The Good Life (19 page)

My stories were nothing like those. Whetted with liquor, I got as precise as a needle. The world appeared before me as clear as a steel-plate etching, and judgments arrived in my brain already reasoned, phrased, and savage. I lost one boyfriend when, full of vodka, I said, “You have a second-rate mind. Not a third-rate, but not a first. It will never be first.”

I missed him when he was gone. He had a sweet way. It was not that boyfriend but another one—Steve, with the black curls and the middle-management job at U.S. Shoe—who glared across the tiny bar table when I told him he didn't have leadership potential. He swirled his bourbon and said, “So who died and made you God?”

Steve had told me all about the conversations at work he'd edged into and been edged out of. Two men and three women had already been promoted above him, a river of personnel rushing past his windowless cubicle. I could have saved him time and frustration if he'd have let me.

Instead he shoved back his chair and raged out of the bar, pausing only to drop a twenty on the barmaid's tray. “What'd you do to him?” she asked me.

“I gave him executive feedback,” I said.

When I related this story to the group, the counselor said, “You're lucky.”

“I told him the truth.”

“Not every truth needs telling. You're lucky he didn't come to your apartment later with a knife. He wanted to know that you believed in him.”

“I could see what was happening.”

“Do you know what compassion is? It's seeing what somebody else sees.”

“Why would I want to do that?” I said. Then, “A joke. Do you know what a joke is?”

I was in the group for a solid year before I stopped insulting people. It took another year for me to quit sighing and recrossing my legs every time a group member spoke tremulously about gratitude and new life. I knew I'd gotten somewhere when the counselor said to me, “You are the most stubborn person I've ever met,” and I felt embarrassed instead of proud.

Not long after that conversation, I stopped going to the sessions and thanked the counselor for all his help. The man, pudgy and blotchy-faced and no fool, pushed his glasses down his nose and gazed at me with plainly exaggerated patience. I said, “I'm serious. You've taught me things. I don't assume anymore that other people want to hear my opinions.” I left my phone number for new members who needed someone to talk to and a check that covered the rest of the sessions for the month.

Then I stepped into my new life. If the old days had been baroque, the new ones were Shaker—functional, simple, beautiful because they were plain. At last I was at home in myself, temperament and life perfectly matched. I'd always known the stern exultation that comes with self-mastery—even my drinking years had proved that. Now I lived in the center of exultation, day in, day out, a role model.

I got sharper and more efficient at work. After a while I began to take on new projects, complicated evaluations requiring page after page of statistical breakdowns. I pleased myself with my own skill. But at just about the time Lucy invited me to the party I realized, without feeling the need to dwell on this insight, that I was working until midnight to stay too busy to drink.

The desire for booze, at first not even a yearning so much as an unacknowledged, ongoing thought, grew a little every day. It tickled the edge of my brain. Five months had passed since a man had asked me out, and I pondered that fact. Perhaps the loss of my old, keen edge had made me too ordinary. I no longer insulted strangers in public places. I was able to make supportive comments and kept my opinions to myself. I had been cast, like Lucy, as a Citizen of Vienna, a placeholder behind the interesting characters who had things to say.

A drink, I thought without thinking the words, would cure everything. In the thick, dull night after Lucy's call, my mouth tingled with the memory of silky-hot scotch, and I half-heard the
ffff
of a cork being eased from a wine bottle. I pushed these impressions away, but not too far.

So the idea of Lucy's party bubbled through me all the next day. Lucy's presence would keep me from drinking, and meanwhile I would talk to new, artistic men, stage-lovely, extroverted, game for life's adventures. I'd been in the counseling group long enough to know that a desire to drink was in fact a desire for human connection, a yearning to crawl out of the grave of loneliness. I called Lucy as soon as I got home from work. “I'll go. I'm happy to help. To tell you the truth, I'm looking forward to it.”

“Goody,” Lucy said.

“It's a party. Fun, remember?”

“For you it's a party. For me it's work. I'm thinking about bagging it.”

