But Inside I'm Screaming

  “Okay,” she whispered through ventriloquist’s lips. No one heard her but John.

  “Okay? You’ll do it? Okay?” he double-checked while nodding to Ted and Chip.

  “Okay,” Isabel said meekly.

  I’ve got to do this.

  Chip ran back into the booth.

  He had left her earpiece on so she heard the voices thundering at one another in the control room. “This is a mistake, Ted. I told you I didn’t want her in the chair tonight.” Chip’s voice.

  “What, she’s not used to live television? Give me a fucking break.”

  “Okay, Isabel, let’s try this again.” Chip had regained his composure. “In thirty seconds.”

  Please. Please.

  “Nice and easy.” Chip was trying to soothe her.

  Please. Calm down. Please. Please.

  “I have to protect my reporters, Sargent,” Isabel heard John challenge Ted. “And I’m telling you, this is not a good call to make with Murphy right now! Where’s Roberts? Get him in here.”

  “Fifteen seconds.” The knot, ever-tightening in Isabel’s stomach, threatened to erupt in vomit. “Ten, nine, eight, seven—cue music—five, four, three, two…”

  Last chance.

  With the camera trained on her, Isabel opened her mouth to speak but closed it when no words came out.

  Please. Please no.

  “No fucking way!” Ted shouted in the booth. “Go to a graphic.” As Ted barked orders, Chip tried to coax Isabel one last time.

  “Get her off the air!” Ted yelled. Isabel flinched at the volume of the words still piped through her ear. “Get her off the fucking air! She’ll never make air again, if I have anything to say about it. Not on this network. She wants to go down, fine. But she’s not taking this network with her, goddammit!”

  So, let’s dance the last dance…let’s dance…the last dance…

  “If you threaten her, I swear to God I’ll make your life miserable,” John warned Ted.

  To-oo-night…

  “She’s over. She’s finished,” Ted ranted.

  “If she is it’ll be her choice, not yours,” John volleyed back. “You hear me?”

  “Do I need to remind you who you’re talking to, Goodman?” Ted’s voice a decibel lower.

  “Just give her some room right now. Agreed?”

  Look at you. You disgust me.

  Ted looked through the glass door into the newsroom. His assistant was running across the room to him.

  He opened the door. “What? You reach him?”

  “He’s five minutes away,” she panted.

  He turned back to John. “She’s lucky Roberts is in town or I’d wipe the floor with her. Okay, Chip, let’s get the desk ready for him. The computer’s all booted up, right? Melissa, go down to the lobby and hold an elevator open for him. We got some water by the desk in case he’s thirsty? Good.”

  Move. You have to get up now. It’s over. Move.

  Two

  It’s so thin and small it seems impossible that it can end a human life.

  Do it.

  Two long, quick slices and the pain bleeds away.

  So why am I hesitating? Do it.

  Isabel knows that she is scared to slit her wrists. She’d rather find a painless solution. To her it sounds like something Yogi Berra might have said: I’d kill myself but it’d hurt too much.

  The white porcelain feels cold to her as she climbs, fully clothed, into the tub.

  This is it. This makes the most sense. Do it.

  Isabel looks from the metal blade balancing on the edge of the bathtub to the sink counter where her sleeping pills are neatly arranged. Plan B. The last time she tried swallowing pills she did not take enough and woke up with a stiff tube snaking down her throat, pumping charcoal into her belly. For hours she vomited up the black coal as unsympathetic interns scowled and mixed up more of the pitch-black concoction that’s meant to absorb the poison.

  Maybe I’ll try the pills again. That’s much easier. And this time I’ll take the entire bottle and throw in some Tylenol PM for good measure. That’ll work.

  She pulls herself up and out of the bathtub. After pushing down and twisting the prescription bottle open, she turns on the faucet. Then she finally gives in to the magnetic pull of the mirror facing her. She had resisted it until now, knowing her face, however exhausted, haggard or gaunt, would betray her fear.

  Look at me. Jesus. Who is this looking back at me?

  She looks back down to the running water.

