The Mania of Bipolar Disorder

Excerpt from WHERE ARE THE COCOA PUFFS? 

Chapter 9 

But before the argument made a dangerous turn,  they walked into the tavern. The locals took their eyes off their beers and took the four of them in, shifting a bit on their bar stools, feeling the power of Amanda as she laughed and flipped her purse about in the air.

Amanda could feel the power she had and knew that she commanded the room. Any of these deer-shooting, beer-drinking, snowmobiling good ol’ boys would give anything to be with her. Hell, if it weren’t for Ryan, she might have slept with them all. But he was there and had a power almost as great as her own; between the two of them the world was theirs to do whatever the fuck they liked. Nothing, nothing could stop them. All the things that she was going to do, now, starting tonight, she would begin — that novel that had been flying around her brain, well, she needed to get some money to start that, but once she finished that new dance that everyone loved to see her dance then everything would fall into place, and things wouldn’t be so confusing once she had the money — wait, what the hell was that hanging from the wall? Why was someone talking to her and distracting her from what was critical, which was something anyone who wasn’t dumb as shit could see? Of course she wanted something to drink! Wasn’t that why they were here? Were these people just stupid? What she really needed was a pen or a pencil and napkins, lots of napkins … anything! Order her anything! That thing staring at her from the wall was freaking her out; its eyeballs were watching her. Fuck! Things were flying at her now, those eyeballs sending things her way; some of this just needed to be put down …. Finally someone was handing her a pen and she began to write, already feeling better, each word adding power to the previous words — if she could write a thousand words, then that thing would stop staring at her.

Ryan sipped his beer and watched Mandy write. When she was done with one napkin she would stuff it in her purse and start on a new one. The tip of her tongue was slipping between her lips in concentration. When the waitress brought their food, she was irritated by the disruption, but ate and wrote, and did not enter into the conversation the rest of them were having. When the napkins were gone, Ryan got her more before she became distressed. What he really wanted to do was read what she was writing, to try to understand what was going on in her head. When she got up, taking her purse and heading for the bathroom, David asked, “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s cool,” was his answer. When she came back from the bathroom, smelling of weed, he could tell that she was already calmer, and he didn’t question her desire to switch seats with him. He glanced at the large moose head in front of him and swore the thing was staring at him.

Amazon link

NAMI ADVOCATE REVIEW

Love, Loss and Schizophrenia

By Taylor Poor, NAMI Education Program Coordinator

In Reis’s Pieces, Karen Winters Schwartz brings the devastation of schizophrenia—a journey difficult to comprehend even for those who have experienced it themselves—into the familiar setting of a lighthearted romance.

Reis Welling seems to have it all: early tenure at Cornell, a loving girlfriend and a research project that involves hiking some of the world’s most beautiful mountains. When his father dies of a heart attack, Reis starts to lose touch with reality, believing his department heads are spying on him and that even his girlfriend Ellen is involved with the conspiracy. His friends beg him to seek help, but he has to hit rock bottom—losing Ellen, his professorship and contact with his concerned family—before he finds the right treatment and the right doctor and starts gathering the pieces of his life together at last. When an attractive young woman interrupts his vastly different but relatively stable new life, Reis may even have another chance at love—that is, if he can find the courage to tell Kelly the truth about his stigmatizing illness.

Schwartz’s characters voices, as they describe Reis’s battle with mental illness, will echo with NAMI members and supporters who have said these lines themselves. Reis’s mother has the well-rehearsed response she always gives to well-meaning friends who ask whether schizophrenia is “some kind of multiple personality:” it’s a brain disease, a thought disorder, usually involving hallucinations and often much more. Reis’s psychiatrist, Dr. Benson, is the kind, intelligent, respectful clinician we all wish our family members could meet, telling Reis, “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like, and I can’t tell you everything will be fine.” But, “You must first accept your illness for what it is: An illness. A brain disease.”

Schwartz’s prose is most powerful and authentic when describing the symptoms associated with Reis’s collapse into psychosis, and the heartbreaking emotional reactions of Reis’s family, friends and colleagues. Reis’s gradually jumbling speech patterns and increasing grandiosity ring true. Sure, in bringing the messy, complex landscape of mental illness into the context of a frothy novel, Schwartz has made some simplifications. Her descriptions are cliché—the first time Reis meets Ellen, she is depicted as having a “pleasing exterior” at odds with her aggressive athleticism. At the end of the book, I’m left wondering how the story would have read for a protagonist living with mental illness without Reis’s good looks and unassuming charm—he’s described multiple times as “gorgeous” or “very attractive.”

