Girl Walks Out of a Bar (24 page)

What it would be like to have a rocks glass full of vodka with a splash of soda right now? It would taste strong but soothing going down. A shudder ran through my body.
Shit.

I decided that rather than indulge booze fantasies, as fast as possible I'd change my mental channel. When I began to dream of wine in my bloodstream, I'd flip to the little Latin guy blasting us at my first group meeting: “You
do not pick up a drink or a drug
. One day at a time. Just for today, YOU DO NOT DRINK, NO MATTER WHAT.” So I decided to not drink that day, just for that day.

By the time I went to bed that night, the Librium had worn off. Lou had long since left for his normal home, normal baby, and normal wife. My parents and I had made our way upstairs at about nine o'clock. They weren't going to leave me alone until they saw me all the way through to the end of this momentous day. I wondered,
are they worried that I'll sneak downstairs and bust into their liquor cabinet? They should be.

As I brushed my teeth, I looked at the toilet and remembered doing coke off its lid just a few weeks earlier as my parents watched TV. I felt a shudder of disgust, and I knew that a drink would nicely numb my guilt. But then the living hell timer would start again because I never had “a” drink. I'd finish the bottle.
Remember that, remember that. You do not drink no matter what. You do not pick up no matter what.

Maybe it was the lighting, but in this mirror I looked less sickly than I had the week before. Bags still puffed under my eyes and my face was blotchy, but my skin no longer looked gray. Some of the bloat was gone and I could see my cheekbones.

With a fresh mouth and scrubbed skin, I climbed between the clean sheets of the guest room bed. Maybe I should grab a book from the bookcase, I thought, maybe reread my favorite:
A Prayer for Owen Meany
. But my eyelids were heavy. Turning off the light, I did theatrical stretch across the bed and settled into the soft mattress.
Just go to sleep
, I thought,
just as people all around the world do every night. You don't need drugs to make you sleep. You don't need to pass out. One night at a time. Just fall asleep like a fucking normal person.

20

I spent the rest of the weekend lying around
my parents' house, overeating and subjecting them to my constant trips to the patio to smoke cigarettes. My mom even sat out there with me a few times.

“You know, I've never even tried a cigarette,” she said, watching me smoke on Saturday afternoon. It had been a constant refrain since the first time she discovered a pack of Merits in my underwear drawer when I was fifteen.

“You're welcome to try one of mine anytime. They're delicious,” I said, popping a few smoke rings out of my mouth.

“Yuck. How do you do that?” she asked.

“Practice.”

“That's terrible, Lisa. I hope you don't plan to smoke forever.”

“Who knows? I'm not making long-term plans. I'm just trying to not drink for this one day.” Wow, listen to me
getting with the program
. I hoped I wasn't going to become one of those platitude preachers. “They said in the hospital that if you smoke now, you shouldn't try to quit while you're trying to quit drinking, not for the first year.”

“First
year
?” She looked at me with wide eyes. “OK,” she said, with a sigh and a shrug. “I guess whatever it takes to stop drinking is what you need to do.”

“Exactly.” I put my arm around her and gave her a squeeze. She returned the gesture with a full body embrace.

As full of questions as my parents must have been, all I heard all weekend was, “Are you OK?” and “Do you need anything?” At some point we'd have to talk about the lie I had been living for so long, but that weekend was all about making sure that I was okay and nowhere near the liquor cabinet.

On Sunday morning I came downstairs early. Mom was working on the
New York Times
crossword puzzle and Dad was unpacking fresh bagels and lox. “We're up?” my dad asked.

“Yeah, we're up.” I grabbed a giant mug from above the sink. “But we need coffee.”

“Good, good. We made a full pot,” he said. They watched me pour the coffee and their eyes followed me from the coffeemaker to the refrigerator for milk and then to the cabinet with the Splenda in it.

I sprinkled and stirred in the sweetener, and without looking up I asked, “What's going on? You're staring at me.”

“Nothing!” my mom said. “We were just wondering about today.”

“What about today?” I asked.

“Well, you're supposed to go back to the city. But we were thinking maybe you could stay here tonight and then Daddy can drive you into the city before your appointment at that place.”

“Yeah,” my dad said. “We can do the early morning run, before traffic.” He used to do “the early morning run” for me when I was practicing law and would come home to New Jersey for the weekend. They loved when I stayed over on Sunday
night, and he would get up at five-thirty on Monday to take me into Manhattan. Dad would be awake and chirpy, and I'd be brutally hungover from having sucked down another bottle of wine after they'd gone to sleep the night before.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I'm kind of anxious to get home. And I'm going to have to do it soon anyway.”

They looked at each other with resignation. My dad said, “OK. Then we'll take you in today.”

“Will anyone be there with you?” my mom asked.

“No, but if I need anyone I have plenty of babysitters available. And you don't have to drive me in! I'll just call a car service. I'm sick of inconveniencing everyone.”

“You're not inconveniencing us!” my mother said. “Just let us take you in, check out the apartment with you.”

When I opened my apartment door a couple of hours later my mother said, “Wow! You left the place in good shape!”

“Uh, no. I didn't. Russell and Devon must have been here.” I knew they had planned to come over and remove any contraband, but I hadn't expected a full cleaning. The shades were up, the curtains were open, and the sun blazed into the living room. The drug cave had been transformed.

I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag, and expected a flood of memories of parties and laughing and drinking. But there was no flood. Strange, I thought. The good memories had long been blackened by the year of self-poisoning misery. But in that moment, none of those thoughts came back either. I just felt “here.”

“OK, you guys don't need to stick around. I'm fine,” I said to my parents. They hadn't been inside my apartment in years. I had always gone to New Jersey, or if they came into the
city we met at a restaurant. All the truth in that made me feel guilty again.

