Spin (26 page)

I look around, but there don’t seem to be any paparazzi waiting to take Amber’s photograph. I open my phone to call Amber to give her the all-clear. I scan my list of recent calls, searching for her number. At the top, there’s a number I don’t recognize. Oh, right, of course. It’s Henry’s number. Henry, who seems so far from me, so unreachable, is really just a button-push away.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I highlight his number, punch the dial button, and hold the phone to my ear. It rings once, then clicks to voice mail.

“This is Henry. Leave a message.”

I should’ve known he wouldn’t answer at this hour.

“Hey, Henry, it’s Kate. Sorry if I woke you. I’m not sure why I’m calling really, but your number was in my phone, and I wanted to hear your voice. Is that stupid? I’m mostly stupid these days, so I can’t tell anymore. Anyway, I guess what I really wanted to say was, I’m sorry. And I’d love to tell you that in person if you can stand it. So, you have my number. Call me. Or I’ll see you in the park . . .” The line goes dead.

Blast! I talked too long. Maybe I should call back? No, that would be really stupid. And desperate. Not to mention pathetic. He has my number. If he wants to talk to me, he’ll call. And if he doesn’t, well, then I’m not going to be surprised, right? And I’ll live. I may end up in a crying heap on the floor for a while, but I’ll pick myself up eventually.

Knowing me, it’ll probably be sooner rather than later.

I go back inside. Joanne’s making breakfast for Amber in the kitchen—eggs and sausage. It smells great, but there’s really no point, since Amber will only eat a few bites. I start to tell Joanne this, but then I see her happy, purposive face, and I don’t have the heart to shatter her illusions.

After breakfast (Amber eats three tiny bites and spends the rest of the meal pushing the food around on her plate while Joanne anxiously asks her if she likes it), we spend a few hours polishing the article. It’s finally finished around noon, five hours to spare before my deadline.

I print up the final copy as Amber stretches across my bed.

“I can’t believe you’re still awake,” I say.

“Eighteen-hour days are pretty normal on set.” She yawns. “So, what’s next?”

“I thought I’d take a shower and then go hand this in to charming Bob. What about you?”

“Ditto on the shower, plus a nap. Then I thought I’d go to a meeting.”

“An AA meeting?”

“Of course. ‘Thirty meetings in thirty days will keep relapses at bay.’ ”

This was Saundra’s constant refrain during group. Thirty meetings in thirty days to reinforce the lessons learned in rehab and to avoid a relapse. Thirty in thirty. It has a nice, slogan-y ring to it.

I, of course, haven’t been to a meeting since I left rehab, but I have been from zero to blackout in my first week home. I should learn something from that, right?

“That’s what they say,” I reply.

“You want to come with? From what Henry told me, it sounds like you could use one.”

What I could really use is a few days without any more thoughts of Henry.

“Maybe. Where is it?”

“At the Y on Pearson.”

“Fancy.”

“It’s not about where you are . . .”

“But who you’re with,” I finish. “What time’s the meeting?”

“At three.”

“OK, I’ll try to make it.”

“You really should come, Katie.”

I give her a puzzled look. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, grasshopper.”

“Did you learn that in a movie?”

“An episode of
Roseanne,
actually.”

I start to laugh, and it feels so good I give in to it. Amber joins in, and we laugh and laugh until we have tears running down our faces.

Joanne pokes her head in the door. “What’s so funny? Come on, guys. Let me in on the joke. Guys . . .”

Chapter 26

Apologies

I
’m sitting
in Bob’s office, watching him read through the article, a red pencil in his
hand. As he reads, he makes small tick marks and occasionally draws a line
through a few words. Mostly, he taps the pencil against the side of his desk
while muttering to himself.

After what feels like a long time, he reaches the
end and gives me a smile tinged with his trademark evil glint.

“Well done, Kate.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am, a little, given our previous
conversation.”

“We had a deal.”

He laces his hands on his desk over the article.
“Yes, we did. Welcome to the team.”

My heart starts to race. “I’ve got the job?”

“Yes,
The Line
will be
lucky to have you. Though, are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to work at
Gossip Central
? You seem to be a natural.”

Remain calm, Katie. Taking him
by the throat will erase everything you’ve worked for.

“No, thanks.”

He smirks. “That’s not I’m-too-good-to-work-here
that I hear in your tone, is it?”

I try my hardest to copy an expression I’ve seen on
Amber’s face when she’s trying to be charming. “Of course not, Bob.” My eyes
meet his. I focus on all I’ve been through to get to this moment.

“All right, then,” he says slowly. “Report to
Elizabeth on Monday.”

I stand to leave before he changes his mind. “Thank
you. You won’t regret this.”

I wait until I’ve left the building to let myself
celebrate. Surrounded by strangers on the busy sidewalk, I let out a whoop of
joy and pump my fist in the air.

