Spin

by Catherine McKenzie

  Just five seconds.

  I’m having a dream that’s a mixed-up jumble of Lost and what I’ve just left. “You can do it, Kate,” Jack says, before dissolving into Dr. Houston. “Count to five and you can go to sleep.”

  “But I am sleeping,” I say.

  “So, wake up then.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Well, too bad.”

  The blanket is pulled from my knees, and I feel cold. Why is Jack/Dr. Houston being so mean to me?

  “Why did you eat my food?”

  I open my eyes. Joanne is standing above me holding the Thai food container I buried in the trash. It’s covered with coffee grounds and a few pieces of broken eggshell.

  “Is this your way of telling me you missed me?”

  Joanne folds her arms across her maroon polo shirt. “Well?”

  I guess not.

  “Relax, Joanne.”

  “But that’s what I was going to have for dinner.”

  “So we’ll order some more. My treat.”

  Her eyebrows rise. “You’re paying? Fine. I want chicken pad Thai, extra spicy.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll have.” I stand up and stretch. I have a terrible crick in my neck. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “About six thirty. When did you get home?”

  “Around one.”

  “Have you been sleeping this whole time?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Tough day at the office?”

  “Knock it off, Joanne.”

  She looks contrite. “Sorry. How come you didn’t tell me you were coming home?”

  “Don’t take it personally. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I wasn’t taking it personally.”

  “If you say so. I’m going to take a shower.”

  She picks up her cell phone. “Do you want me to order for you?”

  “Nah, that’s OK. I’ll just eat some of yours.”

  She frowns. “You didn’t change one bit in rehab, did you?”

  “Oh, I’ve changed a few things.”

  The food arrives just as I’ve finished drying my hair. I fork over forty bucks to the delivery guy and tell him to keep the change, feeling generous and, finally, a little celebratory.

  We unload the pad Thai and mee grob Joanne ordered for me onto plates and munch in companionable (sort of) silence around the tiny circular table tucked into the corner of the living room. I look around our apartment, sensing that something’s different, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  “Did you move some of the furniture?” I ask.

  She puts a large pile of noodles in her mouth. “No.”

  I push my seat away from the table and put my hands on my protruding stomach, enjoying the comfortable almost-eaten-enough-to-be-sick-but-not-quite feeling.

  “You’ve lost weight,” Joanne says, looking jealous.

  Fourteen pounds to be exact. I’m back to where I was when I started university, and feeling pretty good about it.

  “True.”

  “It suits you.”

  “Thanks, Joanne.”

  Our doorbell buzzes, the loud zzzttt making us both jump.

  “Could you get that?” she asks.

  “It’s probably those Mormon guys again. They’ll go away.”

  Zzzttt!

  Joanne gives me a furtive look. “I think you should get it.”

  “Joanne, what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Cut the crap, Joanne.”

  “I may have called a few people.”

  Zzzttt!

  Shit.

  “You could’ve asked me before you invited people over.”

  She picks up our plates and walks them toward the kitchen. “Well, soorrryyy for trying to do something nice for you. It won’t happen again.”

  I walk to the door and press the intercom button.

  “Who is it?”

  “IT’S US!”

  I press the buzzer and open the door. Greer, Scott, and Rory clomp up the stairs, grinning at me like I’ve just given birth. Rory’s wearing a peach dress that complements her glowing olive skin. She looks like she’s put on a few more pounds since she visited me in rehab.

  “Are you surprised?” Rory asks as I close the door behind them.

  “Very.”

  “What’s with the stealth homecoming?” Scott says. His sandy hair is a little longer than he usually wears it, and it falls across his forehead in a seductive, I’m-probably-no-good-for-you kind of way.

  Greer throws her arm across my shoulder. “Yeah, lassie. We wanted to throw you a party.”

  Rory looks shocked. “Greer! I’m sure Katie doesn’t want a P-A-R-T-Y.”

  “I haven’t suddenly turned into a three-year-old, Ror.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s OK. Anyway, you’re right. I’m not really up for a party right now, but I would love to hang out with you guys.”

  Greer plops down on the couch and plunks her worn-in cowboy boots on the coffee table. Her braids hang over her shoulders. “Excellent.”

  “Hey, no feet on the table,” Joanne says as she comes out of the kitchen.

  “Ah, Joanne. How lovely to see you again.”

  I sit down next to Greer. Scott sits on my other side, and we both put our feet on the coffee table next to Greer’s, giggling.

  “I said . . .”

  I sigh. “Oh, will you relax already, Joanne? You found this table on a street corner.”

  “It’s an antique.”

  “It was in someone’s trash.”

  “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a party,” Scott says. “Where do you keep the mixers?”

  My eyes flit to the corner of the room. I finally realize what it is about the apartment that’s changed. The liquor cabinet, and the wine stand that sat next to it, are gone.

  “Joanne, did you toss all the alcohol?”

  Her chin lifts. “Yes.”

  I feel a flash of anger that’s replaced by something closer to . . . gratitude, I guess.

  “Wow, that’s, um, really sweet of you, actually.”

  Greer is incredulous. “It’s a crime, that is.”

