Paper Stars

2

Charlotte Hollins
Present

At 3:00 pm, on Wednesday, March 18th, I am free.
I sit in the waiting room, nervously crossing and uncrossing my legs while my eyes stay frozen on the clock above the receptionists' desk.
2:49
2:50
2:51
The receptionist's fingers tap rapidly across her keyboard. She has dark skin and brown hair with a slight wave that hangs loose over her shoulders. When the phone rings, she stops typing and swiftly switches her mike on, saying "This is Riverside Rehab Center, how may we help you?" in a smooth voice. Though she works at a rehab center, I can tell that she's probably never been admitted to one in her life. She doesn't have the hunched stance, the yellowish tint on her teeth or the glint in her eye, or the rough sound of voice that most rehab admits do. She's one of the lucky ones.
The receptionist switches off her mike and glances up. I quickly look down, focusing my gaze on the packet of pamphlets on my lap instead of the clock. Most people give candy or a card as a parting gift; Dr. Rodriguez gives pamphlets. Relapse Hotline, Safety Support Groups, Top 10 Ways to Stay Clean, How to Get Good Habits, Be Free of Your Addiction. They each exhibit a bunch of phony methods to avoid coming to rehab a third time, accompanied by some smiling teenager with perfect hair and ironed clothes and teeth that are too white to have ever been exposed to pot.
Rehab admits don't smile. We dig a hole in the ground and try to bury ourselves in it before the world notices how messed up we are.
The bell on the door dings as a mother enters with a teenage boy two steps behind her. The boy has shaggy dark hair that hangs in his eyes and hands that are stuffed in his pockets. He walks with the hunch and shuffle of an addict. Don't worry kid, this place will beat that out of you with kind words and soft promises and hours of cold sweat where you wish you had a pill. You'll be walking like a true faker in no time.
The numbers on the clocks shift from 2:59 to 3:00 and the ever-so punctual Joan Greene enters through the doors. I stand and she spots me with a smile, wrapping an arm around my shoulder for a side-squeeze that almost qualifies as a hug. She hasn't given me a complete hug since I was admitted, since she stood in my dorm room with her arms crossed and the bottles of pills spilled out at her feet and the facial expression that screamed I am disappointed in you.
The receptionist directs the boy and his mother to the waiting chairs, where an aid will come meet them shortly to complete his admission process. Aunt Joan and I step up to the desk and I catch the scent of 'Lovely Lavender', a perfume that apparently everybody who works at a rehabilitation center wears.
"Here for discharge?" the receptionist asks. Aunt Joan says yes and gives her my name. The receptionist removes my file from the stack of other patients being discharged today and flips it open. "Are you the Social Services issued guardian?"
"I am," Aunt Joan says and the receptionist gives her the discharge form. The top ¾ of the form go over the basics of my care for the next few months, like keeping medication out of my reach and recommending a support group to keep me from relapsing again, as well as weekly visits with Dr. Rodriguez. All a bunch of horseshit that never actually works, its just supposed to reassure the parents of the rehab center's credentials. Joan barely skims over it; she's read it all before, the last time. She signs her name at the bottom and then pushes it towards me to sign. I write CHARLOTTE HOLLINS on the line and hand it back to the receptionist. It's done.

