Group Therapy, page 18
“That explains the fight club,” I mutter, my eyes landing on a precious collection of my own. Setting my box and framed degree down in the driveway, I let my legs carry me across the yard, delivering me to the spot where a familiar, guarded gaze stares back, upside down in the dewy grass.
I kneel beside the pile of books and pick up Ruby Lies off the top of the stack. The cover is dirty, and the corners are now bent, but Thomas’s chiseled features and crooked smile are more heartbreaking than ever. I brush a smattering of dirt off his cheek, resisting the urge to kiss it.
Mark sits down next to me with a huff. “Well, you don’t have to act so damn sad about it. Gah. Now you’re makin’ me feel bad.”
“Where are you gonna go?” I ask without looking up from Thomas’s smirk.
“Where all the fabulous people go when they fuck up their lives and don’t wanna deal with it … rehab, honey.”
I nod. “Good. That’s good, Mark.”
“Oh shit,” he says, placing a hand over his heart as realization strikes. “Where are you gonna go?”
Lou
“THANKS, COURT. I OWE you one.”
Courtney’s eyes go wide as the gravel road we’re bouncing over gives way to a clearing filled with RVs and shacks and a bonfire ten feet tall, surrounded by gyrating bodies. “What is this place?”
“You should probably let me out here,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt. “If they see this gas-guzzler on their property, they’ll chase you down the mountain with citronella torches. I’ve seen it happen.”
Courtney comes to a stop on the edge of the clearing, but it’s too late. The rumble of a Birkenstock stampede pounding the earth and faraway shouts perk my ears just before a half-dozen middle-aged hippies come into view, running toward us with their environmental protest signs raised and their teeth bared.
“Shit.” I jump out of the SUV and throw open the back passenger door, unloading my stuff as fast as I can.
“Lou?” Courtney asks in her pageant-queen voice. “Um …”
“Earth killer!”
“Pollution Nazi!”
“Make love, not carbon emissions!”
The commune members’ voices grow louder and louder as I yank my belongings out faster and faster.
“Loooou?” Courtney’s voice takes on a shrill, panicked tone before she suddenly throws the Suburban in reverse and stomps on the gas.
I get out of the way before the door takes me out, but I can’t say the same for my boxes and suitcase, which are knocked over, smashed, and/or dragged by Courtney’s still-open back door.
Until, of course, it hits a tree trunk and gets ripped clean off.
Courtney’s three-doored SUV disappears backward down the steep gravel drive—along with her screams—as Leif and five of Indigo Hills’ finest go sprinting after her, half-naked and shouting about climate change and trees being people too.
God, I hate this place.
“Hey, Lou Bear.”
The voice behind me is sweet and comforting. I hate that too.
I muster a fake smile and turn to face my mother. Her eyes are kind and crinkled at the corners, and her bangles jingle like wind chimes as she lifts her arms for a hug.
George is by her side, a faded Mets cap covering his balding head and a warm smile at the ready. “Hiya, kid.”
The pity on their faces is more than I can bear. My chin buckles, and I dive into my mother’s arms, if only to keep them from seeing me break.
“Shh …” she coos, smoothing a hand over my hair as tears that are fifteen hours in the making finally start to fall. “Shhhhhh …”
George pats me on the back, unsure of what to do with all this emotion. “Uh … come on, kiddo,” he finally says, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Let’s get you settled in.”
George hadn’t lied—my bunk/coffin is exactly the way I left it. I decline an invite to mingle with the burnouts around the bonfire and instead retreat to the psychedelic tin can that I swore I’d never step foot in again. The tie-dyed graveyard of my failed adulthood.
Outside, people are singing and chanting and speaking in joyous tongues, but in here, it feels like a funeral that nobody came to. Just me, in my casket, leaking silent tears while I wait for someone to remember I’m here and cover my miserable ass in dirt.
I stare up at the My Chemical Romance poster taped to the ceiling, eighteen inches above my head. It’s an illustration of a blood-spattered boy and girl on the verge of a kiss, gazing into one another’s eyes. I rip it down in a fit of rage and wad it into a spiky ball, but instead of throwing it across the RV, my body betrays me. It curls around that fucking poster like it’s a teddy bear and sobs even harder.
I thought leaving Thomas would save me from suffering the same fate as my mother.
Turns out, it only sped up the process.
Lou
TIME EXISTS IN A vacuum in this place. I feel like I just got here, but at the same time, I feel like I never really left. That decade I spent in the real world disappeared in the blink of an eye, and all I have to show for it is a framed piece of paper with my name on it, a pile of student loan debt, and some shiny, new emotional baggage for my collection.
I sit in a bed of rust-colored leaves under the oak tree where I used to draw, flipping through one of my old sketchpads. There’s a pencil tucked in the spiral binding, but I don’t feel like using it. I don’t feel like breathing either, but since when has what I wanted mattered?
There’s a zombified portrait of everyone at the commune inside this relic, plus a few celebrities and boys that I fooled around with in high school. I can see how much time and attention went into each and every drawing. I forgot that Bianca, the former beekeeper here, had an asymmetrical nose. And that Kevin Watersby from my honors English class had his ears pierced. I also forgot how many different styles of shading I tried before I settled on crosshatch.
