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With everything that had gone on, everything I’d invited into my life, I needed some time out of the house and, surprisingly, away from Glenn. We got along just fine, or so I chose to tell myself, but there was something overwhelming about him being in my home. Naturally he’d cultivated what he referred to as his ‘stage charisma’; he’d had to, to be successful as a talk show host, but though I’d never tell him to his face, it bled over into his everyday life as well. The enthusiasm, the joie de cocaine by which I’d known him at the age of thirty, had matured into a presence that filled the room. That charisma wasn’t limited to the stage and was all the more lethal for being naturally cultivated, rather than chemically induced.
I recalled all of the Dutch courage I’d poured down the kitchen sink before his arrival and wished I had some hidden around the house but hadn’t trusted myself. Sure, I’d insisted to myself I was doing it for Glenn’s peace of mind but really, me, this jittery, plus alcohol hidden in a cupboard somewhere? Never mind Glenn reverting to his Oosh persona; I was less trustful of myself.
No, if I were going to get myself a stiff one – the kind that came in a bottle – it would have to be done away from home, away from Glenn, and in the presence of friends, who could a) keep their mouths shut if I confided in them and b) temper my intake, if I looked to be getting a bit silly on the sherbet.
“Will you be all right here by yourself?” I asked automatically, only realising how condescending I sounded once the words were out of my mouth.
“I’m a big lad, Afton,” Glenn replied, lifting his gaze from his laptop. He’d been lounging on the settee for over an hour, muttering now and again, swearing under his breath, looking up only occasionally to ask me if this word or that were funnier. If I thought he swore too much in this routine.
“For fuck’s sake,” had been my reply. “You’re Scottish. In Scotland. There’s no such thing as swearing ‘too much’.”
“Yeah, guess you’re right,” he’d said, tapping away at the keyboard, tutting, and hitting the delete key.
“Do you realise how much you’ve been swearing while you’ve been working on that routine anyway?” I’d asked. “You’ve been infected by the Embra air already.”
He’d merely grunted, and scowled at whatever he saw on the screen, clearly not happy with it. I hoped his audience liked it better than he did. I’d thought at first that he’d have the routine down pat before he even landed in Scotland but apparently it was his way to fiddle with it right up until the last minute. To make it more current.
I supposed that made sense, but would much rather it was him getting on stage in front of hundreds of people telling jokes he’d written. I’d been in front of an audience plenty of times myself, but the words I spoke were someone else’s. I merely had to pretend they were mine. I got paid to lie with my body.
Best job in the world.
I must have lingered longer than was appropriate behind the settee. Glenn had firmly bedded down in his place, lounging against a mountain of cushions with his feet up on the coffee table – shoes off, of course. Again, he looked up, lifting his hands away from the keyboard, resting them at his sides this time, on the settee. “Honestly,” he said. “I can handle being home alone. I won’t go raking through your knicker drawer. Well, not again, anyway.”
“What–” And I bit my lip, seeing the grin break out on his face. I should have known it was a joke. “Never mind.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what I get up to in that room of yours while you’re asleep?”
“I don’t think I even want to know,” I said, waving a dismissive hand at him.
“Yeah, well, you’re not my size,” he began and I, heading for the door, stopped short, then turned slowly on the spot.
“I...” Whatever I’d been about to say got stuck in my throat and I coughed, mouth suddenly dry and unable to form words. “No need to show off. You’re not in front of the cameras now.”
“Thank goodness for that; I’d hate for my weekend activities to be caught on film...again.” He leaned his head on the back of the settee and turned his gaze in my direction, craning his neck to do so.
“You are such a child. It can’t be wise to leave you home unsupervised.”
“Oh go on, call me Oosh again, just like old times.”
“Not a chance,” I shot back, praying I wouldn’t accidentally do just that and give him the satisfaction of winning this one. Maybe if I tried to be firm and get the conversation back on track, some mature, non-flirtatious part of him would pick up on that and follow my lead. “But seriously; you don’t mind me going out, do you?”
“Honestly, I’ll be fine.” Glenn turned back to his laptop and waved me off. “It’s not like I’m under a supervision order or on probation. I’m big enough and ugly enough to entertain myself for the evening.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” I muttered. Then, louder, “I was merely trying to be hospitable. I didn’t want you to feel as if you were being abandoned as a guest in my home while I went out gallivanting with my friends.” And testing him out in this regard, with a girls’ night out, would give me a hint as to how he’d feel about me disappearing for a little longer than a few hours...but that would come later, after I’d spoken to Mairead...
