the handout. He was a doctor of psychology with postdoc analytic training instead of the formal medical training most psychoanalysts had. He said one of the keys to his work was that he did not categorize his patients; rather, he treated the uniqueness of the individual.
A few days later, I told Sarah about the lecture, and then I forgot about Dr. Lawler. After I finished university and had been working as a waitress for three years, Sarah offered me a choice: Enter into treatment with Dr. Lawler, or find a way to finance my life in New York City without help from her, my mother, or the emergency credit card. I didn’t really want to see a shrink, but
Betty Jane refused to give up the financial aid, so I agreed. That was five years ago. Since that time, I’ve often wondered if Sarah would have held fast to her terms if she’d known it was Betty Jane who made the choice to enter treatment. Betty Jane reasoned that dealing with a quack was much easier than going without.
For five years, Dr. Lawler—or Milton, as I called him—had met with me every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at four o’clock for fifty minutes. I’d found that Thursdays were usually the better day to spring the tricky stuff on Milton. Lucky for me, I’d lost my job on a Wednesday.
I shifted in my chair as I strained to hear the soft shutting of the other door. Milton’s office was set up so that the just-treated were ushered out a different exit, through a hallway, and released a couple of doors down from the office entrance.This maintained anonymity.
I had arrived earlier than usual because somehow I thought waiting in Milton’s waiting room would quell the anxiety I felt over how he would respond to the news that I’d lost my job and was considering voice-over training. Waiting only made it worse.
I heard the departure door whine through the wall and said a silent thanks to the maintenance people in this old building who never got around to fixing the squeak. Milton probably told them not to because that creaking complaint meant you were next.
“Holly. Come in,” said Milton.
I jumped up and brushed past him, in a rush to get into his office. Then I froze in the middle of the room. My throat opened but no air seemed to get past. “I’m in big trouble,” I said.