HAPPILY EVER BEFORE (17 page)

“Nice tattoos,” murmured Jack as he managed to erase every memory Grace ever had about sex with anyone else, but especially Ray. As we stated before this isn’t one of
those
books and it is a story of two sisters--not the legendary tale of Paul Bunyan, so while we can truthfully state they did the deed, we can’t tell you a whole hell of a lot more. As for the morning after, we’re not going there. Why? Well, honestly, we weren’t invited and really, shouldn’t some things be left to your over active imagination?

And, so The Higgins Sisters had now officially passed from now, now what through the annoying you don’t say, and the sun was setting on zing-zing, which you must agree was an aptly named fifth month of their pregnancy. What other surprises, disasters, natural or otherwise, were waiting for them over the next few months? No one knew. Well, you would if you’d just turn the page. Now, you should turn the page, now!

The Higgins Sisters entered the next phase of their lives that we like to call now or never. So far, all was going swimmingly. That’s what people usually say when life motored along without a hitch, but there are many definitions of the word swim. Some use it to describe the actual act of going for a swim and if you know your fifth-grade English than you know the drill. So, life going swimmingly was for the most part in the eye of the beholder. Right now, the beholder was Grace and the swimmingly was George who was not so much swimming along with life as much as swimming in it and the moment Grace heard George’s, “
sooo
don’t be
maaad
,” she assumed it was alcohol.

“Where are you?” asked Grace as a whiff of musk covered her when she grabbed one of Jack’s shirts out of the laundry basket and hurriedly put it on. She enjoyed the fact that the shirt of the man she loved was sitting in the laundry basket of her bedroom. “George, George…
are
you there?” Grace could hear some background noise and a bit of commotion going on somewhere in the land of the drunk.

“Where am I? Hey, you, cowboy, where am I?
Bad Diva?
Sad Beaver?
Oh, sad beaver, mine is so, so sad. No really it is
,
it’s a sad beaver. Huh, oh Red
Kiva
, I’m at Red
Kiva
Graceieieie
.”

“Why the
fuck are
you all the way on
Randolph Street
?” implored Grace as she put on her flip-flops, the only thing that fit her feet now, and grabbed her jean jacket. It tended to get chilly in
Chicago
toward the middle of September especially after
two a.m.
Grace checked to make sure she had her keys, cash, and headed out the door.

“Tampons...” slurred George.

“I am not stopping for tampons on my way. I have one in my purse. I think. George what the fuck is going on?” Grace buttoned her coat in the elevator and rushed out as soon as the door opened.

The doorman, alarmed at seeing a pregnant woman racing somewhere in the middle of the night, came running over.  “You okay, Ms. Higgins? Is the baby coming?”

 “No, I’m fine. Just six months. Need a cab though.” Ben nodded and within minutes he got Grace into a cab.

“What is going on? What happened?” Grace told the driver where she needed to go then settled back into the seat. Man, she thought I hope I have enough cash on me.

“Don’t be mad, please. Guess what? Turns out you can only like advertising if you’re drunk. Turns out there was a reason you couldn’t...hey, hey, I told you I don’t need you to make my beaver happy.  Back off!”

Grace heard what sounded like glass breaking. “George! Find a seat in the back where no one is, can you do that for me sweetie?”

“Sure. I can do that. I’m doing that right now. I’m
gonna
go sit at the bar with my buddy. What’s your name?
Sven.
My buddy Sven is going make me a drink.
Right Sven?
Coffee?
But I don’t want coffee. Can I have coffee with a touch of Irish? But, I don’t want
tea,
I want hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

“George, George focus. Okay, sweetie, tell me what happened?”

“I quit, by quit I mean I got fired. Now let me tell you, last night, no tonight, no, the night before the night that was the night of…oh fuck! Anyway before my big maxi pad presentation, I couldn’t think of any more ways to describe
ab-sorb-en-dent
, so I came up with--now this is good--it’s better than a diaper. They didn’t think it was funny. They asked me if I was drunk and I said no I was completely sober and I was. I asked the man if he had ever worn a maxi pad ‘cause it feels like a fucking diaper and that’s when I excused myself and packed up my office and get, I mean, got or is it getting loaded?” George took a deep breath. “It looks like a pee pad for a dog--if I had a dog…I should get a dog, I have time now.”

