Walking on Broken Glass

by Christa Allan

  I didn’t see her face because I focused on convincing my feet to shove themselves out the door.

  “She's on her way out, Miss Myrtle. Cinderella here's not going to be late for her first AA meeting,” said Matthew. I’d forgotten he was even on the bus as the intern in charge of this wacko field trip. His pat on my shoulder was a gentle push in disguise.

  The bus doors clamped shut as the yellow carriage growled away. “She's going to torture us with jalapeno breath, isn’t she?” I asked Matthew.

  “Nah. She’ll eat enough white chocolate macadamia nut cookies to not have fire-breathing dragon mouth. Anyway, she's really harmless. Well, on a full stomach,” he said. His scuffed deck shoes slowed to match the pace of my now not-so-white tennis shoes. Every man in Carl's extended family owned a pair of Sperry Rand deck shoes. They were a rite of passage—their totem symbol of manhood.

  “Why don’t women have deck shoes? Are we not supposed to be on the deck?”

  Matthew stopped. “Are you talking to me?”

  Once again, my brain failed to lower the guard gate before the thoughts escaped and expressed themselves in words.

  “No. Your shoes remind me of my husband.” Carl's shoes, though, would continue their brisk stride. “Ever since Carl, I associate deck shoes with sailing.” I hoped Matthew didn’t notice my lower lip trembling as memories hitched a ride on our conversation.

  “I don’t sail. They’re just comfortable and easy to get on and off.” He bent to tie one of the leather laces that had worked its way loose. I massaged the gravel with the bottom of my right foot, waited, and tried not to stare at his backside, which was just as cute as his front side.

  “So—” he straightened and nodded toward the front of the building. “You ready?”

  “Does it matter? I’m here.”

  Whatever this was, it was no longer a church. The building had been through some conversion of its own. It looked like one of those ranch-style houses built decades ago for families fleeing the inner cities. An unimpressive steeple clung to the roof. A whitewashed plaque had been nailed over a larger wooden sign near one of the paneled double doors. The word Serenity had been blow-torched on by someone with the generic cursive handwriting of a cake decorator.

  If my friends could see me now.

  College graduate.

  Teacher of the Year.

  Wife of a Corporate Vice-President.

  Alcoholic.

  The door swung open. Smoky cigarette ghosts beckoned from the alcove.

  “’Bout time ya got here. The meeting ain’t gonna wait for you, Miss Thing.” Theresa's coif-of-the-day, a fountain of hair sprouting from the top of her head, waved me in.

  No one warned me I might need a personal oxygen tank to survive my first AA meeting. I thought I’d follow Theresa into the room, but the smoke-heavy haze parted and swallowed her. I looked around for Matthew, but he had stopped to talk to some guy whose penny-colored dreadlocks formed a spongy curtain around his face.

  Two long, brown tables surrounded by a jumble of folding chairs were end to end in the middle of the room. Against two of the walls were more folding chairs. No one was sitting. People were clumped around the room, but most of them hovered near the table that held three coffee pots. Frequently, a medley of voices and laughter would break through the surface. The faces were strangely familiar. How could I possibly know anyone here other than my little bizarre busload from rehab?

  If I thought goofy-looking humans in varying stages of stupidity filled AA meetings, then I’d been reading the wrong books. These people weren’t dressed in clothes snatched from the bottom of a Goodwill bag. They weren’t gathered in corners sharing markers to write “I’ll work for food” signs on torn pieces of refrigerator boxes. They didn’t reek of stale gin and tonic, didn’t stumble, wail, or gnash their teeth. A youngish woman with a Coach bag slung over her left shoulder carefully stirred her coffee and nodded slowly as a suited, square-faced man read to her from a paper he held. A group of women, some wearing J. Jill linen outfits, the others in designer jeans and polo blouses, laughed as a petite woman in their circle demonstrated what I hoped were dance moves.

  Vince and Benny blended in with a swarm of teens who could have just walked over from a high school or college campus.

  I’d expected to feel displaced. But I felt more relaxed than I did the first time I walked into the Flower Estates Country Club to meet Carl's parents for dinner. I’d obsessed for days about what to wear and then finally dropped too much money on strappy black BCBG heels and an ocean blue raw silk bubble dress from Anthropologie. Until that night, the closest I’d been to the Holy Grail of private clubs that limited memberships to families with three-syllable names was billing them for plumbing supplies they ordered from my father's hardware store.

  But that night at their club, my initiation into Thortons’ inner circle was as comfortable as open shower stalls at summer camp. Judging by the clinical stares of some members dining in the clubhouse, I felt sure I must have dragged sheets of quilted bathroom tissue on my shoes as I walked to the table.

  Later, Carl admonished me. He said I only imagined their disapproval. “Whatever it is you’re feeling is more a reflection of what you think of yourself than what people here may think of you.” Even so, I immediately excused myself to find refuge in the ladies’ room where I checked my heels and readjusted my pantyhose. I wished I could have stayed in there, chatting with Peggy, the kind attendant who handed out paper towels so the ladies wouldn’t have to exhaust themselves by pulling them out of the dispenser.