Yet Schwartz’s most significant triumph in writing this book is a major one toward the effort to de-stigmatize mental illness. She has placed schizophrenia in a context from which it is typically been excluded: everyday, “normal” life. For anyone who has faced the challenge of telling others about their own mental illness, or who has watched a family member deteriorate, this book will be a source of hope that the story of their struggle can find a wider audience.

SCRAMBLED EGGS...AND BRAIN-FRIED CHICKENS

SCRAMBLED EGGS…AND BRAIN-FRIED CHICKENS

by Karen Winters Schwartz

I’m sure I’m not the only one who immediately thinks about chickens and eggs almost every time they hear the word comorbidity. But the first time I found a hash pipe floating around with my daughters’ clothes in the washing machine, chickens and eggs were the furthest things from my mind.

I grew up in a family who appeared quite normal on the outside and the inside. In the early ‘60s, watching your mother dress up for cocktail parties while easing down the final few puffs of her unfiltered Pall Mall was the norm. My father sitting with his after-work gin and tonic while he caught up with the national news was the norm. I didn’t grow up exposed to blatant alcohol abuse or drug use of any kind. We were all June and ward Cleaver. Really, we were. Even as a teenager of the ‘70s, drugs barely phased my world.

Years later my husband and I continued the Cleaver tradition. Although I fell short of meeting him at the door in a pretty blue dress with my hair in a stylish flip, we raised our two girls in a very normal household. So when my two daughters suddenly turned from adorable little girls to unrecognizable teenage monsters with hash pipes and slips of paper decorated with curious, tiny, triangular squares in their pockets, we didn’t know how to respond, who to blame (other than ourselves), who to turn to for help, or how to stop the rollercoaster, eggshell crushing few years we were heading toward. Nothing in either of our lives prepared us for what was coming.when my older daughter’s behavior turned from that of a slightly difficult child to that of an unmanageable teenager, many hours of useless guilt bantering between me and my husband ensued: “What did we do wrong?” “Do you think it’s drugs?” “Why does she feel the need to do drugs?” “What could we have done differently?” “Am I a bad mom?” And on and on.

When she was ultimately diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of eighteen, we accepted this with a sigh of relief—at least this was something tangible, something “fixable.” By the time her younger sister started getting in trouble at school, doing drugs, acting oddly, becoming paranoid, and hearing voices, I could almost handle the double punch. By then I had educated myself, I had become involved in the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI, www.nami.org ), and I had become an advocate. But it was still hell—she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

So where’s that chicken and where’s that egg?

Perhaps I should have been given a tiny ovum of foresight the first time our younger daughter woke us up in the middle of the night screaming in her little pink doll-baby pajamas with her moonlike eyes peering up at us without recognition and her face fixed in death-impending terror. But I was soothed by our doctor’s reassuring words: “Night terrors are very common. They are in no way related to future mental illness.” I now know that he was incorrect.

Perhaps my older daughter’s contention that she had ADHD in spite of her exemplary school performance should have sent up red flags. Maybe if I had known what I know now, I wouldn’t have placated her words: “You have no idea what goes on in my head!” But the fact is, other than a stubborn and sometimes difficult child at home, my older daughter was a perfectly charming, brilliant student who was well liked by her teachers and better liked by her friends.

Then there were the things I never knew about until later. Like the fact that my younger daughter used to sit in her second grade class and say, “Iron wall. Iron wall. Iron wall,” over and over to herself as she tried to limit the external stimuli flooding her young brain.

Then there was the time she was given steroids as a young child for a severe sinus infection and distinctly heard people talking to her. “Mom, someone just said cleanup in aisle seven in my head!” The moment the prednisone was decreased, the voices stopped.

So as these early prodromal symptoms grew, so did my children, and so did their access to things like weed and alcohol and random pills pilfered from grandmas’ medicine cabinets, thus providing them something like relief.

Yet my younger daughter did not become psychotic until after that bad LSD trip. My older daughter now admits that she was doing a lot of coke when she was most manic.

Egg. Chicken. Egg. Egg. 