  Thirty-five years of living, thirty-five years packed with classes she excelled in, jobs she succeeded at…Isabel’s thirty-five years all boiled down to one moment, an image she pulled out and focused her inner eye on whenever she despaired.

  In the image is five-year-old Isabel, pretty and shy, quietly curled up on the floor alongside the family dog, a huge Saint Bernard named Violet. The two slept together almost every night, the enormously fat Violet providing enough body heat to warm the tiny child nestled against her. Isabel’s parents took many photographs of this scene, but it is Isabel’s own recollection she relies on in times of confusion. When she needs to feel comforted, to feel safe. Lately the image was becoming mentally frayed with overuse.

  Thinking of the warmth of Violet’s belly, the steadiness of her breathing, the softness of her thick coat, Isabel is once again momentarily transported away from her pain.

  How did that little girl end up alone and desperate in a cold New York City bathroom trying to decide whether to slash her wrists or swallow a fistful of pills?

  What else is there? What else can I do?

  Three

  Isabel gingerly touches her upper chest and winces at the pain. Her throat feels sore from the plastic tubing, her stomach raw from being angrily pumped the day before.

  “Hi.” Isabel’s mother, Katherine, is waiting on the sidewalk in front of the freshly washed SUV.

  She holds out her arms for a hug that Isabel returns perfunctorily. Isabel studiously avoids meeting her mother’s eyes.

  “Let’s go” is all she says as she climbs up into the black Range Rover.

  “I’ve got the directions, so we’re all set,” Katherine says, trying to fill the awkward silence that descends once both are buckled inside. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.” She pulls into busy Manhattan traffic.

  Isabel stares out the window, watching her apartment building disappear into the distance.

  “Do you want to listen to the radio?”

  “Huh?”

  “The radio. Do you want it on or off?”

  “I don’t care.” Isabel never breaks her numb stare. She is fighting to keep her eyes open.

  “What’s that station you always used to listen to?” her mother asks. “You know the one. You and your brother used to call in all the time.”

  “Mom.” Isabel turns her weary head. “I just got released from the emergency room. I’m exhausted. I don’t care if the radio is on. Put it on if you want to. I don’t care.”

  “Watch your tone, Isabel,” her mother warns. “I’m your mother and I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  “Do we have to have a conversation right now?”

  “Your father and I don’t know why you didn’t call us last night. We could have talked to you, cheered you up. You’re always giving up so easily.”

  “So even in this I didn’t do the right thing? The thing you and Dad would have wanted? Sorry to disappoint you once again, Mother.”

  “Well, I don’t understand why you always give up. Like ballet, for instance. Whatever happened with that? I’ll tell you what happened with that—you weren’t any good so you dropped it. Instead of sticking it out you dropped it.”

  “Thanks, Mom. This is making me feel so much better.”

  “And then there was volleyball…you couldn’t get that ball over the net no matter what you tried…so what’d you do?”

  “Mom.”

  “You dropped it. I’m sorr
y, Isabel, but someone has to help you see the truth here. Maybe it’s tough love….”

  Isabel closed her eyes, her mother’s familiar lecture a sad lullaby for the rest of the ride up the interstate.

  There is no sign for Three Breezes, just a discreet number expensively etched into the low stone pillars flanking the wooded driveway. Katherine slows as she makes the turn, anticipating the speed bump just inside the entrance. While they ease over it, Isabel catches sight of a groundskeeper raking a few errant leaves underneath a magnolia tree. As their car passes, he glances up and ever so slightly tips his head to Isabel. She looks away.

  Everything is in slow motion.

  Within forty-five minutes her belongings are spread out on the floor of the nurses’ station. Everything she has brought with her to Three Breezes is out of her suitcase and on display for all to see. Her underwear, her raincoat, her nail clippers, needlepoint, tweezers. Everything.

  What the hell is going on?

  “You don’t have to stay here while we do this, Isabel.” The nurse is sitting cross-legged on the floor among Isabel’s things, Isabel’s own hairdryer in the nurse’s lap. “We explained to you when you checked in that everyone’s suitcase has to be inspected. It’s nothing personal. Some people find it easier to let us do this and then we bring them the things they’re allowed.”

