She was magic in the making—cool and refreshing with a deliberate sparkle. It was a favored conceit of hers to be the best-dressed in the office. A splash of color and cosmopolitan and urban style to offset or sometimes complement the business-casual nerd chic. And not just a pair of jeans and a cute top from Albatross & Finch either, but some of the hottest and most exclusive styles and pieces: a pair of red-bottoms that most would have to remortgage their house for; or enough plaid designer bags to where Luxemburry should be cutting her a check.
She justified the expense by telling herself that it was good for the on-camera persona in the image of self-expression. A science vlog host who could find and afford a pair of those sold-out high-heeled sneakers that Quinn Harley wore in Homicide Squad had to be doing something right. Truth be told, however, it was simply camouflage, something to hide behind. At that point in her career, she could afford to blow wads of cash on designer brands. What she couldn't afford was scrutiny.
The rumor going around the office, which she didn't discourage, was that she was an heiress of a wealthy family. Little did her workplace know that bipolar depression was her benefactor, had been for some time, long before she ever began her career as a scientist and a celebrity vlogger. She never knew when depression would come to call, how long, or how dangerous it would be. She only knew that she had to keep it a secret, or else. Or else what, she wasn't too sure, and she wasn't willing to find out. So the fashions had to stay fly. She couldn't allow a hint of darkness or decay around her, at least nothing that couldn't be hidden beneath a pinstripe blazer and a graphic tee.
It was no trouble, she figured. As long as none of them found out that she didn't have a clue what she was doing most of the time; that she hated every moment of her existence, and every one of their nerdy faces; and that the most pretentious thing about her was not, by far, the pair of Petrol jeans she paid almost half a grand for… as long as they simply walked by, glanced at her, and said, "Nice shoes," or something, and went on without noticing the deep circles under her eyes or the evidence of bled mascara, as long as they all agreed not to look too close or be too nosey, it was perfectly fine for her because she could never have enough shoes anyway.
It could have been superstition. Maybe it was strategy? Whatever it was, it seemed to have worked because one May afternoon a couple years after Taissa died, she was asked to give her input concerning the hiring of a co-host. Normally, when a decision was made, she was made to either deal with it or put in her two-week's notice. But maybe they expressed pity and figured that since she'd have to work together directly with the new host, her opinion would be important. The new host had to be a science educator of the first degree. They not only needed to have impressive degrees and expertise, they also needed to impress the audience with their demeanor, energy, and innate likeability.
Fifteen lunches later, they had narrowed the field down to two outstanding candidates. One was a burly Ursid man; a former university professor and photojournalist for Cornerian Geographic, well-respected in the insular world of scientific study. The other candidate, a bicolor Felid, (who will be referred to as Jim) also had an impressive curriculum vitae, but he was ten years younger with debonair good looks. Plus, he was big into social media with a following of his own, which was aided by the fact that he has several acting credits to his name. While he hasn't been focused on his acting career in recent years, his resume was still hot enough to command groupies' respect. As a cosmopolitan woman amongst mostly neckbeards with mother issues, she felt that it was her duty to inject some feminine flair and power into the equation. This was practically show-biz, after all. So naturally, she leaned heavily towards Jim. It also didn't hurt that Alicia was actually somewhat acquainted with Jim, seeing as he was a senior in the drama and science clubs at the high school that Alicia spent her freshman year; and that the award-winning coming-of-age teen comedy of her junior year was his silver-screen debut. Impressed as she was with his credentials, she was still a few years shy of a crush.
The day Jim was to be introduced to the staff dawned bright and sunny, which cinched Alicia's choice of restaurants for the meeting. Where else but Caffé Bellissimo: a posh little bistro where the industry elite met and mingled over cappuccinos and cannolis. In a preparatory memo, she'd told the team that, in her opinion, Jim struck the right chords with his unique blend of charisma and showmanship. And sure enough, he arrived wearing an array that exudes both nerdy and chic: a crisp, gray, slim-fitting Emporio Sergio suit layered over a red graphic tee (which was emblazoned with a commanding image of the namesake character from the classic MegaMaria game series), and completed the ensemble with matching red slip-on skate shoes. By the time their soup and Panini entrées had arrived, the table was convulsed with laughter, with one anecdote leading to another in a seamless flow of one-upmanship. Alicia caught glimpses of people at other tables, wondering who Alicia and her entourage were.
They lingered so long over their macchiatos and tiramisu, that the angle of the sun began to move to the west and the patio began to grow cool. Slipping on his jacket, one of the project directors asked for the time.
"Almost four," Alicia said, looking at her smartwatch.
"Are you serious?" Jim said, surprised. "Shit, I forgot to take my lithium."
