by Lee, Dana
As we reached the parking lot, Angie told us that tomorrow’s meeting started at eight p.m. and I told Ally I’d pick her up about seven-thirty. Angie waved and drove off in her black and white Mini Cooper convertible. I could see Ally was impressed with Angie’s choice of a car.
We, on the other hand, piled into Old Ray. Ray sputtered a bit the first few times I turned the ignition key, but I eventually got him started up and drove Ally back to her dorm, making a mental note to take Ray back to the garage sometime soon so Norm could look him over again.
Ally and I were both pretty quiet on the way. I made some small talk about the store, new shoe models, the fact that Jess was going to be my business partner. She mumbled some responses—“Yeah?” and “Gee, really?” and “Great!”—but I could tell she was hardly listening. I couldn’t make myself talk about the elephant in the room, or I guess I should say the elephant in the car. The topic we were avoiding, alcoholism, seemed to be crowding all other thoughts out of the small space and making real conversation impossible.
We both understood something had changed, though. Somehow Ally agreeing to go to the AA meeting had caused a shift in reality as we had known it. For the first time, she was admitting that she had a problem and I was admitting that she was the one who had to be in charge of solving it. We’d have to take things one step at a time.
“See you tomorrow night, Sis,” Ally said as she got out of the car. “And thanks again.” She looked exhausted and a bit shaky on her feet. I resisted the urge to ask if she needed help getting to her room. She had to begin to take responsibility for her own actions, and that included dragging herself back to her room, however tired she might be. I had to stop being a one-woman rescue committee.
“See you tomorrow,” I called after her.
I watched her as she swiped her ID and entered her dorm through a side door. I couldn’t believe that she’d actually thanked me for the second time that day.
# # # # #
One thing about being the owner of a store is that you can’t just take a day off whenever you want to—I had discovered that pretty early on. You can’t call in sick because there’s no one to call. You can’t play hooky or you’ll forfeit a day’s income.
So despite an almost sleepless night, I was on the doorstep of The Finish Line bright and early the next morning. Well, early anyway. I had gotten out of bed just after 5:30 and gone for a five-mile run and that had helped clear my mind a little, even though my heart was still aching from my last words to Levi.
The good news is that being the proprietor of a store doesn’t leave you a lot of time to brood. I wasn’t exactly Little Miss Sunshine, but I had to put on a happy face for my customers, and I was amazed at how just having to smile at people made me feel at least a little better.
And I could tell how happy Jess was with her new status as partner. She always flew around the store at a rapid pace, but there was something different about her manner today as she tried extra hard to please the Saturday crowd. I felt good about my choice, happy that I had made her happy.
Jess had wanted to know what happened with Ally, so I told her about Angie and about tonight’s meeting. I hadn’t mentioned the Saturday night concert ticket Levi had given me, so she had no idea what I was giving up by going to AA with Ally. I really didn’t want to talk about Levi. I wanted to avoid thinking about a problem that had no solution.
On my lunch break, though, I couldn’t help myself. I checked Levi’s website just to see his face, and, yes, to see where his tour was headed next. There he was in his signature Stetson, fingers of his right hand raised to the brim as if in greeting, deep blue eyes crinkling at the corners, smiling the smile that played in the dreams and daydreams of his female fans across the country.
I was somehow hoping that the next stop on his tour might be Boston or New York or Philadelphia or really anywhere on the East Coast, anywhere within a reasonable driving distance. But the next concert listed on Levi’s website was Cleveland, Ohio, followed by Chicago, followed by Kansas City and then a string of cities that led steadily westward until he reached San Francisco by Christmas time.
I thought of the thousands of fans waiting to see him in those cities. Well, to be honest, I thought of the thousands of women who were going to be swooning at the sight of him. I thought about what Angie said about him never again wanting to hurt someone he loves. Maybe it was easier for Levi to have thousands of women in love with him than to be in love with one woman. He could make love to thousands of women with his songs and never have to worry about hurting any of them. He could write about “falling for a girl I never wanted to lose,” without actually having to fall for her. In the world of his songs, love was easy.
My eyes filled with tears as I recalled the past week. These last seven days hadn’t been a wild and crazy passionate ride the way I originally expected when Levi first asked me out, or the way I’m sure Jess had imagined. There had been something positively old-fashioned about our dates, even our moments of passion, as if the business of getting to know each other was the first step on a long journey, as if he felt that we had a future together. That was exactly it. Without ever saying it out loud, Levi had made me feel that we had a future together.
But then he had walked away when I needed him most. And tomorrow he’d be leaving for Ohio and points west. He might as well be taking off for Timbuktu. My tears welled over and began to run down my cheeks. I angrily brushed them away with a clenched fist. How could he have walked out of the infirmary without a backward glance? How could he? What the heck kind of happily-ever-after future was that?
But I gave myself a mental kick in the pants. The truth was that I had sent him away and he had gone. I hadn’t told him that I needed him. In fact, I had told him Ally was all I could deal with.
And so here I was wondering why he had left, why he hadn’t texted or called. Well, duh.
