Postcards From the Edge by Carrie Fisher Read Free Book Online Page A

hypnosis. There’s lots of things you can do before you end up in meetings. I’m not gonna become one of those AA Moonies for the rest of my life.
    Unless Suzanne goes. She seems open to this meeting thing. I’d go to meetings with her. Then it wouldn’t be so bad if my friends found out. I could say, “Hey, I went with my girlfriend, Suzanne Vale:”
    I hope nobody tells Joan I’m here. She’d just say, “I knew it. I knew it all along:’ That bitch! I was never loaded as many times as she thought I was. I’m just naturally very hyper.
    Her other boyfriend before me was a druggie, too. I don’t mean … He was a druggie. I liked drugs, but he was a druggie. It’s like she just goes out with people who take drugs so she can pick on them. Joan of Narc, patron saint of the addict. And every time I would do something good for myself, she’d make fun of me. Like when I bought the exercise bike and she called me “Mr. Health” and said I’d never use it.
    I couldn’t tell her anything. I remember when I read that they found out aluminum cans could be a cause of Alzheimer’s, and when I tried to warn her she said, “Oh, please. You dump poisons into your system and you’re gonna get on me about my diet soda?”
    She could never stand to see me have a good time. She always looked like she smelled something funny when she was with me, with her head back and her shoulders as close to her neck as they could get, like I’d done something really sick. I took drugs, that’s all. She should look after her own stuff. God, I’m relieved that’s over. I can finally breathe. Aaaaahhh! I hope she doesn’t find out I’m in here. That’s all I need. I can hear her now: “I told you so. I knew it. Nyah nyah nyah:”
    39

C A R R I EF I S HER
    That’s why it would be good with Suzanne. She could never point the finger at me because she ended up in a place like this, too. Joan will feel so bad when she hears I’m going out with Suzanne. But I want this thing to start very slow. I don’t want it to be really obvious. I don’t think she has any idea at all that I’m watching her. I don’t sit near her in group and I don’t sit at her table for lunch. I’m keeping my distance, playing it cool. I think that’s a very good tactic. She’s probably used to people flinging themselves at her. I’ll just keep off to myself and look a little sad and sensitive, and eventually she’ll come to me.
    Maybe this was all for the best. I have a better idea of my life now. I’m gonna have a relationship with Suzanne, and I’ll get my career back on track and pay my parents back all the money I’ve borrowed over the past couple of years. That’ll be good. Then my dad won’t look at me with that disdain he thinks is so funny, and my mom will stop picking on me. Maybe I’ll get a bigger apartment and …
    I feel good! This is a good time to sit back and reflect, and get a grip on my life. I think I’m taking a really realistic view of it allprobably for the first time, to be brutally honest about it. Maybe I’ll even get involved in politics, who knows? …
    DAY NINETEEN
    Another new guy checked in tonight. He actually checked himself in, but not before he stopped at the bar in the building next door for a couple of drinks. He was in excellent spirits when he got here, and he was wearing a very festive Hawaiian shirt. His name is Ted.
    When he leaned down to sign the admission contract, a cocaine bottle fell out of his pocket. “Oops,” he said, and giggled sheepishly as he retrieved the vial. “My lucky cocaine bottle. Look, the spoon was handmade. It’s bronze.” Lucille, my favorite nurse, took it out of his hand and said, “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen one like it.” He started explaining the history of this coke spoon, and Lucille listened to him as if it was the most fas-POSTCARDS from the EDGE
    cinating story about a coke spoon she’d ever heard. He was still describing the workmanship as she steered him