The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance (9 page)

She got pissed. She'd been on a real short fuse ever since she had to go to Arizona for court and all.

“Don't you turn this around on me, young lady. This is not about what
I
did.”

“Yeah, yeah. All right.”

“I'll be back at nine-thirty.”

Damn. No way to duck out early. I was too far from home to walk, at least in my condition.

I limped inside. There were people coming in, and more inside milling around. One of them held the door for me, because of my crutches and all. Everybody kept trying to catch my eye and smile at me. The last thing I wanted was to look in anybody's eyes.

I headed for the table with coffee and cookies. I wanted to get myself a cup of coffee, but I felt like everybody was watching me, and everybody would think I was too young. So I ate nine cookies. I kept wishing the meeting would start so we would all have someplace to look.

The walls were covered with cardboard signs, and they said things like “One day at a time” and “Easy does it.” Whatever that means.

This woman came up to me and offered her hand to shake. I didn't want to take it. I already knew I didn't like her.

“I'm Pat,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Welcome.”

I guess I kind of snorted. I didn't want to be welcome because I didn't want to be here at all. I wanted to crawl under the table and never come out. I looked at the door, and I think I would have run, except I had a broken leg, and besides, I knew my mom was going to ask to see my court card, to make sure I got it signed.

Pat said, “You remind me a lot of me.”

I didn't take that as a compliment. Because she was old. About fifty. And real heavy. I mean, there was a whole lot of her. I ate two more cookies.

She said, “When I was your age, I mean. I was only fourteen when I came to my first meeting.”

I couldn't think of anything to say. In my head I kept saying, Leave me alone. Leave me alone. I didn't think it would be like this. I thought I could sit in the back and think about something else.

“Isn't that about how old you are?”

“Next month.”

“I hope you do better than I did. I didn't believe I was an alcoholic, so I went out and stayed drunk for another eleven years. Is this your first meeting?”

“Yeah. I don't belong here.” There was no point trying to really explain to anybody what a total misunderstanding this all was. I mean, I guess I could see how the judge got it wrong. Because I did have some alcohol in me at the time of the accident. But nobody knew about driving fast to try not to feel broken, and I wasn't about to explain it. It was between me and one other person, and that's the way it would stay.

“Oh. Okay. I guess that's what I thought, too. I guess somewhere, sometime, somebody must wander into these rooms who doesn't belong here. But not often.”

“I'm only here 'cause I got ordered here by a judge.”

“See, you remind me more of me all the time. I was in trouble when I first came, too.”

Stop talking to me, stop talking to me. It was a chant that I kept to myself. It didn't work.

“Maybe we can talk after the meeting.”

“Nah, my mom's picking me up. Right after.”

“Tomorrow morning, maybe. We could have breakfast and talk about the twelve steps.”

“Saturday mornings I have to see my probation officer.”

“I see. Pretty complicated life for a kid not even fourteen.”

“Just the way things go sometimes.”

A man sitting at the head of the table spoke up real loud. He said, “My name is Tom, and I'm an alcoholic.” Everybody said, “Hi, Tom.” I thought, Oh, brother. But at least it meant the meeting was starting. And Pat would go sit down.

The leader gave out some little plastic medallions to people who had thirty days, or six months, or a year without drinking, and some others in between. They called them chips. He also wanted to give a welcome chip to anybody who was coming to their first meeting. I wouldn't catch anybody's eye or say a word, and after a while the meeting went on, and I breathed again. This was not the way I thought it would be. I thought it would be like school. Sit in the back, don't raise your hand, and it's like you're not there at all.

Pat sat right next to me, and I couldn't think of any way to fix that. I hated it when people took an interest in me. It made me really nervous. She was watching me out of the corner of her eye. I tried to pretend I was listening to the leader, but he was so boring. All he was saying was stuff that reminded me of Mom. Getting drunk earlier and earlier at night, and throwing
up in the morning. I guess that's the first time it hit me that my mom really was an alcoholic. I could tell because all their stories sounded just like her. And if she was, then I definitely wasn't. I wasn't that bad.