I think what we have here is the first and second hit. The first hit being the genetic propensity for these illnesses along with an increased sensitivity to certain medications and drugs. The second is environmental. Stress, drug use, hormones, a viral infection, and head trauma have all been theorized. I have no doubt that my children were vulnerable. I know now that both sides of our families are peppered with mental illness. The use of drugs to quell prodromal symptoms could have easily brought the predisposed mental illness to the forefront. Drug use absolutely made things worse. we were lucky. Thanks to the help of a great practitioner and people I met through NAMI, my kids were helped quickly. Proper treatment was initiated and my children recovered before any sort of drug or alcohol addiction  took hold. Regardless of the accuracy of their initial diagnoses, the word comorbid was never part of the equation. Twenty to twenty-five percent of adults in the US will struggle with mental illness at some point in their lives. Over half of these individuals have a coexisting addiction. what can be done to decrease these percentages? How can we decrease that drug-induced second hit?

I believe early detection is the key—flagging those children who are genetically vulnerable, screening each and every child as we screen for other serious illnesses. we need to step in and treat those early prodromal symptoms before drugs and alcohol can take hold. This can be achieved by education, by open and frank discussions on mental health, by making it okay to talk, by decreasing the learned fear, and by promoting what is needed for recovery. Screening should be done on every child by pediatricians and family doctors. Mental health should be stressed and taught in our schools, starting at lower grade school levels. we should be talking to our children about our own struggles or those of other family members. I could never talk to my children because no one ever talked to me. I was forced to learn everything I now know about these neurological brain diseases out of desperation, out of despair, and out of necessity. what we went through as a family was unconscionable. we should have been educated and supported by our medical and human community rather than made to feel ashamed, judged, and helpless. Blame it on poor genes if you must, but these are no-fault neurological conditions that are not due to poor parenting or weak constitutions.

When it comes right down to it, eggs and chickens are not all that important. It really doesn’t matter if the egg predated the chicken or the chicken predated the egg, or even if they both occurred at the exact same time. what’s important is that we understand that both mental illness and addiction are often comingled. Both need to be acknowledged, understood, and treated. The cost of mental illness is huge; the cost of comorbidity is even larger—not only financially, but emotionally and physically. I believe the mental healthcare system is beginning to understand this. Now we just need to get the rest of the world to understand.

Karen Winters Schwartz, bestselling author of Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?: A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder (Goodman Beck Publishing, 2010) 
Amazon CP

Reis’s Pieces: Love, Loss, and Schizophrenia (Goodman Beck Publishing, 2012) 
Amazon RP

Reprinted from "The Sober World" * November 2012 * Volume 1, Issue 9

bp Magazine Review

Where are the Cocoa Puffs? A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder

By Karen Winters Schwartz (Goodman Beck Publishing, 2010)

Reviewed by Kelsey Osgood

It’s a parent’s nightmare: a teenage daughter, once a well-adjusted, academic achiever, suddenly begins to fray at the edges. Despite everyone’s best efforts, she tumbles down the wormhole into bipolar disorder, bringing her parents and the rest of the family along for the ride.

Where Are the Cocoa Puffs? A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder, the debut novel of Karen Winters Schwartz, tracks the Benson family as their eldest child, 18- year-old Amanda, is diagnosed and struggles with euphoric hallucinations, crippling depressions, suicidal thoughts, a nostalgia for mania, and eventually, a hospitalization. The story is in some ways unbelievably tidy, the most obvious example being Ryan, the instantly devoted, endlessly patient boyfriend. But what Schwartz does so well is give each character ample space and time to express how the illness has affected him or her. The most interesting dilemma is that of Jerry Benson, Amanda’s father, also a psychiatrist. Throughout the story, he wrestles with his psychiatric rationale and his emotional paternal instincts. His decisions are often questionable, but this is a forgiving book and a gentle writer, one who makes sure each character is seen as both flawed and beautiful, or in a word: human.

A Letter From NAMI—Thanks Mike!

Dear NAMI State Organization and Affiliate Leaders,

For all Americans, this has been a long and challenging week. NAMI has been inundated with calls from the news media and others—policymakers and ordinary family members— seeking information in the wake of the Arizona tragedy about mental illness and mental health care.

THIS TRAGEDY OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY . CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS – It’s important that elected officials—particularly governors and state legislators—understand that the Arizona tragedy is a national tragedy that means they have to take steps now to fix the mental healthcare system.

Please send a message today to your elected officials. We’ve prepared a sample letter you can send here: NAMI’s on-line CapWiz tool. Send an action alert to your own state and local networks asking them to do so as well. Follow-up with postal letters or additional email or personal contacts in constituent meetings in the weeks ahead.