“That wouldn't be smart, would it?”

“Do I have to be smart?” Lucy said, her voice plaintive. For a second I thought she was offering a rare, unobstructed glimpse of her soul. More likely, she was practicing sorrow and yearning, important emotions for an actor. “How long have you been sober?” she asked.

“Five years. You know this.”

“Do you even remember what it feels like to want a drink?”

“I don't dwell on it.”

“You sure don't. When somebody says ‘drink,' you think ‘milk.'”

“Oh, come on,” I said.

“Do me a favor, would you? Then I promise we'll go to the party and I'll have a good attitude. Tell me what it feels like to want a drink. Tell me what goes on in your mouth and your head.”

“Your life looks lousy, nothing seems to be going right. Or else everything is going right. Either way, a drink seems like the answer. It's not all that dramatic.”

“Would you please tell me that one time you were so nuts for a drink that you were in the bathroom, on your hands and knees, licking the tiles?”

“Lucy, do you need me to come over?”

“No point. Floor's all clean now. I should stay home and admire it.”

Silence swelled between us—a rarity—and I uttered the first words I could think of. “I drove drunk,” I said. “And I took walks drunk. Once I found my neighbor's cat blocks away and carried it home. But it turned out not to be my neighbor's cat. My neighbor didn't have a cat. In the morning my hands and arms were so scratched and swollen that I couldn't pull on a long-sleeved shirt.”

“What did you tell people at work?” Lucy said, laughing.

“I called in sick. When I did come in, I told people I had poison ivy.”

“Don't you ever miss the secret life?”

“No,” I said. If she'd been there to see, I would have shrugged. Every life was secret. I shouldn't have to tell an actor that.

 

“Byron? Do I have that right? Not Brian?”

“You can call me Lord.” The man, Lucy's director, produced a cool smile and pushed the thick yellow thatch of hair back from his eyes.

“Don't even try with this one, Byron,” Lucy said. She held a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of water, her third, in the other. “She'll cut you in half before you see the sword.”

“My kind of woman,” he said. “Want some punch?”

I shook my head. “Club soda.”

“All work.”

“I play. This is how I play.”

“Scary,” he said, and angled toward the bar across the loud room.

“He's a snake,” Lucy said. “I wouldn't drink anything he brought me.”

“I had that worked out already. How did your talk with him go?”

Lucy swigged her water. “There are no bad roles. A real actor brings the same intensity to a Citizen of Vienna as to Ophelia. We are here in the service of art, not ego.”

“What horseshit.”

“I've talked to everybody I need to. We might as well leave.”

“We can if you want,” I said, careful to sound indifferent. “I hate to see you give in to this jerk, though.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Stay. Laugh. Let him see something about art, not ego.”

“Coach Virginia. You should be wearing a whistle around your neck.”

I shrugged. “I don't like this guy.” Who was threading back to us, a glass of clear liquid in each hand.

“You can talk to him if you want. I'm outta here,” Lucy said, turning as Byron pushed a plastic glass into my hand. I sniffed it and caught only the sharp scent of the bobbing chunk of lime. It was an easy bet that the drink was half vodka. I rested it on the table beside me.

“So. You're juicy Lucy's friend,” Byron said.

“Her devoted friend. She's a good actor. How come you gave her a part with no lines?”

Byron made a boyish smile. “I have to discharge a few debts to other people. Do you act?”

“No more than anyone else. You?”

“Too much for my own good. I act the dutiful son, the fiery director, the meticulously concerned father.”

“The good husband?”

“Never had that role.” He brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “Now I'm acting debonair, to win you over. How am I doing?”

“Brilliantly.” A good enough actor, I lifted my face while his fingers lingered there, and let my own finger dip into my drink. When I tasted the liquid on my fingertip, it tasted like nothing.

