Since You Ask Page 2

  ‘You still want to be a doctor?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  “What are you going to do about med school?’

  ‘I deferred. Didn’t you know that?’

  I had wanted to be a doctor since I was ten, since I fell down the cliff at Pigeon Point and broke my leg. I was in the hospital for two weeks, a Catholic hospital where the Sisters hung needlepoint above the bed: Jesus with his yellow hair, quotes from the prayer book decorated with flowers and little crosses.

  Oh Jesus, bless my father, my mother, my brothers.

  (Page 26, PRAYER FOR OTHERS)

  Oh Jesus, may I lead a good life; may I die a happy death.

  (Page 26, PRAYER FOR YOURSELF)

  I copied out my own one day, using the 36-pastel-crayon set my father had bought me.

  Oh my God, I am sorry and beg pardon for all my sins and detest them above all things, because they deserve your dreadful punishments.

  (Page 9, ACT OF CONTRITION)

  Sister Megan was upset at this. ‘What have you done, Betsy,’ she asked, ‘that you are so sorry about?’ I didn’t tell her.

  ‘So what kind of doctor do you want to be?’ Raymond asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You could be anything, anything you wanted.’

  ‘So why did you start spending time with Raymond,’ Dr. Keats asks, ‘considering how you felt about him?’

  The sun slips between his wooden shutters. My legs are glossy with lotion. I swing my foot against the floor in its flat brown sandal.

  ‘Sylvia was at Yale. Henry was in the Hamptons. And he was different. He was nice. Also, you know, my parents said he was “so far behind me” that I was so “beyond him.”’ ‘And you believed that?’ ‘I guess I did.’

  Fairley has a small square library in the doctors’ office, an empty desk with a stack of Fairley postcards of Main House in the 1950s. There are two reading chairs with cracked green leather. I copy down a poem from John Berryman and give it to Dr. Keats.

  I’m too alone. I see no end. If we could all run,

  even that would be better. I am hungry.

  The sun is not hot.

  It’s not a good position I am in.

  If I had to do the whole thing over again

  I wouldn’t.

  One thing you have to understand is that Raymond had always been on drugs. When I was twelve, my parents sat me down and told me that Raymond was a junkie and could die at any time. Also, I did drugs myself, in high school mostly, with my friend Sylvia Goldfarb Davis. We did cocaine in our school basement and the theater and the bathrooms. We did it at her house, drinking soda and listening to the Cure song, “Seventeen Seconds.” So I can’t pretend that Raymond, you know, corrupted me.

  He started picking me up at World Sight almost every day. He waited outside on the white stone plaza and we went to Glide and to Shelby’s and to Denzi’s. We sat on the green benches in Central Park and it seemed that nothing bothered Raymond. I saw the flush on his skin and he was happy. He was content just to feel the breeze on his skin, while I was always waiting for something.

  ‘So tell me about Beck,’ he said one night.

  ‘Beck? He’s a corrections officer.’

  ‘A corrections officer? Jesus.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘He must be an asshole.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘What are you doing with a corrections officer?’

  I shook my head. He had no business talking about my private life. He had no business saying anything.

  I started to walk off, but he followed me. ‘Oh, come on,’ he pulled at me. ‘Let’s get a drink.’

  Sometimes things just happen all around you, and they happen fast—the way in Antigua, in January, the sun set so suddenly that we hardly noticed it, Raymond and Eric and I, and then it was dark, our mother on the porch ringing the dinner bell. It was nice to think that things could be different between Raymond and me. But Dr. Keats says this is where I fooled myself—that situations like the one I had with Raymond never just go away.

  One night, it was summer by then, we were in my apartment, sitting at my table drinking from green bottles of beer. Above us was an African dance class, the sound of drums and sixty feet moving across the wood floor. ‘Can I have some?’ I finally asked.

  ‘Some what?’

  ‘Some of what you’re doing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  I tilted my head to one side. ‘Coke?’