Following NAMI’s official statement on the tragedy on Jan.10, we have worked to help shape news coverage with considerable results. Many NAMI leaders have been interviewed and quoted in leading media at the national, state and local level. Thank you—all of you—for helping to move the focus of news stories from political rhetoric and guns to America’s broken mental health care system—especially the need for early evaluation and treatment and elimination of stigma.

A TEACHABLE MOMENT – In your communities, reporters, friends and others may be askng “How did this happen?’” and “What can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen here?” This is a teachable moment. You may have opportunities to make the same basic points that we have over the last week:

• Individuals and families should not be afraid to reach out for help when they need it and no one should be afraid to offer help.
• It’s not about political rhetoric. It’s not about guns. It’s mental health care.
• Most people living with mental illness are not violent. The U.S. Surgeon General has said the likelihood is “exceptionally small.” Acts of violence are exceptional—which means something has gone terribly wrong.
• The mental health care system is broken. We need to fix it.
• In the last few years, budget cuts have devastated mental health services in all states—not just Arizona .
• We need to strengthen the system so that people can get the right help at the right time.

To date, NAMI has had 75 or more direct media contacts—we’ve lost count! The total coverage is too long to list here, but I do want to share a few highlights, below. I also encourage you to follow NAMI’s continuingefforts on Facebook and Twitter.

• NPR, The Diane Rehm Show: “Serious Psychiatric Disorders Among Young Adults”
• C-SPAN Washington Journal, January 13
• Newsweek, “Our Broken Mental Health System”
• TIME “If You Think Someone Is Mentally Ill: Loughner’s Six Warning Signs”
• USA Today, “Loughner Could Have Been Committed Under Arizona Law”
• The Huffington Post, “Nearly 50% of Mental Health Recipients in Giffords’ District Were Dropped in 2010”
• The New Republic, Reexamining Mental Health Care

NAMI RESOURCES – NAMI is here to help individuals, families and communities. Whether through the NAMI website and HelpLine or your office and phone lines, we’re all trying to offer information that can help save lives. The importance of family education and support has been made especially clear this week.

• The NAMI web site carries a vast array of information and resources.
• NAMI’s Newsroom points reporters to helpful resources such as Grading the States and provides press releases that affiliates can use for themselves.
• Family-to-Family classes all across the country offer the support and help that families need.
• StrengthOfUs, a social networking site for transition-age youth, provides a supportive environment for finding and offering peer support.

Thank you for the work you are doing in your community. Thank you for being there for all of those who need our help.

Mike

Breakfast of Champions!

Paul (the husband) loves his Cocoa Puffs!

Today is the official launch of :

Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?:

A Family's Journey Through

Bipolar Disorder

May is Mental Health Month

Mrs. Jane Doe turned the shopping cart into the next aisle and almost ran smack into Frances Neighbor. They smiled and began to talk. After awhile, Frances said, “Did you hear about poor Marty Finch? You know, Margo's son.” Jane shook her head. “He had this awful epileptic seizure at the high school – right in the hallway between classes. He's in the hospital now, trying to get his medication right.”

“Oh! How awful! The poor kid! And poor Margo!” said Jane.

“Yes. I saw Margo last night, brought her over some dinner. She's worried sick.”

Jane shook her head with sympathy and concern. “You know, I'm making a chicken casserole tonight. I'll bring her some.”

Okay. Now that you've read this rather poorly written grocery store scene, let's re-write it and change it up a bit:

Mrs. Jane Doe turned the shopping cart into the next aisle and almost ran smack into Frances Neighbor. They smiled and began to talk. After awhile, Frances said, “Did you hear about Marty Finch? You know, Margo's son.” Jane shook her head. “He had this awful fit at the high school. He went totally berserk. Scared the other kids to death!” She made a face and shook her head. “I guess he's over in St. Mary's Psych ward.”

Jane pursed her lips and whispered, “You know, I heard they were having trouble with him.”

“Schizophrenia!” Francis whispered. “That's what I heard!”

Jane shuddered. “That's so scary. Right in our own school.”

Maybe I've exaggerated this a bit, but I think you get my point. In both scenes, Marty Finch is very ill. He needs hospitalization and medication management. In both scenes he's depicted as having a serious neurological brain disease. The difference is in the attitude and understanding of the women. When Margo Finch's son is ill with epilepsy(an understood accepted disease), she gets casseroles. When he is sick with a mental illness, Margo and her son receive no empathy, little compassion; and Margo is forced to prepare her own dinner.

