Very LeFreak (16 page)

Or tell them herself.

Maybe.

Step 10—Continued to take personal
inventory, and when we were wrong
,
promptly admitted it
.

Very would think about that one later.

Step 11—Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our conscious
contact with God as we understood God
,
praying only for knowledge of
God’s will for us and the power
to carry that out
.

Ella, when you know what I’m supposed to do, please send me a sign. I know you can’t do it through my iPod … yet … but I’ll be waiting to hear from you. And hear you
.

Step 12—Having had a spiritual
awakening as the result of these steps
,
we tried to carry this message to other
addicts, and to practice these
principles in all our affairs.

Very didn’t know what kind of messenger she’d turn out to be once back on the outside, but—
Hallelujah, Miss Ella!
—perhaps she had indeed experienced a spiritual awakening.

“Addict,” Very said aloud. She spoke only to herself, alone in her room.

Miraculously, she didn’t melt away and die from the utterance.

Instead, Very fell asleep, exhausted. And relieved.

CHAPTER 25

To usher in Very’s second week at ESCAPE, Keisha suggested they discuss what had ushered Very into ESCAPE to begin with.

“Microwaved Chewy Chips Ahoy! cookies,” Very told Keisha. “They brought about the Fall of Very.”

“Tell me more about that,” Keisha said.

“I’ll need some M&M’s,” Very said.

“Today I have chocolate peanut butter cups.” Keisha held out a box from a proper candy store. She opened it up to reveal rows of peanut butter cups.

Very took one and popped it into her mouth. “You own me now,” she told Keisha. “You’re not playing fair.”

“So tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Well, I think I figured something out. I was friendly-ish with two people my age here, Kate and Erick—maybe you met them?—who just left. And I was so determined not to become truly intimate with them. I don’t mean in the sexy way—though believe me, it occurred to me. I mean, in the really good friends way. We talked and all, and had a lot in common, but I really tried to hold back from becoming friends with them. To the point that, as they were leaving, Kate slipped me a piece of paper with her and Erick’s e-mail addresses, and I tossed it in the trash as soon as she couldn’t see.”

“Why?”

“To protect them from me! The whole reason I landed here to begin with is because of fraternization.”

“What kind of fraternization?”

“Well, you know how I told you about my friends from the dorm at Columbia? How my friend Bryan and I had created The Grid together for other students to use as a private networking forum?”

“Yes. You originally said you felt like Bryan’s destroying your laptop was the catalyst to your ending up at ESCAPE. Do you still feel that way?”

“Yes, but it’s bigger than just that one incident. The Grid we’d created together—it was a pretty powerful feeling, to be honest. To be in control of that universe. And to share that with him. But I let it break apart when I slept with Bryan.”

“You slept with Bryan? How did that come about?”

“It was Spring Break. Most everyone had gone away—you know, all the rich kids with parents who can afford to send them on fancy vacations. And I was sort of bored, and lonely….” Very couldn’t bring herself to discuss the El Virus longing that had factored into what happened that day. She didn’t know why, but El Virus was the one part of herself she didn’t want to share with Keisha, who was already privy to so much of Very’s personal life. “There was always this tension between me and Bryan. I knew he liked me as more than just a friend, and I really wanted to like him that way, too. He was so puppy-dog cute. Like, you just wanted to take him in and play with him and cuddle him. But what happened between us—in all honesty, he might have just caught me at a really horny moment. Sorry to be so crude. Especially when I just referenced him as being like a puppy. But that’s how it was. There wasn’t this big buildup of sexual tension between us, at least on my part. It was just like he walked into my room when Lavinia was gone, at the exact moment I was wanting to be with someone. And I let him in, and everything fell apart after.”

“How so?”

“Because he wanted to be in a relationship, and I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I just had no feelings for him that way.”

“What way?”

“The way, you know, I’d felt with Kristy. That buzz of excitement and wonder and wow and feeling completely alive. Even if it was hopeless.”