“No,
Georgie
, don’t get a dog.”

“Really?
I always wanted one. A dog would be nice. A dog would keep me company and lick my face and pee on my rug. I want someone to pee on my rug.
Although, there’s a really good chance that I might do it tonight!”

“I know dear. Someone to pee on their rug; it’s what everyone woman craves,” Grace said.

“
Gracieeee
do you know what my worst nightmare is?
Wearing a maxi pad and corduroys.
It gives me shivers. It’s worse than brown slacks and black shoes. The corduroy is so thick and it crunches and the maxi pad it crinkles and swishes like tape caught on your ass. It’s a scary thing, a scary
cornu
,
cornucop
,
cornocopulation
of sounds like a horror movie. I think I’m
gonna
be sick!”

Now that sent shivers down Grace’s spine. “Oh! Do you feel
pukey-pukey
or just you know
pukey
?” This was their code for becoming a drunken vomiting mess.
Pukey-pukey
meant you were
gonna
heave now and
pukey
meant if you ate you might be able to stave it off.

“
Pukey
, except now I’m not vomit free in 93!” The cab pulled over, Grace asked him to stay, then rushed into Red
Kiva
. Vomit Free in 93! She hadn’t heard that in a while. Grace opened the
smokey
glass doors and saw George sitting in her black straight leg trousers and her DKNY striped long sleeve cardigan, and smiled. If you didn’t know better you would think she was one together chick until you saw that she was missing a shoe, her shirt was stained and her pants were really dirty at the knees. Grace sighed; she was probably crawling around the bathroom floor again. The toilets are always too low for a woman of George’s stature and crouching that far down is hazardous to your wardrobe. “Hey let’s get you home, okay?”            

George, who was by no means an ugly drunk, smiled at her friend and pulled her into a hug. “Okay
dokey
. Hi, ho, Hi-ho it’s off to…we go,” Grace smiled at the bartender, who upon noticing she was pregnant, got George who fell twice, tripped off her one shoed leg, then spun and hit her head on the cab door, into the cab for her. 

“Thanks,” said Grace as she gave him a twenty-dollar tip, then told the driver to take her back to where he picked her up and slid into the backseat with her drunken friend. She pushed George’s hair out of her eyes and patted her hand.
“How you doing?”

George tried to focus on Grace, but she just kept moving in slow motion like a bad sci-fi movie. “I thought I’d feel better by having a little
drinkie
, you know? I just want to puke. If I had had just one more drink I’d be a delight, you know? I’d be a Noel Coward play all witty and sparkling, but I went too far. Now I’m David
Mamet
all dark and edgy.” The cab turned and George slid further away from Grace. “
Oooh
, I’m not making sense. I’m like Ella Fitzgerald. I’m all
scooduddle-dee
and
rattatatata
!” Suddenly, the fact that she was missing her shoe fascinated her and she kept leaning over and sweeping the floor with her hands. “I thought I could do it, I thought I could be a team player even though everyone knows when you go from the head of the Nike account to partner on maxi pads they’re shoving you the door--shoving the door in your place,” George gulped some air and continued, “please don’t send me to rehab Gracie, please. It doesn’t help anyway”

Grace’s cell phone suddenly rang. “Hello?
Sal?
Is everything okay?”

“Let me sum it up for you doll. Jack came home to find you gone. Your cell phone has been busy for about an hour and he’s freaking out. Your mother’s a nervous wreck and Henry is trying to convince Clair that you didn’t run off to
Mexico
to sell their baby on the black market!”

George grabbed the phone.
“Sal?
Sally boy, how’s it hanging? You make me think of a song.” George paused to find her singsong voice.
“Ride Sally Ride… how you doing?”

“Have you been drinking?”

George laughed.
“Me, drinking, ha!
It’s what I do.”

“Why kiddo, you were doing so well?”

