Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [55]
So I went to my room to try to start reading this book but when I cracked it open and saw all this stuff about how you stay sober by following steps that involve always looking for your part in whatever resentment you have, I thought, What the fuck does that have to do with being sober?
And that’s when the tears started. Now that they’ve stopped and I can actually concentrate on this book again, I find myself far more interested in eavesdropping. They all seem to be in complete denial over why they’re here, I decide, as I listen to them lighting cigarettes and cracking jokes. They’re not coworkers on an office break or college students blowing off steam. They’re at the end of the line. It doesn’t get any lower than rehab. What is wrong with these people that they’re not more depressed by their circumstances?
I don’t want to start crying again—I’d actually planned to keep it together because I’ve been told that my roommate is going to be checking in any minute and I’m counting on her being some kind of a saving grace—so I just keep listening to them while trying to read the damn book. I’ve already decided that my roommate will be cute and normal and we’ll smoke and eat candy and plan extravagantly creative good-bye parties for each other like people always do in movies about rehab.
I’m wavering between these my-roommate-will-save-me fantasies and thinking that checking in here was a horrific mistake as I listen to everyone laugh and read about how I’m going to have to go and apologize to everyone I’ve ever harmed. I’m nothing like these annoyingly cheerful freaks, I think, and decide I should probably call Mom and explain this to her. I’m thinking about this when Kimberly, the no-nonsense front desk lady, walks in to the dank, depressing room.
“Knock knock,” she says, even though she’s already inside. In drug rehab, this probably counts as a joke. “I’m here to go through your bags.”
Joel had warned me about this. He’d told me that Kimberly would come and search my belongings for smuggled-in coke and pills. How desperate did people have to be, I wonder, to sneak drugs into rehab? Kimberly grabs my pink hobo purse from the floor and pulls my BlackBerry out.
“You won’t be needing this,” she smiled, as she tucks the BlackBerry into her pocket. Even though I vaguely recall someone telling me this would happen, I can’t help but feel horribly violated, and positive that Kimberly is getting some sadistic pleasure out of taking away my connection to the outside world. And then she continues to go through my bag until she lands on a bottle of Listerine.
“Oh, no way, Jose,” she says while cradling it, sounding excited.
“You encourage bad breath?” I snap.
“Oh, that’s funny,” she says, not sounding remotely amused. “There’s alcohol in there.”
And then I snap. “Jesus Christ. I’m not going to drink Listerine for the fucking alcohol,” I say.
Kimberly clearly doesn’t feel it’s necessary to respond, for she simply slides the bottle of mouthwash into her other pocket and looks at me the way one might a serial killer.
“You ready for your UA?” she asks.
I just look at her, not interested in explaining that I have no idea what she’s asking me.
“Your test?” she says.
I continue to stare at her blankly.
“Urine analysis,” she finally says, then adds, “You have to pee in a cup.”
She turns and starts walking out of the room and I get up and follow her. It probably should have occurred to me, but of course I hadn’t even considered the fact that they were going to be constantly testing me to see if I was taking drugs. While I can’t imagine who the hell would take drugs while they’re in rehab, after getting a look at Joel and some of the other residents,