“Is that how you view love? As hopeless?”

“Not as hopeless, generally. But for me, specifically—probably.”

“My hope for you is that as you evolve in life, your opinion on the subject—and faith in yourself—will improve. But back to Bryan. How did the incident of his destroying your laptop play into your winding up here?”

“It wasn’t that, I don’t think. I mean, yeah, that incident ultimately caused me to lose it, but I’m trying to think harder about what came before. It feels like sleeping with him to begin with was what triggered a lot of messed-up shit in me.”

“Explain.”

“Sleeping with Bryan wasn’t just fooling around. It meant more. It was, like, real intimacy—opening a box that should have been left closed. That Pandora thing, you know? Bryan was a friend. He cared about me. We shared this online creation. And I treated him terribly afterward.”

“Are you saying you think you deserved his ultimate reaction—convincing your resident advisor to take away your laptop, then destroying it?”

“Deserved, no. But I was ready for a fall. Almost like I willed it to happen. In high school, you know, I had mostly been a star student. But when I got to Columbia, the pressure got so big.
Everyone
there had been the smartest kid in their high school. It was like I had to create The Grid just to stand out. And it wasn’t just academic pressure. The pressure of simply surviving on my own was tremendous. I mean, I’d gone from losing my mom to landing on the doorstep of an aunt who was practically a stranger to me, but her home had been nice, and safe—but it was just a bubble, maybe. Suddenly, at Columbia, truly on my own for the first time, it felt like I was flung into a life that was much harder and more demanding than I’d expected, with no one, really, to help me, and on top of that, at a school that’s in a city that’s really exciting but also that’s really, really hard. The pace was too much and I couldn’t survive financially and …”

Keisha handed Very the candy box again. “Whoa, sister. Take a breather.”

Very nibbled on the chocolate, but set it down quickly. She pondered a moment more and said, “It’s like I never had a landing pad. I just flew from thing to thing, always by the seat of my pants, but never stopped to take stock, or deal.”

“How did Bryan fit into that?”

“I guess I used him like a landing pad. A safe and convenient one. But the wrong one. And I don’t want to do that anymore. Land in the wrong places, and hurt good people in doing so.”

“I think that’s half the battle,” Keisha said. “Acknowledging the problem, dissecting it, and then trying to make a conscious choice to take better actions in the future.”

“Should I throw a party to celebrate the realization?” Very asked. “Because that’s what my old self would have done.”

“You tell me,” Keisha said. “I thought you were resolved not to make friends here. Who will you invite?”

There was only one person Very would want to invite, she realized.

Wasn’t Lavinia just up the road? So where the hell had she been, anyway?

CHAPTER 26

Yoga made Very fart and burp too much, and she was too ADD for meditation, but the laundry thing had some possibilities, at least as random contemplative, spirit-cleansing time went. It got her clothes clean, too. Bonus.

At Columbia, Very had typically taken her laundry to a nearby wash ‘n’ fold place to be done for her—an expensive habit, but the Laundromat took credit cards, so it seemed cheap, almost as free as that first week of school when Lavinia did Very’s laundry. (By the end of the week, Lavinia had copped to Very’s texting and video game habits, and consequently made the connection that the wrist problems Very purported to have that would hinder her coin-operating, washing-and-folding abilities, in fact, would not whatsoever.) But at ESCAPE, not only was Very required to do her own laundry, but she was required to use an old-fashioned washboard and wringing contraption that took forever, and made her arms sore and tired. And yet it was strangely satisfying work.

To Keisha, Very had confessed, “Bryan said I was robotically attached to my machinery and had no personality beyond my electronic props.”

Keisha responded, “Ouch. Do you think that’s true about yourself?”

“I want to think that’s not true about myself.”

Perhaps laundry-by-hand was a step toward debunking that myth.