George turned to Grace, “he
wanna
to know why, why? I am extremely
dehy-dehy-dehydrated
by life. Oh, and I asked a man if he ever wore a maxi pad. I asked my boss if he ever wore a diaper. Turns out, they didn’t. Lost my edge, Sally boy, lost my edge and it’s not in the lost in found, I checked. So, here I am. No more
jobie
, all-all-all alone, and the batteries on my vibrator died.
Just like that!”
George attempted a snap, but it was more of a swish and suddenly handed the phone back to Grace, as she desperately tried to open the backseat window before she got all
pukey-pukey
in the cab.

Jack raced to the cab as soon as it pulled up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just wanted to get to her as fast as I could,” Grace said in her defense.

“Uh, lady, get this mess out of my cab.” Grace turned her attention back to George as Jack scurried to help. They were both trying to pull a drunken-vomit-drenched George out of the cab when Sal and Diane showed up.

“She fell off the wagon?” Diane asked, as Sal took over for Grace.

Grace and Diane followed them into the building. “She jumped off and at one point, the wheel actually fell off the wagon and she just dragged it around until her knees were bloody and she became one of those people without any nerve endings who can’t feel pain,” Grace said as she attempted to adjust George’s puked stained cardigan to cover her breasts.

Diane took her daughter’s hand. “Are you okay?”

“I’m worried about her. I’ve never seen her like this before and I’ve seen her in just about every position known to man.”

“There’s no business like show business, like no business I know…” George belted it out like she had just downloaded the
Tourette’s
show tunes catalog. They exchanged looks and silently agreed to ignore the singing.

“So, what do we do?” asked Diane.

“Rehab.
I know a good one. Some
fellas
down at the station have gone; it’s an A plus place.” Jack suggested.

“She won’t go,” sighed Grace.

“We have to do something. I can’t stand to see her like this.” Diane noticed George was missing her shoe. “What happened?”

“Don’t ask me. She’s
gonna
be pissed that she lost a Jimmy
Choo
in the gutter somewhere.”

“It’s a hard knock life for us. It’s a hard knock life for us…” George belted this one out. Jack and Sal were so startled they almost dropped her.

Sal hit the sixth floor button again. “We can’t force her to go to rehab, but she can’t live alone, not right now. If we want to get her sober and keep her sober we’re
gonna
have too…” he stopped, perplexed. “Where is her family?”

“I love you.” Diane gave Sal a kiss. “We’re her family. Her father died when she was a kid and her mom passed a few years ago.”

Sal, stunned, took a moment. “You love me? She loves me?” he laughed, as he caught Diane’s eye. “Oh, now you’re trapped baby. There’s no way off the Sal love parade.” Diane grinned.

Jack looked at Grace. It hurt him to see her so worried. “What do we do?”

Sal was about to say something when the elevator stopped on the third floor and little Mr.
Watermeyer
shuffled on in his pajamas. He looked at George and then at the group.
“Just getting the morning paper.”

“You do know the elevator is going up Mr.
Watermeyer
?” asked Grace.

He smiled, “I didn’t say I was going to buy the paper. Mr. Harris keeps his television blaring all night, so in the morning I steal his paper. It’s my own little good morning ritual.”

George suddenly perked up. “Good
mornin
’! Good
mornin
’! We talked the whole night through! Good morning’! Good
mornin
’! To you…” George sang to no one in particular.

Mr.
Watermeyer
waited to see if anyone did anything. “It's great to stay up late. Good
mornin
', good
mornin
' to you…” he added in a surprisingly sweet voice. Suddenly George and Mr.
Watermeyer
were keeping harmony, “when the band began to play. The sun was
shinin
’ bright, now the milkman’s on his way. It’s too late to say goodnight…”

The elevator stopped. As they lugged George out, her eyes locked in on Mr.
Watermeyer
.
“So, good
mornin
', good
mornin
'!
Sunbeams will soon smile through…”

And as the doors closed Mr.
Watermeyer
bowed, “good
mornin
', good
mornin
', to you…”

Sal and Jack leaned against the wall for support. Lugging a six-foot red head was no easy task especially if she was one hundred and fifty pounds of drunken dead weight. Sal nodded to Grace, “you know kid I’m in recovery--have been for over twenty years. We can do this if we keep her away from alcohol, but if we do then she should stay here.”