The entire family was aware of my situation and treated me gingerly, doing their best to include me in conversations with the folks coming in and out to share what would probably be their final good-byes with Aunt Joan. But I found myself petrified that someone would talk to me, ask me what I did for a living or about what I had been doing in Afghanistan. And as much as Afghanistan was all I really wanted to talk about, inevitably it would always come around to the question of when I was going back, and having to say the words I can’t go back was like plunging a knife into my own heart. Every time I said them out loud, the pain would bring me precariously close to the edge. I didn’t want to believe it, but in reality I had to face the fact that I would probably never be going back. So I just sat in that living room, trying my best to disappear into the plaid sofa.
At some point during the weekend Aunt Joan said she was expecting her nephew and his son to be stopping by on their way back from a fishing trip. As if on cue, two dark, lumbering men came through the door smelling like fish and lugging a large ice chest. The younger one headed to the kitchen as the older one greeted Joan with a hug and a kiss. As I sat there wondering who let the Native Americans into this totally white-bread family, he sat himself down at Joan’s side and took her hand gently into his own. His voice flowed softly and sweetly with news of life on the reservation, his fishing trip, his son in the other room. He finally stood to make way for more visitors who had arrived, and made his way to the chair next to me.
“Hi,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Larry.” He cocked his head and squinted at me, no doubt wondering right back at me who let the crazy redhead into this group.
“I’m Debbie.” We shook hands. “I came with Mike. Really just along for the ride. I’ve never been to Oregon, so I thought I’d check it out.”
“And?” he asked.
“Nice. But wow, so remote!”
“I love it up here, especially when the salmon are running. It’s a great excuse to see Aunt Joan.” His warm smile drew me in.
“So you don’t live around here?” Small talk! I was actually carrying on a normal conversation, something I hadn’t managed to do in a long, long time. I listened as he spoke about fish and redwood trees with the same gentle tone he used with his Aunt Joan. An aura of quiet strength seemed to surround him, and in his peaceful presence I felt a welcome calm wash over me.
“You really live on an Indian reservation? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who lived on a reservation.” Suddenly I felt like an idiot.
But Larry just smiled. “Yep, but in a house, not a tepee.”
Larry made me laugh. He continued with some goofy Indian jokes and some silly stories about his childhood with Aunt Joan, and for the first time since I had arrived in the States I began to feel a little normal. I began to feel a glimmer of hope, all from a little small talk with Indian Larry.
Through the kitchen door we could see Larry’s son trying to lift a huge fish out of the ice chest. He stood and tenderly grabbed my arm. “C’mon. Let’s go gut us some fish.” I stood and followed like a little girl, hanging on his every word.
Obviously at home in this kitchen, he quickly pulled what he needed from the cupboards and drawers. I sat on a stool and watched as he nimbly slid the knife down the salmon’s shiny belly. Away from the prying eyes in the other room, I pulled a bottle of Merlot out of my oversized purse. Larry reached for a coffee cup.
“Join me?” I asked, as I poured.
Larry shook his head. “I don’t drink.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. I gave up the stuff ten years ago.”
“Wow, good for you.”
“Yeah, it took me almost losing everything . . .” Larry glanced over at his son. “Then I finally took control of my life.”
“That’s impressive,” I said, quietly placing my cup on the counter. “So it has worked out for you?”
Larry shrugged. “Pretty much. I felt like it was time to do something important, something that would make a difference in my community. And I couldn’t do that being a drunk.”
I nodded silently. “And?”
“So, I went back to school. Imagine, a fifty-year-old Indian, back in school. Got my B.A., then went for my master’s in psych.”
“Really?” This guy was something.
“Uh-huh, did my thesis on post-traumatic stress disorder among the First Nations people.”
I pulled my stool closer. “PTSD?”
“Yeah, it’s a huge problem on the reservation. A lot of people suffering from PTSD don’t even realize they have it.”
I sat in silence as he explained how all sorts of things can cause post-traumatic stress disorder—physical or psychological abuse, experiencing a life-threatening event, or even just witnessing any of those things could do it. Emergency workers often get it and, of course, people with occupations that expose them to war as well.
“Hairdressers?” The word came out uncharacteristically softly.
Larry’s fillet knife froze in midair. “Excuse me?”
And just like that poor salmon lying motionless on the counter, I began to spill my guts. I told Larry everything: about the beauty school, the threats, the escape with my son, how I now panicked over little things, my irrational fears, night terrors, feeling frozen, dead, not able to enjoy anything or anybody. He nodded his head knowingly.
“It’s weird, you know. In Kabul I wasn’t really afraid of anything. I knew I wasn’t always safe, but I didn’t go around feeling unsafe, either. I was living what I thought was a normal life. Now I’m afraid all the time. I can’t make any sense out of it. I just want everything to go back to normal. I want my life back.”
I was baring my soul to a stranger. I couldn’t seem to stop the words, or the tears, from flowing. Larry listened quietly, his almost black eyes hardly blinking.
I didn’t know this man, but he seemed to know something, and somehow I felt he might be saving my life.