“What about food?” my mother asked as she stood in front of the refrigerator. “There's nothing but water and soy sauce in here.”

“Yeah, don't worry. I'll go up the street to the market and get some stuff. Maybe I'll order in sushi for dinner.”

“You're going to go out and walk around?” she asked.

“Yes, Mom. Don't worry. It's Sunday. The liquor stores are closed.”

“Oh, that's good,” she said, inspecting the contents of my pantry.

She really had no idea what “needing to drink” meant. The liquor stores were closed, but the bars were open, and I could have named five restaurants in a three-block radius that would have sold me a bottle or three of wine that day, even delivered them.

“Shirley, let her be. She'll be fine. She's doing great. Let's leave her alone and let's get out of here,” my dad said.

“All right, all right,” Mom said.

“Thank you so much for everything,” I said. “I couldn't have gotten through this without you.” My eyes welled up and my face grew hot. I felt ready, and yet the thought of being left alone roiled my stomach with fear. It had never ended well before.

As soon as I shut the door behind them, I pounded my head against it and stood there with my hand still on the knob. Once I had no doubt that they were gone, I knew it would be easy to run over to the Belgian restaurant on the corner for a fast martini. Who would know? Mark didn't know I was home yet, and if I used the stairs and went out the basement door, there was almost no chance he would see me. I could put on
a hat and sunglasses and keep my head down. Or I could call the Italian restaurant that was fast on delivery and order a couple bottles of red wine with my penne arrabiata. If I was really lucky, Russell and Devon missed a bag of coke in my closet.

“AAAHHHHH!” I screamed, banging my fist against the door while I kicked it. I shook my head and blinked hard. I was terrified.
Don't do it
, I thought. But how do I not do it?

I reverted to the one thing I knew would stop me before I could start. I called Mark.

“Hey! What's up? You're back!” he said.

“Yeah, are you home? Can you come up?”

“Yeah, sure. Let me finish something up for school. I'll come up in half an hour.”

“Can you finish what you're doing up here? I think I need someone else here. Like now.” My voice cracked.

“No problem. I'll be right there.”
Thank God
, I thought, hanging up.

Two minutes later Mark was at the door. Tears started running down my face when I saw him, and I immediately pressed the extra set of keys into his hands. “Take these,” I said. “I need to know that you might walk in any minute.”

“OK,” he said, dropping the keys into his bag. “Lisa, are you all right?”

I fell onto the couch and started sobbing. “I think so. I don't know,” I said between gulps of breath. “I'm scared. Just give me a minute.” Mark waited quietly. When I'd calmed down, I said, “I'm sorry. It's just, normally I'd pour a drink right now, but I can't. I mean, I can't if I don't want to throw away what I just did last week. I don't want to do that, but, fuuuck I want to do that so badly.”

“I think I get it. My friend's mother said it would be hard when you got home.”

“Fuck your friend's mother! Will you please stop talking to her about me?” I screamed.

“OK, OK. What did they tell you to do when you wanted to drink?”

“Go to one of those meetings. But I don't want to do that right now.” I sounded like a confused three-year-old.
This is too much
, I thought.
I can't do this. If Mark weren't here, I would have slammed a drink by now
. Going to detox had been a mistake. It was too much too fast. I started chewing my fingernails to see if that would help. Maybe I could focus on a new habit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How was I going to live this kind of life?

“Are you hungry? Want to eat?” Mark asked.

“Yes! Yes! Food! Let's get food.” Food would make me feel better. Of course, food! I jumped up to grab the delivery menus from my kitchen drawer.

“Pizza?” he asked. “Can we get pizza?”

“Yes, pizza, great. Call them now!” I squealed.

“Excellent,” Mark said, already dialing.

After I was full, the desperate craving for a drink passed. We flipped around television shows for a while and then Mark asked, “Do you want me to stay over tonight?”

“No, I want to do this on my own tonight.” He looked warily at me, which was irritating. I didn't need the people in my life treating me like a child.
Dammit
, I thought.
I'm not a child! And I don't want to live like a prisoner!
FUCK, why wasn't there someone else to blame! There was certainly no reason to take it out on Mark. “I promise I'll call if I start going sideways,” I said.

He took one last inspection through the kitchen. “You sure you're OK?”

“Yes, I can do this.”
Really?
I thought.
Can you?
I hugged Mark goodbye and bolted the door behind him. Then I stopped and looked at myself in the old “I hate you” mirror/coke plate
hanging by the door. This time I broke into a big cheesy smile and said, “Yes, I can do this! One day at a time!”

Then I screamed, “FUCK!!”

It was very early the next morning when my eyes popped open. 5:30 a.m. I sat up and grabbed the glass of clear liquid from my nightstand and drank. For a blurred second I expected the taste of vodka to hit my tongue, but then
wait!
I thought,
that's the water I left there last night. I didn't drink alcohol or use coke yesterday. Oh my God, I'm still sober! I stayed overnight by myself without drinking! HOLY SHIT!
I kicked off the covers and pumped my fists in the air like an eight-year-old who had just scored her first soccer goal.

OK, now what? What the hell do sober people do at five-thirty in the morning?
It was such a miracle to feel human in the morning, that I wanted to be awake for it. For the first time in memory I woke up without hating myself. It was the most profound relief I can ever remember feeling. Not even the mosquito could mess with me today.

I made a pot of coffee and while watching morning news drank ten of the twelve cups. What if I became a coffee addict and start walking around the city with a white paper cup in my hand? I'd have to get oversized sunglasses and a tiny purse dog to complete the look. I could do that!