But Inside I'm Screaming

Isabel.

“Isabel, could you call off your guard dog?”

“What are you doing here, Alex?” she asked, emboldened by Tom’s protectiveness.

Alex gave Tom an I-could-take-you-if-I-felt-like-it look, even though he would most certainly have lost in a fight with Isabel’s burly photographer. He smiled smugly at them both.

“Can’t a man take a little vacaciones, as they say here? Great place, Puerto Rico. And, last I checked, a free country.”

“You expect me to believe you came here on vacation. In the middle of hurricane season. Coincidentally when I’m here working?” Isabel asked. “Who told you I was here?”

“Lots of questions from la muchacha,” Alex said.

“Don’t be a dick.” Tom was impatient. “Get lost, man. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“That true, my darling?”

Isabel winced at the mock term of endearment. “I have to work, Alex.”

“My wife and I would like a moment to ourselves.” Alex adjusted his spine to try for a taller appearance as he spoke to Tom.

“I don’t take orders from you, asshole,” Tom replied.

“I’ll just be a minute, Tommy.” Isabel gently touched his back as if to calm him down. “I’m okay.”

“I’ll be over here.” Tom indicated a shady spot about two yards away. “Right here.”

When Tom was just out of earshot Isabel turned her attention back to her estranged husband. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m on vacation.”

“Don’t give me that, Alex. I know you followed me here. Why?”

He reached out and she flinched. “Easy. Easy. I’m just getting this hair out of your eyes.”

Out of the corner of her eye Isabel could see Tom was watching them intently.

“Look, I’ve got to go.” Isabel took a step toward Tom.

“Okay, okay, we’ll play it your way. But I must say you’ve completely lost your sense of humor.” He took a deep breath. “I thought we could talk. Just the two of us.”

“Alex,” Isabel groaned. “We’ve been over this a million times. It’s over. Let’s just move on, okay? Have a little distance?”

“It’s not over,” he said calmly, the smile instantly vanishing from his face. “Not by a long shot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. We are not over. This—” he motioned at an invisible string tying them together “—is not over.”

“Isabel, we gotta ship out,” Tom called to her.

“You better go now.” Alex’s smile clicked back on. “You wouldn’t want to keep your bodyguard waiting.”

He didn’t wait for Isabel to respond. He walked backward so that he could face her. “Adios.”

Isabel felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

Thirty-Eight

“Two o’clock, everyone! Medication time!” Julie consults her clipboard and calls the first name.

“Melanie?”

“Here I am,” she calls out cheerfully.

“Okay, Melanie. You know the drill. You’re aware of what you’re taking, right?” The nurse asks perfunctorily —like a flight attendant mechanically reciting the passenger safety instructions, knowing no one is paying attention. Three Breezes prided itself on its medication regimen.

“I know, I know,” Melanie says before tossing the pills into her mouth as if she is gulping down a shot of alcohol.

“Crystal Light or Hawaiian Punch?”

“Hawaiian Punch, please.” Melanie’s mouth is full of pills so it sounds more like “H’wine Pun, peaz.”

She thinks she’s so cute, that’s what kills me. She thinks everyone thinks she’s adorable. News flash, Mel: You ain’t all that.

Julie hands her a small Dixie cup, watches carefully as Melanie gulps that down, checks another box on her clipboard and calls the next name.

“Sukanya?”

Sukanya shuffles forward.

“How are you today, Sukanya?” Julie asks as she hands over the tiny cup of pills.

“Are you aware of the medication you’re taking?”

Sukanya blinks and the nurse continues.

“Crystal Light or Hawaiian Punch?”

Sukanya casts a glazed glance at the pitcher containing the unnaturally red beverage.

“Here you go.”

Sukanya takes the Dixie cup in one hand and the pill cup in the other and starts to turn away. Julie grabs her arm. “Sukanya,” she sings in a mock-friendly tone, “you know better than that. You need to swallow the pills here, where I can see you.”

Sukanya stares at the fingers wrapped around her forearm until Julie releases her grip. Then she slowly places the pills on her tongue and swallows them down with the punch.

Can we move this thing along?

“Good job. Okay, let’s see, who’s next? Isabel?”

Isabel moves forward. Like a model patient, she takes her pills in front of Julie and moves away from the doorway of the tiny pill closet. After ECT, this is nothing to her.

“Kristen? You’re on deck!” Julie is back to her clipboard, checking away. She does not know that when Kristen pops her medication into her mouth the pills nestle under her tongue. After Kristen turns away from the medication checkpoint, she spits out her medicine.

Isabel has taken only two steps into the group therapy room. There, facing the double doors, is Lark, neatly tucked into the wing chair, enveloped by the jacket.

We have to look at that damn jacket for the entire session?

“Let’s start off this group session by checking in with everyone,” Larry announces. “Let’s go around the room and each of you can let the rest of the group know how you’re feeling or what you’d like to work on or, well, I’ll leave it to you. Whatever each of you would like to say. Isabel? Let’s start with you. How are you today?”

Isabel breaks her stare at the jacket and tries to focus on Larry. Thirty seconds later she looks back at Lark, who appears to be fighting to keep her eyelids open.

“Isabel?”

“Yes?” Focus.

“I asked how you were doing?”

Focus.

“I’m not doing too well, if you must know. I hate this fucking place. I don’t want to be here. I think this is all a bunch of shit…sitting here, talking about ‘what’s going on with us,’” she says, mimicking Larry’s slow intonations. “I’m sick of it. Sick of it all. I want to get out of here.”

“Hmm.”

“And furthermore, Lark’s sitting in here in that thing and it’s a little hard to concentrate.” She stops and looks back at Lark.

“And?”

“And nothing.” She pauses. “Actually…I thought this place trumpeted the fact that all patients are in charge of their own treatment regimens, or however you put it,” she challenges Larry.