Girl Walks Out of a Bar (16 page)

By the time I got myself dressed and made up, it was about four twenty. I had ten minutes before the car would be downstairs. Before I put away all my drug gear, I used a razor blade to load what remained of the coke into a brown glass bullet, a small container that could hold up to a gram. Unfortunately, there was nowhere near that much in it when I twisted the cap shut. My bag, I needed to sort out my bag. It was an oversized burgundy leather piece that I carried everywhere. It had multiple compartments that could be zipped, concealing their contents from prying eyes. Holding it between my knees, I sifted through it to make sure that nothing incriminating was visible. I loaded one side pouch with my cigarettes and the coke bullet, took a deep breath, and stood up to leave. On the way out, I looked at myself in the mirror by the front door. “I hate you,” I said to my reflection. It was a sure sign that I was starting to crash when my usual, “fuck you,” degenerated to “I hate you.”

The Lincoln Town Car sat waiting, engine running, with a white plastic sign in the window that read the car number and my name. The driver flipped open the locks and I climbed into the back seat. I always loved the feeling of sliding across those Town Car leather seats and breathing in the myriad of scents—cherry-pine car freshener, stale cigarette smoke, lingering perfume, and whatever deli sandwich the driver had just eaten.

We would cross the George Washington Bridge and could be at Hackensack Hospital in half an hour. The driver was
heavyset, and under his black blazer he wore a white shirt that pulled at the buttons and exposed his undershirt. His head was huge and was topped with a swarm of Albert Einstein hair. “You have voucher or gold card?” he asked in a thick Russian accent. He had turned his head to face me from the front seat, but his thick, sausage fingers still gripped the steering wheel.

“Gold card,” I answered. My nose had started to run, so I pulled out a tissue to blot my upper lip as I handed him the card.

“OK. Thank you. Traffic very bad. Rain, accidents. Traffic very bad,” he warned.

The crash from my binge started hitting hard, and I slid down into the back seat, suddenly exhausted. Could I do a bump of coke from the bullet if I sunk down low enough back here? No, I can't do that. This is the office's car service. I can't be that stupid. These drivers are like cabbies, they see everything.

Fifteen seconds later I didn't care. I needed a bump. Once we got onto the FDR Drive, the highway noise would be louder. I dropped my bag to the floor where the driver couldn't see. Then I blew my nose to clear it and to accustom the driver to hearing my nasal sounds. Fishing the bullet out of the side pocket, I set it up, sticking my head halfway into my bag to take the hit. No impact. So I took another. Shit, I was really running out of blow.

The driver wasn't kidding about the traffic. Before we even approached the 63rd Street exit, we were all but stopped. I slouched on the passenger side with my head resting in the corner of the back seat, tissue held under my nose. I watched the raindrops form patterns on the window. They would pool and pull each other down in streaks, slowing as they joined each other and then speeding up as they approached the next drop. I felt like tracing their paths with my finger, but I couldn't be bothered to lift my hand. There was something comforting
about the way the drops settled at the bottom of that downward path. Rest, I thought, they got to rest at the end.

The cars were packed tightly enough for me to stare out the window at the driver of the silver luxury car in the lane to our right. He looked like a businessman on his nightly commute home, wearing a zombie-like expression as he stared ahead. What was on his mind? Had he been drinking today? Probably. He must have had a chance during lunch at least. If someone had an opportunity to drink, why wouldn't they?

The tiny gusts of coke hadn't really helped, and the post-binge crash seemed to be pulling my blood down my body and into my swollen feet. Was I going to puke again? Riding in the back of cars always made me a little sick, but the stop-and-go of the traffic that afternoon brought the nausea on in record time. Why did these drivers always have to hit the gas and then slam on the brakes? Moving around might help, I thought, so I pulled my compact mirror out of my bag to check my nose, just for something to do. It was running pretty steadily, but it had also become red from my aggressive wiping. I really looked as if I had a cold, and I chastised myself again for not thinking of the illness excuse fast enough. Even worse, thanks to the extreme dehydration of a long binge that had turned me into a sponge, my foundation and blush were soaking into my skin. My pores looked like mini manhole covers and the carsickness had turned me ghost-light green.