***

We take a cab to the parking garage, where Aunt Joan's dark blue Camero waits. She lives in the suburbs outside of New York City, in East Hills, and makes the daily trek to this parking garage every morning, and then takes a taxi to downtown Manhattan for work. When I was 8 and had just moved in with her and Uncle Kenny, I asked her why they moved out of the city if it only made the driving distance longer. Aunt Joan said that the city was too claustrophobic for her. I didn't realize what she meant until after I'd lived in the dorm room of the Manhattan School of Music for two years. This city is a dirty combination of filth and stench and car noises that never seem to cease. I still can't comprehend why so many people want to live here.
Aunt Joan fills the car ride home in with talk of everything that I've missed these past three months; Uncle Kenny broke his toe when he ran up the porch stairs too fast and tripped, the library in the community is remodeling, Emma passed pre-screening and got a cello audition at Juilliard. My stomach twists at the mention of my little sister. I haven't seen her in almost a year, partly because I was so busy at college and partly because she never came to visit me at rehab. Aunt Joan and Uncle Kenny did, but Emma never came, and every time I asked about her Uncle Kenny would purse his lips and pat my hand and say, "Give her time" as if a year wasn't enough time already.
Now her time is up; it's not like she'll be able to avoid me now that I'm moving back in.
A warm feeling of nostalgia engulfs me as Aunt Joan pulls into the driveway. It's a small 2-bedroom house with green shutters and a weathered welcome mat on the porch, and it's been home for the past eleven years. I step out of the car and take a deep breath of the familiar air, so different from the stale sweat and medicine scent of the rehab center.
"We moved your stuff back into your room," Aunt Joan says as we approach the front door. "It's all still in boxes, though. We thought that you might want to do the unpacking by yourself." She turns the knob and I follow her inside, leaving my ratty sneakers by the front door like I used to do. The deep, mellow sound of cello music comes up from the basement, muffled by the wood floor.
"Emma, Charlie's home!" Aunt Joan calls out. The cello music pauses, and then resumes seconds later. Aunt Joan sighs and steps into the kitchen, muttering under her breath. "Her audition is in June. She's been working hard. She's also playing at the Contessa Art Gallery in a few weeks."
"That's exciting," I comment. I don't ask why she didn't decide to audition at the Manhattan School of Music. Emma wouldn't want to go to the same college that made me relapse; she wouldn't want to go to the same college as me at all.
"I'm going to unpack," I tell Aunt Joan.
I've always shared a room with Emma, even when we were little and we lived with mom. My bed was positioned right by her crib so that every time she woke up crying at night, I was there to comfort and quiet her so that mom wouldn't have to. Mom was always so exhausted, because of her long hours at work and her treatment at the hospital, and a newborn baby didn't help that.
Now, the room is divided into two strict sections. Emma's bed is in one corner, mine is in the other. Her side has changed since I last saw it. There are trophies and medals on her shelves, new ones from jazz band and orchestra. The boyband posters have been replaced with posters displaying cellists and famous symphonies, with a Lincoln Center poster hanging right above her pillow. My side of the room is almost stripped bare, aside from the boxes full of the things from my dorm that are stacked by my bed. When I left for college, I cleaned everything out and either sold the things I didn't want to take with me or stored them in the attic.
I sit down on my mattress and run my hand over the bedspread. Aunt Joan must've gotten my old sheets out of storage and washed them for me. I pick through my boxes of stuff and organize them back into their old place. My clothes get stuffed into my dresser as un-folded wads, and my makeup, straightener, and curling iron go into the bathroom that connects to the bedroom. Emma may not be ready to share a closet, but there's no way in hell that I'm giving up that bathroom just for her.
I've sorted through all of my boxes but one. I don't open it; I know what I'll find. Drum sticks, every pair I've ever owned, from my very first pair that I got when I was 8 to the expensive sleek black pair that I bought freshman year of college. There's only one pair missing from the box. They were a gift from a music teacher, and I had snapped them in half and let the broken wood shards dig into the soft skin of my palms.

The metronome is like a knife that slices open my palms every time I miss the beat. Slice. Slice. Slice. Slice.
I tap out the rhythm on the drums, biting my lip in concentration and counting along with the metronome in my head. I've been practicing these charts for the past four hours, and the aching pain in my wrists and forearms has numbed into a cool tension.
I tap the ride cymbal a split second too fast and the metronome knife slices.
You're sloppy, Charlie, I hiss at myself.
Fix it. Focus.
I unscrew the lid of my Adderall medication and dump three smooth white pills in my mouth, swallowing them dry. I glance at the clock; 2 am.
You are not leaving until you can play these charts perfectly.

I shove the box under my bed.