  “What do you mean allowed?”

  “It’s for your own protection,” the nurse answers. “We just go through here and take anything that might be dangerous and we set it aside. After the inspection, we take all the things we set aside and we put them into a bin marked with your very own name on it….”

  Why the hell is she talking down to me as if I’m in kindergarten? Can’t she see I’m nothing like the people here?

  “…that bin then goes into the sharps closet,” the nurse continues, “and any time you need to use something from your bin you just need to come find one of us and we’ll help you out. You might find it easier, though, to let us do this by ourselves.”

  The hell I’m leaving when she’s going through my stuff. Why is my hairdryer going into that pile with my pack of Lady Bic razors? I understand the razors—I’m not a complete idiot—but what’m I going to do…blow-dry myself to death? My needlepoint, too?

  “Why are you taking my needlepoint?” Isabel asks through gritted teeth. “I’m making a pillow for my niece.” She doesn’t care what the needlepoint is for…why did I say that?

  “It has a needle?” the nurse answers in up-speak. “You can work on it only if you’re supervised.”

  Even the Oil of Olay moisturizer is confiscated. “It’s in a glass jar?” Up-speak again. Before Katherine can regain her own composure, Isabel catches her mother’s mouth gaping open—mirroring the horror Isabel feels closing in on her, suffocating her.

  Her Hammacher Schlemmer sound machine is set in the “no” pile.

  “Okay, that’s it. This is ridiculous.” Isabel feels the fury beginning to unleash. “Give me back my sound machine. It’s not sharp. It’s not dangerous.”

  “Um, well, we need to run a test on it.”

  “My ass you’re going to run a test on it.” Isabel’s voice is an octave higher than usual. Katherine puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “Get your hand off my shoulder, Mom.” Isabel whips around to face her mother. “I know what that’s code for. That’s code for Shut up, Isabel. Mind your manners, Isabel.”

  Katherine withdraws her hand quickly and takes a step back.

  Astonished, Isabel asks, “What, Mom? You think I’m going to hurt you?”

  Katherine, with eyebrows stretched across her forehead in mock fear, addresses her reply more to the nurse than to her daughter. “I just don’t know you anymore, Isabel. How do I know what you’re going to do next?”

  Oh, this is rich. This is just perfect. Now she’s making them think I’m dangerous.

  “What I’m trying to say, Isabel—” the nurse goes from friendly to firm “—is that we simply run a quick electrical test on it and we’ll return it to you by tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”

  I can’t take this. I can’t take this…

  Isabel steadies herself in the doorway.

  “We’ll get it right back to you.”

  It’s not just the sound machine, you idiot. It’s everything. It’s this whole place. It’s this whole snake pit.

  Isabel slides down the door frame, collapsing into a heap at the base of the doorway.

  “All right, that’s enough, young lady.” Katherine is standing over her crumpled daughter. “Let’s go outside for a minute.”

  “Ma’am?” It’s the inspection nurse again. “Um, she can’t go outside the unit anymore? She doesn’t have her privileges? She has to stay inside at all times.”

  Isabel is stunned. The tears that had just begun to flow stop immediately.

  “What?” She stares directly at the nurse, the fog that had enveloped her briefly dissipating.

  “Um, you have checked in so you cannot go outside. Your caseworker will be here any minute to explain all this to you,” the nurse says as she returns to her inspection.

  “Mom?” Isabel’s breathing becomes shallow as she reaches for her mother and tries to stand up at the same time.

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s go,” Isabel says simply. “Let’s get out of here. Do you have the car keys?” Katherine looks from her daughter to the nurse, unsure of what to do.

  Another nurse, who until then had been sorting through files, turns to Isabel.

  “All right, hon.” Her voice is craggy but gentle. Her tone betrays a hint of resignation, as if she has seen a thousand Isabels come and go. “Let’s go sit down for a second.” She tries to lead Isabel into the single room she has been assigned. Isabel pulls her arm away and focuses on her mother.

  “Mom? The car keys?” Her stare is intense. Her lips are pursed and her throat is trying to choke back vomit. She sees, for the first time, that she is here to stay. Her mother is not even reaching into her cavernous bag to hunt for the keys.

