When had I eaten it? Did I have any strange food cravings? Strange dreams? Irrational thoughts? Had I been exposed to any toxic chemicals? On and on.
At the end of all the questions and tests and needles and samples she said I had low blood pressure and ought to eat more salt. I liked the sound of Dr. Flynn’s diagnosis. Everything could be explained, my life could go on. All I needed was more salt.
I took the fact that Sister Maria’s potion had done nothing as proof that there had never been anything wrong. Of course it had only been for a laugh, anyway. Just out of curiosity. But the dreams about a woman on a red beach continued just the same. And Ed and I continued to fight, and I kept doing things like snapping at cab drivers and occasionally going back for a drink to the bar where I had drunk all that tequila. A heat wave came over the city and everyone was on edge. Ed would come home each night and complain about the heat and I wanted to kill him. I knew it was hot. I didn’t need to talk about it.
Occasionally I thought about how much I had changed over the past few months and I was able to take a step back and look at the situation and I was horrified. The old Amanda, the one I had chosen for myself and cultivated for years, would rear her head and scream.
Just when I was on the verge of seeing the truth, when the pieces would start to fall into place and I could almost see that the situation was horribly, drastically, wrong, the demon’s voice would step in and tell me No, I was the same Amanda I had always been. Only better.
T HEN THERE WAS THE Earmark Hotel party. The Earmark was a Jet-set hotel downtown. Fields & Carmine had remodeled the lobby, restaurant, and bar, and we were all invited to the reopening party. Ed, naturally, had to work late that night, so I took a cab down with the other single people from the office.
I was planning to just stay for a few drinks, fulfill my obligations as a Fields & Carmine staff member, and then take off. But the party was swinging and the hotel was packed, and clearly there would be no quick in and out. The people I had come with drifted away. I found myself talking to Tom and Bill Earmark, the brothers who owned the hotel. I barely knew them—we had made a little small talk in the office and I had sat in on a few meetings. But very quickly Tom was taking me behind the bar for a martini he made himself, to avoid the line, and showing me around the new space. He took my arm to lead me through the crowd, and when he touched my arm I had a flash of intuition—He likes you, he always has,from the first time he saw you in the office, walking in the door with a sunburn across the bridge of your nose and your hair down.
Then everything got kind of blurry. I was talking to Tom. His eyes, which had always been good, big and clear and bluish gray, got better and better. We drank martinis but I wasn’t getting drunk. I was becoming less there. I was sliding away I was talking to Tom, I didn’t know what we were talking about, and his eyes were getting better and better, and so were his cheekbones-irresistible, really—and I was talking, not just talking but flirting, horribly flirting, putting my hand on Tom’s forearm and then on his shoulders, tossing my head back when I laughed. But I wasn’t there. I was watching it all, I could see it, but I wasn’t inside of myself. It was all so muddled—I caught snippets of conversation and odd sensations, like a strong smell of gin, the feel of the loud music pounding in my chest. I was watching a movie too late at night, half-asleep, not grasping the plot at all. We were talking and laughing, and then I got a tour of the empty kitchen, alone. Then we were getting into an elevator together. His arm was around my shoulder. I thought maybe I was here, in this elevator with Tom, but I could be in a different place. I could be a different person. I tried to get hold of the situation, to see for sure exactly who and where I
At the end of all the questions and tests and needles and samples she said I had low blood pressure and ought to eat more salt. I liked the sound of Dr. Flynn’s diagnosis. Everything could be explained, my life could go on. All I needed was more salt.
I took the fact that Sister Maria’s potion had done nothing as proof that there had never been anything wrong. Of course it had only been for a laugh, anyway. Just out of curiosity. But the dreams about a woman on a red beach continued just the same. And Ed and I continued to fight, and I kept doing things like snapping at cab drivers and occasionally going back for a drink to the bar where I had drunk all that tequila. A heat wave came over the city and everyone was on edge. Ed would come home each night and complain about the heat and I wanted to kill him. I knew it was hot. I didn’t need to talk about it.
Occasionally I thought about how much I had changed over the past few months and I was able to take a step back and look at the situation and I was horrified. The old Amanda, the one I had chosen for myself and cultivated for years, would rear her head and scream.
Just when I was on the verge of seeing the truth, when the pieces would start to fall into place and I could almost see that the situation was horribly, drastically, wrong, the demon’s voice would step in and tell me No, I was the same Amanda I had always been. Only better.
T HEN THERE WAS THE Earmark Hotel party. The Earmark was a Jet-set hotel downtown. Fields & Carmine had remodeled the lobby, restaurant, and bar, and we were all invited to the reopening party. Ed, naturally, had to work late that night, so I took a cab down with the other single people from the office.
I was planning to just stay for a few drinks, fulfill my obligations as a Fields & Carmine staff member, and then take off. But the party was swinging and the hotel was packed, and clearly there would be no quick in and out. The people I had come with drifted away. I found myself talking to Tom and Bill Earmark, the brothers who owned the hotel. I barely knew them—we had made a little small talk in the office and I had sat in on a few meetings. But very quickly Tom was taking me behind the bar for a martini he made himself, to avoid the line, and showing me around the new space. He took my arm to lead me through the crowd, and when he touched my arm I had a flash of intuition—He likes you, he always has,from the first time he saw you in the office, walking in the door with a sunburn across the bridge of your nose and your hair down.
Then everything got kind of blurry. I was talking to Tom. His eyes, which had always been good, big and clear and bluish gray, got better and better. We drank martinis but I wasn’t getting drunk. I was becoming less there. I was sliding away I was talking to Tom, I didn’t know what we were talking about, and his eyes were getting better and better, and so were his cheekbones-irresistible, really—and I was talking, not just talking but flirting, horribly flirting, putting my hand on Tom’s forearm and then on his shoulders, tossing my head back when I laughed. But I wasn’t there. I was watching it all, I could see it, but I wasn’t inside of myself. It was all so muddled—I caught snippets of conversation and odd sensations, like a strong smell of gin, the feel of the loud music pounding in my chest. I was watching a movie too late at night, half-asleep, not grasping the plot at all. We were talking and laughing, and then I got a tour of the empty kitchen, alone. Then we were getting into an elevator together. His arm was around my shoulder. I thought maybe I was here, in this elevator with Tom, but I could be in a different place. I could be a different person. I tried to get hold of the situation, to see for sure exactly who and where I
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