13

I should have known it was too good to last.

“You know, most people don’t party like that by themselves on Sundays,” Mark said while I was watching CNN one Sunday afternoon. As far as he knew, I was on my second glass of wine. And there was only a small amount of coke on a compact mirror in front of me. It seemed reasonable to me, even restrained for a Sunday.

“How do you know what most people do?” I asked, lighting a cigarette. The air was heavy with smoke and stale wine despite all the odor-eliminating candles I often burned. I was still in my boxer shorts and t-shirt. “It’s Sunday. Most people have been sitting in sports bars drinking since noon.”

“Are you serious?” He was perched on the edge of the couch looking at me as if I’d just said that the Kennedys were killed by other Kennedys. I slid down the couch, farther away from him. The navy blue slipcovers were filthy.

“Absolutely. Maybe not everyone’s drinking right now. I mean, some people have kids, but most people . . .” I said, as I tried to think of another rationale he’d go for. “Especially anyone with a job like mine with huge stress all week. Sunday is when everyone with a real job is staring down the barrel of Monday.” Mark’s thick eyebrows furrowed like a cartoon villain’s. I could hear my tone becoming belligerent. “You’re a student at twenty-eight years old. You have no idea what it’s like to work a job like mine. If I want to blow off steam on a Sunday, I’ll do it however I like.”

I didn’t need some little college kid telling me what was normal. Isn’t normal whatever you’re used to? My hands had been shaking for ten years. This was my normal. And I knew how much drinking and using I could handle and still keep my job, so things were under control.

“OK, I’m just saying, most people don’t drink so much and don’t do coke all the time,” he said.

“I don’t care about what most people do. Maybe if I were just taking some classes and day trading like you, I’d be different . . .”

“Have you ever thought of going to rehab?” he asked. What? Has he not been listening?

“EXCUSE ME? Rehab? No, I have not thought of going to rehab.” I took a long slug from my wine glass. “And even if I did need it, it’s not like I could tell my office, ‘I’ll be out for a month at a FUCKING REHAB.’ I can’t believe you just said that.” The balls on this kid. He didn’t really know me anyway.

“OK,” he said, sinking his fingers into his hair and dropping his head into his hands. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Don’t be mad.”

“Don’t ever bring that up again. Ever.” I said. We sat there quietly for a minute and I felt myself sweating. “I think you should probably go downstairs. I kind of want to be alone now.” It was Sunday! I needed to be out of my head for as long as possible before Monday rolled around. And I was about to fill my glass again.

Mark didn’t fight me and he left. Too bad I was going to have to get rid of him. He was nice to have around.

Late the next morning, Mark called me at work and acted as if nothing had happened. “Hey, what’s up? You want to eat dinner tonight?”

“Not if you’re going to give me a hard time,” I said.

“No, no. I’m sorry about all that. I was just worried about you.”

“Well don’t be. I’m fine,” I answered. “I’ll call you when I’m leaving.”

As cool as I thought Mark was about my using, I should have seen it coming. He was around a lot, and even though he saw relatively little, he saw enough to make a healthy person wince. Having him around helped me sharpen my sneak skills; as he sat right there on my couch, I was managing to ingest at least twice what he witnessed. The glass bullet filled with coke was tucked into a lipstick case and sat on a shelf behind my bathroom mirror. Lipstick cases were tailor-made to accommodate the one-gram vials that a coke-addicted woman needed to carry or hide. Who would suspect it to be full of blow? A glass of wine in a tumbler was parked in the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. During an afternoon of slowly sipping wine in front of Mark, I would steal off to the bathroom or the kitchen to bump up with a couple quick blasts of coke or slugs of wine. I knew it was fucked up, but I was good at it, so it made me feel kind of proud.

One morning I had a nine o’clock appointment for my annual mammogram. Wanting to be as “healthy” as possible for the exam, I managed to lay off the coke that morning and had only a glass or so of red wine before I left. All I needed to do was stay steady until I could get home again and balance myself out with wine and coke for the rest of the day.

Returning home from the appointment, I was in a celebratory mood. But as I unlocked my apartment door, I heard the buzz of television news. Mark’s here? What the fuck?

He was sitting in the chair at my computer desk and swiveled toward me as if I were an office pal interrupting a dull day on the job. “Hey, what are you doing home?” Wait, is that accusation in his voice?

“I told you, I had a doctor’s appointment. I had to stop back here for something I need for work,” I lied, already feeling the shaking and sweating as the timer ticked away the minutes until I would be desperate for another drink.

He stood up and walked toward me. “You were drinking this morning.”

I shut the apartment door and stood there, keys still in my hand. “No, I wasn’t. And I told you not to come over today. What are you doing here?”

“There’s red wine splashed in the sink. It wasn’t there when you passed out last night.” He had caught me and I was livid.

“Fuck you,” I said, giving him my best angry woman glare. I stomped into the kitchen, slammed my keys on the counter, and threw my bag on the floor. The deep, double-sided kitchen sink was white porcelain. A streak of dried red wine ran down one side like a blood trail and swirled in crimson circles around the drain. Turning on the faucet, I grabbed the spray attachment and went after the wine as if I were hosing a filthy car in a summer driveway.

I walked back over to Mark and said, “There’s no wine in the sink and I wasn’t drinking this morning. Now get out and leave your keys.” I felt lightheaded, but I couldn’t tell if it was from anger, the need for a drink, or the awful truth of what I’d just done.

“You’re crazy,” he answered, not leaving. “I talked to my friend’s mother about you. She’s been sober for twenty years. She says you’re an alcoholic and a drug addict. You’re cross-addicted and that’s way worse than just being one of those. She says if you don’t go to rehab, you’re going to die and that if you don’t admit it and get help I should get as far away from you as I can.”

“Really? Your friend’s mother?” With my hands planted firmly on my hips, I barked at him like a furious school nun. That is, if the nun has the mouth of a Bronx barmaid on a night the Yankees lose to the Red Sox. “Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to people about me? And I’ve told you that I know what I’m doing. I know my goddamned limits. I don’t need fucking rehab. There’s nothing to rehab. If you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life never drinking again and going to meetings in shithole church basements to drink bad coffee and crybaby my problems to a bunch of losers you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“If you won’t get help, I’m leaving, for real,” he said. His eyes were glassy with tears.

“Fine. Nobody’s stopping you.” He gathered his school bag and the pillows he’d brought up from his apartment. Then he put on his sneakers, and I held the door open for him.

“My keys,” I said, as he was leaving. He dropped them gently into my hand and walked out into the hallway. I said “goodbye,” slammed the door, and rushed into the kitchen to pour a double-sized glass of wine. Relief, I just needed some relief, even though I felt numb.