  Oh, my God. Why isn’t Mom doing anything? Why is she looking at me like that?

  “Mom? Mom? Please, Mom. Please take me home.” Isabel is crying again as the nurse helps Katherine lead Isabel to her stark room with an ominous stain on the industrial wall-to-wall carpeting. “No. No, Mom. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to come here, Mom. Seriously, I’ve changed my mind. Mom, do you hear me? Mom?”

  When she sees that yelling is not advancing her case, Isabel begins to beg.

  “Mom! Please, Mom…”

  Isabel sees the same mix of dread, shock and disgust on her mother’s face she had seen two nights before in Manhattan. On that night Isabel had announced to her parents that she had decided to follow her doctor’s advice and was checking into a psychiatric facility in upstate New York, “before they check me in involuntarily.”

  “Just give it twenty-four hours, Isabel,” the nurse is saying as she guides Isabel to the bed by the elbow. “Just twenty-four hours.”

  As she tries to unscrew the cap of her water bottle, she frantically scans the room and sees she is surrounded by the dregs of society. Losers, both literally and figuratively. Literally because they lost the battle to end their lives. Figuratively because, collectively, they look like the rejects from a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest casting call.

  Isabel’s hands are shaking so badly she gives up the thought of hydration. Her pupils are so dilated by fear her green eyes appear black.

  Across the room a woman with short, thick jet-black hair is staring at her. Slowly, still staring at Isabel, the woman brings her own bottle of water to her lips and sucks, like an infant, through the sport spout.

  Jesus. Where am I? What is this place?

  Isabel shrinks into herself when, moments later, a large man stumbles into the room. The only free seat is next to her. He lumbers toward it and loudly exhales as he squeezes into one of the mismatched Naugahyde armchairs. His fat pasty
-white thighs begin to melt uncomfortably into the chair. The hot weather has intensified his body odor and the only thing separating Isabel from the man’s stinky armpits is a useless polyester mesh jersey that adds a gamey scent to the sweaty giant.

  “I know exactly what I’m gonna talk about today,” he gleefully declares to his miserable neighbor. He resembles a puppy with huge paws and baby fat that he hasn’t yet grown into. He appears to have the mentality of a six-year-old.

  Isabel continues to stare straight ahead, knowing that looking at him will only encourage his conversation. She is willing the day to be over, willing the clock to tick faster.

  This is a nightmare.

  “Barbecued chicken wings!” shouts the smelly man-child. She thinks he meant to whisper to her, but he is too excited to regale the group with this topic that he forgets to adjust the volume and instead loudly blurts it out. It doesn’t seem to bother him that Isabel is pointedly ignoring him.

  These people are freaks and this is a nightmare.

  “Shhh,” everyone in the bedraggled group hisses. Everyone but the black-haired sport-spout girl, who is laughing disproportionately hard at the outburst. And another, younger woman with long, stringy hair, who is staring off into space. Two people over on Isabel’s left sits an older woman in restraints because, the smelly man loudly whispers to Isabel, “Yesterday she tried to hit the group leader when he asked her what she was thinking.”

  Isabel takes it all in, frozen in her sleek black gabardine slacks and Barney’s New York black T-shirt, her arms tightly wrapped across her chest in an invisible strait-jacket, her legs tensely crossed, her thick blond hair dried out and brittle.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  Hours later, Isabel has not changed out of her clothes and is lying on her back, wide awake, her purse still on her shoulder so that if tipped upright, she could walk straight out. Through the cinder-block walls, Isabel hears something slamming into the wall and strains to identify the sound.

  Slam!

  After five more minutes trying to block it out, Isabel sits up. With her heart beating rapidly, she inches off the bed, which is several inches higher than a normal one, so, upon sliding off, she is startled when it takes her feet longer to find the floor. After waiting a few seconds she swallows hard and takes a few steps to the doorway, following the crack of light beaming from its edges. The hallway is deserted. She waits while her eyes adjust to the bright overhead lights. The sharp sounds next door echo her panic and amplify her fear.