by Paul Hina
corporations, or… Well, his firm represents… You know, I'm not real sure what he does either. It seems to me that his job is to save very rich people from losing their money, or their power."
"Gotcha," Sam says. He already hates this guy. It sounded to him like this guy was quick to judge Jessi for her drinking, but was too busy to be there to help her, to support her.
"This is it."
They were standing in front of a huge three-story brick house. Sam didn't know a lot about the value of houses, but he could tell that this house was easily a seven figure property. No wonder Jessi was lonely. She's out of work, her fiancé is gone all the time, and she probably spends all her time alone in this ridiculous fortress. Sam would happily take his apartment over this behemoth any day. Better to be alone in a small apartment in the middle of the city than to be trapped in the center of some suburban hell, where no one could hear you scream.
"You coming?" she asks. She opens a gate by the driveway, and holds it open for Sam. He follows her up an elaborate stone walkway surrounded by professionally manicured shrubbery, and up some stone steps to the enormous porch.
Jessi unlocks the front door. They enter into the great room, and they are swallowed up by the size of the space. It is an overwhelming space, but not in a way that impresses Sam. All he feels is a subtle revulsion at the sheer excess on display. The fact that this place was built for only two people, and that one of them doesn't even currently live here, is downright obscene. Standing there he finds himself feeling angry. He wonders if Jessi is the person he thought she might be. This kind of naked decadence is not a flattering character trait. Standing in the middle of that enormous room reminds him how little he truly knows about her, and that, maybe, he has built her up more on who he hoped she was instead of who she actually may be.
"How do you live in a place this size?" he asks, trying to keep his tone as nonjudgmental as possible.
"I know, right?" Jessi says, looking at him. "I try to remind myself how lucky I am and that it's absurd for me to complain about such luxury, but I'd much rather live in the city. But Michael says… Well, he says we shouldn't apologize for our wealth, but that's not even what I'm trying to do."
"I couldn't live in a house this size."
"Sure you could. You'd just wouldn't want to live in a house this size."
"Yeah, I guess."
"I was about to ask you if you wanted a drink. That's what people do, right?"
"I could use some water."
"I can handle that," Jessi says as she turns and walks toward one of the large portals out of the great room. He follows her. He certainly doesn't want to be left alone in that immense space. The enormity of the place gives him the spooks. He can't imagine how isolating it must feel to be alone in the house.
"Do you still have booze in the house?"
"I do, yeah," she says from ahead of him. He can no longer see her, but follows her voice through some half-open pocket doors to a very lavishly decorated dining room, and then he follows her steps into an even more ridiculous kitchen.
"Do you think that's a good idea? Having booze around, I mean."
"No, probably not. But I have friends, or, I should say, Michael has friends, and you offer people drinks when they visit. It's a thing."
"But I thought you said Michael hasn't been staying here."
"Well, no, he's not," she says, and raises her fingernails to her mouth. He can tell that this is a nervous habit of hers, but, among other things in her life, it's a habit she's trying to rid herself of. They certainly don't look any worse than the night they met. "But he still could have a meeting here at any time. I wouldn't suspect he wants to have clients or colleagues meet him at a hotel."
"I was just saying—"
"I know what you're saying. We'll get rid of it, if you think I should. My feeling is, though, if I want to drink, I'll drink, even if I have to drive the five minutes to the liquor store."
"That's five minutes that forces you to think about what you're about to do, instead of the seconds it takes to walk down the hall. Or, I guess in your case, in here, it might still take minutes to walk down the hall."
"I get your point," she says, handing him a glass of water.
"You should eat something. It will help your stomach."
"God, I can't even bear the thought of food right now."
"It might help."
"Maybe, in a bit."
Sam walks over and stands at the glass patio door at the rear of the kitchen, and stares out at their pool. "I guess I knew that people lived this way. I've just never known any of those people."
"Yeah, well, the so-called easy life is not all it's cracked up to be."
"I wouldn't suspect it is. Nothing is ever as easy as it appears from the outside."
