by Paul Hina
cold breeze blow in, and watches those legs step over the threshold.
The door shuts behind her.
She stands at the top of the stairs, waiting.
Then she slowly—very slowly—begins to descend the stairs. Sam turns his attention back to Ellyn so as not to call attention to the fact that he's been staring at this strange woman. God knows, she's probably nervous enough, she doesn't need twenty-some odd pairs of eyes directed at her.
Almost no one takes any notice of her as she goes to the table that holds the coffee, grabs a cup, and fills it up. She passes behind the old man and Sam, turns into their row, and takes the seat to the right of Sam. As she sits, Sam catches her scent. It washes over him like rose water. It was a welcome change from the boozy aroma emanating from the guy on his left.
He desperately wants to look over at her, but he is in that strange position of both not wanting to let his curiosity show, and wanting to make her feel as comfortable as possible. It's important to help someone so clearly full of trepidation carry on with the illusion that they're just another face in the crowd.
"Are you here with your dad?" she whispers, leaning up, looking at the old-timer sitting next to Sam. It's the first time he's seen her face, and she is beautiful. Seriously. Breathtakingly beautiful. And young. Probably in her twenties. Up to this point, Sam had been the youngest one at this meeting.
"No, I don't really know him," Sam says, looking over at the old guy, who is currently sleeping one off.
She sits quietly now, crossing her right leg over her left, toward Sam. He feels her trouser leg bounce off his pants leg. He watches her caress her thigh, and he can't help but get the feeling that she is trying to attract his attention. Either way, he is exhilarated by her mere presence at the meeting, elevated by the nervous energy she has brought with her. Usually the coffee is to blame for his heightened anxiety. Not today.
They both sit there for several minutes, quietly listening to Ellyn, or just pretending to listen to Ellyn. Then she, this strange, beautiful woman, starts to fidget in her purse. It occurs to him that, though she sat down and spoke to him with an unlikely confidence, she is just as nervous as any other newcomer to a meeting. She has no idea that he'd watched her pace back and forth outside. She has no idea that he watched her stand at the top of the stairs, waiting, taking one step after another as slowly as every other first-timer. And this act, this sitting and talking to Sam like they were old pals, trying to joke with him, was her defense, her pretending. Just like everyone else in the room, she is a master pretender. Being a drunk gives you lots of opportunities to practice pretending, teaches you how to pretend.
"She has a face for radio. Too bad about that voice, though," she whispers to Sam about Ellyn. "No wonder you're dad is sleeping."
"Come on, " Sam says, smiling. "Be nice."
"Nice. Right," she says.
He looks over at her. She's still busy rummaging around in her purse. She is clearly desperate to find something. He watches her hands. Her nails are bitten down to the skin, chewed down as far as they can go without gnawing into the flesh.
She is wearing a suit, nice black slacks and a black jacket over a shiny, bronze blouse underneath. She dresses smartly, and tries to keep up the illusion of being all put together, like she has everything in order, but she is full of secrets. Just like everyone else that's ever been to a meeting, she has lost control of herself, and she's just as much of a mess as any alcoholic. She is good at hiding it, though. Better than most. Her fingernails are really the only flaw he can detect in the illusion.
"You looking for something?" Sam whispers.
"Ahh! Found it," she says a little too loudly. Some heads turn toward them as she pulls out a folded card. It's a court ordered card.
These cards are common at meetings. People who've been ordered to appear—usually repeat offenders for drinking offenses, most commonly drunk drivers—bring the cards to have them signed as evidence of their attendance, and it's certainly not uncommon for someone to try to get one signed prematurely so that they can escape early.
Now everything becomes clear to Sam. She hasn't been talking to him to mask her nervousness. She's been trying to charm him so that he will sign her card without reservation. She just wants to escape the meeting, and he must have looked like the most easy target. That's the only reason she sat here next to him, the only reason she spoke to him. He was the most obvious rube in the room.
"Would you mind signing this for me?" she asks, holding the card and a pen out to him.