  A few years later, as Mrs. Carl Thornton, I’d been granted the privilege of membership. One of the first club events Carl and I attended as a married couple was the wedding of a prominent somebody's daughter. Between the cake cutting and the bouquet tossing, I’d wobbled outside, handed Carl my quilted Chanel clutch, and vomited their exquisitely expensive hors d’oeuvres into the wading pool. Carl told me I collapsed on one of the pool lounge chairs and congratulated myself on my symbolic act of retaliation.

  No bathroom attendants at AA meetings. Alcoholism was an equal opportunity disease with open enrollment in its discreet, sparsely decorated clubs.

  How proud Gloria Hamilton Thornton would be to finally brag to her bridge club that her only daughter-in-law had been selected for membership in a club so exclusive she had to be driven for almost an hour in an unmarked school bus to find it. In all fairness, even my mother wouldn’t have posted this news flash on her office bulletin board.

  Mom never liked “who does she think she is” Gloria. She tolerated her for me. When Gloria entered the same orbit as my mother, strangers would have nominated Mom for the woman most likely to appear as if she's on Prozac award. She transformed into a one-dimensional version of herself, her expression a carefully constructed façade, crafted from years of pretending she enjoyed her secretarial job and cemented with the promise of her only daughter's future happiness. If Mom surrendered God's ear for just a moment and materialized in this room, what face would she have worn for me?

  Theresa reappeared, a cup of black coffee in one hand and a small blue book in the other. “Hey, me and Annie's been lookin’ around for you.”

  I choked out an “Oh,” swallowed the pronoun lesson, and mentally strangled my thoughts before they had lives of their own. She handed her coffee and book to Annie, alternately tugged the straps of her denim overalls, then wiggled her entire body into some balance between comfort and modesty. The whole routine was somewhat fascinating, like watching one of those circus cars and wondering when the clowns would stop jumping out. She grabbed her coffee cup so quickly some of it splattered on the floor like swollen black raindrops. Annie hopped backward, saving her sandaled toes from a mild scalding.

  “I’ll go find some napkins,” she said and handed Theresa the book before she plodded off in the direction of the long tables.

  “Man, I hate when that happens. Now my tank may need a refill in the middle of the meetin’.�
�� Theresa's gauge must have worn out years ago.

  She looked in Annie's direction. “She's an okay kid, you know. Just gotta give her a chance. She's had a real messed-up life, and she don’t trust too many people, especially women, right away.”

  I wasn’t sure what shocked me most. That Theresa was capable of whispering. That she knew enough scoop to be able to relay this information. Or that she supposed Annie's unfriendliness mattered to me. If Theresa defined Annie's life as “messed-up,” what dysfunctional ruler was she using to measure her own life?

  “Anyway,” Theresa continued, indicating a response from me was not expected, “don’t say nothing to her about what I told you.” She handed me the book she’d been holding. “Matthew asked me to give you this. Said it's yours to keep.”

  More books? First, a book of daily devotions in the hospital and now this. The size of a chunky paperback, the book had a blue cover embossed with the words Alcoholics Anonymous. I thumbed through the five hundred or so pages. “So, when's the test? And why aren’t there any pictures in this thing?”

  “It's your Big Book. It's kind of like an AA Bible,” Annie said. She handed her stash of napkins to Theresa, who tossed them on the floor, held them down with her foot, and proceeded to swipe the coffee spill.

  Theresa stared at the wet glob of napkins.

  “Just bend over and pick them up. You can’t leave that mess there,” said Annie, who strolled away to the tables.

  “Man, I don’t clean this much at my own place.” Theresa grunted. She held the mess between her thumb and forefinger like biohazard waste and shoved it all in her coffee cup. The chatting pods of people broke apart and searched for seats. “We better find us a place to land. The meetin's about to start.”

  My first AA meeting. Hmmm. Where does one record this memorable event? The page of firsts in Alyssa's petal pink baby book flashed in front of me. “First smile, first car ride, first—” The empty page screamed my heart's loss. But no one had yet created an adult version. “First marriage, first baby, first baby lost, first marriage lost, first addiction, first recovery …” Maybe creating a grown-up's scrapbook of events could be my post-recovery contribution to capitalism. Documented, of course, under “first post-recovery entrepreneurial enterprise.”

  Mr. Suited Square Face called the meeting to order. Everyone gravitated to the long brown tables placed end to end and surrounded by a haphazard arrangement of folding chairs. A few worn loveseats provided second-row seating for the latecomers like Theresa and me.

  A mushroom cloud of cigarette smoke billowed. I looked around for my little dysfunctional family. I dreaded the possibility that, if this was like some classroom experience, Theresa and I might have to engage in small group sharing. I considered relocating before this “function” officially started. Annie and Matthew sat next to each other at the table, but there were no empty chairs on either side of them. Doug and his sidekicks were clumped at the far end of the tables. I heard a distinct noise I suspected didn’t originate from Theresa's mouth. “My bad,” she giggled and waved her hand in front of her face. Her signature bracelets bounced against one another, a little background chorus that, unfortunately, didn’t scare away the smell. But she kept waving.

