by Karen Tucker
“Yeah, my phone died,” Teena said. “Look, me and my friend here are short on time, so can we do this?”
Hot Stuff didn’t answer, just kept watching Teena. At last he slid a phone out of his apron pocket and punched a few buttons. Somewhere in the house a different phone started ringing. One of those electronic melodies that are always going off in old men’s pants. When it finally stopped, Hot Stuff spoke into the receiver. “Got you a couple custos. Okay. Yeah, sorry. I know. I know. I already said I wouldn’t, I promise.” He hung up and stared at the screen for several long seconds.
“Everything cool?” said Teena.
Hot Stuff looked up at her, his face vibrating with anger. “You’re good to go. But next time I reach out, you better answer.” He swung around and went back into the kitchen.
Teena and I exchanged glances. Dudes everywhere were always the same.
She led me to a door by the staircase and opened it, revealing a basement. All at once the whole doctor nightmare began flashbulbing before me in a series of hot stabby explosions. A sweat broke out all over my body and soon I got so light-headed I had to rest my hand on the wall for balance.
But either Teena didn’t notice or else she chose to ignore it. She leaned in close, her breath warm and damp in my ear. “Only rule is you can’t say anything, no matter what. Don’t worry, this stuff is worth it.” She headed downstairs, expecting me to follow.
And I did.
ON THE MORNING LUCE CAME HOME THE SKY WAS this gorgeous Dreamsicle color, pale orange with a few milky ribbons. Already I knew something good was going to happen. Sure enough it wasn’t long before she was walking up our gravel drive, head bent, black hoodie slung over her shoulder. I lowered the pack of frozen peas from my nose and cranked the BarcaLounger up to a sitting position. She eased open the door. She had a puffy eye and a greening bruise on her cheekbone, but from the face she made when she saw me, I must have looked worse than she did.
“We leave now, we can make the 8,” she said. “If you’re interested.”
I nodded. “Let me just change my shirt.”
Almost three days had passed since Luce and I had seen each other. I’d been with Teena for most of that time and by the end all I had left was a pocketful of ATM receipts and a busted nose. The basement hadn’t even been the bad part. Once we got down the stairs all we found was a private shooting gallery with a dozen or so women collapsed in a circle of beanbag pillows, enjoying their ecp in blissful silence. No, the bad part came a couple nights later after I nodded out on Teena’s toilet and tumbled face-first onto the edge of her bathtub, my pants twisted up around my ankles. Blood everywhere. When Teena heard the crash she came running in panic, but once she saw I hadn’t ODd, she got so enraged at the mess she grabbed my feet and dragged me outside and left me to spend the night on her porch with nothing but an old dog blanket I found scrunched up in the corner. Which of course made me think of the dog leash.
In a groggy haze I pounded on Teena’s door with as much force as I could summon and when she didn’t answer I went staggering around to each of her windows, smacking the glass over and over, pleading for one last hit to get me through till morning. At last she came outside, eyes sparking with fury. Shot me up with what felt like nothing but baking soda, loaded me into her car, drove me back to me and Luce’s, and left me at the end of the driveway next to the mailbox. From a certain distance it’s almost funny, but at the time I was scoring a perfect ten on the pain scale. Good thing my bank account was on E and I couldn’t get any more powder, otherwise I would have needled myself into oblivion and then some.
Luce and I went to the meeting. Although I was no longer hopeful about any sort of recovery, it meant we would spend an hour together. You take what you can get. We were both still a bit faded—not so much that anyone would notice, but enough so the sharp edges felt sanded down to a manageable level—and while we didn’t say very much on our walk down the mountain, I distinctly recall slipping my arm in hers as we trudged up the church driveway. She flinched a little, but at least she didn’t pull away completely.
And oh, that 8 a.m. meeting. These days I take a deep pleasure in the cool dim of sunrise, but back then I made a habit of sleeping late as possible. Even though Wilky had gone to the early Eye-Opener group pretty often, the 1:30 was the only time slot Luce and I had ever attended. When the two of us walked into the church basement that morning, we found ourselves staring down a whole new crowd. People with tucked-in shirts, ironed dress pants, polished heels and loafers. The room smelled like spice deodorant and lemon shampoo. There was still a crushing line for the coffee, but once everyone got their fix they didn’t clump up by the table and instead they went and sat in the circle, chatting politely.