Knowing where to lay the blame, squarely on my own shoulders, should have made things easier, should have eased the ache in my heart, should have made me straighten my shoulders and tell myself to get on with life. Actually, it just made me feel worse.
Honestly, what’s a girl to do? I had told one guy I loved him, and that had made him leave. So I learned my lesson, didn’t tell Levi that I loved him… and that had made him leave.
And Levi? He had loved someone and his drinking had hurt her. So when I made it clear that alcohol and alcoholism were painful issues for me… he had left. What’s a guy to do?
I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and was about to put on my headphones so I could listen to a couple of Levi’s songs without Jess or Dan hearing what I was doing. But I stopped myself. I could spend my lunch hour wallowing in self-pity, or I could figure out a way to at least see Levi one last time.
I grabbed my purse and pulled out the ticket to tonight’s concert. Maybe I couldn’t get to the casino in time for his whole performance, but if the AA meeting didn’t last too long, maybe I could get there after intermission. Or even at the tail end. All I knew was that I had to see Levi one more time, to see what I felt when I looked at him in person. To read what I saw on his face when he looked at me.
I blew my nose and dried my eyes and combed my hair, ready to face the Saturday afternoon crowd at The Finish Line. My mind was still in turmoil; my heart was still aching. But at least I had a plan.
# # # # #
That evening, Ally and I got to First Lutheran a little early. I think she wanted to be safely in her seat by the time other people started filing in for the AA meeting. The color had come back into her cheeks and she walked in with steady resolve. She was dressed simply in jeans and a blue oxford cloth shirt with a green college sweatshirt slung over her shoulders, but I could tell she had taken some time with her make-up.
“I’m proud of you, Ally,” I said in a whisper as we sat down. She didn’t respond, just gave me a small smile.
Maybe twenty more people eventually straggled into the meeting. Most came singly, though a f
ew came as couples. Quite a few people lingered outside, smoking, until the last second before the meeting was to start. I had heard that people often traded one addiction for another. There was a pot of coffee at the back of the room and an open box of cookies. A few people helped themselves. Cigarettes, caffeine, and sugar—well, I thought, whatever works.
Angie was there, dressed down for the occasion in jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. She opened the meeting with the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I couldn’t help thinking of Levi. What could I change? What would I have to just accept? Angie’s voice brought me back to the meeting as I heard her ask if anyone wanted to speak.
I can’t tell you specifically what went on that night since everything that goes on at AA meetings is always held in strict confidence. People talked about how drinking had made them feel wonderful, made them forget all their problems… but how drinking had also wrecked their health, their careers, alienated spouses and children, left them alone and destitute. There was more than one story of being in an auto wreck. I thought of Levi and his ex-wife, tried to imagine the guilt he must have felt while she was recovering. One theme the stories seemed to share was that the road to recovery was never easy, never straight. Glancing at Ally, I hoped that the agony the speakers had endured, the pain they were now sharing, could deeply change my sister in a way that my tough love had not.
Ally was the youngest person in the room. Five or six people had spoken before she gathered the courage to raise her hand. My eyes filled with tears as she started to speak.
“My name is Ally,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic. I’m not sure what makes it official. But I know that alcohol is starting to screw up my life. And it’s certainly been screwing up my sister’s life…” She directed a small, shy smile my way and nodded back toward where I was sitting. As people turned around to look at me, there was a very small ripple of laughter—these were people who knew the effect drinking could have on loved ones.
While she talked, I began to realize how the times I’d stepped in and rescued Ally were the barest tip of the iceberg. She talked about ways of getting alcohol that had never existed when I was an undergraduate, about adding vodka to a carton of milk at bedtime in the dorm, about concealing gin in a water bottle that she kept in her backpack. Her words made me worry even more about her chances for recovery.
But she was here, that was the important thing. There was some quiet applause when she finished talking. One of the women reached out to take her hand as she walked by, offering a smile and a few words of encouragement.
Then Angie got up and said there would be a 15-minute break. The smokers could be seen pulling packs of cigarettes out of purses or pockets and heading for the door to a small courtyard at the side of the church since no smoking was allowed inside. The rest of us filed over to the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee or reached for a cookie just for something to do, something to keep from having to make small talk.
I took a quick look at my watch. It was 9:15. Levi’s concert would be having an intermission about now, too. I was hoping and praying that the second part of this meeting would pass more quickly, but there was no way I could walk out on Ally, no way that I could leave her here by herself after the break and ask her to catch a ride back to the dorm with some stranger. Just coming here and speaking had taken so much courage on her part that there was no way I could tell her that I had something else I needed to do… even though that something else was making my heart ache with longing. Even though the only place I wanted to be was in Levi’s arms, or at the very least, in his audience.
Fortunately, there were only two more speakers after the intermission. Angie closed the meeting with another prayer. It was just past 10:00. In my head, I was calculating the fifteen minutes back to Ally’s dorm, then the twenty or more to the casino, then the walk from the parking garage, and finally the seemingly endless trek through the gambling rooms before I would get to the concert arena. It might be an hour before I could get there. If I really hurried, if traffic was with me.
