The Symptoms of My Insanity (33 page)

•   •   •

Twenty minutes have passed and I’ve gone as far as covering my blank canvas in shades of gray. Whoopee. Way to go, Izzy. I can hear singing through the walls, and debate just giving up on this last piece and watching another dress rehearsal instead.

I stare at the gray plane before me.
No
.
Come on. Just paint something. Anything.
I wipe my hands down my smock, and in a pathetic attempt at procrastination, I slide my phone on again to check my messages. Of course it’s the same as it was ten minutes ago, just one unread picture message from Jenna.

I set my phone back down and rip off a new paper towel. I dip it back into my gray. I swirl my hand around the canvas, darkening and thickening from the bottom up. Then I squeeze out some yellow and blue onto my palette. I’m trying to get this specific color that’s snap-shotting around
in my head. I mix some more color in, and then add some white, then I mix, and add, and mix, and add, and then abruptly stop, dropping my brush down so quickly to my side that paint splatters all over my blue jeans. But I don’t care. I’m transfixed by this color. I put my palette down, backing away from the canvas as if it’s about come alive or something.

I wipe off my hands and slide my phone on again. I try and keep my hand steady, but it’s already starting to shake a little. I manage, though, to open up my latest picture message. And there it is: my boob, my bra, and my fuzzy green sweater.

I don’t know how long I stay staring at it, but I know it’s long enough where the picture starts to lose its context. The subject starts to blur into the background, the planes merge, and it no longer looks like a boob, a bra, and a sweater, but just pixels and colors and shapes and shadings and dark and light and greens and pinks and reds and oranges and whites and browns and yellows.

I flip my phone upside down and stare some more. I turn my phone on its side, and stare some more. I zoom in. I zoom out. I zoom back in. Then I get out my sketchpad.

The waiting area on the surgery floor is a lot nicer than the one on Dr. Madson’s floor. It’s got bigger chairs and more privacy, not being smack in the middle of everything, and there’s a bunch of private rooms to go into if you want to be alone. One of them even has a fancy, super-loud, instant cappuccino machine in it.

“Gin!” Pam says, throwing down her cards while taking a bite of her tuna sandwich. “Again?” I shake my head and lift one of Allisa’s magazines off her body. She’s passed out with her earbuds blaring, so I don’t think she’ll mind. I look at some pictures of a bunch of girls all wearing the same color dress, and then start reading an extremely engrossing article about the kinds of things celebrities do that “real” people do too.

I try to occupy my mind with this useless information, like how many face cards I have in my hand, or the name of a celebrity grocery store in a city I don’t live in, where I can buy the best gluten-free food. That fact led to me treating myself to a Symtomaniac fix about celiac disease, and gluten
intolerance, which actually did help pass the time.

I’m about to drop Allissa’s magazine back on her body when she bolts up, now wearing her earbuds like a necklace. “What? What? What happened?”

“Nothing. No news.”

“What’s taking so long?” she says groggily, opening and closing her mouth, like she’s registering the post-nap taste in her mouth.

“I’m sure we’ll hear something soon,” Pam says. “It probably takes some time afterward to …”

“Bring people out of anesthesia,” I conclude, handing Allissa a piece of gum.

“Oh God, not again. I really don’t need to hear those kinds of words right now, Izzy.”

“What words?”

“Words—medical words, like …
anesthesia
.”

“Anesthesia?” I ask. “The word
anesthesia
bothers you?”

“Stop saying it!”

We all stare down the hall toward Dr. Madson’s office, and then back at each other.

“Allissa,” I finally say. “You know what anesthesia is, right?”

“Yes, Dr. Izzy.” She hops up. “I need coffee.”

“Sorry,” I say, following her down the hall and into the cappuccino machine room, “I just don’t understand why that’s a scary word. I mean, yes, it’s dangerous when not administered correctly, and Mom is really thin, but it’s not like—”

“Okay, stop.” Allissa grabs a cup and pushes the button on the machine. “Why do you have to go there all the time?”

“I don’t know,” I say over the gurgling, whirring, and hissing. “So I won’t … go insane, I guess.”

“Well, hearing all those details, all the time, kind of makes
me
go insane, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I know.” I grab a cup for myself, thinking about Marcus trying to talk details with me the other day.