"I'll be happy to," he says. "After the meeting."
"Oh, come on. I have somewhere else I have to be."
"I'm sure you do."
"No, seriously. I have a dinner party that I can't be late for."
"You're supposed to stick the cards in the basket by the coffee," he says, pointing over to the small basket on the table. "Then after the meeting someone will sign the card for you."
"Oh, I didn't know," she says, resting her card on her thigh, tapping those half-eaten fingers against the card. "I'm Jessi, by the way."
"I'm Sam."
"Sam. Okay," she says, and writes his name on the card. "That'll do, I think."
"You can't do that."
"Oh, but I did," she says, standing up. "Thanks, Sam."
She walks behind him and the sleeping old drunk, grabs the drunk's court ordered card from his shirt pocket, not disturbing him in the slightest bit, and places it in the small wicker basket next to the coffee on her way out.
As she exits, and the cold wind blows down into the meeting again, Sam looks around and everyone seems to be looking up the stairs.
She was the night's attraction.
After the meeting, sitting alone in his chair, Sam stares at his three-month bronze token. The group has gathered into cliques of scattered conversation all around him. He gets the standard pats on the back from everyone. Members stop by, one-by-one, and say things like 'Congratulations,' 'Don't leave before the miracle happens,' 'One day at a time,' and 'Keep coming back.' He hears all of the usual tropes one hears at an AA meeting. But the people here are sincere, and, though they tend to repeat themselves, they genuinely seem to mean the things they say. They don't speak AA's aphorisms like automatons referencing a script, they speak these slogans with meaningfulness. No matter where Sam is in his head during any given moment, they're trying to let him know that they've either been there, or, if they haven't been there, then they're there to listen. They genuinely want to help the world's drunks get sober, and stay sober. That is, after all, their twelfth step, the step they will never fully complete.
Today was a milestone for Sam, a personal goal that he'd reached. He's been looking to this three month token as a moment to take a breath, to sit back and allow himself a moment of pride. He's spent so much of the last three months trying to come to peace with his past that he would like to indulge himself by forgetting his life before sobriety, and to focus on his new, sober life. The problem is, he doesn't have much going on outside of AA. His job is the only thing that distracts him from his alcoholism, but, even that, is only a portion of the day. When he leaves work, he is faced with nothing but time and these meetings. Meetings are the easy part. It's easy for him not to drink when he's surrounded by a strong support system. But when it's just time facing him, things are much less certain. There are evenings—less often now—where he wonders if he could just have one drink. Maybe, he could be a moderate drinker this time. Maybe, this period of sobriety has taught him that he has some level of personal control, that he doesn't have to drink until he's lost, until he forgets.
"That's a nice one to get, isn't it?" Russell says, sitting next to Sam. "Three months. I remember my three month token. I felt like I was finally free from the burden of craving drink, but it's never really completely gone. One stressful, or particularly tense moment will remind you of that. But it is something to be proud of. And at the risk of sounding patronizing, I'm proud of you."
"Thanks."
"I mean it. I remember when you first walked in here. You were full of anger and resentment. It's been nice to see how you've changed. It's hard for you to see, I know, but you're a much calmer person today than you were three months ago."
"I feel that. I feel calmer, more grounded."
Russell is the group's leader, and Sam's sponsor. He's an older man—in his fifties. He's a big guy, a biker type. He's a balding, bearded brute that always dresses in a black t-shirt accompanied by his trusty, weathered leather vest. You get the sense that in his drinking days, he was someone you wouldn't want to cross. He asks everyone to call him Rusty, but no one does. It's one of the relics from his drinking persona that he's tried to hold onto, but just doesn't fit anymore. He's a jovial guy, and the natural leader for the meetings. He exemplifies patience and goodwill, and Sam was lucky that he so quickly took him under his wing.
Russell has saved Sam many a night from drink.
In the beginning, there were nights when he would've happily called Kelly, was on the verge of calling her. If Russell hadn't picked up his phone on any one of those nights, then his next call would've been to her, and all their toxic chemistry would've mixed back into his life, and he would be what he always was with her: hopeless and drunk.
