Borderlines: A Memoir - Hardcover

Kraus, Caroline

 
9780767914031: Borderlines: A Memoir
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0767914031 ISBN 13: 9780767914031
Verlag: Broadway Books, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Describes the author's dysfunctional relationship with a mentally ill friend, recounting how their initial free-spirited friendship deteriorated into a web of pathological lies, emotional blackmail, physical abuse, and sexual promiscuity.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

36-year-old CAROLINE KRAUS graduated with a bachelor’s degree from William and Mary and, shortly afterward, moved to San Francisco, where she was a bookseller and author event photographer. When she returned to the east coast, she earned a Master’s in screen writing and film editing at the New School and worked as a documentary film researcher. She spent summers at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where her first fiction and non-fiction stories were born. Most recently, she was the managing editor of a berkeley-based neuroscience publication called brainconnection.com, and the Senior Arts and Science Editor for Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago. She lives in Evanston, IL.

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Chapter

one

Morning light edged over the horizon as I awoke to the sound of low, urgent moans coming from Jane's room. San Francisco emerged from the night, glistening before me in shades of white, and Jane's howls of pleasure rose with the sun. Below my window, furtive whistles called across Dolores Park, hawking drugs, while Jane's muted laughter filtered through the wall that divided our rooms. I fixed my eyes on the distant Bay Bridge and imagined driving across it for good, soaring east as far as the Atlantic. I imagined a new life in a quiet, charming town she could not find, where I would become stable minded and marry a tall, sensitive man. We would have children and dogs. And money--we would never worry about money. I touched a purple gash above my eye, still raw and wet, and as if to comfort me, Jane knocked three times on the wall. I pulled a pillow over my head, pressed my knees to my chin, and willed the world away.

A few hours later, Jane stood naked in my doorway with a sly smile spreading across her face. I blinked at her perfect silhouette from the cave I'd built with my pillows and waved a small hello. She absently slipped her thumb into her mouth and blinked back at me with warm, curious eyes. Climbing into my bed, she drew my arms around her, squirming like a puppy for the perfect spot. With shallow breaths she sucked her thumb and waited for me to ask about her night.

I said nothing. We lay there in silence, cautious, in the aftermath of battle. I knew Jane was already returning to the fantasy of our strange, platonic marriage, and I was once again exhausted and anxious, awaiting the next disaster.

"Did someone say pancakes?" she asked in a small voice.

I held my breath. She waited.

"Or . . . was it waffles?" she whispered hopefully.

I swallowed hard.

"Honey?" Jane's thumb paused between her lips. She tilted her head to look at me. I met her blue eyes as they narrowed and searched me for clues. Soon she would read my silence, and her sweetness would turn to rage. But I could not speak. November was freezing the air outside, stasis before the spring. And I was dormant, too, stilled by Jane and her stare, frozen by my own inertia; paralyzed by the impossibility of escape.



It was close to Christmas then, which meant that soon my family would be gathering in St. Louis. My father and sister would be dressing the house with greens, a tree, and our beloved Santa, who swings in a hot-air balloon and sings "Fly Me to the Moon." They would recline by the fire, talking medicine, or putter in the kitchen with opera filling the house. My brother would fly in from Washington, D.C., loaded with presents and stories from Capitol Hill, and he'd head straight to the market to buy bagels, yogurt, and five cartons of eggnog, all of which my father would discover sometime in February. My parents' friends would stop by with food and gifts and report on their children, who, I felt sure, were either getting married, having children, or working their way up ladders of success.

And then there was the Void. The Void would envelop this routine, would dull all of the holiday smells and sounds. It would be what was left of our mother, who had died two years before. It would sit across from my father at the dinner table, stroll our gardens, and sleep fitfully on the sofa. I knew this presence well; it was as strong, devastating, and vivid as was my mother's living self.



When I left Jane that morning, I was late to meet a psychiatrist--a woman Jane had found--and I was circling her house when it dawned on me that the wet sensation creeping down my neck might be blood. I touched the spot, and my fingers came back red and sticky. I lifted my jaw to the rearview mirror and turned my head, keeping one eye on the narrow road. Old, economical cars lined the quiet, residential street. This was Berkeley, 1992. In those days, riding in a big Republican car was asking for trouble.

It was a cold, washed-out November, and I was sick. I had gotten used to it, to feeling like I had the flu all the time, but I wasn't used to the cold. The chill followed me everywhere. It hung near me at work, trailed me home, and crawled under my bed covers at night. It didn't seem to bother other people, but I was shivering in my car that morning, even with the heat roaring full blast.

I felt the back of my head again and found the soft welt just above the base of my neck, seeping red on blond. I must have awakened it with my hairbrush, trying to look presentable. I turned the mirror away and cursed. So much for first impressions.

I kept circling the psychiatrist's house; there was nowhere to park. In all of Berkeley there was never anywhere to park, but this once I was happy to delay my arrival. Along with the blood, which had just found my shirt collar, the welt above my left eye was ripe with fall colors. I was on my third cigarette in as many minutes, and I had nothing but my hand to stop the bleeding. I figured I wouldn't have to say a word when I met Francine; she'd probably take one look at me and pull out her prescription pad.

I paused in front of her house, and then, as if witnessing one of those comets that appears only once in a lifetime, I watched a car pull out of a spot and drive away. I was known to risk lives to claim such a spot. Like a heat-seeking missile, I would accelerate across three lanes of traffic--pedestrians be damned--then slip my Celica neatly between bumpers with a finger's width to spare. This skill had developed over time, after night upon endless night of closing up the bookstore where Jane and I worked, turning away the midnight shoppers, and driving home across the Bay Bridge together, only to search San Francisco's deserted, car-lined streets in vain, with the moon smiling upon our rootless hunt. Eventually I started pulling my car up on the grassy median right in front of our building, leaving it for the parking police to laugh at in the morning. Jane left them notes of explanation, written carefully, eloquently, during the drive home. I stored them in my top desk drawer, next to the piles of tickets I could not pay.

I stared at the open spot, put on my blinker, and smoked. I could either take the bridge back to San Francisco and clean myself up, or park. The first scenario had a lot going for it, except that Jane might be home, and returning bloody, even from an old wound, would just get her going. Then again, part of me suspected that she was somewhere close, hiding in the bushes maybe, watching to make sure I went in.

I took the spot. I waited there and studied Francine's house--a small brown shingled cottage with lights glowing yellow in the foggy air--and wondered who awaited me. I didn't know much about her, just that she had written a book on Eastern philosophy that Jane liked, and on the book flap Jane saw she was a therapist living in Berkeley. The next thing I knew, I was scheduled for an appointment.

I threw mints in my mouth and rubbed lotion on my hands to hide the cigarette smell. The front door of the house opened, and I slid down in my seat. A woman picked up a newspaper from her porch and waved it in my direction. She was tiny, no taller than a child, with long white hair tucked behind her ears. Even from my distance I could see deep crevices carved into her narrow face. She looked to be a hundred years old.

"Coming in?" she yelled.

I sank farther into my seat and pulled sunglasses down from the top of my head. Francine stood on her porch and opened the paper, peering at me over the headlines.

Damn. I wanted another cigarette.

I tried to smile as I hid my stained hand and crossed the street to meet her.

"Caroline," she said. "Hello." Her lips drew back into a lopsided smile, showing...

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Verlag
Broadway Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0767914031
ISBN 13 
9780767914031
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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