by C. Desir
I want to snark back. I want to call her out on drinking the AA Kool-Aid without thinking critically about what a huge crock it all is, trusting some higher power to get yourself clean. Like some invisible dude in the sky is going to be able to make you say no when your friend is standing in front of you with a pitcher of margaritas or is going to swoop in when everything gets snatched away from you.
But I say nothing and take another drag of my cigarette. Kathy smiles.
“Good. You’re already learning. Shut up and listen. You’ll get out of the hole eventually.”
Chapter
Eleven
The pancake breakfast is hopping. Which means a bunch of super-old guys who reek of cigarettes and pee are waiting in a line for someone to hand them a Styrofoam plate containing two sausages and three pancakes drowned in syrup. Joe’s standing behind the tub of sausages, tonging two onto a plate, then passing the plate to a younger woman who adds pancakes and a soup ladle of syrup. She offers a big smile to every one of the dudes she passes a plate to.
Kathy joins the back of the line and points me to Joe.
“Unless you want to eat first?” she adds.
“Um, no. Gross.” I’m about to ask her if maybe our little coffee chat this morning counted as a reason to sign my court card, but I don’t want to push it after she called me out for being hungover.
I walk over to Joe with my head up and my shoulders back. I splashed some water on my face at Starbucks so I’m feeling much better. He sees me and shakes his head.
“You’re going to need a hairnet for that hair. And if you show up again hungover, I’m sending you home.”
Jesus. Do these people have some sort of built-in sobriety chip?
“You’re not the boss of me.” Okay, I’m five. But whatever. A hello would’ve been nice.
“No. She is. Natalie, this is Kara. Kara, this is Natalie. Nat’s got community service hours. She can help you out for probably the next five or six months.”
Kara beams at the same time I sputter, “Six months?”
He looks at me, gaze darting over my face, then down the rest of me in a quick perusal. “How many hours do you have?”
“A hundred.”
He lifts a shoulder. “Well, there you go. Five hours once a week. Twenty weeks. You’ll be here the next five months, give or take, depending on holidays and your schedule. I thought you were good at math?”
“Fuck off.”
He laughs. Kara is still smiling wide and handing plates to the guys in line. She’s put so much syrup on each plate the sausages look as if they’re floating in a moat.
“You probably could ease up on the syrup,” I suggest.
“Oh. You know syrup? Great. You can do that. I’ll hand the plates to you, you add the syrup, and give them to the guys. Our regular syrup guy is in Florida.”
“Lucky,” I mumble before sliding next to her. Joe chuckles and pulls something from a box behind him before handing it to me.
I look at it. “Hairnet? You were for real about that?”
“Of course I was. No one wants to come across one of those curls while they’re eating. Put it on.”
“Yes, sir.” I stick out my tongue and he laughs at me again.
“I know you’re meeting with Kathy on Sunday mornings, but you’ll need to do that earlier. We need you here by eight for setup. Breakfast is nine to noon. An hour of cleanup afterward.”
“I’m supposed to meet Kathy earlier than eight? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” he says, and it’s clear he’s not. “She’s good for it. She’s usually up by six. You can meet her at seven.”
“A.m.?”
“Jesus, Natalie, a lot of people are up at seven in the morning.”
I know. My dad is one of them. A long time ago I was one too. But that was when I boxed and had training and thought I might be something other than what I am. Now, even the idea of a Sunday-morning chitchat with my dad before I have to go freeze my ass off at the crack of dawn to meet with my sponsor makes me want to spew venom.
“Maybe I’ll figure out a different time to meet her,” I mumble.
“That’s between you two. But we need you here by eight. Now put on the hairnet.”
I tug my hair back into a half-baked braid and slide the hairnet over it. I don’t even want to think about what I must look like. I slip back beside Kara, who’s been completely ignoring us. I look at her wide smile and wonder if maybe she’s a little dim.
She shows me the vat of syrup and hands me the ladle. “I love syrup so much, but some of the guys say that I sometimes overdo it.”
I bite back a retort and instead offer my own smile. “I’ll do my best.”
* * *
Two hours in and we’ve had a steady stream of people the entire time. I’ve gone through two packs of gum and had three cigarette breaks, and luckily, Joe or Kara hasn’t said a thing about it. Calvin comes from the back and replaces all of our food just when it’s getting low, as if he has a Spidey sense about it.
He blinks in surprise when he sees me.
“Community service,” I mumble.
He grins and I see he’s missing one of his top teeth. “Joe’s taken on another pet project? That guy never learns.” He chuckles to himself and I feel my face flush.
I want to argue I’m no one’s project, but I’m speechless over the idea that I’m not Joe’s first effort at helping someone. And now I wonder about him and Kathy and what the real story there is. And worse, I’m sort of really feeling the vodka from last night.
I grow increasingly sullen as I put half a ladle of syrup on every plate. The people in front of me are friendly, but probably more because they get to taste their food without so much syrup. They ask how I’m doing and I mumble “fine” more times than I can count.
I don’t even realize it’s noon until Joe nudges me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Where’s the snarky girl who has something to say about everything?”