I suddenly realized that this plan was ridiculous. Only another drug addict would think I looked passable. What would happen when I arrived at the hospital? A nurse or security guard would see me shuffling up to the front desk and immediately announce, “The emergency room entrance is around the corner.” “No, no,” I'd say, with fake enthusiasm and a smile, trying to open my half-shut eyes. “I'm here to visit the maternity ward!
My brother's wife just had a baby!” The joy in my voice would so excite the person at reception that they'd overlook the fact that I was the color of an unripe banana with a dripping red nose.

Just distract yourself
, I thought.
You have to show up for this baby thing
. Traffic continued to slog, and my brain became crowded with visions of drug and alcohol offenses that I had committed against my family. I thought of Saturday mornings when I would drink vodka sodas at the dive bar in the Port Authority Bus Terminal before catching the 8:10 ShortLine bus to visit my parents. The bartender was great, mostly because he made no eye contact. It was the same with the bar patrons at that hour. We had a mutual understanding that only true alcoholics would be in a skeevy bar before eight in the morning. There also were the times I did lines of coke off the top of the guest bathroom toilet at my parents' house. They never picked up on it, but why would I expect them to? They had no children smarmy enough to do such a thing.

What if I dashed into the hospital and quickly said that I was exhausted and was probably coming down with something? That might earn me a quick in and out—and points for the effort. The car driver seemed cool; maybe he would even wait and run me back into the city if I could get my family to kick me out of the room fast enough.

My head was throbbing with the chatter of ten thoughts bashing into three imagined conversations, and then it happened. A buzz coming from the floor of the car sent me lunging for my bag.
Please, please, please, God. Let it be Henry!
Grabbing the phone as if grasping for a life preserver, I read the number on the screen. “YES, YES, YES!” I shouted. The driver gave me a quick glance over his shoulder and then turned back to the snarled traffic, unfazed.

“YO!” I yelled into the phone as I answered.

“Yo,” Henry said. “You home? I'm not far. I can make a quick stop by.”

“Yes!” I barked. “I'm not there right now, but I can be back in about fifteen minutes. Wait give me twenty,” I said, adding time for an ATM stop.

“OK. No more than that, though. I'll need to roll. I'm the only one out right now.”

“No problem! I'll see you soon.”

We were just about to the 63rd Street exit. “Excuse me, sir,” I leaned forward. “This traffic is too crazy. I'm not going to be able to make it to the hospital in time. Can you please turn around?”

“You pay fare either way,” he said.

“Yeah, that's no problem. Just turn around. Here, can you make this exit?” I directed, desperate to not waste more time crawling all the way uptown before turning around.

“It's OK. I can make it.”
God bless his focus. God bless Russia.

“So, I really need to get to the corner of 23rd Street and First Avenue right away. Can you please make it as fast as possible?” “Yes, lady. Going fast as I can. I drop you, I get new fare. We want same thing.”

Sitting back I thought,
I really just did this. I turned the car around
. Now I had to tell my family that I wasn't showing up. I was seriously not going to show up to meet my only brother's first child.
Well, screw them if they end up pissed off at me. I'm six months behind on my own problems. I'm a fucking drug addict and I need to meet my dealer. Can't this fucking Russian drive any faster?

As we started back south on the FDR, I took a deep breath and dialed my brother's cell number while I was still feeling self-righteous enough to call him. This was the flogging I
had coming to me. The self-flagellation would come later.
Stay focused
, I thought. In twenty minutes, I'd be back in my safe house and Henry would sell me a handful of happiness. Just dial. The phone rang five times before my brother's voicemail picked up. Did he see that it was me calling?
Did my brother just ignore my call?
He knew why I was calling, didn't he? I'll bet he tossed the phone on the bed in disgust.

Thank God he didn't pick up. I left a pathetic message. “Oh my God, I'm in the car and I've never seen such dead-stopped traffic. It's a total rainstorm and there are accidents everywhere. I'm so, so sorry, but it would take me like two hours to get out there and then visiting hours will be ending. I feel terrible about this, but I promise I'll get out there this weekend.” At that point, it probably didn't matter to either of us what kind of bullshit seeped from my mouth. It probably surprised neither of us that it would be two weeks before I'd find my way to New Jersey and first hold the baby.

11

In the fall of 2003, I started going to work
under the influence. I could no longer wait until lunch to infuse my bloodstream with more alcohol, so I would drink even before leaving my apartment. One morning before a monthly meeting with a team of partners I downed an oversized screwdriver; when I was the one mixing, that was a tall glass of vodka with some orange juice for color. Then I did a few fat lines of coke.