"Right."
"In fact, I'd say this is about the loneliest house I've ever visited."
"Thanks."
"No, I don't mean to be rude. It's just that… I don't know. And you're the only one here?"
"Yeah," she says. "Well, we do have a cleaning service that comes twice a week, but, other than that, it's just me. It is true, though, the bigger the space, the lonelier I feel. I usually just try to shut the world out by spending most of my time upstairs. If I isolate myself to a couple rooms, it feels more normal."
"If I were you, I'd switch Michael. I'd take the hotel and let him stay here."
"What's done is done," she says, and he gets the feeling that this is a sore subject, and one that she would like to move beyond.
"Maybe so," he says. "You know if you're still feeling sick, I can go. You should get some rest."
"No," she says, turning toward him. There is a frightened thing that flickers in her eyes when she looks at him. "I don't want to be alone. I don't think I would do very well on my own right now."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure," she says.
They stare out at the pool for a moment. It's covered—still too cold to swim—but you can sense the activity beneath its skin.
"What happened? You look sad all of a sudden," she says, looking at him. "What's up?"
"There are things I want to say, things I keep stopping myself from saying because of… What I talked about earlier."
"Us," she says, moving her hands back and forth between them again.
"Right," he says. "Us."
"About Michael?"
"Well, somewhat. More about you. But I just keep wondering if anything I want to say is because I'm… You know."
"Yeah, well, you think you like me, and I don't mean that in a… God, we have to stop talking like this. It's ridiculous. What I'm trying to say is that you see me now and you think I'm a good person, but it's—"
"You are a good person."
"You don't know me, Sam. You don't really know how I can be when I drink."
"I hope I never do."
"I'm a tough person to be… No. I'm an impossible person to be around."
"If you drink enough to get the shakes before lunch, I would imagine so."
"So, actually, under the circumstances, I would say that Michael has been extremely patient with me."
"Isn't he supposed to be?"
"Okay. Let's not follow this line of thought. It's making me uncomfortable."
"Sorry," he says, and looks out at the pool again. He realizes that he's hit a nerve, and knows that she's defensive because she knows that Sam's right. His guess is that Michael is the kind of guy who sees drinking as more of a character flaw—a flaw that inconveniences him—than a disease that needs to be treated. But, then again, he was at least getting information about Al-Anon, which probably means he has tried to help, if, even, for his own selfish reasons.
Sam realizes that he has no objectivity when it comes to Michael. He doesn't know anything about Michael, other than the broad strokes. And since Michael is an obstacle between he and Jessi, he is determined to think the worst of him. He should get some perspective, and the only way he can do that is by creating some dis
tance between he and Jessi. For now, in his eyes, at this moment, she can do no wrong.
He looks at his reflection in the spotlessly clean patio doors. He watches her take a drink of water, from the reflection. She sees him looking.
"You know just because you're looking at me from the window doesn't mean I don't know your looking."
That night the group had a discussion meeting. During these group discussion meetings, they all gather up in a circle and someone opens the floor up to a topic. Tonight it was Russell, other nights he passes the responsibility to someone else. Russell's topic for the night was romance and the twelve steps, which threw Sam for a loop. He felt that Russell was being intentionally provocative at the expense of he and Jessi. He could tell this made Jessi tense, and Sam didn't appreciate what he felt was an inherently hostile gesture toward someone so new to the group.
Some discussion meetings start with people raising their hands to speak, and some just go around the room. Russell had opened the discussion and sent it around the room, which means that the person to the left of Russell talks and then on and on in that direction. Sam had whispered to Jessi that she could just pass when the discussion came to her, which she did. Sam also passed his opportunity to speak to the person next to him. It wasn't as if he didn't have anything to say on the subject, but he felt too angry to speak. Luckily, these group discussions rarely stay on one subject, and Greg, the member sitting to Sam's left, segued the discussion toward resentment, which was when Sam felt a little more loose, and less defensive.
After the meeting broke, Sam got a refill on his coffee, and as he was walking back