“Was Kathy a pet project?” I blurt out.
He runs his hand through his dark blond hair, and I wonder if it’s soft or smells like dude shampoo. “Kathy’s my ex-sister-in-law. She was married to my brother until she fucked it up by becoming a drunk. When he finally left her, he gave her my number and told her I could help.”
“How long has she been sober?” I ask.
“About two years, I think. Maybe a little more.”
I nod. “So I’m your pet project?”
I don’t know why I care about this. I don’t know why it would matter. He’s older than me. By a lot. So’s Kathy. None of these people can be real friends to me. I’m not even sure what I want from any of them.
“Grab the syrup. We need to take these back to the kitchen to clean.”
I nod and follow him to the kitchen. Calvin’s there with two of his buddies. Sous-chefs, I guess. One of them is the Hispanic guy who slept through my first meeting. He looks sober and lucid right now. And young. Younger than I thought.
“You look like shit, querida. You allergic to work or hungover?” he says.
“Both,” I answer, and his face breaks into a huge grin.
“I’m Alex.” He holds his hand out and I shake it. He’s tall. Like over six feet. And his skin is a beautiful brown. “You working the program?”
I nod. “And doing community service.”
“Open bottle in your car?” he asks.
I blush. “DUI.”
It’s gotten really quiet, so I turn around. Joe’s staring at the two of us, gaze darting back and forth between our faces. “No,” he says. “Alex hasn’t even gotten a full month yet. Not a good idea for either of you.”
I laugh hard. Apparently the mating rituals in AA involve a heavy dose of honesty. “Take it easy. We haven’t even exchanged numbers. I don’t think you need to book the banquet hall.”
Joe shakes his head. “Alex is a player. He sleeps with all the young g
irls. Ask him.”
Alex mutters something in Spanish.
I turn back to Alex and ask, “You clean?”
“Today I am,” he says with a smile. “You want me to do a Breathalyzer?”
“No. I mean clean of STDs.”
He smiles. “Oh, I like you. Yes, I’m always safe. Not into being a baby daddy.”
Without thinking too much, I pull out my phone. “Okay then. Give me your number.”
Joe steps in and snatches the phone from my hand. “Can I talk to you outside?” he snarls.
I wink at Alex, then follow Joe out the door into the hallway.
“What the hell are you doing? Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”
“Yeah, Dad. Thanks for your concern. But I’m not terribly worried about getting my heart broken by an alkie. I just like to have backup in case I need an itch scratched.”
His eyebrows draw up. “Backup? Do you already have a boyfriend?”
Which, huh. He looks uncomfortable and I’m not even sure what to make of that. “Nope. No boyfriend. You interested?”
He shakes his head and looks at the floor. “You’re a kid. And you’re playing games. You need to pull your shit together and get with the program. You’re not at a frat house. You’re not here to date. You’re here to get sober. Period.”
I step into his space and he goes very still. There’s a thing here; he must feel it as much as I do. But I’m not stupid enough to get involved with this sort of accident waiting to happen. Usually.
It is fun to mess with him, though.
I reach my hand out and squeeze his before he can shake it off. “Are you offering me an alternative to Alex? Will you scratch my itch?”
He lets out a long breath. “No. I’m too old and you need a friend more than anything else. But I’ll tell you this: Alex is a liar. The last girl who came through here left with a case of herpes. It’s your life, but herpes are impossible to get rid of.”
He steps away from me, hands me my phone, and heads back into the kitchen. I stare at my reflection in the glass on one of the pictures hanging in the hallway. I’m still wearing my hairnet. I rip it off and follow Joe into the kitchen, avoiding Alex enough that finally he gets up, flips Joe off, and leaves through the back entrance.
Chapter
Twelve
Joe’s not at the Monday-afternoon meeting, but Alex is. I sit on the opposite side of the room to him and keep my head down most of the hour. The STD thing is enough to discount him as a possibility, but it feels a little good to peek up at him and see he can’t keep his eyes off me. I pull the “I’d just like to listen” card and then spend the rest of the meeting counting the minutes on the clock.
Twenty seconds after the Lord’s Prayer, I bolt to my car and light a cigarette. I swipe my hand across my phone and consider calling Brent. He’s probably somewhere partying. Amy and Amanda are also an option, but I don’t feel up to dealing with them drunk. They’re the kind of girls who think everything is hilarious when they’re drinking. And I don’t think they could help me shake whatever it is that grips me when I walk out of a meeting. I see Alex heading to his truck and consider him for a second—if we used a condom and were really careful—but herpes is the gift that keeps on giving and I need a quick fix, not a long-term problem.
In the end I stub out my cigarette and head home. When I walk in the front door, I see an elf has been shoved in between two spindles on the stairs.
“Mom,” I call. “There’s an elf out here with his head stuck in the banister.”
“Oh,” she says in this chipper voice. “You already found Elfie?”
She walks into the room and I patently ignore the HO HO HO sweater she’s wearing.
“Who’s Elfie?”
She goes over to the elf and slides his head out before holding him up. “Elfie. He’s our Elf on the Shelf. You’re supposed to find him every day.”