Paranoia haunted me whenever I was in a public place that wasn't a bar. I was sure that people could smell the alcohol. In the elevator of my office building I pictured people sniffing the air to figure out where the smell was coming from. Straight-faced behind my sunglasses, I would lower my head and exhale into my hand to check for booze breath. Sometimes I'd even imagine that I'd failed to notice a cop and his drug-sniffing dog at the back of the elevator. Those dogs scared the shit out of me, and it wasn't rare for me to walk an extra seventeen blocks to avoid running into one in the subway. Even with not a wisp of coke on me, I was sure they'd know. Paranoia turned me into Pig-Pen, walking around the city followed by a little drug cloud.

Swiping my key card, I walked past the glass security doors onto the twenty-third floor. My office was large, with a wall of windows looking out on the tourist chaos of Times Square below—probably middle-aged men with cameras around their necks, Europeans wearing telltale sandals with socks, and t-shirt vendors hawking their wares from behind carts. I gazed down and wondered how many of them had already had a drink.

I flopped into my ergonomically correct chair and wheeled myself to my desk, dropping my head in my hands. Breathe, breathe. I was wearing one of my better black suits with a baby blue Ann Taylor button-down shirt and black Ferragamo heels. With my head still in my hands, I sat up straight and rubbed the heels of my hands against my temples. Get your shit together, girl. It's showtime.

The phone on my desk rang and Jerry's office number flashed. “Hey!” I answered on the second ring.

“DOG! You made it in on time!” He was probably cleaning his oval eyeglasses with the tail of his dress shirt and then squirting Visine into his bloodshot eyes.

What? I bristled in self-defense. “Of course I made it in on time. I have a meeting this morning.”

“Settle, settle. I'm just giving you a hard time. You sounded a little banged up last night. I'm double-checking.”

“I wasn't bad last night!” I wanted to end the call and get back to focusing.

“If you say so,” he said.

“I have to go. Meet up for a pop after work?” I asked.

“Done! Just let me know where and when. Later.” He always hung up first.

He'd rattled me. I hadn't been that bad the night before (had I?). The coke was put away by ten o'clock, and the combination of Tylenol PM and red wine put me down before midnight.
When I'd gotten out of bed at six fifteen that morning, I felt as close as I ever did to refreshed.
Just get that first drink down and all will be OK.

I stopped in the ladies room to check my lipstick and inspect my nose for blood.
Should I do a couple of quick bumps out of the bullet in my bag, just for a little extra energy? No, just hold off
, I thought.
Don't risk your nose running all over the meeting.

In the conference room, I flipped on the lights and placed the necessary documents around the heavy, oval mahogany table and tucked all the rolling leather chairs neatly in their places, and then I examined my handiwork. Perfect. Nothing wrong with that picture. I spat my gum into the trash can before anyone arrived. I assumed that anyone chewing gum before eleven in the morning had been drinking, so I believed others assumed the same.

“Lisa! Good morning. How are you?” Greg, a senior finance partner, breezed into the conference room. Like many old-school partners, he wore suspenders, wireframe glasses, and the furrowed brow of someone who spent his mornings poring over
The Wall Street Journal
on commuter trains. My head was buzzing, but it was just the right buzz. I'd gotten good at teeing up for these meetings, not too loopy, not too jacked. When the balance was just right, the energy in my head felt like the calm hum of a window air conditioner set on low. It created a pleasant purring that didn't call attention to itself.

“All's good!” I answered with a big smile. If the partners liked having you in the room, that was a big deal. It was almost as important for your career as producing creative, well-executed work.

“No sesame bagels this morning, huh?” he asked, bending over the platter.

“Hmm, that's unusual. Should I ask catering?” I asked.

“No, no. That's OK,” he answered, looking deflated.
Shit. One demerit. Can he tell I'm drunk? Will he keep a closer eye on me now because of the bagels?

About a half dozen more partners filed in and exchanged greetings, the scents of their colognes and aftershaves circulating with the smell of coffee and bagel yeast. It was what morning smelled like in Normal World. I'd become more accustomed to the scent of cigarette smoke and the chemicals Henry's supplier used to cut drugs.

Technically, office attire was “business casual,” but everyone wore suits. Alanis, the only woman, stood out despite being dressed as conservatively as the men. Women had become the hottest accessory in business development. Every client wanted a female on their team, so partners like Alanis—smart, accomplished, and personable—were in high demand.

