XIII

The next weekend, Eric and Carrie both came to stay for my birthday, and both announced that they would be staying. Eric had decided that he was not going to finish out his semester in Syracuse, but surprised us all with the revelation that he’d already found himself an apartment in Brookline, and would be moving into it over the weekend. He planned to start at Emerson in the spring semester.
Carrie’s decision was a bit less life affirming. James had pulled through, but the entire episode had soured her on the idea of forever & ever after and she had decided that life at Berkeley was too much for her to handle. So much so that when she arrived at the door, she had already checked a good portion of her belongings into storage and had a suitcase at her feet. It was so early in the semester, that she had been able to register electronically for classes at Bunker Hill, and she was going to start apartment hunting on Monday. Since we were already planning on guests for the weekend, we’d moved the futon into the “office,” and after some discussion, we all decided that at least for now, having Carrie in the extra room would help out with rent, and wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for anyone.
So my twentieth birthday ended up being a major turning point for everyone. I didn’t know it until some time later, but the events of that weekend were to be a catalyst for the real down spiral, which was closer than any of us could have foreseen. With the influx of change in the air, the birthday party itself ended up being more somber than originally intended, and the four of us, in our drunken introspection drove most of the other guests away by the time the clock struck midnight. The rest of the night consisted of the four of us pondering our futures and the pasts that had led us to this particular point.
Somehow I was able to keep up with my classes, despite my rapidly declining state. I had clearly lost several pounds since my pharmaceutical switch, and my size twelve frame was gaunt and sunken in. Adam and Carrie were concerned, but were both in their own personal recessions, and the three of us made for a pretty desperate situation at the time. Between Carrie’s growing alcoholism, my pill dependency, and Adam’s manic depression, we were an after school special waiting to happen.
I hadn’t taken into consideration how much having my best friend around all the time would significantly detract from the time Adam and I spent together. I also did not realize until it was too late how dejected this decline would make him feel. At one point we went four days without actually seeing each other awake. When we did, the exchange was something like this.
“Hey, Janie. Did you remember to put the trash out this morning?”
“Yeah, but don’t forget that those bottles need to go to the return center. You said you’d take care of that.”
“No problem, I’ll drop them on my way to rehearsal. Do you want to grab dinner before that?”
“I really can’t, I have to get into the editing suite during a certain time or I’ll never get a computer.”
“Alright, well I’ll see you tonight then, maybe we’ll get a movie.”
“Sounds good. Have fun at rehearsal.”
“Sure thing babe.” He leaned down to where I was sitting at the table and gave me a peck on the cheek. I didn’t even look up. I was editing a project for class until three that morning, and when I got home Adam was asleep. When I woke up, our bed was empty.
For some reason it took me a couple of weeks to be concerned about this. I was always blind to the negative. The good stuff was so blissful that I easily forgot that the negatives existed. It was Carrie that brought it to my attention. One night we were sitting in the living room eating Chinese take-out and watching Bull Durham on cable. When a commercial came up she brought up a valid point.
“Hey girlie.” She paused to take a bite of her orange chicken. “Where’s Adam? I haven’t seen him in like three days.” I hadn’t either. His rehearsal’s had been running very late, and he was almost never home when I went to bed. When I did see him he was non-communicative, and I noticed that the Celexa bottle had remained level since his mother had sent the prescription last month.
I called Eric, who said that he was on his way home. He’d gone there after rehearsal to hang out and watch the playoffs. I was relieved… somewhere in the back of my mind I had feared the worst- another girl. I read somewhere that there aren’t any such things as secrets, but just things that you pretend you don’t know. It was the first week in October, and I spent almost six more weeks pretending that I didn’t know.
Something in my head kicked in that night, and the next two weeks I spent seeking out more and more time to spend with Adam. The new play that he was in was a showcase of short plays by playwrights from the ‘80s, and it opened mid-October. I was in the audience all five nights, and brought him flowers on two.
I started making dinner, and we even went grocery shopping together on a weekly basis. At 20 years old, when you live together you find yourself playing house. You mimic what you think you remember from your parents and television, and hope that you’ve pieced it together right. We read until we fell asleep at the same time, and took turns doing the dishes. Things were good again. Every night as we read in bed, we were like Mike and Carol Brady. He’d lean over and gaze at me for a few moments, and then I’d hand him my book, and he’d place in on the nightstand next to his and click of the bedside lamp. Then it was dark.