Very liked the simplicity of the experience. Clothes and linens were dirty. She swished and wrung and rinsed them. She hung them to dry on a line out in the sun behind her cabin. And hey now, the stuff not only turned out clean but smelled extra nice and fresh, and felt crisp and lovely against her skin, and she’d made that happen herself. Quite possibly when Very was sprung from ESCAPE and had to get a real job, she might become a laundry person. She’d listen to her ‘Pod while washing clothes all the day long, never getting into trouble. She’d sing to herself to pass the time, and make people really happy with the results of her labor and her off-key but endearing song stylings, and she’d possibly win the Nobel Peace Prize because of her community service work that made her neighborhood, and its citizens and their stuff, so much cleaner, and brighter, and musically well-versed. Or, she could become a nail salon lady, also an important community asset, because doing so much laundry was chipping away at her nails, and her cuticles were a mess, and really, it didn’t seem right that ESCAPE did not offer beauty services in exchange for all the indentured servitude it required of its residents.

It was time to lodge a complaint with Dr. Killjoy about this problem. Or better yet, perhaps Very could circulate a petition on the subject, so that when she presented her case to Dr. Killjoy, it would seem more … fair, and reasonable, and not entirely selfish, because it was a grassroots campaign.

Another strange thing about laundry. The grass. Since the Vermont summer was so pleasant and mild, Very was able, joyfully, to roam the grounds barefoot. On the other hand (or foot), this roaming had created calluses on her feet, but the feel of her feet sinking into plush green grass was so fucking sweet. Very loved standing outside in the fresh air with her feet bare, her toes dancing through the grass as she stood at the laundry line, hanging sheets. She couldn’t believe such a simple chore could bring her so much sheer pleasure.

Others, apparently, could not, either.

“I don’t believe it,” a voice called to Very from behind her as she stood at the laundry line, hanging sheets.

Very’s toes curled in recognition of that voice. It belonged to … Very turned around … “Lavinia!” she cried out. She was so happy to see her friend’s familiar face, she didn’t care that the last time she’d seen it had been in the psych ward.

Very threw her arms up to welcome Lavinia into a hug, dropping her pillowcases to the ground as she did so, but no matter, she’d wash them again; more fun for Very later. Lavinia stepped into Very’s hug. “You smell good, like eucalyptus detergent,” Lavinia said, sniffing Very’s hair. Lavinia let go of Very to appraise her. “But seriously, I’ve been watching you for a couple minutes, and you look like a flame-haired Snow White out here, chirping as you hang laundry. I half expected some birds to land on your shoulder and sing along with you.”

“That would be so awesome if that happened,” Very said, shaking her head in envy at the idea. (But she’d rather be the voluptuous St. Pauli girl instead of Snow White—she wanted at least the promise of some beer and/or fornication after the chirping-along-with-nature costume fantasy.) She grabbed Lavinia’s hand and led her to a nearby bench to sit down. “What are you doing here?”

“I promised you I’d come visit. So here I am. My camp’s not too far away down the lake. Sorry for the lack of warning. This other counselor at camp asked me to switch days off with her at the last minute, so I ended up having today off, and I obviously can’t call you first to schedule a visit, so I figured I’d just show up and take a chance that it was a good visiting time. Is it?”

“It is!” Very said. “I had group therapy already this morning, did my penance at Dr. Joy’s daily lecture, so I’m free until I have to report for kitchen duty in a couple hours.”

“You? Do kitchen duty?” Lavinia said, disbelieving.

“I’ll have you know I am this facility’s most ace user of a Brillo pad on roasting pans, missy.”

“I’m impressed,” Lavinia said.

Very liked that. Impressing Lavinia. It seemed like a worthy goal, beyond the simple technological sobriety Very was now striving to maintain. “I’m eleven days clean,” Very said, in case Lavinia wasn’t impressed enough already.

“Congrats!” Lavinia said. “I’m proud of you. I really am. Sorry I couldn’t visit you during the first week. They told me new people were considered to be too vulnerable then. But they said that if you made it past the first week, then I could come visit.”