“These here are the pros,” Luce said.
I suggested we take the chairs nearest the door in case we wanted to make a quick exit. A few people gave us the whole newcomer once-over, but they were pretty discreet and it wasn’t too terrible. Even so my stomach felt queasy. Ever since Wilky, things had been getting worse and worse no matter what we did or how hard we tried to stop it and it occurred to me that maybe the wise thing was for Luce and me to make a run for it while we were still able. Then she leaned over to fix a sock that had gotten bunched up around her ankle and I got a whiff of the sweaty tang she always took on after working a double in summer. It calmed me somehow.
The woman who ran the 8 a.m. was nothing like Greenie. Tall and slim, with short brown curls and little stud earrings. I’d seen her around Anklewood on a few occasions and I was pretty sure she worked in admin at the hospital. Billing, maybe. Beside her sat a woman who turned out to be the guest speaker. Some rock n roll chick I’d never seen before. Dyed black hair with a few electric-blue highlights. Aviator glasses that managed to look more cool than stupid. Black sweater dress, ankle booties, and black tights that had these weird cartoon clocks all over. On anyone else the tights would have looked even dumber than the glasses, but this chick, whoever she was, pulled it off. I was trying to see what time it was on the clocks when I felt Luce’s elbow. “Dude, check out her necklace.”
She had on a gold pendant shaped like Florida. My stomach rolled over.
“Maybe it’s a sign from Wilky,” Luce said.
The meeting started. Despite this being the professional version, it turned out to be a lot like the 1:30. Same announcements, same readings from the Big Book. If anything, the war stories here were more hard-core. Stuff like ripping shots in the hospital bathroom while a parent lay dying. Sucking d for sub wrappers. The guest speaker, Ms. Florida, shared about scraping bags at her kitchen table while her baby looked on from her high chair. Although her story was one of the worst I’d heard in ages, when she got to the recovery part it turned out to be pretty inspiring. Obviously her bottom had been way lower than me and Luce’s, and now look at her.
We took our Day 1s and that wasn’t so terrible either, not really. We introduced ourselves, got our key tags, everyone applauded. The 8 a.m. leader gave us a Whitestrips smile of approval and so did Ms. Florida. Even Luce turned to me with a hopeful expression. It struck me that the two of us might actually get through this—and out of nowhere I started laughing. Not a big laugh, more like one of those secret ones where you keep your face as still as possible so no one can see it. Although she’d gone back to watching Ms. Florida, I felt certain that Luce was secretly laughing too. We were both in on the same inside joke together. We always would be, no matter what happened. Only problem was the joke hardly ever seemed funny anymore.
It wasn’t until the very end that things veered off in a new direction. We’d finished up the formal part of the meeting, done the whole group-hug thing and said our goodbyes, when Ms. Florida approached us by the percolator. Luce was refilling her cup for the walk home. “Hey you two. Congrats on Day 1. How you feeling?”
“You know. Hoping it sticks,” I said. “Thanks for the share by the way, it was helpful.”
“Why does this place always run out of sugar?”
Luce said. I turned in time to see her fling the empty Domino box back onto the table. Clearly her dopamine levels were starting to plummet. “Like how hard can it be to keep this shit in stock? It’s not fucking powder.”
“You need some sweetener?” said Ms. Florida. She reached in her purse—a sleek leather bag that would have cost me and Luce a month of weekends—and pulled out a ziplock crammed full of sugar packets. Not the cheap white kind either, but the fancy brown. “Learned years ago to bring my own supply whenever I travel. Stuff’s a real hot commodity in the rooms. Take as much as you want, I got plenty more in my suitcase.”
“Wow, thanks, man,” Luce said, helping herself to a handful. She snuck another look at Ms. Florida’s necklace. “I’m guessing you’re from the Sunshine State?”
“You know it. Born and raised in Tallanasty, went to school in O-town, now coming to you live from Delray Beach. I’m here for work but I’ll be heading home this weekend.”
“Right on.” Luce took her time stirring her coffee. “Actually I had plans to move to Florida last month. Course it all went sideways at the last minute.”