All of them. I tried all of them.
The sound of approaching footsteps causes me to slam my notebook shut and flip the hood of my black sweatshirt up over my head. I don’t look up to see who’s coming. Eye contact, even accidental, is an invitation for a thirty-minute conversation about composting techniques around here. But the feet that come to a stop in front of me aren’t covered in vegan moccasins. In fact, they’re not feet at all.
They’re hooves.
Tilting my head back, I follow a pair of furry white legs up to a broad, muscular body, which is draped with a colorful, hand-dyed broomstick skirt that I would recognize anywhere. I release a sigh and glance the rest of the way up at my mother’s glowing face, backlit by the autumn sun, like some kind of ethereal, bohemian angel who travels the cosmos on her trusty white steed.
A white steed that just chuffed at me in disapproval.
“Lou Bear, you’ve been in this same spot all weekend.” Her voice is soft, concerned, as she strokes a hand down the horse’s silvery mane. “Come with me. I know what’ll make you feel better.”
“Alcohol that wasn’t made from distilled corn?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Crystal says with a hint of parental sternness. “You know Jethro makes muscadine wine too.”
I grimace, picturing Jethro—an old, pantsless, gap-toothed man with a long white beard—grinning as he mashes muscadines in a barrel with his feet.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You are not. Come.” She extends her hand, forcefully enough to let me know she’s serious. “It’ll be wonderful, I promise.”
Five minutes later, I’m sitting on the back of a horse, straddling my mother as she trots up to a wooden pavilion I’ve never seen before.
She extends a hand, bangles jingling in the breeze, toward, “Our new spa.”
“Spa?” I’m not sure I heard her correctly. This thing is just a roof held up by a few telephone poles.
“It’s heavenly. Come.” With a sweep of her leg, Crystal slides off the horse, yards of bright fabric billowing around her before she lands.
I try to get off the same way, but my dismount looks—and feels—more like a slow fall from a high place.
Inside the pavilion, there aren’t even picnic tables—just a huge wooden sandbox-like frame that takes up the entire space. And has been filled with, “Corn?”
Crystal slips out of her sandals. “Take your shoes off, darling.”
“Is this like one of those fish tank pedicures, only instead of fish, it’s giant, plague-infected rats?” I ask, kicking off my Converse.
Crystal steps into the corn and moans appreciatively.
I try not to roll my eyes as I follow her in, but the moment my feet sink into that sea of dried kernels, my eyes roll all by themselves—up into the back of my head. “Oh my God, why does this feel so goooood?”
Crystal turns to face me with a grin. “Wait until you lie down. It’s like being cradled in the bosom of the Divine Mother herself.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I practically swan-dive into the vat of corn, turning onto my back as a million little kernels wrap me up in one giant hug.
My mom kneels beside me, smiling and humming to herself as she piles more corn on top of me, burying me up to my face. “It’s nice, right?”
“It’s amazing.” The sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s like floating on water, but the water is perfectly still. And it’s heavy. And it’s corn.
“I know what you’re going through, Lou Bear,” my mom says without looking up from the pile of kernels she’s amassing on my chest. “You might not remember, but I lost my real estate business right before we came here.”
“I remember you crying a lot,” I admit.
“It was awful. First, I lost your father, and then four years later, the housing market crashed.”
“And then you ran away to a hippie commune,” I bite out. “I definitely remember that part.”
The memory of those years takes whatever bliss I was feeling and lights it on fire.
“It took losing everything for me to finally find myself,” Crystal says with a wistful smile.
And that smile is the kerosene. I sit up on my elbows, rage pumping through my veins, as a giant pair of corn boobies slides off my chest and into my lap.
“Yourself,” I snap. “That’s all you think about. What about me? I lost Dad, too, but at least I had friends back home. Did you ever stop to think about what it would be like for me to lose them too? To be the new kid at a high school where the parking lot had more tractors in it than cars? Did you ever stop to think about George? Or Dad? What about all the other people like him who need help too? Do you ever think about them?”
My mom’s face turns to stone as she jams a finger into the corn next to her hip. “I think about the entire world, Luna. I don’t eat animal products. I don’t burn fossil fuels. I don’t even use paper! Have you ever tried wiping your vulva with an oak leaf?”
I wince.
“It’s a real sacrifice!”
Crystal closes her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth. When she looks at me again, her features are softer, less stabby.
“But that’s my path,” she continues, placing a hand on her chest. “I’m sorry that my self-discovery came at such a bad time for you, but the goddess intervenes when the goddess intervenes. And right now, it’s your turn. That doesn’t mean you have to start using lemon rinds as menstrual cups and become a beekeeper—although we do have an opening. I’m just saying that all this loss … it’s a gift, sweetie.” Her eyes begin to glisten with unshed tears. “It’s an opportunity for you to find your path. Start using your goddess-given talents again.”
Crystal’s apology washes over my ancient, festering, enflamed wounds, like cooling rain over hot lava. With my anger finally extinguished, I feel like I’m able to see her clearly for the first time in my life. Her journey, her struggle, the enormity of her loss. The desperation she must have felt to bring us here. And also, the relief. I open my mouth to apologize as well, for being such a little shit all these years, but Crystal silences me with a henna-painted palm.