As happy as Very was to see Lavinia, she couldn’t deny that seeing her former roommate also brought back hard feelings: humiliation at her Jay friends’ “intervention,” and anger, and a sense of displacement that they could apparently carry on so casually with their own lives while Very was left muddling through the muddy, grassy swamp-mess she’d enmeshed herself in.

But the joy—and relief—that Lavinia had come to see her more than outweighed any sheepishness Very might have felt at their reunion. “How’s Camp Hoochie going?” Very asked Lavinia. “Since I obviously can’t read the blog updates you’ve undoubtedly been compulsively posting.” Lavinia, an avowed non-blogger, shuddered. She loathed blogs—or “brags,” as she called them.

Lavinia was a camp counselor at Camp Hoochinoo, an all-girls camp a few miles down the lake from ESCAPE. It was known as “Camp Hoochie” because of the wealthy, sophisticated tweens who visited the camp each summer, eight-to-eleven-year-olds going on thirty-year-olds, whose favorite game was role-playing
Sex and the City
episodes and quizzing one another on “Are you a Carrie, a Miranda, a Samantha, or a Charlotte?” (Very thought of Lavinia as a Charlotte, and herself as a Samantha-who-wanted-to-be-a-Miranda. Carrie was just … blech. Who’d want to be that shallow bitch?)

“Camp’s fine,” Lavinia said. “Although most of the girls in my bunk this year are Carries. Yuck. The Carries are the worst. You’d think it would be the Charlottes who’d be the most annoying—too high-maintenance—but at least the Charlottes tend to be sweet. The Carries are just brutal. If I see one more mean girl at camp trading candy for designer shoes, I’m going to lose it.”

“I’m trying to be more Miranda, less Samantha,” said Very.

“Just be Very,” Lavinia said. “Please.”

“You’ll still love me even without my gadgets?”

“Even more so. For putting in the time and work to get yourself together.”

“Thanks,” Very mumbled. This impressing Lavinia thing was … almost as satisfying as doing laundry. “Wanna take a look around and see the mortuary—I mean, grounds—here?”

“I do,” Lavinia said, standing up.

Per familiar pattern, they locked pinkie fingers and began a leisurely stroll. As they wandered past the buildings and the other residents, Very explained the social order. “There are two sets of social hierarchies here that I’ve been able to identify. The first applies to the old people versus the young. That stuff mainly only plays out in the dining hall, though. The second applies to all spectrums of ages. I call it the ‘Acolytes versus the Resistance Movement.’”

“Acolytes? How so? I thought this place was nondenominational.”

“Acolytes like groupies,” Very clarified. “The people who’ve fallen hook, line, and sinker for Dr. Joy’s 12 Steps / New Age blah blah blah. They’re the ones who talk at group therapy while the others just shrug and feign listening or try to nap.”

“Don’t tell me,” Lavinia started. “You’re in the—”

“Napping category,” Very finished. “Affirmative. So the Acolytes worship Dr. Joy and want to do things for her all the time, like trim the hedges so Dr. Joy won’t have to pay for professional gardeners and shit. She’s got them convinced that it’s part of their spiritual purification and that they’re learning valuable skills.”

“Aren’t they?”

“If they live in New Jersey or something, maybe.”

“I’m from New Jersey. Trimming hedges might be a useful skill at my parents’ house, actually.”

“Whatever, Jersey girl. The point is, you might want to garden, but you probably have enough sense of your own identity that you wouldn’t fall under the Cult of Dr. Joy. See, look at them.”

Very directed their walk toward the gardens, where a parade of Acolytes stood at attention for Dr. Joy. The Acolytes wore gardening gloves and rubber boots and had determined smiles and glazed eyes. Dr. Joy pointed to a pile of shovels. She directed them: “Today we’re going to dig areas for placing these tomato plants in the ground. These tomatoes will sprout roots to your souls. You must dig, and irrigate, and tend to these souls.”

“I had salad for lunch,” Lavinia remarked. “It was good. So who are the people in the Resistance Movement?”

