Yet the Visitors Lounge for the Behavioral Health Unit looked nothing like Cuckoo’s Nest. It felt more like the member’s club for some low-budget airline minus the salty snacks—couches and easy chairs set up in haphazard circles, a long folding table by the back wall, a big TV propped on a stand in front of the couch, the walls lined with unmatched bookcases stacked with year-old magazines and ancient board games like Parcheesi and Risk.
In the center of the room Amy sat on the couch facing the television, her head tilted against her shoulder as if sleeping. The room was empty except for a cranky-looking nurse on a chair by the door and an old man in slippers and a blue plaid robe, who sat on the far side of the couch admiring his feet. The TV was muted, tuned to the Food Network, a bald guy in cooking whites chopping carrots on the screen.
Although I’d seen plenty of recent photos on Instagram, I hadn’t seen Amy in person in over three years. (Between boyfriends, she’d invited me to meet her in Vegas for the Fourth of July weekend, and I, unable to avoid a bad idea, had spent three wonderful days with her at the Paris Casino Hotel.) As I approached, I braced myself for the worst. They’d pumped her stomach and shot her up with meds; how could she not look ragged and pale, glassy-eyed and weak? Yet the moment I spotted her, it didn’t matter that she wore no make-up, or that her hair was flat, or that she’d added a few extra pounds around her hips. Anyone else might have found her a mess, but to me, well, she looked like Amy, and that was enough. Butterflies danced in my gut, a familiar two-step.
“Hi, Amy.”
She turned her head, her face slack, her eyes droopy as she roused herself from a half-sleep, reminiscent of me coming out of a narcoleptic funk. She wore big purple socks, sweatpants, and an extra-large T-shirt with Property of Jaybird Pizza stitched across the chest. On her left arm was a paper wristlet with her name and room number; her other wrist had a thin plastic band, no doubt some kind of GPS gizmo monitoring her whereabouts and vitals. I waved, stupidly, and the old man in the blue plaid robe turned to me and smiled, as if I’d waved to him, his pink wrinkled mouth showing a single yellow tooth.
“Well, well, there you are, my hero,” Amy said, in a sleepy drawl. “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. On the phone two days earlier she’d been her usual self, the sharp bantering Jersey girl ready to play, but maybe the pills had kicked in and dragged her to fog-land. Her voice was weak, breathy; her hair, tied in a ponytail, hung limply over her right shoulder.
“In what dimension do I qualify as a stranger?”
“In here everyone’s a stranger except for me and my buddy Glenn,” she said. “Isn’t that right, Glenn?”
The old man, Glenn, turned his head and mumbled into his chest. Amy yawned.
“Sorry. I’m a little beat. Probably the Xanax, plus we’re not allowed any caffeine. And my pain-in-the-ass ex-husband just left…”
“I saw him in the hallway. I saw your daughter, too.”
“Want to adopt her? She’s mad at me and hates her father—smart girl.” She yawned again, but I could sense her coming back, her voice picking up strength and speed. “She wants to run away to California and be a star.”
She held out her hand and I helped her off the couch, her legs unsteady. She looked at the old man and pointed toward the wall.
“I’m going to stand over there for a while, okay, Glenn?”
“Don’t go far,” he said, his eyes peeking up hesitantly as he cracked a single knuckle.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back,” she told him, and we walked over to the window.
‘What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“He’s afraid of the weather.”
“You mean like thunderstorms?”
“No, all weather, all the time. Seventy-two and sunny can send him into a panic attack.”
“That’s a problem.”
“I think they’re working on a pill for it. Until then he masturbates a lot. It seems to help.”
As if having heard, he twisted his right hand, cracked another knuckle, then dropped his palm for a quick feel.
We looked out the window, with its dull view of the parking lot, the cars squeezed between slanted orange lines, the open dumpsters standing along the back, the pigeons circling and swooping for snacks. In the window we could see our faint reflections, his and her ghosts in grimy, finger-stained glass.
“You can hug me, if you want,” she said. “It’s allowed. You can even kiss me but wait until the nurse looks away before you add any tongue.” She put her palm against my chest. “Oh yeah, that’s not allowed, is it? California Kelly might find out.”
She fell into my arms, and of course she fit perfectly, as if our bodies, in the early larval stage, had evolved as interlocking puzzle pieces. It had always been that way, from the time we were eight years old and paired up for square dancing in afternoon gym class.
“Please tell me this isn’t real,” I said. “You needed a break and wanted the insurance company to pick up the tab, right? You didn’t actually try to kill yourself?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “People never take me seriously,” she said. “Even you, Duck.”
“I take you seriously. I just…”
“No, you don’t. I know the crack about the insurance company was just your signature bullshit one-liner, but really, Duck…” She gestured around the room. “Does this look like a ‘break’? Do you know how many sick days I get a year? Three! And four of them are already gone. My next paycheck will be twenty-eight cents.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You always are.”
Her hands mimed opening an imaginary wine bottle, poured an invisible glass, and pretended to throw it back in one gulp.
“Nope,