This is what May is Mental Health Month is all about. There is still an archaic belief that mental illness is not organically based, that it is something that can be fixed, if only the individual were a better, stronger human being – if he'd been raised better or tried harder or just didn't get so freaked out about everything.

“You know Uncle George wouldn't have that diabetes if he just tried a little harder. It's all those cookies Aunt Martha was always feeding him!”

Well maybe those cookies weren't so good for him, but they didn't cause his diabetes. Diabetes is a complicated, genetic, organically based disease that Uncle George did not cause and can not wish away. He can only control it with medication, diet and lifestyle.

It's time to understand mental illness as we understand epilepsy, diabetes, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and countless other diseases. Accepting that we don't really know what causes them and that we can't, at this time, cure them, but we can treat individuals unlucky enough to have developed these conditions. We can treat them with the medications and medical resources that are available; and also, and foremost, we can treat them, and their loved ones, with the respect, empathy and compassion they deserve.

Where are the Cocoa Puffs?

Finally! The much anticipated pub date for my novel has been set. June 22, 2010! And in celebration of this small step toward holding my book in my hand I will post an excerpt from Where are the Cocoa Puffs?

A little background is needed to understand this scene. I will call this excerpt: Meet the 'Rents. (There’s a fair amount of texting in the novel, thus ‘Rents’ is short for parents. Okay… Pretty lame.) The scene: Dr. Jerry Benson, psychiatrist, has just found out that morning that Amanda, his eighteen-year-old daughter, has not only dyed her hair the reddest of red, but was also out all night with Ryan, the unknown boyfriend. Jerry has coerced Ryan into coming over for Sunday dinner to meet the rest of the family, knowing that the best tactic in this sort of thing is to: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Excerpt: Where are the Cocoa Puffs? Section from Chapter Four

Ryan took a long time trying to decide what to wear. He was glad that the weather was cool, and that long sleeves were appropriate; no tattoos would be scrutinized. He finally settled on simple jeans and the light blue shirt his mother had sent him last Christmas that still sported the tags. He threw the tags vaguely towards the trash can, and ran his fingers through his straight dark hair. Would a little mousse make it less punkish? He fluffed it up a bit and out of his eyes. It fell back, straight and uneven across his forehead. Well, whatever, the doctor had already seen his hair. He could still bag the whole thing. Why did he care what this man thought of him? Was it a need to prove himself worthy? He was screwing his eighteen-year-old daughter after all . . . Show his respect for Mandy? Masochism? That was the most likely explanation, he thought as he pulled on his soft leather coat and searched for his car keys. Maybe the good doc could help him with that . . .

~~

Jerry set the table in the formal dining room. If they were going to do this thing, they should do it fully. Carol had chosen the fine china and crystal water goblets, usually reserved for holidays, which may have been a bit too much . . . But, what the hell. Although, really not a snob, he placed the various silver spoons and forks on the table, satisfied in his knowledge that this young man would be clueless on how to use the utensils. This man -- surely the reason for his daughter’s metamorphoses -- needed to understand the way things were . . .

Carol was just taking the roast out of the oven, when Amanda came into the kitchen. Carol felt the tension in the air before she even turned her eyes to her daughter. Amanda had showered; and her hair, although just as red, had bounced back to its natural curls, somehow softening the shock. Carol wondered how long it would take before the surprise she felt each time she looked at Amanda would fade. Amanda’s eyes were big and glassy with excitement, her nervous, jumpy energy, tangible.

“Can I help?”

Carol looked at her, even more surprised. “Sure! You can finish the salad,” pointing to the tomatoes that needed to be cut and the cucumber nearby. As Amanda began to chop with such enthusiasm that Carol worried for her fingers, Carol asked casually, “So how did you and Ryan meet? It is Ryan, right?”

Amanda nodded her head as she jabbed at the tomato as if to kill it. “At a party.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

Carol nodded her head, and thought about this piece of information. After a long moment she asked, “What’s he do?”

Amanda shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know.”

“Is he in school?” Amanda shrugged. Did she ever talk to this boy . . . this man? If not talking, what then?

"I guess he works somewhere . . . Maybe takes classes at Albany, sometimes . . .” Amanda finally offered, distracted by the death of the tomato.

“How old is he?” Carol ventured, knowing she was asking just one question too many.

