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: : : —SO, SAYS LYDIA. She's been trying, for almost the whole lunch hour, to find a lull in the conversation so that she could tell Anita her news. —I started on Prozac.
(She drops her voice a notch when she says it; she doesn't want the whole Starbucks to know her business.)
—Prozac, eh? says Anita. —I've been on Prozac. That was the first thing they had me on.
—And?
Anita tilts her head from side to side, indicating some process of mental weighing. —I wasn't all that wild about it, she says. —I mean, I stopped feeling depressed, but after a couple of months it started to make me fat.
—Fat?
—Yeah, it kind of fucked with my metabolism somehow? I mean, I was basically eating the same stuff as before—I was probably eating better than before because I cut way back on self-medicating with, like, the Godiva?—but my weight started getting worse. Finally I talked to my doctor and was just like what the fuck? She said that a lot of those reuptake inhibitors contribute to weight gain.
—Huh, says Lydia.
—The tricyclics are supposedly even worse, says Anita. —So they switched me to the Wellbutrin and that seemed to solve the problem.
—You like it? Wellbutrin?
—I like it, Anita says, —but it's probably not for everybody? I mean, it reminds me of coke—it makes me feel kind of speedy in that way that coke does? Which probably helps with the whole weight issue, cause it makes me want to like jump up and clean my entire house instead of just lying in bed or whatever. But if you don't like that ringy feeling that coke gives you I'd stay off the Wellbutrin. Me, I liked doing coke, I kind of miss it.
—You stopped?
—Yeah, I stopped, Anita says. —It got too expensive. I mean, you know what they pay us, I can't afford to be dropping a hundred on a gram every weekend anymore. When I was married, sure, but Dave was mostly buying it then, he was making like eighty. Now—forget it. I'll stick to getting my rush from the antidepressants. At least work'll pay for those.
Lydia smirks, takes a sip of her coffee.
—The other thing I like about Wellbutrin, Anita says, —is that it actually gets me kind of turned on. You gotta watch out for that with Prozac. It kind of killed my drive.
—That's like the least of my worries, says Lydia. —I mean, my, uh, healthy appetite isn't exactly doing me any good these days. There's nobody even in the picture right now.
—I guess—Anita says, —but when you get too bored to even use like your vibrator—that's pretty damn sad. You start to feel like a freaking Barbie doll—this kind of permanent smile but nothing going on downstairs.
—Great, says Lydia. —You're making me feel real optimistic about starting on this stuff.
—Everybody's different, says Anita. —You might not have any problems at all. But, you know, just be aware of some of the stuff that can happen with it, and, most importantly, don't be afraid to go back in to the doctor and be like give me something else. You see a lot of people who are stuck on some drug that's hurting them more than it's helping them because they're afraid to go into their doctor and demand something. But I say you're the customer.
—I'm the customer, says Lydia.
—Damn right. You're the customer and you have a right to be satisfied.
: : :
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