“Afton,” he said, with another heavy sigh, fingers hovering over the keyboard then coming to rest again. “I don’t want you to put your social life on hold just for little old me. Besides,” and he eyed me intently across the room, as I neared him again. Almost as if he were magnetic. “If I get some peace and quiet, I might make more progress on this.”
“Is it a wise idea to work on it all at once?”
“Probably not.”
“Maybe you should have had it done before you came here, then,” I retorted. Not for the first time. I really couldn’t understand his nonchalance about leaving everything to the last minute. Okay, not to the last minute, but the last couple of weeks, anyway. I guessed he was more comfortable on a stage ad-libbing than I.
“What can I say?” Glenn shrugged. “I like to live dangerously.”
“Tell me about it,” I murmured, and his gaze flicked over to me once more. Clearing my throat nervously, I decided to change tack. Any reference to him living dangerously? Off the menu. “Although I’m well aware it’s possible to over-rehearse,” –and this was something I’d done myself in the early years of my acting career, stage-fright being an ever-present spectre– “and I know you want to make your act current, isn’t leaving it this late...” I bit my lip under the steady scrutiny of his gaze. Something in his eyes made me uncomfortable. Itchy. “Never mind.” And I held both hands up in reluctant surrender. “You know best, who am I to offer advice to the King of Late Night?” I turned on my heels. Maybe this time I’d make it to the main room door.
Not so.
“Uh...” he began, in a tone that said there was more to come, but first, he wanted to command my attention.
God Almighty, would I ever get out of this room and into the shower?
Groaning, I turned around. Again. Much more of this nonsense and he’d have me dizzy. I felt sure there was some kind of hidden metaphor in that for how many times he’d had me changing my mind and giving him more attention than was healthy.
Something a friend had said popped into my mind then, some advice I’d considered a few times over the years but funny how it should come back to me at that moment: don’t make someone a priority if they make you an option. A mentor with whom I’d long since lost contact – that happened often in showbusiness as careers waxed and waned, people died, people...moved to other countries to honour their career progress – had offered that piece of sage advice to a teenage me, when I’d been at the point of wondering what the hell to do. Painful though it had been to hear it, I’d heard it at the right time and gotten on with things. No, it hadn’t been easy, but I’d done what was best for me.
And yet.
Those damn words echoed down the years from a person I’d not spoken to in quite some time, to this moment when Uisdean Glenn Peterson lounged on the settee I’d purchased to furnish my ‘divorce apartment’.
“The King of Late Night?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. “So you agree with the title I gave myself? You picked up on it and you agree?”
“It was a sarcastic title, Glenn. No-one in particular really thinks–”
“It’s okay to admit it.”
“It’s not a title that will be applicable for long, is it?”
“Oh. Ouch.” He clasped a hand over his heart. Or where his heart would be if he had one. “That hurt. Really. Honestly, I’m going to have to start calling you Sour Afton, unless you’re nicer to me.”
“I can cope with that.” Actually, I could have done without the reference to his former pet name for me, bringing as it did, a reminder of naked poetry recital while stoned, but no way was I going to give him the satisfaction of knowing I remembered.
Catching the smirk on his face, I realised...too late. He already knew, damn him. Of course he did. He did this deliberately. Played it like the easygoing house mate, dropping references to our shared past now and again, just to have me whizzing back into the past on a time machine made of memories. To keep me on my toes.
“I’ll have you know I chose to leave the show.”
“Of course you did.” As ‘Sour Afton’ I could hardly speak in a voice dripping with honey, but I gave it a good go. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to get ready to go out and see my real friends.”
“You still called me the King of Late Night,” he called after me.
“And you called me Sour Afton, so I think we’re quits,” I replied, slamming the door shut behind me.
~*~
I’d okayed it with Glenn for me to go into what was kinda sorta ‘his room’ for the duration of his stay, before my shower, to retrieve my ‘going out’ clothes. There was a slight...not discomfort, but hint of awkwardness when I crossed the threshold. Aside from the day he’d arrived, I’d studiously avoided going into the room when Glenn had been in there. Being in a room containing Glenn Peterson and a bed would have led to all sorts of memories I didn’t want to be nursing, especially now we were back on the same continent.