This is happening, it’s really happening.

So why doesn’t it feel better than this?

I should be calling everyone I know, happier than
I’ve ever been, but instead, all I feel is that there’s something else I’m
supposed to be doing, some place I ought to be.

Thirty in thirty. Can that really be the
answer?

Will it kill me to find out?

I
make
it to the Y right before the meeting is supposed to start, and follow the signs
and the smell of cheap coffee to a meeting room in the basement. Behind a door
with a paper sign that reads
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
MEETING
,
I find twenty men and women of
all ages sitting on folding chairs facing a lectern. A man in his mid-forties is
leading the meeting. He has a rumpled, absent-minded-professor look about him,
complete with a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a
scraggly beard.

I search the room for Amber. She’s wearing jeans
and a black sweatshirt, with the hood up over her head. I take a seat next to
her.

“How did it go?” she whispers.

“It’ll be out on Monday,” I whisper back.

A girl in her late teens in the row in front of us
is staring at Amber over her shoulder, trying to place her. She has jet-black
hair and three rings through her left eyebrow.

Amber fiddles with the rim of her coffee cup. “Oh
good.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Every other minute, but it’s out of my hands
now.”

The Professor finishes the preliminaries and calls
on the first speaker. A beautiful woman in a tailored business suit takes the
podium and introduces herself. I’m surprised to see it’s Amy, looking healthy
and anxious.

She coughs nervously. “Hi, everyone, my name is
Amy, and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

“Hi, Amy!”

I give her a little wave, which she returns with a
smile. Her eyes slip toward Amber and her smile falters.

Amy raises her hand. A round disk on a chain hangs
from her finger. “Um, I’m here because I’m sixty days sober today.”

Several people clap enthusiastically.

“Thanks, but until I reach ninety, I’m still just
counting days, like all of you. I was talking to Jim before the meeting
started . . . Jim, I hope you don’t mind . . .”
She nods toward an older man who looks like he might live on the street. He nods
his bald head in encouragement. “Thanks, Jim. Anyway, he doesn’t have much, a
lot less than most of us, but he found the courage to show up today instead of
taking a drink. And if he can do that, than I can too, and so can you. That’s
all I wanted to say.”

She walks off the podium and we all clap. Amy
flushes with pleasure as she sits in her chair in the front row.

The Professor thanks her and calls on the next
speaker, a good-looking guy in his mid-thirties who’s had a relapse and has been
sober for five hours. He wants to make it till tomorrow. The next speaker is
there for her fifth anniversary. She holds her five-year chip tightly in her
manicured hand, like it might get stolen if she’s careless with it.

As I listen, I wonder what it is about talking to
strangers that makes it easier to go through a day without drinking. Because
sitting here, knowing I might be expected to share something personal, makes me
long for a drink, just like it did in rehab. So, if coming here day after day,
doing my thirty in thirty, is going to make me want to drink, what am I supposed
to do? How am I supposed to move past any of this?

At the end of the hour, we stand, clasp hands, and
say the Serenity Prayer. And for the first time, I feel some comfort in the
familiar words, from the rote repetition of a hope we all share. “
Living one day at a time; / Enjoying one moment at a time; /
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.”

When the meeting breaks up, I say goodbye to Amber
and cross the room to greet Amy. We hug hello.

“Well, I see you made it out in one piece,” she
says, holding me away from her.

“I guess.”

“You look better, Katie. Healthier.”

“I ran for twenty-five minutes yesterday.”

“Hey, hey, hey. I told you you could do it.”

We walk up the stairs and out into the late
afternoon. The honking cars and exhaust fumes shatter some of the peace I found
in the basement.

“So . . . you came to the meeting
with Amber?”

“That’s at least a two-coffee story.”

She looks curious, but undecided.
“Well . . . I should get back to work . . .”

“Some other time then. I don’t want you to get in
trouble.”

“You know what? The bigwigs are all out at some
corporate golf event, so let’s coffee up.”

We walk to the nearest coffee shop and settle in
with some expensive coffees. Two cups later, I’ve spilled my guts with the
requisite number of gasps and wide eyes from Amy.

She stirs the dregs in her cup. “Sounds like you’ve
had a pretty wild couple of days.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Why are you telling me all of this, anyway?”

“I guess I’m . . . making
amends.”

She squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to apologize
to me, Katie.”

“Yes, I do. You were a real friend to me in rehab,
and I wasn’t honest with you.”

“Well, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I’m trying not to.”

We walk toward the door of the coffee shop.

“So, what are you going to do now?” she asks.

“Go home and sleep for as long as I can before I
start my dream job.” I put my hand on the door to open it, but something stops
me. “Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”

“I hope so, Katie.”