It continued to taste like nothing while Byron told a funny story about his directorial debut, when lighting cues were so mishandled that an entire love scene was played in the dark, the actors improvising lines such as “How dare you put your hand on my breast while we sit upon this couch!” Then he segued into a story about his own attempt, as a young man, to play a love scene with a woman he'd had a crush on; he'd so stammered and blushed and trampled his lines that the woman finally said, “All
right!
” and the audience applauded like thunder. The stories were well calibrated, showing off Byron's vulnerable and yearning heart. To occupy my hands, I picked up my drink and swirled it. For show, I brought the glass to my lips.

“So what are your roles? Aside from the cool and desirable brunette?” His straw-colored hair looked soft as fur.

“Guess,” I said.

“Fd cast you as a schoolteacher. High heels and tight skirts, driving all the boys crazy.”

“I hope you're a little more inventive when you're staging plays.” I smiled. Again I trailed my finger across the top of my drink and raised the finger to my mouth. “I'm a paper pusher, and a member of my condominium association, and Lucy's friend.”

“You must be lonely. Lucy's gone.”

I jerked my head up. On the other side of the crowded room three women, two very slender and one very plump, were singing, arms linked, on the piano. Against the walls fervent couples fingered collars and earlobes. One man nibbled another's thumbnail, and at the bar a loose and laughing group shouted lines I almost recognized. No Lucy in a doorway or beside the bookcase. No Lucy calling out her own lines, or singing, or opening another bottle of water. In a moment I would go look for her, but first, a trapdoor opened at the bottom of my brain and glee fell out. I lifted my glass. “As a matter of fact, I don't feel a bit lonely.”

“All of a sudden, neither do I. What's so funny?”

“Do you have even one line you haven't used before?” I said.

“You don't know many actors, do you?”

“You're the first. Make a good impression.”

“I'll start by getting you another drink.”

I put my hand on Byron's arm, stopping him and pulling him close. In a tremendous stage whisper, I hissed, “
I shouldn't be drinking
.”

He leaned closer, his hand shading the side of his mouth. “I
know
.”

Then I found I couldn't stop laughing, even when Lucy strolled back out of the kitchen, a fresh bottle of water in her hand, and glanced across the room in time to see me knock back half a glass of undiluted vodka.

 

“You're a mean drunk, but you're not sloppy,” Lucy said. It was seven in the morning, and the telephone receiver seemed to buzz in my hand. “For my money, it was worth it just to watch you tell Byron that he had the psychological insight of a turtle.”

“He got a rise out of me,” I said, pressing my fingers against the side of my head. The blood was jackhammering. “I guess this means he's a good director.”

“Are you kidding? He's the worst. Every obvious move. The only thing he knows how to do is come on to women.”

“Practice makes perfect. I told him so after he kissed me the second time.” I paused, then forced myself: “Thank you for taking me home.”

“Happy to do it,” Lucy said. I heard her strike a match. “I'm in your debt. I stayed sober.”

“Congratulations.”

“You're still my mentor. You came to the party and kept me from drinking. So why shouldn't I say thanks?”

I pressed my temples harder. I had the clear impression I was holding my skull together. “Common. Decency.” Each word rolled out of my mouth like a pebble, and the walls of my stomach tightened, although there was nothing left there.

Lucy said, “Look, Virginia, I know what's going on with you. Better than you do. You've been sober 782 years, and you've forgotten how to start over. But you are talking to a pro.” She exhaled. “What do you want right now? A drink?”

“No.” The idea was nauseating, mostly.

“You will. Are you crying?”

“Yes.”

Lucy's voice held the tiniest undertone of laughter. “You want to think this is a tragedy, but it's not. You're starting over with a clean slate. Up till now you've been so busy clamping down on your own miserable happy ending that you've forgotten about happy beginnings. A person falls down, she gets back up. It isn't that big a deal.”

I closed my eyes over my tears. Lucy's insouciance was worse than the sarcasm I'd been ready for, or the anger. I had undone the last five years of my life for an idiot boy with blond hair, handsome and brainless. Even Lucy had never blundered so stupidly, a fact that I wanted acknowledged. No sooner had I formed the thought than I heard the response as Lucy might have delivered it:
And why should you get what you want?