Not that we’d always needed a bed. In fact, we’d often made do with a settee, the floor, up against the wall–
“Fuck,” I muttered, eyeing the doorway as if Glenn would be right behind me. Not that he’d censure me for swearing, but he’d definitely enjoy my awkwardness. No-one swore out loud and massaged their temples straight after if they were completely at ease with themselves and any available company.
He was certainly a tidy house guest; I’d say that for him. He always made the bed and kept his laundry in a spare basket under it – that was one chore he’d be taking care of himself during his stay; I was no-one’s washer maid. In fact, besides some toiletries littering the top of a chest of drawers and even ‘littering’ was a strong word to use, there was almost no physical sign of him in the room. Glenn had stuffed his travel bags one inside the other, and left the wheeled suitcase beside one of my wardrobes.
Thankfully not on top of it, I observed, eyeing the incriminating hatbox full of toys. Glenn had never asked what was inside it. Perhaps he’d decided a hatbox must surely contain a hat, and thought no more of it.
It took mere seconds to grab the dress I planned to wear from the wardrobe and suitable underwear from a drawer. I’d cleared some for Glenn to use during his stay, had pointed out he could use that, that and that one and even now wondered if his teasing me about raking through my knicker drawer were just that – teasing.
“No. No, he wouldn’t,” I whispered, again looking over my shoulder to the doorway. “Would he?” And I shuddered. Eww. That would be kinda icky and though Glenn Peterson was a lot of things, he wasn’t a sex pest.
He’d never, in all the years I’d known him, made me feel uncomfortable.
No, that wasn’t right. He made me feel uncomfortable now. But he’d never made me feel in danger of real harm. He’d never made me feel directly threatened. He was plenty capable of being filthy in a good way – not that I was ever going to think about that, no sir – but he wasn’t a dirty old man.
But of course, I couldn’t completely damp down my own sense of mischief, and contemplated carrying a pair of boots into the bathroom with me, to change into once I’d showered. Glenn had always had a thing for heels, had always noticed when a woman walked past in a particularly vertiginous pair. Shoes were a definite kink of his, but boots? Oh my word, boots. More than once, he’d said, “No, leave those on,” before bending me over the nearest piece of furniture. And when furniture wasn’t available, throwing me on the floor or ground.
And the strange thing was, his observance and appreciation of other women’s footwear had never made me feel sidelined. Part of Glenn’s charm was his ability to be respectful, a remarkable talent in any man, but in his case, it had been damned special because he’d even managed to make me feel secure in our relationship at the age of nineteen.
But, as with Joseph, it had only been good until it wasn’t.
Sadness washed over me then, not for the first time, as I picked up the boots I eventually elected to wear, and headed for the bathroom. Despite the flirting, and there was definite flirting, the references to our past relationship, the my-how-you’ve-changed of it all, the very fact we had a past made it all so bittersweet. Calling it a past meant there had been something there that had ended, and having him in my home all these years later made me miss...something. I didn’t know what.
Maybe, I considered as I stripped off and got in the shower, it was simply a case of I’d missed having someone else around, someone waiting back home for me to come home to. I’d lived with people other than Joseph in my life. Parents and sister at first, then my first flat mates, a couple of friends in the same business while we’d been making our way. In fact, I’d had roomies, including my ex-spouse, for far longer than I’d ever lived on my own. I’d gotten used to company, and now I was moving into a new phase of my life, that click of the front door closing behind me which echoed around a terminally empty flat, clanged like a blue note.
Life wasn’t meant to be like that, I said to myself, rinsing my hair through and detangling it with my fingertips. I blinked back tears, knowing it would be easy to hide them in the shower and who else was there to hide my tears from? Being alone in the bathroom meant no worries about privacy, but still, when I emerged from here to let Glenn know I was about to head out, I didn’t want to have to rely on hastily-applied cosmetics to mask any redness.
The steam from the shower had, as planned, dropped any minor creases out of the dress. The one I’d chosen was plain black, scoop-necked and low around the bust – well, why the hell not, with tits like mine? – with cap sleeves. If not exactly a fabric sheath, it erred on the side of snug right down to the knee where it flared ever so slightly, giving me room to move. It required what I lovingly referred to as ‘upholstery’ underneath; slimming underwear on the lower half, and a knock-your-eyes-out push-up bra to take full advantage of the low neckline.