Amanda chopped hard at the cucumber, slicing it meanly in half. “I don’t know!”

Carol jumped involuntarily. Amanda swung her way, the knife point suspended between them momentarily before she let it drop loudly to the counter.

“I can’t do this! I hate cucumbers!”

“Okay . . . okay,” said Carol, trying to make her voice calm. “Why don’t you take that vase of flowers and put it on the dining room table.”

I can do that. I can do that, thought Amanda as she picked up the vase, and carried it carefully to the dining room, breathing deeply, wishing she’d smoked just a little more weed. She just could not seem to slow her mind . . . the jumpiness of her body . . . It wasn’t like she wanted to scream at her mother. She really didn’t hate cucumbers at all. And her mother, really, she didn’t hate her. She stepped into the dining room. Her father was just putting the water goblets above and to the right of the plates as she walked in. The table looked lovely, and was even made lovelier by the flowers she gently placed on the center of the table. He looked up at her and smiled, and Amanda felt her eyes fill with tears.

It hadn’t been all that long ago that they’d celebrated her eighteenth birthday in this very room, used these very same plates. She’d wanted a fancy dinner party, with all her best friends, donned in their best summer attire -- no jeans allowed was specifically printed on the invitations. She’d worn her pretty sleeveless green dress, her hair pulled and twisted into a fancy up-do, her mother’s pearls around her neck. Her mother had made all the food, served them courses as if they were in a fancy restaurant. She’d invited eleven people -- twelve being the perfect number when the table was at its longest, with all the leafs in place. It had been so difficult to decide which eleven people to invite (five girls and six boys), but in the end she felt she’d chosen wisely. All the girls looked beautiful in their slinky summer dresses. And she really wasn’t all that bothered by the boys, all of them respecting the no jeans request, but wearing instead, nasty cut offs, gym shorts or sweats. Kenny Frank was the only boy to wear a tie, but he’d failed to wear a shirt . . . which was okay, because the bright floral print looked good against his buff, muscular chest.

Her best friend, Ally, had sat to her left in a beautiful slinky yellow dress, and Jonathan was to her right, wearing one of those stupid tee shirts with a tux painted on it, and tugging at her hair, messing up her do and laughing. Everyone was laughing -- sticking their pinky fingers out as they drank the sparkling cider from her mother’s crystal goblets and saying, “To the birthday princess!” (It was pretty obvious that most everyone had smoked a little something, or drank something a little stronger than sparkling cider before ringing her doorbell.)

Amanda felt like a princess, sitting at the head of the table, smiling as her friends toasted her, pushing Jonathan’s hand playfully from her do . . . proud of the wonderful food her mother had prepared . . .

“I just can’t wait for the birthday spanking!” exclaimed Jonathan, and everyone had laughed, even her mother, as she slipped out of the room, carrying away the dirty dinner plates.

Jonathan’s hand was back on her head and Amanda felt a strand of hair fall free of its constraints. Again, she removed the hand. “Do I get to pick who spanks me?” asked Amanda, making the laughter increase and eliciting hopeful looks from some of the boys.

“Oh! Oh! Me! Pick Me!” cried Alex Simmons, from across the table, shooting his hand up and jumping up from his chair.

Chad Finch was suddenly up and grabbing Alex in a good-natured headlock, smashing Alex’s dark moussed-up spikes back into his head, as he exclaimed, “Sit down motherfucker. She doesn’t want your hands anywhere near her ass!” sparking a brief, but rowdy wrestling match, which shook the table, spilling goblets, teetering the candles, and causing general pandemonium. Kenny Frank jumped up like a bull, two baby carrots he’d stolen from the relish tray stuffed up his nose, and snorted them out and onto the table, which made Jennifer Wiley laugh so hard that she’d fallen off her chair. But Amanda -- she hadn’t laughed at all.

She stood up, more hair falling from her do, and screamed hysterically above the chaos, “Stop it! Stop it! You’re breaking my mother’s things! You’re spoiling everything!” Then she’d looked at the stunned faces of her friends and burst into tears. She’d run from the room, and it was Ally who’d followed her, fixed her hair, cleaned up her makeup . . .

They’d managed to finish dinner, cut the cake, even had ice cream, but somehow, something had been lost that was yet to be found. It was no wonder none of them called her anymore, even Ally -- barely spoke to her at school, avoided her as if she were contagious . . .

“Amanda?” her father asked.