Very steered them toward Jones’s house. “They’re the ones who smoke, and obsessively needlepoint, and bitch about being here, but they’re not so much against the whole thing that they escape or drop out of the program. They’re progressing.”

“Are you in that camp?” Lavinia asked.

“I’m sort of in the middle. Indifferent. Trying to put in my time and make it through, but not really socialize too much with either camp, really.”

Lavinia laughed heartily. “Yeah, right.”

“Really!” Very said.

Lavinia fondled a strand of Very’s flame-red hair and tucked it behind Very’s ear. “Sure, sweetie,” she said.

Lavinia’s lack of faith in Very was unsettling. “So how many counselors at your
all-girls
camp have you been—ahem—‘socializing’ with?” Very countered.

Lavinia said, “FYI, there are men at Camp Hoochie, too. Lifeguards and administrative staff. It’s not entirely sapphic there. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Any special sapphic someone in the Arts and Crafts building you’ve got your eye on?” Very asked. “Perhaps a nice sophomore from Oberlin College, a folk singer double-majoring in Women’s Studies and Bioethics?”

“Ha-ha,” Lavinia said. “But if you really want to know, yes, there is someone special I might have my eye on. A lifeguard. Just finished junior year at UMass. Sports Management major, on the football team. Fills out a Speedo nicely. And smart, too.”

Very covered her ears with her hands. “La la la,” she said. “Can’t hear you. Don’t want to know.”

Lavinia wasn’t supposed to have a romantic life unless Very could be there to oversee every aspect of it. The first person who took Lavinia’s innocence and hurt her … Very would kill him. Or her. Whomever.

They’d passed the smokers and the sewing circles on the porch at Jones’s house and circled back to the pool, nestled under several large trees. Because the pool wasn’t heated in the summertime, few people used it, preferring the natural pleasures of lake swimming, available not too far away. Because of its lack of popularity, the pool was poorly tended. Parts of the cement around it were cracked, the handrail on the ladder was broken, and the water had leaves and dead bugs floating on top.

Lavinia grabbed a cleaning net propped against a pool chair and swatted it through the water. “Shame this nice pool doesn’t look like it gets used much,” she said. “The girls in my bunk would go crazy for a pool. The Charlottes, especially. They hate swimming in the lake. Those girls are
so
prissy.”

Lavinia wasn’t really a priss. Perhaps she wasn’t such a Charlotte after all. What would that make her? Just … a Jennifer?

Very sat down on the pool ledge and dangled her feet in the water as Lavinia cleaned it. “So what’s happening? You know, out in the world?”

“Politics and war and stuff?”

“No. I mean, everyone from school. How’s everyone doing?”

“Bryan’s fine, if that’s what you mean. Got that internship in Portland; it’s going well. Haven’t heard from Jean-Wayne. Haven’t heard much from anyone, really. I hardly ever go online to check messages. Since I have my phone with me for anyone who really needs to reach me, I don’t bother using the computer terminals at camp much.”

“How do you live like that?” Very asked. She genuinely wanted to know. How was it possible to have online access, whenever, and not care about that privilege?

“Are you kidding? It’s a
relief
to be offline. I’m enjoying this quiet summer by the lake, away from the world and information overload, just swimming and canoeing and, yeah, making the occasional pot holder with the Mirandas, who are more industrious than the other ones, let me tell you.”

“What do you want to be?” Very asked Lavinia.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, after you’ve finished school. Have you decided on a career?”

“Funny you should ask that,” Lavinia said, circling the pool and tending to it like an experienced nature expert. “It’s what’s been on my mind. One of the reasons I went back to camp was to give myself one last year of fun and no pressure, but I also wanted to try to figure out what I want to do during this downtime. I’ve been going to this camp since I was eight. Now that I’ve graduated to camp counselor, I wanted one last summer there before I have to start doing internships and getting on a real career path. I think I’ve decided I’d like to be a doctor.”