Allissa takes a sip of her instant cappuccino, makes a blech face, puts the cup down on the side table, and takes her phone out of her pocket.

“Which one of these do you like better?” She passes me her phone, which has a picture of two identical objects that I think are called credenzas.

“Um … the black one.”

“Izzy, they’re both black.”

“Oh, sorry …”

“I have to finalize for Stacy what we want for the attic.”

“Oh.” I take another look. “The one with the silver handles.”

“Yeah, you’re right. The other one is ‘tacky, tacky,’ but that one is ‘classy tacky,’ you know?”

“Yeah,” I lie, and take a sip of my—barf—cloudy, coffee-flavored sugar water.

“I know Mom’s birthday’s not for another couple weeks,” Allissa says, flipping through more pictures of furniture on her phone, “but I want to have this done for her, or nearly
done soon. ’Cause she’ll want to work when she gets out of here, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So … you think she’ll like it?” Allissa asks.

“What, the attic? The new furniture? Yes. She’s gonna flip out.”

“She went gaga over your painting last year.” Allissa slumps down on the chair next to the machine. “She still brags about it to people. And what did I get her? A stupid pair of earrings.”

“She loves those earrings!”

“Eh.”

I sit down next her.

“I’m really sorry I charged those things to your card,” I tell her now.

“It’s okay, I didn’t … I won’t rat you out. I guess you were just trying to help Mom.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing I do, or did, really helped. I mean, I know facts and stuff, but who cares. It doesn’t … It didn’t help her.”

“Izzy, there’s nothing you could have done. I mean, what could you have done?”

“I don’t know, something! I heard her coughing, and I knew she wasn’t eating, and then I saw she posted in her chat room, and … She told me about her appointment with Dr. Madson before she told you and Pam, but I never said anything …
useful
, and now she’s—”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference. Don’t make yourself
more crazy than you naturally are.” She gives me a small smile. I smile back and take another sip of my cappuccino.

“I’m not … I’m not moving away if anything … if she … you know …”

“No, of course not, we’re both staying here. You’ll come live up here with me,” she says matter-of-factly, and I guess I look skeptical, because she adds, “I mean, once I get out of the dorms and get my own place.”

I smile at her, nodding.

“I’m so sick of being here,” she gasps out, drop-folding her upper body forward like a marionette. She pops back up, and then marionettes her neck over the back of the chair. She looks absolutely exhausted. But, at the same time, still kind of great. She’s managed to inherit that Mom gene that makes even a T-shirt and sweatpants look perfect. But I know underneath, like I do with Mom, that it’s not.

I soon nudge her upright because Pam’s marching over to us with Dr. Madson right behind her. He looks more like a real surgeon now, in scrubs and one of those fancy masks around his neck. Pam has an “I’m crying, but it looks like I’m laughing” kind of cry. She’s holding one hand to her stomach and the other to her mouth while leaning back and shaking her shoulders up and down.

“What is it? What’s going on?” I stand up with Jell-O legs, and put a shaky arm around her.

Twenty years go by, but finally Pam gets out, “She’s … she did good!”

I drop my shoulders down and lean into Pam’s side.

•   •   •

A nurse named Carlos has led the three of us into the recovery room, where he’s telling us that Mom’s a “happy camper right now.”

Which I think is think code for “super-drugged-up.”

“… Pepse, gimme Pepse, wanna Pepsi,” Mom’s mumbling when we arrive. Which I think is a good sign, that she’s talking now.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.

She opens her eyes a little and squints at me. “Izzy, Izzy, Izzy,” she says, but kind of all together like it’s one name.

“Yeah? Hi, Mom,” I repeat.

Pam and Allissa both step around to the other side of the bed and say hi, murmuring encouraging words. Mom mumbles out their names and then says, “Whacha’ll doin’?”

“Um … nothing much,” Allissa says.

“’Kay, well, gimme Pepsi.”

“Linda, everything’s going to be okay. Okay?” Pam says.

“Okeydokey,” Mom mumbles. “Donlehem put me underneath withow cuttin’ my hair off.”

“What?” Allissa says.

“I need a cut before they put me underneath it ’cause my hair’s very irregular and s’not very regular. Is it regular?”

“Looks … pretty regular to me, Mom,” I assure her.

“Your hair looks great,” Allissa chimes in.