I heaved a giant sigh as I finished my story. Larry carefully put down the knife, grabbed a towel and wiped off his hands, then walked outside and motioned for me to follow. The air was still. Larry pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to me. I quietly declined and reached into my purse for a tissue. He inhaled slowly and, just as slowly, exhaled.
“You’ll be just fine,” he assured me, staring off into the cloudless sky. “Sit for a year. Feel. Heal. Cry. Laugh. And get a cat.”
Hello, my name is Deborah Rodriguez. I’m a hairdresser, and I have PTSD.
Having a name for what might be wrong with me didn’t make it all that much easier. PTSD. Four letters that when strung together sound strangely like a sexually transmitted disease. Or when turned into words and said out loud—post-traumatic stress disorder—like a car engine malfunction. I have been called many things in my lifetime—eccentric, wacky, larger-than-life—but the one thing I always had a hard time accepting was a label.
Of course, I had considered the possibility that I might be suffering from PTSD even before my conversation with Larry. I had lived in a war zone for five years. Things were popping and dropping around me all the time, rattling the windows and rocking the house, but they usually missed their targets. Sure, it left me a bit unnerved at times, but I resided above the The Kabul Beauty School, not on a military base. No one shot at me, nor did I know anyone who’d been shot. I never witnessed combat. I felt safe ninety-nine percent of the time. I do hair—the biggest dangers in my workplace are carpal tunnel syndrome and tripping over an electrical cord. So it was hard for me to reconcile my experience with that of a soldier out in the field. I almost didn’t feel worthy of the diagnosis.
But the fact was, I was suffering. And after the glowworm incident I wasn’t about to go back to therapy. Steve Logan, Therapist, had ruined that option forever. That, and I still had no insurance. I decided to follow Larry’s a
dvice. First I got the cat. Then I sat.
Larry had suggested that I should try not to shake anything up for one year—no major life changes. No marriage, no divorce, no big purchases. Just keep things simple and do my best to feel everything. A year sounded like an eternity, but I decided to give it a try.
I felt everything, all right, but wallowing in all that loss, grief, and loneliness left me exhausted, and even more depressed. I was eating too much, and was spending an inordinate amount of time and money shopping online. How many pairs of black leggings can one girl use? I even ordered bathing suits, and I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a needle than be caught dead in a bathing suit. All I could think about was Afghanistan, and by now those around me were so sick of listening to my blathering that I could see their eyes glaze over whenever I uttered the word Kabul. But I wanted so badly to hold on to that life, and I had so much more to say about what I had witnessed over there. So I began to write my stories down. I believe now that disappearing into those stories, which later became the novel The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul, is what kept me from totally going over the edge. I gave my story the happy ending I wished had really happened.
I tried to find a job, but even though I had founded a successful nonprofit in Kabul and had helped hundreds of Afghan women learn a trade, the big charitable organizations wouldn’t give me the time of day—I had no college degree. I briefly considered going back to school, but after checking out the requirements, the years it would have taken me to finish seemed like a lifetime.
Even my rock-solid fallback profession, hairdressing, turned its back on me. Knowing I was in no position to start my own business in California, as the costs would have been out of this world, I mapped out a strategy for making the rounds of the local salons. I’d dress up to the nines and hit all the high-end places, offering my expertise as a color specialist. Who could resist a hotshot, internationally renowned (thanks to my book) hairdresser with years of experience to share?
I waltzed through the heavy glass doors of the first salon on my list, all dolled up in my trendiest handmade designer suit and my Turkish leather boots. The place was a mass of chrome and mirrors, with power cords descending from the ceiling, and not even a wisp of discarded hair visible on the glossy black hardwood floor.
“I’m Deb Rodriguez,” I said to the twenty-something tattooed, miniskirted girl behind the reception desk, and held out my hand for a shake.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked without moving a muscle in her face, or anywhere else for that matter.
“Is the owner here? I’m interested in a job.”
The girl nodded a little, her eyes dipping down to my feet and back up again. “I can let you speak to the manager if you’d like,” she offered in a monotone voice. She lowered her chin and spoke softly into a tiny mouthpiece snaking from beneath her blunt-cut bob.
A pale, skinny, black-clad guy appeared at her side, shears hanging from his right index finger. “How can I help you?” he asked with a patronizing smile.
As I filled in Edward Scissorhands on who I was and what I wanted, rattling off my résumé at rapid speed, even pulling out a copy of my book for good measure, I could sense his growing impatience by the way his eyes began to dart around the room. Behind him, the mirror showed a salon at full throttle, every station occupied and every hairdresser in motion. Then, in the midst of the familiar commotion, I suddenly caught sight of myself—a lime-green striped candy cane among a sea of black cool. My gorgeous raw silk, broad-shouldered, shawl-collared, custom-tailored jacket, the one that had made me so chic in Kabul, was now making me stand out like an alien from another planet. That, and my long, straight redheaded extensions, which the insides of this place had probably not seen in years, if ever. And my makeup! My eyebrows! What was I thinking? They were way, way too Afghanistan for Napa. My heart sank as the blood rushed to my cheeks. I’d been out of the country so long that I had lost all sense of style. The Deb who had always prided herself on being trendy and cool was suddenly and woefully out of touch. I was trendy and cool in Kabul, but now I was a walking victim of the sorely outdated copies of Vogue that were the only issues circulating over there. A living, breathing What Not to Wear. I had lost my cool. I looked like a freak.