The next few minutes were engraved in slow motion upon Alicia's synapses. Jim excused himself to go to his car to take his medicine. No one said a word until he got past the gate. And then the table erupted. Project directors don't stagger easily, and the management team is even harder to rock. But for the next few minutes, until they spied Jim returning through the gate, one would have thought that the word lithium carried as much weight as a racial slur.
All she could hear, houndlike, was their tone: contempt. And all Alicia could think of: what if they saw the pharmacological cornucopia she was carrying around in her purse at that moment? If plain old lithium was a shocker, then they'd die of a heart attack over the assortment of mood stabilizers, antidepressants, antianxiety agents, and atypical antipsychotics.
Alicia had often wondered what would happen if they found out about her mental illness. Now she knew. She knew without being told that Jim was strictly history from that point on. And she knew that she would have to be the one to tell him.
While everyone expressed embarrassment for Jim, Alicia flashed through her options: (1) She could defend Jim, reminding her colleagues of his credentials, his reputation, and his pre-lithium impression; (2) she could defend manic depression, educating these men and women about the importance of battling a stigma whenever possible, or; (3) simply say nothing and wake up tomorrow a step further down her career path, and a step farther from herself.
She faced her future undecorated and came to the conclusion that she wasn't ready to give up the fairytale yet. Not the one about furthering her career—looking at her colleagues, she realized that she could never be one of them. She wanted to be vicious too, but she wasn't. Deep down, where all the hard decisions are made, she was soft. She knew that she would mourn over what happened to Jim.
In actuality, the only fairytale that she couldn't give up was the one where she would wake up one beautiful morning to discover that the curse has been lifted and the spell is broken. That she was no longer bipolar. Depression was not her identity back then. She just thought it was something she had, like a bad case of the Flu or a mediocre credit. Half the time, she wasn't even sure it was real. She just knew that it was all her fault, whatever it was, and she didn't examine that too closely.
She made her choice. To defend Jim would be an act of union with her disease—emblematic, nuanced, and all but indisputable. She wasn't about to give up her future for something she didn't fully believe in, something that would disappear any morning. So, when the others susurrated, Alicia went along with it. She listened to their disapproval for the next few minutes. And when Jim returned, she, like everyone else, avoided his eyes.
It took her a week to muster up the courage to meet with Jim and tell him the bad news. She didn't mention lithium. She made up a cock-a-doodle excuse about them wanting to stick to their target demographic. All the time she was lying to his face, she wanted to warn Jim to be more cautious, that public figures should keep private lives. But most of all, she wanted to confess, to obtain his forgiveness and absolution for the hypocrisy that was rending at her sweet, secular soul.
Instead, she offered him flowers. A glorious bunch of daffodils, fresh from the florist that morning. Forced blooms, the florist had called them, trying to justify the price tag… Forced blooms, made to bloom early. It sounded painful, but they were worth every cent. Alicia would have paid anything for a graceful goodbye.
Jim took the flowers and they parted ways. She grew sick of the sight of herself, day in and day out, as she pretended to join in on the lithium talk around the workplace before it was succeeded by Zoloft jokes. She began avoiding her coworkers more and more, until she was working practically from home, only coming in to shoot scenes.
She had walked into her loft one Saturday after a binge of "comfort shopping" and dumped her haul onto the couch and went to her room to flop onto the bed. She was going to return everything she just bought the following day, because she knew that there weren't enough handcrafted shoes or imported leather bags to beautify her person, her life, or this lie that she was perpetuating. She went into her closet and pulled out a plastic storage bin that she hadn't touched in ages. Inside it were mementos from her illustrious life that she couldn't bear to part with. After rummaging through it and bathing in nostalgia, she finally found what she was looking for: her yearbook from freshman year. Finding a comfortable spot on the couch, she opened it and leafed through the faces and memories that she hadn't touched in years, until she found the yearbook page she was looking for.
Picking up her phone, called a number that she had saved in her contacts. A journalist from an online magazine that had been begging her to sit down and talk with them. "Listen," she said, "before we talk, there is something you should know, because it is going to make a difference depending on where I go and what I do. I have—" she checked herself. "No, I am manic-depressive. How do you feel about that?"
"So is my brother," the woman on the other end of the line said. Then she revealed the names of three others in the industry of similar notoriety. "…But do you think it's a good idea to go around telling people that?"
"Oh my GOD, no!" Alicia said. "But that's why I'm going to."
Stories don't always have to end happily. Sometimes they just have to end to make way for new stories. Looking down at the yearbook page, she smiled, a real smile, at the image of her and Jim as they posed together for the yearbook photo. Their bright eyes and smiles, full of youth, hopes, and dreams. Below, the caption read, "Most Likely to Succeed in Show Business".