S
unday
night to Monday morning I wake on the hour, every hour. The red numbers on my
clock radio angrily announce the time. 1:00! 2:00! 3:00! Nah, nah, nah, nah,
nah. Try to sleep if you can.

At 6:00 (!) I give up and stumble out of bed.
Mindful (for once) of Joanne, I walk quietly to the kitchen and start the coffee
brewing. A double whammy day—I’m definitely going to need extra caffeine.

After a run, two mega mugs of coffee, a healthy
breakfast, a shower, and a long struggle with my closet to find the perfect
first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life outfit (I am so putting way too much pressure
on this day), I leave the apartment with enough time to walk to
The Line
’s offices, so I don’t have to suffer through
the stress of being stuck in traffic or underground if the subway breaks down.
Nothing,
nothing,
will make me late today.

OK, nothing except . . .

Four blocks from my destination I pass a magazine
stand, and there it is, half visible through the heavy-duty plastic wrapping: a
stack of this week’s edition of
Gossip Central
containing an article by none other than me. I shuffle the stack around so I can
get a better look. There’s a party, party, party shot of Amber on the cover, and
the headline reads: “INSIDE REHAB WITH CAMBER!”

So much for five days of struggling over the
perfect title.

I look at the magazine stand. It’s tightly
shuttered, and the owner’s nowhere in sight. Goddamnit! What time does it open?
I peer at the sign. Nine. Of course. Nine is when I need to be five blocks down
and twenty-nine floors up. Damn you, universe!

But maybe I could just take one? I bet I could use
my keys to rip that plastic . . .

No, no, no! I will not start the first day of the
rest of my life stealing. Again.

Though . . . I could leave some
money, and then it wouldn’t be stealing, right? But what if other people take
copies and don’t leave any money? Then maybe I didn’t steal, but I created a
situation that invites other people to steal, and that’s almost as bad, isn’t
it?

Hello, idiot! You’ve got
twenty minutes to get to TFDOTROYL. Forget the magazine. You’ll have plenty
of time to read it later. In fact, you’ve already lived it. Get a move
on!

I walk away from the magazine stand with a pang of
regret but with purpose. I reach
The Line
’s modern
waiting room with eight minutes to spare and stroll confidently up to the
purple-haired, nose-ringed receptionist.

“Kate Sandford, reporting for duty.”

“Huh?”

That line didn’t work for John Kerry either. Let’s
try this again.

“My name’s Kate. It’s my first day.”

“It is?”

Oh my God! Was it all a joke? Was Bob just fucking
with me this whole time?

I give it one last try before I run from the
building in a total panic.

“I’m supposed to be meeting Elizabeth at nine.”

Her face clears. “Oh, right. She mentioned
something. I’ll call her.”

“Thanks.”

“You can take a seat over there.”

I sit nervously on the couch, eyeing the magazines
on the coffee table. There’s a copy of last week’s
Gossip
Central,
but what good is that?

“Kate? Good to see you again?” Elizabeth says a few
minutes later. She’s wearing a skin-tight pair of dark jeans that taper to the
ankle and a pink tank top.

Classy and up-talking as always.

I rise and shake her hand. “Thanks, Elizabeth. You
too.”

“Great? Follow me?”

She takes me to a wing of the office where there’s
a long row of cubicles that reminds me of the gossip call center below us. She
stops in front of an empty cubicle across from a large, glassed-in office.

“So, this will be your office?”

I look at the nondescript fabric dividers. There
are a few stray pushpins stuck into the fabric, a fancy phone, and a desk
chair.

“Perfect.”

“Are you ready to get started?”

Sure, only . . . once again I’m here
for a job, and I don’t even know what it is. I guess that’s still me. Leap
before I look.

“Um, so what will I be doing, exactly?”

“You’ll be covering small local bands for now?
Reporting to me? But we’ll get into more at the story meeting? At eleven?”

“OK, great.”

“It’ll be in the Nashville Skyline room? You
remember?”

Will I ever be allowed to forget?

“Yes. And I’m really sorry about that.”

She shows me her teeth. “No problem? I believe in
bygones, you know?”

“Thanks.”

“Why don’t you settle in? Oh, and I have something
for you?” She walks into her office, picks something up off her desk, and walks
it back to me. “I thought you’d like to read this?”

I take this week’s
Gossip
Central
from her almost reverently. So much of my life seems bound up
in these glossy, gossipy pages.

She goes into her office, and I sit down at my desk
to read my article. It’s a twelve-page spread, full of lurid pictures of Amber
and Connor. At the front of it all is my name. Reporting and story by Kate
Sandford. That’s me, that’s me.

My phone beeps. It’s a text from Amber.

Read it. It’s perfect.

Thx.

Phone is ringing off the
hook.

RU going 2
answer?

Thinking about
it.

Good luck.

CU @ the meeting
later?

Thinking about
it.