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point, we couldn’t remember.) We called Eleanor and Katharine but they did not come that night. Mom was handled in shifts by this time. They would come in the morning. They would take it from there. We were all so close in age, there was never a feeling of we’re older, we’ll take care of this, this is the thing to do with Doris. They were more competent and responsible than Julia and I were, yes. But no one could handle Doris. Not us, not my dad, not her friends, not her shrinks, AA, married boyfriends. People were never called to come and rectify the situation. People were called to give other people breaks. They would check her into Lenox Hill detox again or some other rehab. We should go back to school.

Leaving the emergency wing, walking down East End Avenue with Mom’s watch of Nonnie’s and her wedding rings and diamond earrings in our jeans pockets, Julia and I walked in silence, bleary, blood on our shirts and jeans, having no idea what time it was. It seemed crazy, but I wondered whether we should have asked the doctors to check our mother for crabs.

PAINTERS ON BICYCLES

EVERY ONE AT PURCHASE had artistic purpose. They were painters, actors, opera singers, classical musicians, film directors, dancers. They were there to become artists. I was there because I was an academic fuck-up, which, thankfully, looks a lot like being an artist.

It was conceived and built as New York’s state art school, the artsy child of the SUNY (State University of New York) system. The campus itself looked like a prison during a drought. The buildings were brown brick—rumored to have been donated by Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s construction business—low and drab. Construction began in 1967, and as it went on, it seemed that Purchase chose Kent State as its muse, adding features such as an underground tunnel system so no students could take over a building, and giving the dorm rooms about six inches of space under the doors so campus police could throw tear bombs in and smoke out rioters. Cheery stuff.

In an upside-down collegiate universe, the arts departments were first-rate and difficult to get into, while the other departments had all the cache of a community college. So Humanities students were the losers at Purchase. History, Psychology, Math, Science? Scram. I have a movie to cast. Many of the students had gone to The High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, the “Fame school,” but I didn’t see much dancing on cabs while I was there. While I was used to being around kids who were smart and driven, they were driven out of some robotic obligation to be rich like their parents. The students at Purchase were making art, films, studying opera singing because they wanted to, because they loved these things. I met all kinds of interesting people there. But that doesn’t mean they knew how to drink.

The first weekend there I looked around and realized I was living with three other girls. Just like home. Why did everyone else seem so excited? My roommate and the two girls in the other room of our suite let it be known they liked to party. One evening the whole gang came bounding into my room and announced their devilish intentions.

“There’s a social in the Humanities building and we’re gonna get some wine coooolers! You wanna party?”

With three four-packs of Bartles & Jaymes? I think not. I don’t want to be stuck with a case of alcoholic blue-balls when you ladies run out of wine coolers and pass out and I can’t get anything else to drink. No way.

MY SECOND YEAR I was assigned a roommate in this on-campus apartment and it turned out I was going to be living with someone from an equally no-fun-to-drink-with category, a religious group called “the Believers.” I have no idea what church they were from but the Believers were always starting a very caring conversation with you. “Hi. How are you today?” and it would always end with “Well, you should come to a Bible study we’re having this Friday!” which was so shocking to me. Here we are, having a gay old time while waiting for our horrible food, holding our horrible green