Then I looked up to the door and saw Zack come in. I couldn't swallow, and I could hear my own heart beating. I could see Pat watching me but I'm not sure if I cared anymore.

He was so much better-looking than I remembered. He sat down on the other side of the room. His hair had grown out, and it looked real nice, and his eyes scanned up and down the tables until he saw me. He looked a little bit surprised. Then he smiled, real wide and nice, like he did that day out by the reservoir, and he winked at me.

It was a way only Bill had ever made me feel: like there's something on this old, dried-up planet that's really worth the price of admission, that almost makes up for everything else.

Maybe I'd come to a meeting every day, instead of three times a week. My probation officer would like that.

I was thinking next time I'd bring a pencil and some paper. I thought if I could stare at the side of his face like this all during a meeting, I could draw his picture. Usually I hated whatever pictures I drew, but somehow I thought I'd like this one, because it would be Zack.

Then all of a sudden somebody called on me and asked if I'd like to say anything. I could feel Zack's eyes on me, and my face felt frozen, and I knew I couldn't talk. My heart got loud again.

Something funny happened inside. I thought about Snake.

I thought about how he spent all that time fixing up the car and I wrecked it, and how I got him in trouble, and I wondered where he was and if he was okay. Mostly I thought about the way I felt when I looked at Zack, and I knew I was supposed to feel that way with Snake, and it wasn't fair to him that I never did. I had this strange idea that someday I'd sit in a run-down room like this one, sharing stories about all the people I'd hurt with my drinking, and I'd mention Snake and say I'd apologize to him, except he was gone.

While I was thinking this, everybody was staring at me. But they all looked nice, and smiled in a nice way. Very patient while I made an idiot of myself.

I thought, This is not like the real world, where people make fun of you at a time like this. I thought, This place is weird.

“My name is Cynnie,” I said. That's how everybody else started.

Everybody said, “Hi, Cynnie.” All at once. It made me jump.

They probably wanted me to say I was an alcoholic. Good luck on that. The judge said I had to come. He didn't say I had to lie. “Uh. Maybe I'll talk next time.”

Everybody smiled and nodded, like I'd said something brilliant, and then someone said, “Welcome, Cynnie,” and then everybody said it. My face felt burning hot. Then somebody else got picked to talk.

I never heard a word of what anybody said. Oh, a word here or there, stuff about driving drunk and going to jail, but
it never seemed to add up to anything. I kept staring at the side of Zack's face. I was so happy to see him, but it felt funny, too.

I kept thinking he didn't belong here. That I didn't want him to be here. That somehow by being here he was walking out on something we used to share.

Then I decided it might be a small price to pay for finding him again. I mean, I thought he'd disappeared, that I'd lost him forever. And now, here we both were.

After the meeting my mom was late, as always. Pat walked me out to the street, and I kept wishing my mom would hurry up and come, so I could get away. Pat said that if I felt I was ready for a sponsor, she'd be happy to help. I wasn't sure what that meant.

After a while I saw Zack come down the steps behind us. I kept looking over my shoulder until I saw him.

“Excuse me,” I said to Pat, and walked away before she could say anything back.

My throat got kind of tight as I walked up to him, and I got scared that maybe when I opened my mouth, I wouldn't be able to squeeze anything out.

I had no idea what to say, so I said, “Hey, Zack. Can I bum a cigarette?”

He frowned, and then I got even more scared, because that had been the very safest thing I could think of to say, and from the look on his face it was the worst thing possible.

“Oh. Funny you should mention that,” he said. “I owe you an amends for something.”

I had no idea what he meant. Well, no, that's not true. I sort of knew what the word meant. Regretting something and trying to make it right. But most people didn't say it like that. Just that they were sorry. He motioned to the concrete stairs of the meeting place, and we sat down. I was wanting that cigarette more than ever, and I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't give me one.

“I feel pretty damn guilty,” he said. “Seeing you at an AA meeting when I'm probably the one who gave you your first beer.”