My eyes go wide. “You’re serious?”
She beams. “Yes. If you find him every day, it means you’ll have a very good Christmas this year.”
I let out a long sigh. “Is this another sobriety test? If I can’t find the elf, are you going to be worried I’ve hit the bottle again?”
She bristles. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s a Breathalyzer on your car and you’re going to meetings and seeing Dr. Warner.”
I drop down onto the top stair and Mom squeezes in beside me, her hands flitting over the elf’s plastic clothes.
“Mom, you’re going to need to start trusting me again, not just counting on pee tests and Breathalyzers.”
Her hands stop moving and she draws in a long breath. “It had been going on a while, Natalie. The DUI wasn’t the first time. Do you think I didn’t know?”
So. We’re actually going to have this conversation. “You drink. Dad drinks.”
She shakes her head. “In moderation. And we’re not seventeen. Your dad thinks . . .”
She bites her lip and I stare at her. “Go ahead. Tell me what he thinks . . .”
“He thinks it’s just a phase. A teenager thing. But, Natalie, my father . . . well, it’s just not something you want to get too attached to.”
I almost laugh. “Your dad was an abusive alkie who drank his way through his liver before he was fifty-five. Nana told me. I’m not too worried about following in those footsteps.”
She reaches a hand for mine and I don’t shake her off like I usually do. “He was. But, Natalie, you’ve always been this kind of person.”
I drop her hand. “What kind of person?”
“The kind of person who doesn’t know how to say stop. Who doesn’t know when enough is enough. Look at how you were when you were boxing. Always at the ring, always training. You’d come home with bruises and be limping and still you’d be back there the next day.”
I shrug. “Until Dad stopped taking me.”
“We just thought it would be better if you eased back a little. You were so intense about it.”
“I haven’t been in the ring in forever.”
She shakes her head. “Yeah. You quit boxing and you started drinking. It’s always something with you. That’s your personality. When you were a little girl, if I let you pour your own cereal you’d eat the whole box. If I didn’t monitor your TV watching, you’d finish a whole series in one night. You were even like that with your friends. You’d spend all your time with someone and then it was like you were done. You’re all or nothing and it’s not a good way to be. Because you’ll never learn balance.”
I stand up and the tension is so bad in my neck that I have to roll my shoulders a few times. “I don’t know how to say stop? I don’t know when enough is enough? This, coming from the woman who has been married to a cold prick incapable of loving anyone but himself. That’s rich. Maybe you need to worry a little bit less about me, and creating the perfect holiday season, and worry a little more about the state of your life.”
I snatch the elf from the stair. “And I’m not playing ‘find the elf’ every day. Meetings, community service, Dr. Warner. That’s my life. I’m filling my card up, and the minute graduation’s over, I’m out of here.”
“Natalie. Calm down. Stay and talk to me. We haven’t—”
“No. Fuck off, Mom. You don’t really want to talk. You want me to say the things you want to hear. I’ll be home later.”
I grab my keys and my purse and pretend I don’t hear the sob that escapes her mouth as I slam the door. My hands are shaking so much I can barely hold the Breathalyzer to my mouth and start the car. Once I get going, I light a cigarette and go through two more before I realize where I’m headed.
* * *
The gym is exactly the same. I walk in and inhale deeply and it’s like coming home to a plate of Christmas cookies, the peanut butter ones with the Hershey’s kisses on top. The disgusting body odor is like a magic aroma. Walls a shitty gray-white, mostly covered with fight posters and photos of former boxers. A set of tires on the floor right next to the e
ntrance for practicing footwork. There are a few guys sparring in the ring and a couple of others on the weight benches or jumping rope. A girl is in the corner, pounding on one of the bags her trainer is holding. He looks up and smiles when he sees me before saying something to the girl and heading my way.
“Natalie. I never thought you’d darken our doors again,” he says as he approaches.
“Just seeing if the place was still standing. It’s good to see you, Josh.”
He grins. “You too, girl. You here to suit up?”
“Nah. I’m in no shape for it.”
“Gotta start somewhere.”
I’m tempted. So tempted that I almost drop my coat where I’m standing, but then a voice sounds from behind me.
“This isn’t a drop-in gym. Natalie made her decision a long time ago. Unless she’s changed her mind, she needs to run along and you need to get back to work.”
Josh looks past my shoulder and I turn to see Jerry. No smile of greeting, just the same cold eyes and hard face he’s always had.
“Jerry. It’s good to see you too,” I say.
He comes up and for a second I think he might hug me, but instead he throws a punch that stops less than two inches from my face. I flinch.
“Your reflexes are slow. You drunk?”
I shake my head. “In and out of rehab, actually. Working the twelve-step program. All clean and sober.”
His dark skin and bald head make him look tough on the outside, but that pales in comparison to how he is on the inside. Unflappable. Nothing bothers him. His mother could die and he’d be back at work the same day. For a long time I thought he didn’t have any emotions. But the day I showed up drunk after months of being MIA, I knew he did. I’d never seen him so pissed.
“So you coming back to train for real?”
