OCD Love Story Read online

  “Not ancient or anything. I think he wears eyeliner, which I guess some people think is hot,” I say. Lisha has a weakness for guys who wear makeup, which is hilarious since she herself barely wears any. Lisha blushes.

  “Shut up and buy me a mocha,” she says, walking out of her room before I can get a look at the sheepish grin she’s never able to get control of.

  • • •

  We get past her parents without much discussion once again. After Lisha got in early to Harvard, they stopped needing to keep track of every little thing she did. Kind of like getting into Harvard was the end of the parenting race, and now anything else Lisha does is a cooldown from that victory. As soon as we’re in the car, though, Lisha is all over me.

  “Can you just explain it again? How do you know this guy, exactly?” She keeps peering at me like I’m a knot of string to be untangled, but I don’t have time or space in my head to go over this. My breathing already feels funny. I haven’t felt right since I dropped Beck off at the gym. Maybe it’s guilt for having helped him do his OCD thing.

  I turn on the radio and zone in on the local news just in case. Something about a fire. Crap. I start the car and Lisha reaches to turn the radio to whiny college kid rock, but I clear my throat to stop her.

  “That’s kinda near where they live,” I say. “That fire they’re talking about. Can we listen for a sec?” I feel a shake in my voice, but I’m hoping she can’t hear it, and I decide to drive as fast as I can, which right now is thirty-three miles an hour, because there’s probably black ice on the roads from this morning’s chill.

  “I’ve, like, run into him and his wife. I just think they’re . . . cool. They go to Dr. Pat. I don’t really know know them.” The car slows as I talk; doing both at once seems dangerous.

  “Oh my God, he’s like some hot mystery guy! Intrigue. And married? Is she hot too? Are they in, like, marriage counseling? What do you guys talk about? This is kinda sketchy, right? Are you being sketchy?” And I know she’s trying to sound judgmental or at least concerned, but she doesn’t. She sounds one hundred percent thrilled. The report about the fire has ended with no real details, so I try to push myself to get a tiny bit more speed. Just in case. Lisha changes the radio to the indie college station and takes off her boots so that she can bend her knees up to her chest and get comfortable in the cramped seat. It’s the best part of friendship: the familiarity, the little bits of routine that mean everything’s okay. Lisha pulls out a granola bar and breaks off a piece for me.

  Somehow, my hands won’t move from the wheel. I want to just take it from her hand, but my brain is telling my hands to stay on ten-and-two.

  “Black ice,” I say, “need both hands.” I open my mouth and she lets me clamp the bar between my teeth, like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

  “Anyway, I barely know him. Let’s say I’m intrigued,” I say. But Lisha’s already in a fit of giggles planning my torrid love affair with Austin.

  “Oh my God, this is bad,” she says. Covers her mouth with her hands.

  “He seems like a rock star. Charismatic. But fragile. His wife, too.”

  I don’t say: I’m pretty positive if I don’t check on them a few times a week at the very least, something terrible might happen. I don’t say: If Dr. Pat knew about this, she’d be even more convinced I have OCD.

  “Oh my God, are they divorcing? And then will you move in on him?” Lisha puts her legs up on the dashboard. “Can you speed up, please? This is painful.”

  “Honestly, he doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “Are you his stalker? I’m not judging, but stalking is a felony. Or a crime. Something. And I’m sorry, you sort of have a history with—” I don’t let Lisha finish the sentence.

  “Lisha,” I say, stopping her with what I intend to be a snap but comes out as a plea.

  It’s funny having someone know so much about me. Funny and infuriating. But she squeezes my shoulder, zips her lips, takes a breath, and does her best to change the subject.

  “So,” she says. “What do you know about the wife? Is she pretty? Do you want me to drive, Bea? This is killing me. It’s going to take, like, two hours to get there at this pace. The weather is not that bad.” It’s like she saves all her energy and all her questions and all her enthusiasm for life for just our time together. She’s been storing up all this energy and it just comes spilling out.