If it so happened that Glenn got an eyeful before I left the flat, well, so be it. That didn’t count as flirting, did it? He’d merely happen to see that this was the kind of thing I wore when going out with the girls and if it played on his mind that other men he didn’t know would be looking at me too, well...so be it.
“God, Afton, you are so mischievous,” I whispered to my own reflection, wiping down the mirror for the umpteenth time while applying my makeup. I could have lugged it all through to the bedroom and applied it at my dressing table there, but...again, it felt too much like Glenn’s territory. Yes, we’d slept in the same bedroom before, even if ‘sleeping’ was a very loose term for what we’d done together, but his visit in the here and now drew an invisible line through our lives.
He’d taken over what was officially my bedroom and as the rest of the house was mine, the least I could do was surrender that little corner of my home. Added to which, bedding down in the front room every night meant I’d have ready access to the television and Netflix for when the inevitable oh my God, Glenn Peterson’s in my apartment insomnia took hold.
Black ankle boots with a slight heel and peephole toes completed the look; gathering up my discarded pre-shower clothing, I bundled it all together and headed through to the front room to dump everything in the kitchen laundry basket.
Glenn still lounged on the settee without glancing over to me when I entered the room; presumably his notes or script or whatever he chose to call it, demanded more of his attention. Nevertheless, I kept nervously looking over at the back of his head while I opened up the laundry basket and deposited my unwashed clothes. He’d never seen me in ‘going out’ clothes since his arrival and uncertainty plagued me. I didn’t need his approval, but show me one woman who didn’t at least contemplate her outfit earning a double-take from a man with whom she’d been sexually intimate. If he gave me a quick up-and-down look before waving me off, such a non-reaction would tell me I didn’t look as good as I hoped.
“I’m just going to get my c–” I began, heading for the door again, when Glenn stiffened.
“Are you wearing heels?” He asked, without looking over his shoulder.
“Uh...” Without planning to, I lifted one foot off the floor and looked at my ankle boot. “Yes? Kind of?”
Glenn tossed his notebook to one side and knelt up, facing me, clinging to the back of the settee and staring not at my face, but my feet. His eyebrows shot up but he said nothing.
I could have sworn, if I knew anything about the man, that he fought not to lick his lips.
“You’re going out in that?”
Again, I paused before answering. But I didn’t like how that made me feel. Approval? Well, it was understandable, to seek that from an attractive man with whom I’d had a sexual relationship in years gone by. But permission? Nope. No, I didn’t need that at all.
“Yes?” Questioning, but without an undertone of I hope you’re okay with that. Rather, I made an attempt to inject a sense of I dare you to not be okay with that, into my voice.
“In...in that?”
“Obviously. Well, I was about to go get my coat before you started the inspection, but...” And I shrugged, before grabbing a handful of my own hair and giving it a scrunch. Still damp from the shower, but not sopping wet. Perhaps he was coming over all concerned, like someone’s granny. “Are you about to lecture me on going out with wet hair? It’ll be dry soon, anyway. It’s the middle of summer.”
“No, no, I couldn’t care less about your hair.”
“Pardon?”
“I didn’t mean that.” Glenn grimaced, and what did he have to feel pained about? He wouldn’t be wearing these new boots all evening, although given his obviously still-present footwear kink, if I bought another pair in his size, he might even be willing to–
No, Afton. No. The history between you may be undeniably ever-present, like a book on a shelf in the corner of the room, but there’s no need to take it down, crack it open and read the damn thing over and over again. You already know how the story ends.
I really should have broken in those boots before wearing them on a night out, but too late now.
Hell, if I got drunk enough, I could always pull them off and walk home barefoot. Actually, maybe not a sensible idea given we were in the heart of the city. One never knew what lay in one’s path.
And as for getting drunk...
I bit my lip, spending but a moment to contemplate the possibility. I needed to get out of the house, see the girls and have a couple of drinks, but coming home absolutely fucking steamboats as us Scots might call it, wouldn’t be fair on Glenn. He’d been dry for years now, and smelling it on my breath might be a reminder of things he’d rather forget.
Damn me and my inconvenient conscience.