She looked up from the table, waved away his concern, and said softly, “It looks like Christmas . . .” And then she was thinking of her childhood and the pure, uncomplicated joy of being a child, the love her parents had always shown her . . . Her father, taking this as some sort of apology, came to her, and when he put is arm around her and agreed about the table, she fought hard not to cringe and shove him away.

~~

Ryan chose the front door this time. He’d thought about bringing a bottle of wine, but quickly discarded that foolish idea and instead came empty handed, deciding flowers were too gay and he was hard pressed to come up with anything else. He stood there a moment, the large wooden door, a solid barrier before him. He adjusted his coat and felt his hair, making sure it wasn’t doing something really strange, before tapping the bell gently with his right hand. He tensed to the movement behind the door and adjusted his face in pleasant salutation.

Mercifully, Mandy opened the door. The red hair, still astounding, was now in cascading curls and he could not help but lean forward and kiss her lightly, his hand in her hair, hoping that her father wasn’t frowning from beyond the door. “Hey, babe,” he whispered.

“Hey.” She let him into the house, which was even more impressive through the front door. Two large white urns sprouting leafy green ferns adorned the formal entranceway. Off to the right, a dark mahogany spiral staircase led gracefully to the upstairs. To the left, an archway to the formal dining room. He could just make out that it was set, and waiting for him. Straight ahead, another larger arched entrance showed a different, but no less spectacular view of the massive living room and the windows beyond. The view of the valley, the focus the house was created around, was impossible to overlook even as it was dwarfed by the archway. The kitchen, off to the left of the living room, was not visible from where they stood.

“They’re in the kitchen,” she said, so he kissed her again, this time harder but not so hard as to be forced to hide or wait out an unwelcome hard-on. He moved away from her and pulled at the imaginary noose around his neck, his tongue lolling out with his death. Mandy laughed merrily, and they headed for the kitchen.

Carol was pulling out the rolls from the oven as Amanda and Ryan walked into the room. She turned around, her face flushed from the heat of the oven, which helped hide any other flush that might have erupted on her face from the pure sexuality of this young man (definitely man, not boy) that walked beside her daughter. Dark hair, dark soulful eyes, beautiful, but not too beautiful cheek bones . . . a young Johnny Depp, Jim Morrison perhaps . . .

Christy felt it too and her fifteen-year-old body did not quite know what to do with itself, and much to her horror she giggled and had to turn her face in shame.

Jerry made the introductions, seemingly oblivious of the static in the air.

Carol, who normally would have offered her guest a drink, (non-alcoholic in this case) and chit-chatted before dinner, felt the need to sit down, so that she rushed to get the food on the table, handing various bowls and platters to her family to take to the dining room. Once seated, Carol smiled at Ryan, feeling safer with the hard, firm wood of the large table to lean on and half her body hidden from view. “I’m so glad you could join us for Sunday dinner,” she said, as if they ate like this every Sunday. Ryan smiled a slightly crooked, and damned if it wasn’t sexy, smile her way, and thanked her for allowing him to be there. His teeth were the sort of perfect that only braces could endow. His shirt was of a fine linen cloth, Italian most likely. His hair, a curious black, flopped forward in uneven points, slipping down his forehead and threatening his eyes. Shorter in the back; random tuffs of hair stood erect and disorganized. Carol had the distinct, and incredibly inappropriate, urge to run her fingers through that hair.

Ryan picked up his linen napkin and placed it across his lap, and said, “Wow! This looks great.” He appreciated the goblets, the softly lit candles, the delicate china, knowing it was for him, and not in the way a guest would hope to be honored, but an intimidation, a challenge. He was up for it. Hadn’t just walking in the door been the biggest obstacle?

There was little talk, other than culinary chatter, as they began to pass the food around. Once the plates were full, Ryan waited until Jerry had picked up his fork, not sure if there was to be some sort of blessing, before reaching for his own. Amanda sat to his left and sizzled with excitement. He turned her way, his soft eyes shining with admiration and squeezed her thigh surreptitiously under the table.

Christy sat across from them, her mouth slightly agape. She seemed to suddenly realize this and forced it shut. She reached for the butter and gave her full concentration to buttering her bread.