  “It’s fine. I’m not stalking. I’m only going to go with you this one time and then I’ll give it up.”

  Lisha nods.

  “Hey, did you hear that Mr. Venner is getting asked to leave? Like, getting fired,” she says, filling the air with gossip about our Latin teacher that would usually be more than enough to keep my mind occupied. “And it gets even better, because I guess Mr. Venner is involved with a former student.” I want so badly to be in a place where this conversation matters. I try to make my mind focus on that fact. If I can just care about this bit of gossip, I will be a normal girl again. It’s almost working. I’m about to ask Lisha who found out about it and what the administration is going to tell us and whether or not we know the student, but my mind splinters off just as I’m starting to relax. Kind of like my brain can’t stand being calm.

  It feels like a big cartoon lightning bolt crack.

  “Did you see the puppy back there? The black lab?” I say, interrupting Lisha and my own thoughts and totally destroying the tiny moment of normalcy I’d almost gotten my hands on. I’m trying to look in the rearview mirror but that’s hard to do when you’re also trying to keep your eye on the road.

  “Yeah. So cute,” Lisha says. “So anyway, supposedly Mr. Venner started trying to date her like the second she graduated, but he didn’t realize that her mother was on the school board—” She interrupts herself to turn the volume up on a Journey song that we both love to sing along with.

  “No, but did I hit it?” I say, and turn the volume right back down. Then I change it back to news. Enough is enough.

  “Um, no?” Lisha says.

  “Did you see for sure though?” I can tell from the look on her face—crooked mouth, squinting eyes, wrinkled nose—that I am being weird.

  “Bea, you’d know if you hit a dog. Are you high?” Lisha tries a laugh and nudges my shoulder. I wince.

  “Careful! I’m driving!”

  “Hey, okay,” Lisha says. She crosses her arms over her chest and slouches a little in the seat. Lisha is not a good punching bag. She doesn’t like it when I snap at my mother, let alone at her.

  “I just . . . I feel like I lost control of the car for a second there. I’m not driving very well right now.” I try to say it like it’s no big deal.

  “Was group therapy bad? Maybe you’re just upset from that or something? Pull over, I’ll drive,” Lisha says. Her hand twitches, like she might reach it out to me, but she reconsiders.

  “Yeah, no, let me just drive back around, make sure I didn’t, um, do anything wrong,” I say. Lisha takes an inhale but no exhale comes. I am definitely freaking her out.

  I turn around and circle back through the neighborhood, ten miles an hour, windows down so I can get a better view.

  “Maybe we should just head back home? Order Thai or something . . . ,” Lisha says. She bites her lip and shivers as the cold outside air rushes into the car.

  “No!” I say too loudly. “I mean, no, I want to show you this place. But yeah, you can drive. That’s better I guess. I’m on edge or something. I guess an hour in a room with those weirdos got me a little riled up.” I pull over and try to believe myself.

  “Fine. Let’s just get there,” she says. A sigh comes out of her, sharp and sleepy. A sound I’ve never heard from her before. We get out of the car. Lisha takes the driver’s seat and I crawl in the back.

  “What are you doing?” Lisha says. There’s a growl to it, and I blush hard and red.

  “I’m just feeling anxious. Maybe I skipped a day of Zoloft or something. I need to spread out in the backs
eat, okay?” There is no way, no possible way to make this seem normal, but I am a determined chick so I’m giving it my best shot.

  “Dude, I’m not your chauffeur.”

  “I’ll be way less annoying back here, I swear to God,” I say, and she shakes her head, but with less disgust than the earlier knife-twisting sigh. I check to make sure my seat belt’s secure. Then I undo it and put it back on, just in case. We’re on the highway in about two minutes now that Lisha’s in charge.

  “Maybe you can just, like, tell me about Beck instead of this Austin dude? Since Beck’s not, like, old and married?” she says when we’ve both calmed down enough to return to normalcy.

  “Don’t want to jinx it,” I say, and smile big, smile pretty, smile the smile my mother taught me to let everyone know that everything is okay.