But Russell's always been there.
"What was up with that new girl earlier?" Russell asks.
"I don't know. She came in, made a couple of cracks, and tried to get me to sign her card."
"Did you?"
"I told her I would sign it after the meeting, but that wasn't good enough for her. She just didn't want to be here."
"All we can do is plant the seeds of recovery. She has to be ready to accept them. She just wasn't ready yet."
"I guess not."
"Some of us are going to Stripe's for coffee and pie in a minute. You wanna come?"
"Not tonight, thanks. I think I'll just head home."
"You alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Listen, I know getting a token seems like a good time for reflection, but don't let your reflection take you to a place of self-loathing. It's too easy. Stay present."
"I'll try."
"Call me if anything comes up."
"I will," Sam says.
Russell stands. "See you tomorrow then?"
"Yep, I'll be here."
Sam walks into his apartment, throws his keys on a small table by the door, and puts his coat on a hook above the table. He moves inside to a mantle in his living room and pulls two tokens from his pocket—his two month's sobriety and his three month's sobriety token. He places his two month's sobriety token on the mantle with his one day and his one month token. He stares at his three month token, and thinks back to all those meetings. He's been to ninety meetings in ninety days, which many people set as a goal in AA, but few accomplish. He's exactly where he wanted to be three months ago, except for the night's quiet. And the loneliness.
He wishes he had someone to share this with.
He can hear his cell phone vibrate, hear its motor whirring on the table by the front door. He places the token back in his pocket and walks over to see who it is.
It's Kelly, his ex-girlfriend. He immediately wonders how she got his number.
It's been exactly three months since he's talked to her. He knows this because he left her the day he decided to get sober. In fact, she kind of unintentionally tossed him into sobriety.
He doesn't answer the call, let's it go to voicemail. He stands there a minute after the message shows itself on the screen of his phone, debating whether or not to listen, and decides against it. A call from Kelly was exactly what he didn't need tonight.
He briefly panics about the empty hours ahead, and how obsessing over this call, that voice mail message, will fill those hours. He starts calling Russell, but remembers that he was going out after the meeting, and, so, puts his phone in his pocket.
Sam doesn't want to think of Kelly. He and Kelly had been a disaster, a seven-year long disaster. Their chemistry, their very being together, was enough to make them lose their natural inhibitions, go crazy. They were always volatile together, which, in some ways, was alright in college, but once college was behind them, it became apparent to everyone, except themselves, that they had a problem. Sam wasn't completely blind to it though. He knew that they were drinking too much, losing far too many hours to the blackness of deepest drink. He knew it wasn't sustainable, but they never talked about it. They just kept going, just kept drinking until things went too far. And once things went too far, Sam knew they couldn't go back. They had to start over, but there could be no starting over as long as they remained together. So, he ended it with her on the steps of the County Jail three months ago.
But he didn't want to think about Kelly right now.
He pulled his three month token back out of his pocket, held it, looked at its bronze face, and it took him back to that woman from the meeting earlier, Jessi. He thought of her bright, bronze blouse. He thought of her face—that perfect face—and wondered what brought her there, the depth of her drinking. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever see her again.
When she first sat down tonight, and the scent of rose water washed over him, it reminded him of the springs and summers he spent working at his grandma's flower shop. He used to go out and spray the flowers that were displayed out on her small storefront, and when he would mist the roses, he remembers the distinct aroma of the mist hitting the roses. There was something so new, delicate, and hopeful about that smell to him then. And, now, just thinking of Jessi, that smell—that new, hopeful smell—she carried in with her tonight, makes him want to believe he will see her again, like he has to see her again, or like the hope of seeing her again is something he needs just to get him through this night.
When Sam got up the next morning, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and stared at the black screen. He turned the phone on and checked his calendar. Other than a staff meeting at nine-thirty this morning, he doesn't have anything going on. The days they don't ask too much of him at work are usually good days. It means that he might be able to get some independent work done, but now he has too much time to think about the implications of Kelly's voice mail message.