  He lit a cigarette, plucking a piece of tobacco from his tongue.

  ‘I’ve done it before, Ray.’

  ‘You have?’

  People always think I am so innocent. Like this man Reese, who stopped me on the street once and asked me if I wanted to earn a lot of money—a lot, he said; he told me I had the face of a nun.

  ‘Plenty of times,’ I told Ray ‘in school.’

  I went to the kitchen for more beer and when I came back, he had put out two lines for me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  He took a sip of his beer.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘have you seen anyone since Beck?’

  ‘A few people.’

  In Antigua, Ray had had a girlfriend called Alison. They had been like one person, drinking beer from one bottle, eating fish and chips from one packet, their house littered with her clothes and his, with teacups and ashtrays and newspapers. She worked as a nurse’s aide. She lost her job for stealing prescription pads and letting Ray forge them.

  ‘So what are you going to study in the fall?’ I asked Raymond.

  ‘I don’t know Psychology Marine biology.’

  Ray had spent hours at Pigeon Point, searching rock-pools for starfish and crabs. Once he dissected a crab and left it on my pillow My father gave him a whipping for that. Then he left spiders in my shoes. He started humming a song, I don’t like spiders and snakes, as he sidled along the walls of the house, but that ain’t what it takes to love me.

  The fact is, I tell Keats, Raymond had changed in the years he was away. He was solicitous now, courteous. He opened doors for me and paid for drinks for me and gave me his jacket if I was cold. He always answered when I called, came when I asked.

  ‘So you cared for him,’ Dr. Keats says.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You let him into your life.’

  ‘Yes—‘

  ‘So you cared.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ I get up from my chair, the way I am not supposed to. I shake my head at him and sort of raise my hand and then I am out the door, down the hall, into the parking lot.

  Kenneth is there, leaning against the black Lincoln Continental. He has been a driver here for sixteen years. His hair is soft-looking and silver. He wears black Ray-Bans, black pants, and a black tie on a short-sleeved white shirt. His red and white Winston cigarette pack shows through his shirt pocket.

  ‘Can I have one?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure.’

  The flame from his lighter sizzles around the cigarette paper. It doesn’t taste good, though. My mouth is too dry.

  ‘Going for a swim today?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Keats comes out of the doctors’ office, smiling at me as if I haven’t just walked out on him. ‘That your doctor?’ Kenneth asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Young guy.’

  By July, Ray and I weren’t sleeping. We sat with the air conditioner on high, drinking beer and doing cocaine. We went to his dealer three and four times a night. I stayed outside with the building super, Jesus, and in five minutes Ray was back, his eyes gleaming dark and skittish, packets of cocaine in his socks.

  Wayne sat me down on his couch at World Sight. I was drinking milky iced coffee, the sugar grainy at the bottom. ‘What is it?’ I smiled.

  ‘You’ve lost some weight.’

  Cocaine will do that, though I didn’t say so. Instead I said, ‘It’s summer.’

 
‘I sound like a parent, I know.’ He ran his hand through his fine dark hair. ‘It doesn’t suit me, does it?’

  I laughed.

  ‘How is Ray faring?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Is he using drugs?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘He never offered them to you, did he?’

  I looked off at the East River, gray as a dirty coin. ‘In high school, maybe.’

  He shook his head. ‘Asshole.’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘I should call your parents.’

  He wouldn’t, though. It seemed to me that Wayne was a little in awe of them. He was four years younger than my mother, eight years younger than my father, and everyone in their town had known them. Wayne didn’t want to bring them bad news. He wanted to impress them—the way, for instance, when I was in high school, he always brought his dates to the house, as if for my parents’ approval.

  I got a letter from my mother today. Her name was printed at the top:

  LAURA

  Dear Betsy,

  I hope the summer is as lovely in Kent as it is here. Last night the Chubbs came for dinner in the garden. The music school opened their windows and we had our own little opera performance. It was just about perfect, though of course we miss you. Eric loves Drama School and Raymond is visiting some friends out in Montana. Your father and I have to go to Boston for a few days, but you can always call on the cellular.