  Austin is not the first guy I’ve gotten a teeny-tiny bit obsessed with. Lisha never approves but always wants all the details. But Austin’s different, and I want to explain that to her. He means more, he’s a real interest. He’s not like the movie stars I used to send letters to, or like Jeff, who Lisha used to gather intel on from her brother about his favorite TV show (football, which isn’t a TV show at all), his favorite color (blue), his favorite food (tacos). And Austin’s not anything like Kurt, who gave me the poetry book and then dumped me when he realized what a freak I am. Austin’s shaggy and professor-like and battle-scarred and married. Totally, totally married. To a chain-smoking trophy wife with fake boobs. I’m not trying to make out with him or get him to forgive me all my faults and love me anyway. I just want to know everything about him.

  Lisha’s gonna kill me.

  I’m telling her all the turns from the backseat, and I can basically do it without looking out the window much. I only tell her to slow down twice and it’s fine because she ignores it completely both times and I pinch my leg, which seems to help keep the panic at bay.

  Lish seems freaked out by how well I know the roads to Austin’s house already. “What does Dr. Pat say about all this, anyway?” she asks.

  “I can’t tell her about this, exactly. Austin and Sylvia are her patients. So, it’s like a conflict of interest, you know? But she knows I’m not doing the best job driving in general.” I don’t mention the pinching myself. I guess that’s probably the least weird thing I’ve been doing lately, but for some reason it strikes me as worse, as a bigger deal. Too close to Rudy’s face-picking or Jenny’s hair-pulling. So for maybe the first time ever I’m keeping something from Lisha, and something else from Dr. Pat, and I better remember who I told what because not telling the truth is way more complicated than I would have thought.

  We’re quiet for a long time and when we finally arrive, it’s anticlimactic because Lish doesn’t seem to think the building is anything special. Not to mention it’s huge, so our spying is pretty limited. I guess Lisha thought we were going to a house or a condo or someplace where we could peek in the windows and see what they’re having for dinner.

  “How do you even know which one is their apartment?” Lisha says. She’s wrinkling her nose at the whole situation. “Do you, like, know which window is their window or whatever? Or what time they get home from work? Like, what am I looking for here?”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that,” I say. “I could look up their apartment number. I mean, if their apartment faces the street I could at least figure out when they’re home and whether they have blinds or curtains.” I tap my foot, trying to decide whether or not I should get out of my car and risk checking out the name tags on the buzzers outside or maybe even asking the doorman where Sylvia and Austin live.

  “Do it,” Lisha says at last. “If we’re going to sit here, let’s at least know what we’re looking at.” When you really pay attention to the activity in an apartment building, you actually notice a lot: lights go on and off, shadows move through windows, TV screens shift the colors of different rooms from dark to light, to dark, to blue, to yellow.

  But Lisha’s right: That general impression, that map of activity, is not really enough.

  “Can you do it for me? I don’t want them to see me. Just, like, talk to the doorman. Make something up. You know I can’t lie,” I say. But that’s the thing about Lisha: She’ll encourage me to do this stuff but then she’s not really any help in executing it. I think if it wasn’t for me, she’d be bored out of her mind; she’s such a scaredy-cat when it comes to real action. We balance each other out.

  Dr. Pat says thinking that way justifies my bad behavior, and call it what you will, but Lisha is an enabler and that’s that. Dr. Pat says the way Lisha was after my breakup with Kurt was problematic. That she should have talked to someone about my behavior. That Lisha should have been concerned at how fixated I got on Kurt and his whereabouts. I still think, you know, everyone deals with heartbreak in their own way. And getting dumped sucked and Lisha was just trying to help it suck less.

  I don’t know. I sort of wish Lisha would jump out of the car and chat up the doorman and be a spy or a stalker, or even tell me to stop and be a pseudoparent or party pooper.

  She shakes her head no. Her eyes are lit up with interest but her head just keeps shaking no no no.

  Until:

  “Oh my God, there she is,” I say. The thrill of seeing Sylvia coming out for a smoke is tempered right away by the disappointment that it’s not Austin.