“That dress.” Glenn stared, and not at my face. “It’s very...”
Tilting my head, I waited for him to continue.
“And the boots.” That was where his true interest lay; my boobs would have been insulted if I hadn’t had two decades’ knowledge of how hard he got the horn for a shapely leg, a well-turned ankle and heeled footwear.
I wondered how he’d feel if I’d broken out the knee-highs I kept in a box somewhere. Or the thigh-highs.
Wait, no I didn’t.
“The boots?” I echoed.
He coloured then, ever so slightly, cleared his throat, and sat back down, pulling his laptop back towards himself. The cushion might have been to stop his lap burning from the heat of the computer’s casing, or it might have been to mask some...gentlemanly discomfort.
Fuck me gently, I said to myself. Nearly fifty and it still hits you that rapidly, does it?
Tutting slowly, I shook my head. Not because of anything Glenn had said or done, but at where my own thoughts led me. Straight to hell.
“I’ve got a favour to ask,” Glenn said, gruff, his voice thick with something that might have been discomfort. He lay his hands across the keyboard but typed nothing, his mind obviously elsewhere.
The same place to which mine had drifted, perhaps?
“Sure,” came my automatic reply. He’d seemed sincere in his supplication, so I saw no reason to refuse him straight away. How bad could it be?
“You’ll be going out with friends to a bar or two, I take it?”
“Yeah. I thought it better for you if I met them in town instead of bringing them here first, and...you know. Keeping it to the city centre.” I watched as his shoulders dropped, the relief flooding through his musculature obvious. Yep, we were definitely on the same page. No need to dance around the subject.
“Much appreciated.” He nodded, his shoulders stiffening again when I rounded the settee and sat on its arm.
Knees together and legs uncrossed to avoid the hem riding up. Decorum struck me at the strangest of moments. “So what’s the favour?”
“Can you not, uh...” Glenn ran a finger round the collar of his plain red t-shirt, as if it had shrunk in the middle of this conversation. “When you come back, can you not be...”
“Naked?”
“No.” He tutted, then chanced a look at me. He shook his head ever so slightly, suppressed a smile, or tried to. The twitch at the corners of his mouth gave him away. “Although, you know...”
“Can I not be dressed?”
“Shut up, Afton and just bloody listen, will you? Unless...was that an offer?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay, okay, can’t blame a guy for checking. I mean, I’m shacking up with TV’s Sexiest Female, whatever year it was.”
“And you can’t blame a girl for keeping the damn award on her mantelpiece.” I shot a glance over to it, and grinned at the memory. It made me feel good, so why the hell not? And Joseph had certainly appreciated it. I’d not even had time to get the dress I’d been wearing that night properly off. In fact I’d never worn it again; he’d positively torn it off me and left a few scratch marks on my skin, too. It was as if it had turned him on to know other people were looking at his wife, wanting to do what he’d gone on to do that night. Three times.
Back in the present, I caught Glenn’s eyes and my cheeks burned, as if he’d read my mind. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“Hmm. Yes.” He cleared his throat, shifted the cushion and MacBook on his lap again. “This is a bit embarrassing so I’ll just blurt it out, okay?”
“Sure. Although there’s no need to be embarrassed, is there?”
“I just don’t want you to be drunk when you get back,” he said, slicing a hand through the air in a decisive gesture of this is how it’s going to be, before that same hand balled into a fist, which he eventually brought to rest on his laptop keyboard. “It’s a bit...” A brief pause, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Difficult.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip. “Oh. I see. Still? After all this time? I thought you’d been dry for years.”
“I have been. And this is why. I don’t mind seeing other people drink. I honestly don’t. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that there’s no alcohol in this place. No, I wasn’t looking for it. I just happened to observe, while I’ve been in your kitchen. Unless you have it stashed somewhere?”
“No. No, I don’t. There’s no alcohol anywhere, unless you count the mouthwash in the bathroom and I don’t think you’d be reduced to drinking that.”
“Christ no. I’m not a fucking hobo, Afton. I have standards. Normally I just stick to battery acid and lighter fuel. But seriously. It’s...” Again he shifted, brought one leg up and tucked his foot under the opposite knee. He pretty much turned his lower limbs into a human pretzel to give himself time to gather his thoughts. “I don’t like seeing drunk people.”