“I gotta go underneath now so see you ssslater, ’kay?” Mom mumbles.

“Linda, you’ve already gone under. It’s over now, okay?”

“No, no, no, it’s the beginning, it’s all the beginning,” Mom insists.

“No Mom, it’s all over. It’s over.” Allissa reaches for her hand.

“Yes, it’s over Linda, it’s all over,” Pam says.

“It’s all beginning. And I wanna wear my pink sweater. Not the Pepto-pink one. The other one. ’Kay? Donlehem do anything to me till I ge’my pink sweater on.”

“Okay, Linda, whatever you say.” Pam is smiling.

Then Carlos comes in again and tells us that Mom needs her rest. We kiss her good-bye while she continues to mumble something about Pepto-pink, her skin tone, and a Pepsi.

We leave the room, and I know Mom might have been really loopy in there, but I think she was right. I think it’s all just the beginning too.

“So that’s why I’m using scented candles now,” Pam says, finishing up this story about how Tootsie—her ginormously fat cat—won’t stop eating the potpourri in her bathroom and keeps throwing up lavender-smelling vomit.

Allissa almost spits up her tea, she’s laughing so hard, and next to me at the kitchen table, Cathy Mason looks so disturbed that I’m surprised she hasn’t excused herself to the bathroom yet. I laugh-snort some milk out my nose, and even Mom, who hardly ever finds bodily function humor funny, cracks a small smile when she says, “Oh, Pam, that is absolutely disgusting.” She reaches for her wheely pole. “Okay,” she says, “who wants another piece of cake?” She slowly gets up from her chair, and we all turn and watch her rise. Walking on her own is a development as of yesterday, and it makes us all a little nervous.

“Linda, sit yourself back down,” Pam says.

“It’s my house and I’ll serve cake when I want to,” Mom replies, shuffling and wheeling her way over to the kitchen counter. Mom’s only been home three days, but yesterday
the visiting nurse who changed her PIC line said she’s acting as if it’s been three weeks.

“Linda, you look so good,” Cathy says.

“Eh,” is Mom’s reply.

I’ve been trying to keep her beauty routine up, but I’m not very good at it. I blow-dry her hair for her in the mornings, but I don’t have the skills with the round brush to get it into her usual stiff yet buoyant shape. And her hair’s a lot thinner than mine, so if I take too long, random chunks end up looking creased or waving in the wrong direction. Her makeup is on as usual, though she still has some cuts on her lips, and the skin around her eyes looks a lot looser now since she’s lost more weight.

She takes the plastic lid off the giant cake that Cathy brought over and says, “Mmm, it smells so fresh.” Then Cathy apologizes, again, for being the dunce who brought food to a woman who can’t eat. Mom says, “Hush,” and picks up a huge knife to start cutting more slices for everyone. It’s pretty impressive, since one of her arms is pretty much useless, still hooked up to her TPN pole.

Allissa and I help carry the cake plates back to the table. I pull a giant piece of wallpaper trim off Allissa’s back on the way. Mom hasn’t been able to do stairs yet, but after the work Allissa and I did today, she won’t even recognize the attic when she sees it.

I should have spent today at the studio, but it’s been really nice having everyone here and hanging out. Since Allissa has midterm exams coming up, and Pam was needed back at
school, I’ve been mainly on my own with recovery duty at home this week.

“… And so the whole thing overall was really very impressive,” Cathy says, finishing up her
Oklahoma!
review. “Although the kiss at the end between that cowboy and soprano girl was way too long. And I’m pretty sure I saw tongue! Which I think is a tad inappropriate, especially for that time period.”

“Hmm,” Mom says, as if she’s seriously contemplating a French kiss’s historical accuracy.

I missed seeing the play, since opening night was Mom’s first night back home. She kept mumbling, “If it’s important to you, go,” every time she’d half wake up on the couch. And I’d respond by telling her the truth, that it wasn’t, and that it had always been more Jenna’s thing than mine anyway.

Jenna actually called me from the opening night cast party and confirmed that Emily Belfry and Ben Roswin did indeed French throughout the entire curtain call. When Marcus called me later that week to check in, he added that he’s now had to take over lighting duty because apparently Derrick, who was not so happy about all the stage Frenching, decided to have trouble “finding Emily” with the spotlight during her big musical numbers.