The group broke up with maddening slowness, as if people were reluctant to leave this small fraternity of understanding fellowship, unwilling to rejoin the outside world. Ally lingered to talk with Angie; I heard Angie say the word “sponsor” and wondered if she herself had volunteered to sponsor Ally. I counted to sixty, then a hundred and twenty, willing myself to stay calm. The last thing I wanted to do was put any stress on my sister. I refused to let myself look at my watch.
I went outside to wait for Ally. Things just had to work out for me tonight. They just had to. It seemed like forever before Ally finally walked out the door, but seeing the look on her face when she joined me made the wait worth every second. She had lost some of the guarded look I had seen on her face lately, the look that that had been shutting me out. I gave a silent prayer of my own, thankful that there were angels like Angie around.
Then I called out, “Race you to the car!” and took off running across the parking lot. Even though I had a head start, she beat me by a yard. Hmmm. Maybe I could get her interested in helping out with the store’s fun runs in the future.
More importantly, though, it got us to the car quickly. I started Old Ray’s engine as quickly as I could and drove her back to campus as fast as I dared.
“Want to come in for a glass of milk or something?” she asked as she got out of the car. Then, seeing my look she said, “No, I really do mean just milk.”
“Can’t tonight, sweetie, big Columbus Day sale tomorrow.” That much was true, even though it had nothing to do with my wanting to hurry off right now. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m really proud of you, Sis,” I said, and blew her a kiss.
I started the car and took off, trying hard not to burn rubber. Obeying the campus speed limit of twenty miles an hour was excruciating. Then I had to wind my way through the quiet streets of town with the traffic lights that brought me to a halt every block or two. Then at last I was on the highway, an open four-lane road with nothing but forest on either side as far as you could see.
The moon was full and the sky clear as I drove along. I imagined I could hear Levi singing, and I remembered the first time I had heard “A Girl Like You.” I thought about the song he had sung when he visited The Finish Line, the song about my princess shoes. Maybe by now he had finished writing it. Maybe he’d be singing it tonight. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get there in time to hear it.
I’d tucked the shoes into my oversized purse when I was getting ready for the evening, just in case. Maybe they’d be a kind of good luck charm; maybe they’d help me get there with time to spare. Maybe. Just maybe.
I looked down at the clock on my dashboard. Nearly 11:15. I willed Levi to let this last concert in Connecticut be an extra-long one. I prayed that the audience would demand encore after encore.
I glanced at the clock again. 11:20.
And then I noticed something else on the dashboard, something I’d completely forgotten to check: my gas gauge. The needle was just above the “empty” red mark. I thought about all the times that my father had admonished me to always check how much gas was left in the tank before I started out on a trip. And just at that moment I heard a low beeping noise as the small, gas-pump icon started flashing yellow. Well, wouldn’t you just know it.
The road to the casino was at least five more exits away and I had no idea how many miles that was or how many miles I could continue driving before Old Ray ran out of gas completely. The last thing in the world that I wanted to do just now was get off the highway to find a gas station.
Well, actually, no, the very last thing I wanted to do was to try hitchhiking on a deserted stretch of highway at past 11:00 at night. Gritting my teeth and giving myself several dozen mental head slaps, I got off at the next exit. Of course, the first gas station I came to was closed for the night, so I had to follow the unknown r
oad wherever it led, hoping that I’d see a gas station before Old Ray ran dry.
I was almost holding my breath as I drove down the dark road, as if any weight, even the weight of extra oxygen in my lungs, would make the car burn gas more quickly. The little gas pump icon continued blinking. I was nearly in tears when I finally, finally, saw a yellow light and the familiar scallop-shaped sign of a gas station. And it was open! I pulled up next to a sign that said “self,” turned off the engine, and hopped out, credit card in hand, to pump my own gas.
Old Ray usually takes about fifteen gallons and I had a serious debate with myself whether to fill the tank all the way or just to stick in a couple of gallons and get back on the road and on to the casino as quickly as possible. I decided to fill the tank—who knew whether I’d find another gas station open at this time of night?—even though it was agony enduring the extra seconds it took as the pump ticked off the trickle of gasoline a maddeningly slow tenth of a gallon at a time.
By the time I climbed back into the car, I was so tense I was practically jumping out of my own skin. The clock said 11:30. Really? That was all? It felt like filling up the gas tank had gone on for hours. I forced myself to take several deep breaths as I put the key in the ignition and turned it. There was the old familiar sput-sput-sput and then… nothing.
Seriously? Nothing?
I tried again. Sput-sput-sput-sput. Sput-sput-sput-sput.
I knew I shouldn’t do it, but in my frustration I put my foot on the gas pedal and pumped hard. Again. And again. Tears of frustration were stinging my eyes. This just was not fair.
I saw an attendant coming toward me and quickly wiped my tears away.
“Something wrong, miss?” he asked.
“Car won’t start,” I replied, trying not to scream the words.
“Want me to give it a try?” he asked. Sure, I was thinking, it’ll probably start right up if a guy gets behind the wheel.