“How are you going to handle doing your show in an Edinburgh bar of all places then?”
“For fuck’s sake, Afton, it’s you. I don’t want to see you drunk,” he blurted out, and his words sucked all the sound out of the room.
And the air.
“Oh.” For the want of anything better to do with my hands, I smoothed down the hem of my dress and stood. “Oh.”
“Look, I know that sounds...not right.” Glenn lifted the cushion and laptop away from himself, set them down on the settee and rose, hands on his hips. Then not. It was as if he didn’t know what to do with them.
I knew the feeling.
“I just...it’s...” He gestured between us. “We...you know.”
I lifted my eyebrows expectantly, waiting for him to finish the sentence. If he could.
“Given that we used to...” Again he cleared his throat. “Look. Given that we used to party, and...other stuff. I just don’t want to...or need to see...”
A flash of indignation shot through me then and I wanted to, desperately wanted to, ask if the sight of me was so repulsive to him that he was terrified I’d get shit-faced and make a pass at him later.
But a glance over at that stupid little statuette, probably made out of nickel wrapped in gold foil, combined with my self-confidence, told me otherwise.
Glenn was definitely a looker...in fact, handsomer now than he had been nineteen years before, truth be told. Joseph? One of the best-looking men I’d ever met, loath as I was to admit it. And my other lovers had all been easy on the eye, even the ones with whom I’d been drunk. Beer goggles had never evaporated the morning after the night before to reveal a proper dingo gnaw.
I knew how to pull a ten, so I couldn’t be all that bad myself. Glenn couldn’t possibly think I was physically repulsive. Nor could he genuinely fear that I wouldn’t be able to control myself once I got a bit of the drink in me. Could he?
“Do you think I’m going to get absolutely trollied and come onto you when I get back?” I asked, scowling. “Because let me assure you, Uisdean Glenn Peterson-”
“Did you just call me Oosh?”
“No I bloody did not, and don’t interrupt when I’m being pissed off at you.”
“Me? What have I done?”
“You think I’m going to be unable to control myself when I get back, and...” My mouth dropped open when a thought struck me. “Wait.” And I pointed at him for some reason, though I no longer had an accusation to make. “Do you think...”
“Could I possibly get to finish the thing I was working up to say before you got all pissed off at me for something I wasn’t even thinking?”
“I’m not gonna be bringing anyone else back here if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Worried? Me? Pfft.” And he grimaced. “Couldn’t care less. Except, okay, look. Can I finish? Or are you going to point at me again?”
“Fine.” I lowered my hand, clasped both behind my back.
“That arches your back when you do that.”
“So?”
“Pushes your charlies out.”
“What? Oh.” I looked down, crossed my arms in front of me this time, which did nothing to lessen the effect on which Glenn commented. “Charlies, for God’s sake,” I muttered. Well, at least that proved he’d noticed them. “Get on with it. I’ve got people to go see. Alcohol not to drink, apparently.” And I rolled my eyes, just to show my impatience.
“I’m not trying to be awkward, Afton. It’s just...okay. Deep breath.” He brought his hands together in the prayer position, touched his fingertips to his mouth and why oh why couldn’t I take my eyes off them? Because I knew what those hands were capable of. I’d always had a weakness for a man’s hands. He’d definitely been getting professional manicures back in California although if he tried booking an appointment here, whoever he spoke to on the phone would probably drop their deep-fried Mars bar laughing.
“Given our history,” he continued, still with his fingertips held near to his mouth, “I’d find it very uncomfortable to be confronted with a worse-for-drink Afton Collier.”
“So.” I paused. “It’s just me, then? Not any drunk person. Just one specific person?”
“I don’t like being around drunks at all, to be honest–”
“Well you’re in just about the worst country in the world for that, aren’t you?” I retorted, adding a sharp burst of laughter for good measure. Sure, it may have been a national stereotype, but stereotypes often became cliches for a reason. Because they were true.
“I don’t mind being around people drinking alcohol. It doesn’t bother me. Some folks it does. They can’t go anywhere near a pub or a bar, and dinner parties have to be more or less dry, which pretty much inconveniences a lot of people for the sake of their own recovery, which, you know, so be it, if that’s what you’ve got to do. And if you’ve got people around you who care about you, they’ll understand and accommodate your...” He caught my eye again, looked me straight in the eye as he added, meekly, quietly, “...needs.”