I wanted to say a hundred different things at once. I wanted to say it was all a big mistake, my having to come here. That the trouble I got into really wasn't about drinking. Not so much as people thought. It was about wanting to drive too fast to see how it felt. To be more like him. And then everybody got the wrong idea. I wanted to say that I liked what he opened up for me when he gave me cigarettes and beer. That I hated to hear him talk about that now like it wasn't a good thing. It all got tangled up on itself, though. There was just too much of it. I couldn't figure out what to say first, or how to say any of it so it would make sense.

Instead I just said, “It was really more like my second or third.”

“It was still wrong of me. You're thirteen years old.”

“Nearly fourteen.”

“You weren't nearly fourteen at the time.”

“Well. That's true.”

Then the guy who had to clean up from the meeting came out and locked the door, and walked by us down the stairs. He
stopped for a minute to say good night to Zack and to tell me to keep coming back, and I wished he would go away so I could be alone with Zack to talk.

I had this awful thought that maybe he wasn't broken anymore. Maybe now that was only me.

When the guy finally left I said, “Do you still drive your motorcycle too fast?”

“Oh, I'm trying to slow down,” he said. “I'm getting a little better.”

I was thinking fast was better, but before I could say anything, my mom drove up.

Zack walked up to our car, and my mom rolled the window down. It looked like she was trying to talk or swallow or both, and not doing too good with either.

“Hello, Rita.”

Nothing. Just her big eyes. Then she said, “How long have you been coming here?”

“Got sixty days last Friday.” “Good. That's good.” It didn't sound good, the way she said it.

“You should give it a try sometime, Rita.”

I could see it coming before she opened her mouth, like smoke out of a volcano before it blows. “Zack, don't you even start—”

“Okay, fine. I'm sorry.” He threw his hands up in a kind of surrender. He had big hands, with long, thin fingers. I liked them. I wanted to go for another ride with him on his motorcycle, and I felt cheated, because last time I didn't appreciate it enough. “Forget I mentioned it.”

He turned to walk down the street. I wanted to run after him, to say something. But I wasn't sure what to say. I had always acted like I didn't like him, even after I sort of did, so what was I supposed to say to change that now, all of a sudden? I wanted to give him a big hug, but nothing moved. It was like an invisible wall on the street between us. I had no idea how to break it down.

“I missed you, Zack.” I called it out after him.

He turned around and smiled in a way that made me feel like a kid. Which I usually didn't. Feel like a kid, that is.

“Just keep coming back to these meetings, Sport.”

He got on his bike and kick-started it, and I stood there like a jerk watching him ride away. It made me kind of sick, like that night he left our house forever. I felt like some part of me, like my guts, were trying to follow him down the street. And getting all strung out.

When I got back to the car my mom's face was really cold. I mean, it was scary. And I'm not usually scared of her. She drove us home without saying a word. The silence was so heavy and weird I almost would have liked it better if we'd talked.

When we got in I went straight to my room.

I lay on my bed wishing Bill were here, so I could tell him about seeing Zack again. Then I got to wondering if Bill felt all okay again, or if his ribs still hurt, and if he knew I never meant to hurt him.

I took the quart of gin out from under my bed, and I was about to take a few slugs. I'd stolen it from Mom, and she either
didn't notice or didn't care. Or wasn't even brave enough to call me on it. I figured it didn't matter if I had a little drink every now and then, because I wasn't an alcoholic like people thought, and I didn't have Bill to take care of, and no one would know anyway.

But then I got scared about having to call tomorrow to see if I had to show up for random testing. If my number came up and I pulled a dirty test, I could get sent to juvenile hall to serve the sentence I was only doing probation for now.

So I put it back under the bed and tried to go to sleep. And just lay there, feeling all those raw nerves. Thinking I'd forgotten how much life feels like sandpaper. And how much I hate to feel.

After a while I fell asleep, and I had this dream that I was leading a meeting and talking about how I could have killed my brother Bill by driving drunk. I woke up with a jump, like in a dream where you're falling.

I couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking, Yeah, but I didn't kill him. He's okay. I kept thinking, Bill's okay. I kept thinking, It's only a dream. But I never got back to sleep.