  With love, your mother

  I read this letter to Dr. Keats and he asks how it makes me feel and I say homesick.

  ‘What about her telling you about Raymond?’ I shrug.

  ‘They must know how you felt about him.’

  ‘They know.’

  ‘But they ignore it?’

  They knew if I said ‘Hello,’ he said ‘Hello.’ If I said ‘Stop it,’ he said ‘Stop it.’ They knew he mimicked me, watched me, waited for me—that he tripped me up and pulled me, by the hair, by the arm, by the leg, down under the house onto the yellow soil as my mother called out, ‘Raymond, Raymond.’

  He’d leave me in the dust then, take off down the rough ragged cliffs to the beach while my mother called out, ‘Get up, Betsy. Get up,’ so I did.

  ‘You encourage him,’ she’d tell me off. ‘You take the bait. He knows you’ll take the bait, and if you don’t, he’ll stop.’ But neither of us stopped.

  ‘“Thy brother came with subtlety,’” I intone to Dr. Keats ‘“…and hath taken away thy blessing.” Genesis, 31:35.’

  Eric writes:

  Dear Betsy,

  It’s sweltering here. There’s no air-conditioning so everyone is in a bad mood. Last weekend I went to Nantucket. They were having a Swann yachting regatta, with a simultaneous display of Rolex watches and Rolls Royce’s. It was pretty disgusting.

  Henry sends a photograph of a field of tulips. We went to high school together.

  Dear Betsy, my Bets, my Best, My Girl, my Friend,

  I cannot believe you are in that place. Then again, maybe it is good for you? Please call me and let me know if I can visit.

  Wayne sends letters scrawled on legal pads and stationery from hotels in Botswana and France, pages torn from notebooks and World Sight/Wayne Carter writing pads.

  Dear Betsy,

  Meet me upstairs?

  But that was a long time ago.

  Dear Betsy,

  I felt so wretched when I saw you pass by my office today. I want so much for you to be happy, to find someone who can love you completely, as you deserve, someone your own age who can make you happy. But I just cannot give up on this idea of you, of you and me together.

  This idea of me.

  Dear Betsy,

  Dear Betsy,

  Dear Betsy,

  Ida and I have taken a trip to Medemblik, a tiny fishing village on the North Sea. She is angry, of course, but more hurt because I know and she knows, too, how much I long to be on another beach with you. Still I am committed to making our marriage work, and so is she. I wanted so much to make a life with you, but I just couldn’t do it, couldn’t stop the terrible feeling of wrongness. My only consolation is that perhaps now you can get some real help. I wish I could say something to give you hope about us, but it would be wrong. Be strong, move on in your life and don’t look back. You have so much love in you, so much goodness and courage. My thoughts race to you and my heart breaks.

  ‘Kenneth?’ I ask, in the doctors’ office parking lot.

  He is leaning against the black Lincoln. ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I use your lighter?’

  He passes it to me. I hold up the letter in its envelope and set the edge on fire. I watch it burn, pale yellow with a flicker of orange. When it scalds my fingers, I drop it to the tar.

  And where is Wayne now?

  In Belgium.

  And where are you?

  ‘Jesus, Jesus,’ Kenneth says, stamping out the flaming letter with his black lace-up shoes. ‘What are you doing?’

  He calls for Dr. Keats on his transistor radio. ‘They’ll put you in Little House, you realize that?’

  Little House—Acute House—house behind the doctors’ office where the suicides are, where they watch you twenty-four hours a day nurses sitting at the edge of your bed.

  In a few minutes, Dr. Keats comes out.

  ‘Oh, please,’ I say

  ‘What’s going on?’ The letter is in ashes on the lot.

  ‘She set that letter on fire,’ Kenneth says.

  ‘Who was it from?’