“But I’m different?” I ventured, and Glenn seemed to deflate then, as if he’d been holding his breath and, in that moment, released the tension of it.
“If you like. I’ve seen you drunk before. Plenty of times. And...can I be honest with you?”
“I thought that’s what you were being?” For some reason I took a step back. Away from him.
“I just don’t want you getting angry and shouting, or being offended.”
I raised both my hands then, palms up, in a shrug of surrender. “Sure. Go ahead. No shouting. Hit me.”
“It pisses me off that you can drink and I can’t.”
My neck twitched then, automatically tilting my head as I frowned, studying his body language as best I could. Glenn hadn’t moved from where he stood in front of the settee although his shoulders appeared more hunched now, as if the desire to protect himself had settled upon them, weighing him down.
“See, I’ve been dry for years, and it’s been a struggle, but I’m doing well, I think. Of course I can take medication, under supervision from a doctor, that sort of thing, but I have to stay away from alcohol or anything non-pharmaceutical in case I go too far again, and you...look at you.”
Something told me he wasn’t referring to my physical appearance.
“You’re one of the few people who knew me back then who’s even still alive to be honest. Alive and thriving. So many of my old mates went too far, pissed their lives away, but you. Look at you,” he said again. “I just don’t want to see you drinking, crossing that line. It’d scare me.”
“Well.” I coughed, tried to clear my throat of that lump of nervous tension. “If you put it like that.”
“I don’t want to ruin your night out. Especially as I won’t even be there, but I will be here when you get home, and...”
“If I showed up drunk you’d worry that I was in danger of doing to my body what you did to yours?”
“Yes. No. Not really. Like I said, you can drink and stop. I can’t. I’d be jealous. It’s not that I’d worry you were going to harm yourself. I know you wouldn’t.”
Wouldn’t I? I wanted to say out loud. Glenn, you have no idea.
“It’s just...I know this is selfish of me because I’m a guest in your home and you can do what you like, frankly, but given the history we share, it just never seemed fair to me that getting sober was a day-to-day struggle and you just...just stopped, or so I gather from the conversations we’ve had. Like it was so easy to throw off. You got to walk away from all that. Everything. Like it was all so easy and none of it meant a thing.”
“Oh.” Both hands formed fists, and I wanted to hit something. Someone. A wall. Anything. That pain in the middle of my chest, it tightened, took my breath away. What he’d just said, it felt like he’d reached into my chest and torn out something with barely any effort. “You don’t...” I had to stop then; uttering two words made me feel dizzy.
“I hated you sometimes, for making it look so easy. When I saw publicity shots from your acting work. You could just stop, and years ago, you told me to stop, but I couldn’t. I never had your self-control, and you were able to just turn your life around with hardly any effort at all–”
“Stop.” One of those fists, I brought up to my mouth, just as he had with his prayer hands moments before. “All right. I get it.” So much threatened to bubble up and spill out, things about which he had no fucking clue, but if he believed I had such unbreakable self-control, so be it. I would exercise that self-control and leave this conversation with some semblance of dignity. “You’d prefer me not to come back home later three sheets to the wind, not because it would tempt you to start drinking again, but because it would be a reminder of when we were both using, and it would bring up all that resentment again, of how easy I had it when we both quit, because it was such a struggle for you and you don’t want to be reminded of how easy it apparently all was for me to quit and really make something of myself.”
So much for not blurting all of that out. But at least, I told myself, I’d managed to refrain from swearing or raising my voice.
“Uh...yes. More or less,” Glenn ventured. “I’m not saying any of it was easy for you either, but the fact you can still drink and stop. I can’t. And the way you speak about it makes it look so–”
“All right. I told you. I get it.” Earlier, I’d left my handbag on the far end of the settee, so picked it up now, to give myself something to do. I’d collect my makeup from the bathroom on the way out, lift my coat off the stand in the hall, and be on my way.
“Wait. How are you getting there? Where are you meeting your friends?” Glenn shouted after me as I left.
“I’ll get a taxi. There’s a rank at the end of the road,” I lied. There wasn’t, but I’d hail one on the way. Or get the bus. Or hell, phone a friend and ask them for a lift.
I’d figure something out. It was easy for me to make things work. Or so Glenn would have me believe.