“I know you think that the only way to honor your father is to become a psychologist—and he would be so proud—but you know what he would want even more? For you to do what’s right for you.” She taps my hoodie-covered chest with a delicate finger. “All he ever wanted was for us to be happy.” Her voice breaks on that last word, as does what’s left of my heart, as tears spill down her makeup-free cheeks. “He tried so hard to be happy.”
“I know, Mom.” I sit up and wrap my arms around her, realizing that it’s the first time I’ve seen her cry since we moved here.
She used to cry every day back home, but ever since we came here, there’s been a lightness about her that I envy. I want to feel that free too.
My eyes pop open.
Thomas said almost the exact same thing after our second group therapy session. The only time he feels truly free is when he’s writing about psychopaths, which is how I feel about drawing. But I need a subject in order to draw. So, maybe Thomas just needs …
Oh my God.
Sitting up, I hold Crystal at arm’s length. “What day is this?”
Suddenly, the corn on the other side of the pit begins to shift as a shirtless Jethro emerges from beneath the surface, swim goggles covering his eyes and yellow kernels dotting his wiry white beard.
“It’s Sunday, man,” Jethro says with a stoned drawl. “I know ’cause we sold apples at the farmers market this morning. It was beautiful.”
“Shit!” My eyes cut back over to Crystal. “I gotta go!”
I give her a peck on the cheek and a quick, “I love you, Mom,” before I leap to my feet and start wading through the corn.
My foot lands on something large and soft, eliciting a yelp from both me and the woman whose body part I just stomped on. She comes springing out of the corn like a topless jack-in-the-box, cucumbers tumbling from her eyes and kernels pouring from the gray curls on top of her head as she cuts me a dirty look.
“Sorry! So sorry!” I grimace, stepping out of the pit and into my shoes.
“Luna, where are you going?” Crystal calls out.
“You guys still share everything here, right?”
Lou
THE RV TIRES SPIN, kicking up soft Georgia clay and wet pine needles before finally gaining traction. I bounce in the driver’s seat and grip the steering wheel harder as the Technicolored behemoth lurches out of its permanent parking spot and hops over tree roots on its way to the gravel road leading down the mountain.
“Lou! Lou, wait up!”
I glance in the side mirror and see George running after me, waving his arms.
I roll down the window and lean my head out. “Sorry, George! Can’t stop!”
“Hey, pick me up a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal while you’re out! With the pickles on the side and a Diet Coke!” George stops running and braces his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
As he gets smaller in my rearview mirror, the other hippies come into view. They’ve gathered around to glare at him in disgust over that McDonald’s request, but George just waves them off.
That poor guy belongs here about as much as I do, but for the first time since we stepped foot on this soil, I understand why he stays. Why he put her needs before his own all those years ago and continues to do so every day of his life. Because she makes him happy. No amount of saturated fat or air-conditioning or ESPN could ever fill the void that she fills. And no job or accolade or shitty little rental house will ever fill mine.
I know what will make Thomas happy, what will make him feel free, and if I have to sacrifice everything in order for him to have it, then so be it.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and find April’s name on my Contacts list and hit the green Call button next to it. Putting it on speakerphone, I drop the device into my lap as the highway appears up ahead. As soon as the RV lurches out from under the canopy of the woods, big, fat raindrops begin to splatter on the windshield.
Dammit.
I’ve never owned a car, and I can’t even remember the last time I drove one, so finding the windshield wiper controls proves to be more difficult than I expected.
“Hey, Dr. Sterling!” April’s voice chirps from between my legs.
“April! Have you told my clients I got fired yet?” I flip the first switch I see, and air-conditioning blasts me in the face.
“Oh my God, you got fired?”
“Uh, yeah.” I push a button, and the oldies station comes blaring out of every speaker. “Don’t you remember Security Steve escorting me out on Friday?”
“I thought he was just being creepy!”
“Seriously? I was carrying my degree and a box full of my stuff.” I flip another switch, and the entire back of the RV turns into a dance party. Swirling green pot leaves, peace signs, and smiley faces are projected onto every surface, including the instrument panel that I now see has a blinking yellow light right next to a picture of a gas tank.
Awesome.
“April, I need you to do me a huge favor …”
I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I stick the gas pump into the RV tank, which took me a solid ten minutes to locate on this rolling monstrosity. In the rain.
A robotic female voice answers on the fourth ring. “You have reached the voice mail for …”
“Thomas.” I swallow. “Hey, it’s, um … it’s Lou. You told me to ring when I got on your level, so … ring, ring.” I cringe at my awkwardness as I return the pump to its cradle.
“Listen, I’m … so, so sorry about the way I left on Friday. I freaked out. I freaked out, and I completely understand if you never want to see me again, but …”
I close the door and climb back into the driver’s seat. “I really want you to come to group therapy tonight. Please? I owe you a proper groveling. Please come. Okay? Okay, bye.”
I bang my forehead against the steering wheel a few times before cranking the engine and pulling away from the curb.