  “‘There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’”

  ’Betsy.’

  I am not religious. I just like the words of religion.

  ‘Proverbs 18:24.’ I flick Kenneth’s lighter.

  ‘You don’t care,’ I tell Keats.

  ‘You’re paid to care.’

  ‘Call for Vicki,’ Keats tells Kenneth. I know what that means: more drugs.

  ‘Who wrote the letter, Betsy?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Dr. Keats shakes his head. He runs his hand over his brow and I feel sorry for him, suddenly

  ‘Wayne wrote it,’ I say ‘Wayne who is in Medemblik with Ida. Wayne who hopes that now I can get some real help.

  ‘Asshole,’ I say

  Vicki comes down and the sun is hot overhead. Dr. Keats rolls up his sleeves, his smooth blue unwrinkled sleeves, and everyone waits until I take my Haldol, liquid Haldol, swimming like Sambuca in a clear plastic cup.

  PART II

  I have been in Dobson House for two months. It is small and wood, painted white. Out back is a sun deck, three white plastic sun chairs facing the woods, tall dark trees tangled and woven together. In front is a porch with a brick ledge where Robbie and I play guitar. He is forty-three and an art dealer from Long Island. He wears red polo shirts that get sweat marks under the arms, from his detox.

  My room is on the third floor, in the old attic. It has a single bed, a bureau, and a wooden chair. It has two square windows with screens. They don’t allow cameras here, but I cut a picture of Keats from the Fairley newsletter. His skin is soft and smooth-looking. His hair is regular brown and his eyes are blue. I have a postcard of Fairley also, from the gift shop. I have a photograph Henry sent me of tulips in a field, blue and red and gold in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden where we went once.

  The doctors’ office is up the hill, next to Dining Hall and Main House. Keats is at the back, past Admissions. His shirt is pale blue, with the smooth light sheen of part polyester/part cotton. His tie is navy blue and loosely knotted. Out the window, the grass is thick and green and dark.

  He sets a coffee cup on his desk. It is actually two cups, one inside the other. ‘When did you first realize that you weren’t doing well?’

  ‘That would be with Beck.’

  ‘Beck?’

  ‘Beck and Frank.’

  ‘Which was when?’

  ‘When Raymond left.’

  ‘Six years ago. Let’s start t
here.’

  Ray was twenty-one and I was fifteen and he had been home for three weeks. In one more, he was going back to Antigua. Before that, though, he was at home, in his room. We shared the top floor. His room was on the garden, large and dark and painted navy blue. Mine was on the street with red brick walls and a red shag rug and a gymnastics bar hanging from the ceiling.

  Sylvia came over after school. She was lying on my bed, in one of her vintage dresses and shiny new black riding boots. I was at my desk in my swivel chair. Raymond came in, in his usual outfit; black jeans and a black T-shirt and a black shirt. His feet were bare because he never went out.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ he asked me.

  Sylvia turned onto her side on the bed. Her hair was long and yellow blond, wavy like ribbons. ‘Sylvia,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Sylvia. I’m Raymond.’

  ‘Hello, Raymond.’

  They spoke so slowly, they looked at each other so my muscles ached. They ached in my arms and my shoulders and my chest.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘Just looking.’

  I got up from my chair and went to him. His eyes were the color of dark asters.

  I tried to close the door but he held it open with his foot.

  ‘You didn’t have to be mean,’ Sylvia said when he was gone.

  ‘You don’t even know him.’

  ‘Maybe I’d like to.’

  ‘Maybe you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Isn’t he going away again? To another school?’

  ‘To Antigua.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  I walked her home: up Madison Avenue to 79th Street and Fifth. It was autumn and the store windows shone like mirror and traffic lights glowed inside them. People were wearing new fall coats and a breeze was rising cool as an eddy in dark water.

  ‘You never talk about him,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘About who?’

  ‘Ray.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘He’s good-looking. As good-looking as Eric.’

  ‘Sylvia.’