I was told that the only position available to me might be shampoo girl. Minimum wage. But I knew what this guy was thinking. Nobody wants an old hairdresser. At my age, you either come with a huge clientele in your hip pocket, or you don’t come at all. And you certainly don’t come with a green-striped suit.
My only other option would be the quick-cut places. This time I wore so much black I looked like Elvira. At my first stop, everyone looked like they were fresh out of high school. And I was told that I’d have to do a haircut every fifteen minutes. Are you kidding me? What about that consult? What about the color? I made that first stop my last.
So I continued to sit. The boredom was stifling. I craved the chaos of my old life. I was an unemployed drama queen without a script. What I needed to feel was alive. I probably should have been on meds.
In my relationship with Mike, I was taking the passive-aggressive approach. But mostly passive, to be honest. I knew I was too much of a mess to be in any relationship, but I never seemed to be able to summon the wherewithal to leave. Lucky for him, he was away working most of the time, and when he was around I did my best to put on my happy face and keep it there. I suspect that much of the fulfillment he got out of the relationship came from being my savior, the knight in shining armor. My little Afghan refugee, he once called me in front of his boss.
Any attempts I made at independence were pretty pathetic. For instance, I refused to bring my clothes into his house. So instead of packing up and going it on my own, I simply bought a closet and put it in the garage. Moving my clothes into his closet would have meant I was staying, and I knew, in the long run, that I shouldn’t, and maybe even couldn’t.
“You need the girl next door, and I’m definitely not her,” I’d tell Mike over and over, the guilt of letting this relationship happen eating me up. “If you really knew who I was, I doubt you’d even like me.” At that time of my life, I didn’t much like myself, either.
Needless to say, our relationship was faltering. Only Mike didn’t seem to realize it—it was as though we were involved in two different relationships. I think his first warning sign should have been the forty-foot shipping container I set up in the garden. I had been sold on the beauty of shipping containers in Kabul, where there were so many of them constantly arriving, then sitting empty, that people got very creative. Even the American embassy recycled containers as apartments, creating a whole trailer park compound for their employees. In Napa, I wanted a girl cave, a place to escape. With an enthusiasm I hadn’t been able to summon since returning to the States, I draped the ceilings of my very own shipping container in velvet and painted the interior in an Arabian Nights theme—bright blues, oranges, and reds. Always the hairdresser, I installed a salon chair, a sofa, and a mini fridge. My shipping container was the only place where I could indulge in a glass of wine and a cigarette without fear of offending Mike or his mom.
In a last-ditch, halfhearted attempt at salvaging what little I saw between us, Mike and I boarded a cruise to Mexico. It was a compromise: I had sworn I’d never go on a cruise, and Mike had vowed never to set foot in Mexico. So there we were.
I was curious about Mexico. Hell, I was curious about everywhere on the planet. But in Napa I had sort of befriended some of the Mexicans who worked as landscapers and carpenters around the neighborhood. They made me feel more comfortable and welcome than anyone else around there had. I was clearly more Mexican worker than Napa housewife. One young guy in particular, Carlos, would entertain me with stories of his life near Guadalajara, while he and his uncle laid bricks on Mike’s patio. As he spoke, one half of my mind would travel back to the streets of Kabul, while the other half began to soak up the si
ghts and sounds described in his tales. Soon I was peppering him with questions about Mexico. I was intrigued.
“If you love it so much, why are you here?” I asked one afternoon. Of course, I should have realized it was all about the money.
“But you could live like a queen down there,” he told me.
“Are you going to take her down to meet your family?” I asked when his new baby was born. He lowered his eyes to the ground. I wanted to crumble into a ball and disappear. Later I heard his landlord turned him in to the immigration authorities. I never saw him again.
On the cruise, any hopes Mike had for some steamy shipboard sex were dashed by day one. The backward-moving ocean made my head spin, and I spent hours shut up in our cabin wanting to puke my guts out, then suffering panic attacks from feeling so confined. A visit to the dining room would send me rushing back to my cell, nauseated by the sight of buffet plates piled as high as Mount Everest with every fried, breaded, cheesy, greasy, gravied food you can imagine.
One evening, while we were sailing relatively smoothly toward Cabo San Lucas, I tentatively ventured up to the bar, Mike in tow. The accented bartender had looked to me to be by far the most interesting person on board, and I thought that a little cross-cultural conversation might be a good diversion. I had run out of things to say to Mike.
Two stools down, over Mike’s shoulder, a man with unnaturally black hair smiled and raised his glass. I returned the gesture and momentarily felt just a little bit better. As I took a sip of my wine, I watched a short, roly-poly woman bounce up to the dark-haired man and plant a big juicy kiss smack on his lips. I envied the joy that seemed to be oozing from this woman as the two of them cuddled and joked. Then she turned and held out her hand. “Hi there. I’m Robin.” She jerked her thumb toward her partner. “That’s my husband, Chris. Who are you?”