He sits up in bed, still holding the phone, and decides to just listen to the message. If he puts it off any longer, he will spend the day wondering what she might've said instead of knowing what she said, and his imagination will build layers of scenarios for him to juggle, and he can't afford the distractions this kind of thinking cultivates.
He was lucky to be able to hold off listening last night. Nights are always the most dangerous time for a recovering drinker. Mornings are the least dangerous, at least for Sam, and this is the best time for him to take in any potentially damaging information.
"Sam, It's me. I was hoping I'd get you, but I'll settle for your voicemail, I guess. (Silence, Deep breath.) It's been a long time, huh. (Silence.) I know things ended badly, and I… Well, I'd like to see you again. (Audible breath.) I miss you. We can't… We just just can't let things end the way they did and never see each other again. The finality of it is just… It's been unbearable. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear from me. I know you changed your number and everything. (Silence.) I won't tell you who gave me the number, but I will say that they made me beg.
"Listen, I know things are over for us, and I guess I have to be okay with you just up and disappearing the way you did. But I would like to think that the years we spent together have earned me a little more respect than that.
"Anyway, my number's still the same, obviously, and I'll be available whenever you want to talk. (Silence. Audible breath.) I love you, you know. Sam. Sammy. (Silence.) Bye."
Sammy. He hadn't heard anyone say that in three months. No one else had ever called him that. She was the only one.
As he got dressed, he listened to her message again on the phone's speaker. He tried to listen for signs of her drinking. Kelly was one of thos
e people whose speech was deeply affected by drink, and her thick tongue was always her tell—the telltale sign that she'd been drinking. It was almost nine in the evening when she called. By that time, if she hadn't been drunk then she had changed as much as he had in the course of the last three months. But it was the 'Sammy' at the end that gave her away. Her slowness up to that point did make him suspect that she was trying too hard to annunciate each word, speak each syllable more clearly. But when she said she loved him, she let her guard down, and her speech relaxed. Then the 'Sammy' slurred out of her mouth.
After he's dressed, he grabs his phone, puts it in his pocket with his bronze coin and keys. He moves through the apartment, grabs his coat and laptop bag before he leaves.
As he walks to the train, he can't help but think about Kelly. He knew he'd see her again at some point, his eighth step demands it. He'll have to make amends with her. Maybe, it's time. Maybe, he's finally ready to see her again. Maybe, enough time has past, and the power she once had on him has past, too. Maybe.
He passes the florist on his block, and the old Korean owner is out spraying some flowers. The flowers aren't roses, but it still moves him back to Jessi, and for the first time all morning he isn't worried about Kelly. And he smiles, recognizes he's smiling, keeps it on.
After the morning staff meeting, Sam goes back to his desk where he has every intention of disappearing into a wall of code for the next several hours. He works as a web developer, and, most recently, an app developer. He works for a small development firm, and, lucky for him, he has been friendly with the couple who own it for years. Sam's been with the company from the beginning, and if he hadn't been close to the owners then they probably would've fired him years ago. There were years when they had no idea what to expect from Sam. What time of the day would he stumble in, if at all? How many excuses, or lies would he offer for his lateness/absence? It must've been so tiresome for them to deal with his flakiness. On the plus side, though, and one thing Sam has always had going for him, is that he is very good at what he does. Even when he was drinking, he still did excellent work. So, he could be a stumble-in employee with an obvious drinking problem, and as long as he was churning out good stuff, everything was fine. No one ever said much to him about it.
"Did you get your three-month token last night?" Chris asks.
"I did."
"Great."
"Yeah, it's good."
"Everything alright? You seemed a little distracted during the meeting."
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"No, no worries. I was just wondering if something was on your mind."
"Well, yeah, actually. Kelly called me last night."
"Yeah?"
"And I was wondering how she got my number, and if—"
"Yeah, sorry about that. She's