  “We don’t need alcohol to have a good time, do we?” Rory asks, looking at me with apprehension.

  “Of course we don’t.”

  Scott looks disappointed, but Greer simply looks philosophical.

  “What do you guys want to do?” Scott asks.

  “Anyone up for a game of Risk?”

  I wake up the next morning early, feeling confused. I reach out my hands, expecting to hit air. Instead I come across more mattress, and I realize that I’m in my own bed, in my own apartment, free.

  I look at the clock. It’s 7:02. Outside of rehab, I haven’t been up this early in a good way since I can’t remember when. I’ve seen it plenty of bad ways, of course. Coming home from after-hours places, doing the walk of shame, waking up to puke.

  But enough of that. That’s the past. I have my future to start. So, action plan. Get up. Go for a run. Call Bob. Write story. Land dream job.

  Piece of cake.

  I pull out the snazzy shorts and workout top I got when Rory bought me that gym membership. They’re loose on me despite the massive dinner I ate last night. Oh rehab diet, please let your effects be permanent.

  I let myself out of the apartment quietly and walk down to the street. I decide to run ten minutes in one direction, and then head back.

  I put the iTouch on shuffle, and the first song it kicks up is The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” I never really listened to the words before, which is clearly why I never realized this song is about an intervention.

  I hit the skip button. Coldplay’s “Fix You” starts to play.

  This is ridiculous. Has my iTouch achieved sentience?

  I hit the skip button again. OK. Matt Nathanson’s “All We Are.” Much better. A nice little love song. Or, maybe not. In fact, this is so not the song to make me for
get about how much easier running was when I had Henry’s constant chatter to listen to.

  Maybe I don’t need to be listening to music right this very minute.

  I turn it off and concentrate on the patterns on the sidewalk and the sounds of the city waking up around me. It feels strange running here. The air is different, for starters. And then there’s the noise. At the Oasis, I was in, well, an oasis. The only noises were the birds, the bugs, the frogs, or the very occasional car that drove past the road on the other side of the wall. But here, delivery trucks backing up, horns tooting, and the babble of very busy people on their cell phones assaults me. And the smell. Old garbage, car exhaust, millions of bodies. I don’t remember the city smelling this bad. Maybe I’m just used to the sweet smell of dew-covered grass and spring wildflowers, but I feel raw, like a new baby brought home from the hospital in a little pink cap.

  This is probably why people run in the park, right? Isn’t that what Henry said? “Maybe I’ll see you around the park sometime?” That was a clue. Only Henry’s still in rehab, so maybe he was speaking generically? Or maybe he was warning me? Telling me he runs in the park so I could avoid it if I didn’t want to see him. And I don’t want to see him, right? That’s what the whole Confessions of a Thirty-Year-Old Drama Queen was all about, wasn’t it?

  Argh! So glad I’ve brought my spinning brain home with me, intact.

  I loop around the block and head back to the apartment, finally falling into a good, mindless rhythm. I sprint the last block, feeling exhilarated. I check my watch. Nineteen minutes, thirty seconds. I shaved half a minute off on my way back. I rock!

  I bound up the stairs to the apartment. Back in my room, I find a piece of paper on my bed with Joanne’s scrawl across it. Bob says show up at his office ASAP or else.

  Time to face the music.

  “What the fuck is that?” Bob says, shoving a picture of a black SUV in my face an hour later.

  “A picture of a black SUV?”

  “Don’t play cute with me, Kate. Who’s in the fucking SUV?”

  I take the picture. It’s the SUV Amber and I left rehab in yesterday. And just visible through the tinted windows are Amber and . . . me.

  “Amber’s in the SUV.”

  Bob folds his arms across his expensive blue business shirt. “That’s right. And what’s wrong with this picture?”

  I notice the white logo in the corner. “It’s on TMZ’s website?”

  “Right again. And what I want to know is why it’s not on my website?”

  I expel a long breath. I was worried about this briefly yesterday when we were attacked by the paparazzi who’d waited patiently for Amber for thirty-five days.

  “I didn’t want to blow my cover.”

  He looks down at me in a way that’s almost menacing. “I see. You didn’t want to blow your cover.”

  Uh-oh.

  “There were only a few people who knew Amber was leaving, and they aren’t the type who’d alert the paparazzi. She would’ve known it was me.”

  “So?”

  “So . . . I thought it was a good idea to maintain my cover as long as possible.”

  “No. You had to maintain your cover as long as you were in rehab. Now that you’re out, I don’t give a fuck.”

  “But I’m still gathering stuff for my article . . .”

  Bob’s eyes narrow in anger. “Kate, I have a Pavlovian response to bullshit. And let me tell you, my salivary glands are working overtime right now.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to tell me that everything is on track, and that your article is going to be on my desk by next Friday.”

  “Or what?”

  Whoops.

  Bob’s face gets red. “Or I’m invoking clause seven of your contract, and you owe us $30,000. I may even sue you for damages if I can stomach talking to our lawyers more than I already have to.”

  Clause seven? $30,000? Shit. I really should’ve read that thing more closely. Or, you know, not made such a major life decision in the time it takes for words to travel through the space between two people.