“Hey, Alanis,” I said, taking a seat across from her.

“Hi Lisa. How are you doing?” She glanced at my plate. “Hungry this morning, huh? You probably worked out already.”

Trying to look like anything other than a drug addict, I had grabbed a bagel with cream cheese, grapes, and two mini-muffins.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” I answered with my best smile.

Maybe it was just standard food commentary. She couldn't smell booze, could she? She hadn't noticed any of my sniffling, right? Women always checked out what other women were eating, didn't they?

The group settled in around the table, and Rob, the lead partner, started the meeting. “OK. Good morning. Can you all put down your phones?” Instead of engaging in small talk, everyone around the table had been reading from their devices while waiting for the meeting to begin. All of the bowed
heads made it look like a prayer circle. There was a pause and shuffling.

“Lisa, I think you have a number of items to report on,” Rob said, looking at me expectantly.

I snapped myself back into the meeting. “Yes, yes I do,” I said. “OK!” It was as if the director on a movie set had yelled, “Action!” My work brain fully kicked in, and for the next several minutes I focused on delivering my report with the authority of Walter Cronkite.

“On the project finance front, we had a nice uptick in our work last month and brought in three new matters, two in Latin America and one in Asia.” I rolled on through my full report, careful to keep my voice steady and make occasional eye contact.

“Perfect,” Rob said when I was done. “Nice work. Now let's just go around the table.” Just like that, I was done. The weight of the meeting slid off my shoulders as easily as a negligee off a hooker.

It was time for my favorite part of the meeting, trying to decide who else in the room had been drinking and/or doing drugs this morning. According to statistics, up to 20 percent of lawyers had a substance abuse problem.

But “a problem,” what exactly did that mean? Getting a DUI? Throwing up at the office Christmas party? Sleeping through an important court date after an all-night bender? Or to have a “problem,” did you have to be like me, by 8:00 a.m. have a bloodstream dancing with cocaine and enough booze to blow over the legal limit?

It was hard to concentrate on the rest of the meeting, but I was good at faking it with an occasional nod or scrunching of my eyebrows to show acknowledgment.

Then a jolt of fear shot straight through me.
Holy shit, did I leave my open pack of cigarettes next to my computer? Fuck!
There's a tiny baggy loaded with coke in that pack! What if someone walks into my office and picks it up? I might as well walk out to security and present my wrists to be handcuffed.

Fuck. I have to get out of this room right now. But I can't leave
. Sweat started to form on the back of my neck, and saliva filled my mouth as if vomit was going to rise. My perfect buzz was crushed, and I was back to being just a paranoid cokehead verging on hyperventilation. Everything in the room started to swirl.

Heather. Allison. Rick. Any of them might have cruised into my office to bum a cigarette. They knew that I always had smokes and that I always shared, so if any one of them saw the open pack on my desk, they would feel free to pick it up and reach in. Fuck! I was a wreck. I had to get back to my office. Heather and Rick might be cool but Allison, she was an associate on partner track. She couldn't find coke in the office and not report it. She wouldn't take that risk just for a smoking buddy. And
would
Heather and Rick really be cool about drugs in the office?
Fuck, is one of them walking in there right now? Is my career being covered with lighter fluid as I sit here praying that nobody tosses a match?

I dug my fingernails into my hands.
Relax
, I told myself.
Breathe. No one's walking into your office. No one's touching your cigarette pack. Remain calm.

But what if someone is? What if someone is???
My thundering heart rate started to scare me. I took more deep breaths.
Shit, I must be calling attention to myself. Calm down, woman. You don't need a room full of heavy-hitting partners thinking you're practicing for childbirth.

When the meeting wrapped about forty minutes later, the partners gathered to chat over the buffet and their second cups of coffee. I hurried to the door as fast as I could without running,
and once out the door I sprinted past the elevator and ran like an EMT down the stairs.

When I rounded the corner to my office, I saw it. The distinct gold shimmer off the corner of my Marlboro Lights pack. Thank God! It hadn't been touched.

I slammed my door shut and lunged at the pack.
Fuck me. I left a baggie of coke on my office desk!
I fell into my chair and put my head between my knees. Taking deep, slow breaths, I tried to calm down by reminding myself that nothing bad had happened. After several minutes, my heartbeat stopped thumping like a bass drum. But there was no escaping the fact that I had just left cocaine out in the open, on a desk owned by my employer. My employer, the law firm.