  “Yes, on the sofa,” Mr. Square Face said, pointing in our direction. “Are you volunteering to start the Serenity Prayer?”

  Theresa looked at her hand as if it had been a new appendage that suddenly sprouted from her wrist. I scooted back on the sofa and luxuriated in the smidgen of joy her squirming provided.

  “Me? Oh, no. I was getting your attention for my friend here.” Theresa reached back and wrapped her traitorous leg-of-lamb arm around my shoulder. “She wanted to do that.”

  18

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth when I heard Theresa volunteer me to lead a prayer I didn’t even know. I coordinated my lips enough to mumble, “Uh, no, not tonight, but thanks.”

  I wanted to slap the braids right out of her electrified hair with that new Big Book. It was only my first AA meeting, but I was certain assaulting a fellow alcoholic wasn’t one of those Twelve Steps. I was also sure that humiliating the newcomer wasn’t either, but I supposed she evened the score between us. Theresa's embarrassing me was her payback for what she felt was my fault for Cathryn confiscating her laptop.

  A voice from the back of the room said, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change …”

  Serenity? They’re kidding, right?

  I’m supposed to accept watching my barely six-week-old daughter being lowered into the ground in the tiniest casket I never wanted to see? For weeks I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Alyssa's face staring at me through the lid of her coffin. In my mind's eye I’d see her eyes, liquid emerald saucers, pleading with me not to let her go. I’d roll myself off the sofa and walk to the refrigerator, open the door, and pray there would be enough beer or wine to give me safe passage into sleep.

  A chorus of “Amens” reminded me that people who forfeited tickets to safe passages filled the room. I leaned back, lifted my head to face the ceiling, and hoped the tears would evaporate before Theresa volunteered me to lead the meeting.

  The man at the table spoke. “Welcome, especially to our newcomers tonight. My name's Kevin, and I’m an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the fellowship of this group, I’ve been sober for eleven years.”

  The room answered, “Hello, Kevin.”

  Oh, no. For years I attended school board-sponsored meetings and spent more time engaged in silly icebreakers than in valuable ideas for … hello … teaching. I certainly wasn’t prepared for this nonsense at an AA meeting. Did we end this holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”?

  Kevin, who thankfully couldn’t hear the conversation in my head, asked if first-timers wanted to introduce themselves. Before Theresa could even take her next breath, I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back against the squishy sofa cushions. “We’re even,” I whispered, but it sounded more like a hiss.

  She looked at me, her eyes small round truth detectors scanning my face from forehead to chin. “Yeah, Miss Thing. We’re even.”

  Thankfully, some brave soul spoke up. “My name's Todd.”

  “Hi, Todd.” We were like a Greek chorus, only the tragedy was never over.

  “I, well, this is my first time here.” He locked his eyes on the open pack of cigarettes in front of him. His blond hair hung like a curtain in front of his face. “My wife, she said I need to be here.” Heads nodded while ripples of affirmations floated through the room. He lifted his head, and I recognized what I saw in his eyes as two lighthouse beacons of panic and shame.

  “Welcome, Todd. Thanks for sharing. You’re in the right place,” Kevin said, his consoling voice reminding me of my father's the months after Alyssa died. He had answered his cell phone every time I called, even when all I could do was stutter, “D-d-d-d …” He’d whisper, “Leah, my Leah. It's going to work out. Everything will work out.” I believed him. When I was five and scared to sleep, he’d use his special spray under my bed and in my closet to make all the monsters disappear. I wanted to believe him again.

  No one spoke, but it was an expectant rather than an uncomfortable silence. Kevin unbuttoned the collar of his pinstriped shirt. “If we don’t have any more introductions, does anyone have any AA-related announcements?”

  Coach Purse Woman raised her hand but didn’t wait to be recognized. She pushed her glasses on top of her perfectly center-parted, high- and low-lighted, chin-length auburn hair. “Hi, I’m Rebecca, a grateful recovering alcoholic.” She plowed through before the chorus's reply. “I’d just like to remind the regulars to pick up their coffee cups and ashtrays after the meetings. You know, your mother …”

  The chorus finished for her: “… doesn’t work here.”

  “Unless she's here with you,” called out a springy-haired teen in the back who grinned and patted the knee of the woman next to her. Her mother smiled and shook her head gently
from side-to-side with the experience of one who's spent years motioning no. If they were getting sober together, did they get drunk together? Interesting dynamics there.

  Theresa picked up the Big Book from my lap, sighed, and thumbed through the pages. “Ain’t that cute?” she said to the open book, but the question was delivered in an envelope of bitterness.

  I assumed she was referring to the mother-daughter team since there didn’t seem to be anything “cute” about a book full of stories about alcoholics. Surprisingly, Theresa's volume was lower than usual. I seemed to be the only person who heard her. Maybe she didn’t even mean to be heard at all.

  “Thanks for the reminder, Rebecca. And Jill—” he nodded in her direction “—is the only one with mother privileges, so the rest of you are on your own.” Kevin pulled a worn blue book from the table. “This is a Big Book Study Meeting. If you need a book, we have extras around the room. We were in chapter five, page sixty-two. Could someone start reading?”