Halloween we decided to have a costume party, and it ended up being a huge event. The three of us must have invited everyone we had a class with that semester. It had to be categorized as a huge success. Carrie dressed up like Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas, and when she spotted her Jack across the room, she had enough space from the James situation to know that she’d found her hook-up for the night. Eric came as a boxing nun, which everyone got a kick out of. I was Cheer Bear, which entailed a pair of hot pink fishnet stockings, a pink mini-skirt (that I’d craftily constructed out of an old sweatshirt), a kid sized white t-shirt with a rainbow painted on the front of it, and a pair of pink ears attached to a headband. Adam was James Dean, and though he didn’t look a thing like the screen legend, the tight white t-shirt and faux-leather jacket was a sexy look on him, and I couldn’t wait for everyone to go home.
Most of the night was spent mingling. It was at our house, so we went about our hostly duties efficiently, refilling chips and punch (with peeled grapes floating in it), and changing the many mixed CDs we’d made when they finished. At around one in the morning, most people were beginning to say their goodbyes and a small group of girls showed up in run of the mill witch costumes. I didn’t recognize them myself, so I assumed they were here to see someone else. That didn’t strike me as odd until I saw Eric and Adam exchanging ardent whispers in the corner. After a few moments of deliberate conversation and some crazy eyes, Eric went over to the girls and offered them a drink; he took one aside and was clearly explaining something to her. She looked over at me skeptically, and quickly collected her friends and left.
The next weekend I made a last ditch effort to put my relationship back together. Carrie was spending the night at “Jack’s” house, and I decided that we should take advantage of having the house to ourselves. So we rented a Woody Allen movie, and went to the grocery store. We played house for the last time that night, cooking up the only things we competently could- a tofu/vegetable stir-fry, and curling up on the couch. I made fun of him for his lack of skill with the chopsticks when he dropped a piece of broccoli down his shirt. We made love on the couch with the Gershwin soundtrack and black and white images of New York in the background.
Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth. If I had, I certainly would have brought up that girl before I did. Three weeks later, on Friday November 22 1996, all the things I should have said came out all at once. My video production class was doing its annual 24-hour party, where we all got together and made a movie in 24 hours. We all invited our friends, and Adam promised to come. He was there, as usual, two hours later than he’d said he would. I wasn’t as forgiving as I’d usually been, and when he took me to breakfast the next morning, the fact that I’d been up for 24 hours without a pill took its toll. I demanded to know what had been going on.
“I’m always late, babe. I’m sorry, but you know that.”
“This was important to me.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“You were with her, weren’t you?”
“With who?”
“The witch.”
“The what?”
“The girl that was at the Halloween party. The one that gave me dirty looks.”
“Cindy?”
“I don’t know the whore’s name, I just know you were sleeping with her.”
“Hey, hold up, where is this coming from.”
“Are you saying that I’m not right?” He was quiet. He never could lie to me, and he wasn’t even going to try.
“Listen babe, I really want to try and work things out. It’s just this depression, you know? It’s not like it meant anything, it’s just that we haven’t… you know? And sometimes it’s just that I need to feel SOMETHING, anything…” He looked at me as though I should know what he was talking about. I knew that I’d retreated from him, but I hadn’t left him. I felt as though he’d abandoned me, and I knew I couldn’t deal with this again.
“You’re blaming this on a clinical condition that you don’t even take your medication for? Fuck you Adam. I can’t deal with this shit anymore.”
“What about you Janie, you don’t even talk to me anymore. Ever since Eric and Carrie moved here, you don’t ever have time for me.”
“So you ask to spend time together- you plan things for us to do, you bring up the problem. You don’t sleep with someone else. That is not acceptable behavior, Adam, and I can’t accept it anymore.”
I didn’t want to sleep in our room that night. I didn’t even want to look at him. I put 10 dollars on the table and got up to leave.
“Where are you going?” He threw down a couple of singles and followed me out the door. I walked silently the couple of blocks to the T, and he followed me all the way to South Station, pleading the whole time for me to at least talk to him. I purchased a round trip ticket to New York City and when I got to my platform I turned to face him.
“I will be back Monday morning. Would you like me to move out then, or should you?” He looked at me incredulously. “Well,” I demanded.
“I’ll move in with Eric for a while,” he said, trying to take my hand. I batted him away. “Listen, we just need some space.”
“No,” I said, cutting him off before he could make more excuses. “You need some space. I needed you, and you left me. Now I’m leaving you. I will be back on Monday and I don’t want to see you then. If and when I do want to see you, I’m sure you will know.” And with that I got on the train, and cried for four hours.