“Oh yeah?” Ms. Florida said.
After that, things moved pretty quickly. Luce confided that her boyfriend had ODd out of nowhere and now the two of us were hoping to get back on the clean-time train after slipping. Turned out Ms. Florida worked for a treatment center that had exactly two empty beds. “Most likely they’ll be spoken for in a few hours, but it’s a pretty sweet setup if you can nab it. In-patient, women only. Less than a mile from the beach. They even waive any out-of-pocket fees, long as you have insurance. You have insurance?”
Luce said she was still on her stepdad’s policy. “The dumbass.”
“I got one of those myself,” Ms. Florida said. “But seriously, why not take advantage? They got this place tricked out. Daily massages, guided meditation, a freaking world-class chef. And of course you’d be detoxing with professional supervision.”
“Sounds good,” said Luce. “But I’m more of a Gatorade and Imodium girl, if you know what I’m saying.”
“How much is it if you don’t have insurance?” I said. “Any scholarships available?”
Luce turned to me. “No way. You’d do it?”
I told her if I could afford it, I’d think it over. After everything that had happened, I’d take whatever would help us get clean. “But only if you’re going.”
“Huh,” said Luce. For the first time, she appeared to consider the possibility. She looked at Ms. Florida. “This isn’t one of those six-month deals is it? We got jobs to think about.”
“Most people graduate in twenty-eight days unless they backslide. And after that there’s a sober-living option.” Ms. Florida pushed her aviator glasses higher on her nose. “We don’t have any scholarships, though. Insurance only.”
It hadn’t been something I’d wanted or even known about five minutes earlier and yet the old familiar lump of disappointment formed in my stomach. Money, money, money, money.
“I get it,” I said.
I turned to Luce, thinking we’d say goodbye to Ms. Florida and head out already. Our run hadn’t been very long, so we probably wouldn’t have the worst withdrawals ever, but it would still be a good idea to swing by the store, get some food in the house, restock our children’s chewables. And then I saw Luce’s hand. It kept opening and closing, like some kind of sick mixed-up flower. I filled my lungs with air, let it out slowly.
I told Luce she should still go.
She looked at me funny, like maybe she didn’t hear me.
“I mean it,” I said, louder this time. “You go get better there, I’ll get better here, and we’ll meet up again when it’s all over.”
“You’re okay with me going to Florida,” she said. “Without you.”
I said if it helped her get healthy again, then yes. “Anything you need. I’m here for you always.”
For the first time in a long while, Luce looked at me the way she did back in the beginning. So warm and tender it was like god herself had shot me up with the pure stuff.
“You’re a good friend,” she said.
We got a ride home from Ms. Florida. Luce handed over her insurance info. Ms. Florida took a photo of the card with her fancy iPhone and forwarded it to her boss. Said as long as they didn’t hit any snags, approval shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours. “They’ll send a plane ticket and we’ll get started.”
“A plane ticket,” I said. “They fly people down there?”
“What kind of snags we talking,” said Luce.
“You know.” Ms. Florida zipped up her coat, draped her purse over her shoulder. “The usual corporate hassle. Have to make sure your coverage lines up. And then once you’re checked into our center, we’ll need a dirty urine test so we can prove you need treatment.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Luce said, following her to the door. “Though I do have a pretty good metabolism. Stuff rips through my system. You think I’ll still pop hot by the time I get there?”
Ms. Florida turned back to face her, cool as ever. “Testing clean is an easy fix. We got a guy. Don’t worry.”
Two days later, Luce was on a plane for the first time in her life, heading south to Delray.
MY FAVORITE MEMORIES OF LUCE:
Driving across the mountain in her grandma’s Impala, taking the hairpins as fast as possible, listening to her CD mixes and singing our heads off
Gulping Monster Energy drinks every afternoon while we changed into our work uniforms, trying to amp ourselves up for another night of serving
Stringing a week’s worth of the empty cans onto a clothesline and shooting them up with her BB gun
The way she’d steal all the best tables from all the worst servers
The way she’d help out if she saw you were slammed, refilling iced teas and coffees and taking dessert orders
How if a customer gave you a hard time, she’d walk over and pretend she was the shift supervisor and tell them if they said one more wrong word, they’d be 86ed
I made endless lists like this when she first went to Florida. What else was I supposed to do? Stare down all the giant Luce-size holes in the air around me? Ugly, gaping things.