  “That’s the wife?” Lisha says. The appearance of Sylvia’s skimpy dress, bundles of hair, thigh-high boots is enough to make us both shut up for a good long moment.

  Thank God, I think, like if she hadn’t shown up, the world might have ended.

  Oh God, where’s Austin? I think next.

  Lisha doesn’t notice any shift in me because if she likes anything, it’s a tragic beauty. I nod to confirm that’s her, and wiggle my eyebrows, and then we’re laughing and talking about Sylvia’s sex-kitten style and way of blowing out smoke in long ribbons. She’s an entire tabloid story, a socialite gone wrong, right in front of our eyes. “Is she for real?” Lisha says with a huge breath in. “Do you think she’s a Playboy model? Or, like, an ex-stripper? Or from Texas?” Her eyes are alight with possibility and the affirmation of all the things waiting for us outside of Greenough Girl’s Academy.

  “I don’t know much about her background. But she had an affair and got a boob job to impress her husband. Oh! And during their last session they discussed her lack of employment. I guess she’s living off a trust fund from some racist dad who died. It’s complicated.”

  Lisha’s floored. She even pulls her gaze from the smoking sensation that is Sylvia and locks eyes with me.

  “Is that legal? You knowing all that?”

  “It’s not my fault Dr. Pat doesn’t soundproof her office.”

  Lisha’s stuck between judgment and fascination. Whatever I say in the next few minutes will push her one way or the other. Old Bea would tell her every little thing I’ve ever written down about Austin and Sylvia. Old Bea would rant and rave about how I absolutely have to get to know Austin. But New Bea stealthily moves one hand to her thigh and pinches until the truth-telling urges stop.

  Sneaky and subtle in the backseat, I take out my pink shooting-star notebook and write down everything Sylvia’s wearing. I count how many drags she takes per minute. I am positive if I can just get a grasp on these details, I’ll understand everything.

  “She’s like a character from a movie, right?” I say. Look at Lisha with the hope that I am not on this sinking boat all alone.

  “Kinda intoxicating, yeah,” Lish says.

  “Yes! Intoxicating! Exactly.” I grab Lisha’s arm. My heart flips with love for my best friend. I’m okay. Even Lisha is fascinated. Proof positive that I don’t even need group therapy. I say that to Lish, ’cause its too big an accomplishment to keep in. Sylvia stamps out the first cigarette and starts another. Twists her hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. No mirror, but it’s perfect anyway.

  “Group therapy’s not the worst
thing in the world, right? I mean, maybe you’ll end up liking it.” She chooses her words carefully. Her eyes are still trained on Sylvia, but I know my gaze is more intent, my interest less casual.

  “You think I’m crazy too.”

  “Would I get into a car with a crazy person?” Lisha jokes, but my chest collapses a little anyway. “Look. I’ll think you’re all better when you go on a date with that Beck guy or if you can drive us all the way from Boston to Lexington in less than an hour. Until then stick with Dr. Pat.” She says it with a smile, but it’s that invisible line anyway. I may have more fun than Lisha, but she gets to stay over on the side of sanity and I seem to have one foot outside the border and into crazytown.

  “Oh.” The word is part swallow, part whisper.

  “Hey,” Lisha says, maybe hearing the echo of her words and witnessing the pang of hurt on my face. “You’re the funnest person I know. I love you to death. You’re basically the reason I’m not wasting away from boredom. And I love you like this. It just seems like it could be . . . exhausting. To be you.”

  Sylvia gives up on her search for another cigarette and heads back inside.

  “Listen, you probably shouldn’t be spying on these randoms, but I’m not about to stop you. And you have to let me know if you’re going for it. I mean, if something happens with Austin you have got to tell me.” I crane my neck to see if I can catch sight of Sylvia heading to the elevator. It’s a long shot but we’re parked close enough to the building that I think it might be possible. Maybe I can see what floor she goes to. Maybe the little numbers above the elevator will light up and be visible from this distance. And maybe when that happens I won’t need to go any further.