When I rolled my eyes she sat down next to me and said, “Really,” and then we’d laughed over the story she’d told.
She’d said, “God, they’re so much easier than my mom!” and she was right. Julia’s mother would have cried and screamed and started in on J the second she woke 88
up. She didn’t trust Julia one bit, always wanted to know where she was going and who she’d be with. She’d question her over and over till Julia would yell, “Fine, whatever, I’m going,” and leave.
“What happened after that?” Laurie said.
“Julia told the doctor she wasn’t going anywhere when he came in to check on me and asked why she was still there. She scrounged up some old magazines and read the articles in funny voices. She bought me a candy bar when I said I wanted something to eat and the nurse I asked said, ‘Honey, you’ll just throw it up.’ The nurse was right, but it didn’t matter. Julia at least listened to me. No one else did. And when I was able to leave, she walked with me out to my parents’ car, gave me a hug, and whispered,
‘I’m going to call Kevin the second I get home and tell him we’re never ever hanging out with that guy again. I really thought he was topping off your bottle but then, when you got so sick—I was scared, A.’ My parents were there, sure. But Julia was really there. She always was.”
And after all that, after I told Laurie about how Julia and I met and how amazing she was, this is what she said.
This is what she wanted to know.
“How did you end up in the hospital?”
I stared at her. She’d said we were going to talk about Julia, and I had. And that was what she had to 89
say? That? Hadn’t she heard a word I said, hadn’t she gotten how amazing Julia was?
She’s such a crappy shrink.
“How did you end up in the hospital?” she asked again.
I sighed. “Drank too much. Remember, the thing you usually make me talk about?”
“I know,” she said, and clicked her pen twice. “You said Julia told your parents what happened, that when she was done with her story they were relieved you were all right. What did she say?”
“That I thought I was drinking soda, but that someone had put a lot of liquor in it.”
“And they believed this?”
I laughed. “Duh. It’s my parents. Of course they did.”
She clicked her pen again. “What really happened?”
“I just told you. Weren’t you listening?”
“I’d like it if you’d elaborate a bit more. You did drink a lot, Amy, but this was the first and only time you ended up in the hospital because of it, right?”
I shrugged.
Laurie said, “I’d really like to know what happened,”
in a soft voice, like I wasn’t talking because I didn’t want to or couldn’t. It was so annoying.
“Fine. Julia and I were hanging out with Kevin and this guy he sort of knew, okay? And when I went to 90
the bathroom, the guy poured grain alcohol into my vodka.”
“Why?”
“Um, because he was an asshole.”
She clicked her pen.
“I don’t really know why—I didn’t ask him, you know, but it was probably because he got all pissed off when he tried to get me to go check out the bedrooms with him and I said ‘no way.’”
“And so then—”
“Then I came back from the bathroom and drank. I didn’t notice what he’d done until—well, I didn’t notice.
I passed out, and when Julia woke me up I started throwing up and couldn’t stop. So she took me to the ER.”
“I see. Was Julia with the boys when you went to the bathroom?”
“
But she was, you know, busy with Kevin and didn’t notice.
If she’d noticed . . .”
“If she’d noticed, then what?”
“She would have said something.”
“What if she did notice?”
“What?”