  “You’re not going to have to do that.”

  “You’ll deliver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  He walks behind his desk, his mind clearly already onto the next thing. I rise to leave, my shoulders slouched, my head down.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! This is by far the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Why the hell did I ever agree to this? Oh, right . . . wait a minute . . .

  “Um, Bob.”

  He barely looks up from the papers he’s shuffling through. “Yes?”

  “What about the job at The Line?”

  “It’s still available.”

  “Available for me?”

  “Maybe. If you deliver.”

  His eyes meet mine, but I can’t read his expression. I wish my salivary glands could tell me whether he’s being truthful, or whether he’s simply keeping this possibility alive to get what he needs from me.

  “I’ll deliver.”

  He smiles that same slightly perverted smile he gave me a month ago in this very office. “You’d better.”

  Chapter 21

  Detritus

  Day One: Operation Write Killer Exposé about TGND.

  I’m sitting at my computer looking for a way into the story I have nine days to write. And that sounds like a long time, right? It sounds like . . . 216 hours. But I have to sleep, so it’s really like . . . 144 hours, if I get a good night’s sleep. Which I’m probably not going to, so it’s probably more like 171 hours. But then I need to eat at least three times a day (20 hours), and take showers (4.5 hours), and take breaks (10 hours), leaving me 136.5 hours. Shit, I forgot running. Not that that takes much time, but still. OK, minus another five hours for running (let’s be optimistic), which makes 131.5 hours.

  And now I’ve just wasted at least ten minutes figuring that out. Great time management.

  OK, focus. What am I going to write? What have I learned? What am I trying to say?

  I have no frickin’ idea.

  I can’t even pick a title.

  All I can think of are silly variations on existing titles like Amber, Interrupted and Amber Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. It’s all derivative and boring.

  Maybe I’m derivative and boring, and I’ll only be able to write a derivative and boring article? Maybe if it sucks they won’t run it, and I can get myself out of a sticky spot without any collateral damage? Yeah, that might work. But then, of course, no job at The Line, either. And really, who cares if it’s badly written? Was the piece that made Gossip Central famous actually well written? Did anyone read it and think, now there’s a nice turn of phrase, or, what a little gem of alliteration? Hell, no. The only important thing was, is, the information, and so long as it makes it from my brain to the page, it won’t matter if it’s written in the passive voice or full of dangling participles. It won’t matter to anyone but me.

  So, what do I write? What leaves my brain and what stays behind?

  My mental state is not being helped by the fact that I received a text from Amber as I walked home from Bob’s office. (Writer’s procrastination tip number one: Walk everywhere.) We’d exchanged phone numbers on the ride home, but I didn’t really expect her to keep in touch.

  But beep, beep went my phone, and there it was, a text from TGND.

  Where RU?

  Walking. U?

  Luxuriating.

  Big word.

  Big soft bed.

  Alone?

  Course!

  What’s up?

  Hiding from the paps. U?

  Trying to get a job.

  Good luck.

  Thx.

  Did I really just solicit Amber’s luck to get a job at her expense? What the hell is wrong with me?

  Fuck, this is depressing. You’d think that after having sat around doing essentially no
thing for the last month I’d be full of get-up-and-go. Full of vim and vigor. Full of . . . shit, I’m all out of aphorisms. Wait, is that the right term? No, I don’t think so. Argh. OK, OK, it’ll come to me . . . idiom? Right, idioms. Anyway, I’m all out of idioms, or stupid phrases that mean I should be full of energy.

  My stomach rumbles as my phone beep, beeps. I stretch my arms over my head. My entire body creaks and pops from sitting in one spot for so long. (OK, it was just a couple of hours, but it felt really long.) I dig my phone out of my purse and read Greer’s text.

  Party 2nite?

  Party?

  Oops.

  It’s OK.

  How bout dins @ the pub?

  ? time.

  Any.

  CU soon.

  :)

  Perfect. Exactly what I need. (Writer’s procrastination tip number two: Have long meals with friends.) I’ll distract myself for a few hours having dinner with Greer, get to bed early, and work a solid eight hours tomorrow. I’ll be wasting a few hours, but that will still leave me at least a hundred if I start bright and early.

  Plenty of time.

  Meeting Greer at the pub starts to feel like a bad idea about thirty seconds after I enter the place. That’s as long as it takes to shift my attention from the smell of stale beer to the pretty rows of bottles behind Steve’s head.

  The problem is, I haven’t fully decided if I’m really giving up drinking for good, or just until I turn in my article and secure my future. Either way, it means I’m not drinking right now, and that feels harder than I thought it would in this environment.

  I slide into the red vinyl booth across from Greer. She’s wearing a white peasant blouse and her long curly hair cascades past her shoulders. She looks striking, as always, though I notice that the whites of her eyes are bloodshot.

  “Rough night?”

  She takes a sip of her Bloody Mary. “You don’t even want to know.”

  She’s probably right, but I can’t help feeling a little jealous.

  “Anyone I know?”

  She waves her hand dismissively. The smell of alcohol wafts toward me. “Just another scrounger. Say, did anything ever happen with that guy?”