It wasn’t like the two of us could talk to each other. Before she left, we destroyed the clerk’s shitty burner with her BB rifle and bought the cheapest of cheap Tracfones, but aside from the texts we exchanged when she switched planes in Atlanta, I didn’t hear from her no matter how many messages I left or how often I tried calling. The person you are trying to reach is not available. How many times I’ve heard that in my life. When I called the treatment center to talk to her, the man who answered said unfortunately this was impossible, that phone usage was forbidden in the early weeks of recovery. When I tried to argue, saying I just wanted to make sure she was doing okay, he assured me Luce was great and I shouldn’t worry.
“A star patient,” he said.
Even this scrap of news kept me happy. Sober. Strangely, I didn’t think all that much about using once I got past the first week or so, though I did think about Luce more than was probably healthy. It was like the song of her had become stuck on a loop in my head. It got so I was always imagining what she was doing at any given moment. Lying in bed, gazing at the pink lollipop sun outside her window. Knuckling sleep out of her eyes in the bathroom mirror. Sitting in the dining hall and forking one of their fancy omelets into her mouth.
From what I knew of rehab, I figured she’d have group right after breakfast and as I sat circled up in the church basement from 8 to 9 every morning, I took comfort in the idea of Luce sitting in her own meeting, sharing her stories. The doctor in charge, who I imagined as a sensible-looking woman with a notebook full of tiny immaculate writing, would know exactly what to say and when to say it. Chores would come next and lunch would follow. Maybe one-on-one therapy after that. Later she’d get a bit of afternoon free time, which is when Luce and all the other residents would ride bikes alo
ng a sandy little path down to the ocean. Seashell collecting, volleyball, Frisbee. Maybe someone would even teach her how to swim. All this and more played out in my mind like a movie with the best soundtrack ever: Luce getting better, little by little. By god I was going to get better too.
I still wasn’t ready to face Greenie, so I put my 1:30 home group on hold and added the 7 p.m. meeting to my daily schedule. Stay busy they kept saying and it’s true this helped stop my mind from roaming to dangerous places. It also gave me the chance to hear a bunch more stories from a whole new set of people. I shared a few stories too. When the night crowd heard about me blowing up my savings during my final run with Teena, a couple of them came up after and offered me part-time gigs as a dog-walker. “To help keep the wolf away from the door.” Another one loaned me a high-end neoprene knee brace with fancy hinges and cutouts, and soon I was going on afternoon hikes all over our mountain with a little collie mix named Bella and a huskie/mastiff combo named BooBoo. I couldn’t wait to introduce them to Luce. The smell of loblolly pines, gauzy light, a pair of dogs trotting beside you. Walking through the woods, I’ve come to discover, can help remind you what’s important.
Luce’s pink toothbrush in the cup in the bathroom
Her eyeshadow palette with the secret compartment
Her black hoodie slung over the back of the sofa
Her glorious dogtooth
Meetings twice a day might sound like a lot of commitment, but it’s not so hard when you don’t have a job to deal with. It’s nobody’s fault except mine. When my suspension ended it took me a few days to return Marshall’s messages and with both me and Luce out of the picture he had no choice but to hire replacements. He did promise to work me back into the schedule after I put six months’ clean time together. I think he would have too.
Before Luce left, I’d never been the type to share much at meetings, but once she was no longer sitting beside me, for some reason I started talking more than usual. Probably because I was trying to make sense of all that had happened. Also, I was lonely, lonely. Except for the occasional grocery store clerk or a random neighbor encounter, meetings were the only time I talked to anyone. I shared about how Luce and I met, our job at the pool hall, getting revenge on Ronnie Ankle, working that Buck-a-Dog booth. Copping pandas from Chicken Feathers and his blocked-up mother. Being screwed over by Gayle Crystal. A little bit about getting roofied, though it would take a few more years before I was ready to dig into all that. None of it was easy, but once it was over I was almost always glad I’d spoken up.