Jerry missed the thigh squeeze, but had noted the napkin, now neatly on Ryan’s lap. He was further disappointed when Ryan reached for the salad fork without hesitation. He began to eat the leafy greens, and then set the fork carefully on the salad plate as he took a drink of water. Jerry sighed a bit. Then there was Carol’s behavior, acting as if she’d never seen a man before, which did nothing to improve Jerry’s disposition. He sighed again softly, and narrowed his eyes at Ryan, waiting for just the right moment before he said, “So tell us about your self.”

Jerry watched with satisfaction as Ryan, who had just put an unwieldy piece of lettuce in his mouth, looked momentarily perplexed on how to tackle such a broad based almost hostile question, and damn!, if Carol didn’t come to his rescue and say pleasantly, “Are you working? Going to school?”

Ryan swallowed with relief, and smiled at Carol as he said, “Well, both really. I work at UPS. A package handler.” He looked apologetic as he continued, “I took this semester off from Albany. I had to save some money, you know, to get through --”

“And what are you studying? Your major?” Jerry interrupted, with his subtle assault.

Ryan turned to him and met his eye as he said, “Architecture, sir. I have one semester left.”

Amanda looked at him in surprise. She didn’t know that. She hadn’t even known where he worked. Of course, she’d never asked. Had she even cared?

The room was duly impressed, and Jerry paused with a soft sigh to consider his next maneuver.

“Where are you from?” asked Carol. “Did you grow up around here?”

Ryan gently dabbed at his mouth then placed the napkin back on his lap. “No ma’am. Atlanta.”

Well, thought Jerry, that would explain the natural use of sir and ma’am, but he was hard pressed to pick up an accent. “Is that where your parents are now? Atlanta?” he tested.

Ryan shook his head. There was a hint of sadness in his movement. “No, sir. My father’s dead. A long time now. My mom’s remarried, living in Charlotte.”

Jerry felt himself running out of steam. He knew all about the dead parent thing. He was finding it difficult to find fault, so was forced to change tactics. “How old are you?” he asked bluntly.

There was a down beat of silence, Ryan’s eyes meeting Jerry’s, and then flickering away. “Twenty-one,” Ryan lied, the lie so obvious that Christy laughed out loud. Ryan flushed and smiled sheepishly, adding quickly, “Three years ago.”

“Excuse me?” asked Jerry, a twinkle in his eye.

Ryan’s grin was boyish with embarrassment as he said, “Three years ago, I was twenty-one, sir.” They all laughed then, even Jerry, and something in the way Ryan said it reminded him of his brother, Tom, and he softened, just a bit, to this new friend of his daughter’s.

Ryan felt the air shift, and knew that he had survived the initial inquisition, albeit shoddily. The focus moved slightly away from him, and he was able to gather his own information about this family; this life that Mandy was part of; these people who loved her. He covertly studied Dr. Benson as he looked down to cut his meat. He was a decent enough looking man, for his age. Not the least bit intimidating, although he’d tried hard to be. Still in good shape, a pleasant, calming face. Ryan imagined he was quite good at his job.

It was obvious that Carol had never quite had Mandy’s incredible looks, but Mandy’s hair, her eyes, her hot little body came from her mother. Carol was striking in a sexy older woman sort of way . . . He had not missed, nor did he ever, the affect he had on most women, including Carol. It had been part of his daily life, since he was fourteen, and although he never lost appreciation of it and used it to his advantage, he certainly did not dwell on it.

Christy was cute, would probably be pretty in a couple years. She was a perfect combination in body and face of her mother and father. It amused him that she couldn’t even look him in the eye. Each time he looked her way, her blue eyes were on him, but then shifted away and down, getting lost in the blush of her face. The contrast in the personalities of the sisters was remarkable. Amanda, the nucleus in a crowd, even in this tiny family; and isn’t that what took his breath away? Even now he could feel it, the excitement in her voice as she talked (was doing all the talking), her joy of being alive, as if she felt life more intensely than most . . .

Mandy grew more animated, chattering excitedly about her plans to study biomedical engineering, and that after she got her PhD, she was sure she would develop an artificial eye that could actually see, transmitting the images directly to the brain, an electronic pathway similar, but better than the optic nerve. Once that was done, the next thing she would tackle was the auditory system, a cure for deafness, something much better than cochlear implants . . . Her parents watched her with amazement, a slight knit to Jerry’s brow. Christy was bored and feeling less self conscious -- now that she’d realized that Ryan was only human and not some god Amanda had acquired -- wanted to talk about herself, but could not get a word in edgewise. Ryan sat back, a pleasant smile on his face, and thought about the last time he’d seen Mandy naked.