Jo Piazza

by Love Rehab

  A small group of men huddled chain-smoking outside the side entrance to the basement. The tall, bald guy in the tweed coat with arm patches looked vaguely familiar, but it was dusk and the lighting was bad and I figured it wasn’t polite to stare in these situations. I didn’t know exactly what to expect. We have a lot of neuroses in my family. My dad is OCD, the kind where he has to touch a light switch every time he leaves the room and cut his meat up into exactly eight equal pieces before eating it. My mother was a hoarder before hoarding became a thing that people from the Oprah network came to your homes to fix with hugs and $20 containers from Crate & Barrel. Mom filled closet after closet with old art projects, magazines, horse-jumping ribbons, baby clothes, and dog toys. You name it, we had it tucked away somewhere in our house. She was finally “cured” of her hoarding when Dad bought their retirement house in Clearwater, Florida, and told her she could pack exactly three suitcases or stay in the old house with all the crap. Mom might have been a hoarder, but she wasn’t stupid. She chose the beach over the stuff, and the garbage men had a heyday. We weren’t normal or anything, but we never had an addict in the family, the kind who went to rehab or AA and could tell us about how it worked. But since it’s anonymous, maybe we did and I never knew about it.

  The stairs to the basement smelled like fresh coffee and stale smoke. I wasn’t expecting to see chairs set up in a circle, a table of brightly colored donuts, or a decently attractive guy about our age eating a Boston cream.

  He looked up a split second before I realized I stared too long. He had a dab of cream on his nose. He gave me this giant smile like he already knew me or something and started walking my way. He looked a little bit like Eric, which made the corners of my mouth turn upward before I remembered that Eric and I were no longer a couple and that he hated my guts for putting his penis on the Internet. I felt a distinct pain in my left side directly under my rib in the top of my belly. What is in that space that causes that kind of physical reaction? Sometimes I wonder if my metaphorical heart isn’t in my chest, if it’s actually just behind my liver. When the Eric doppelgänger was two steps from being close enough to reach out and shake my hand, Annie grabbed my forearm hard and hissed in my ear, “Is that Dr. Jacobson?” Sure enough, Elbow Patches from the parking lot was coming down the stairs, and it was our pediatrician, the very same man who set my broken wrist when I jumped over a tennis court net in fourth grade, took my tonsils out, and prescribed me birth control without telling my parents when I turned sixteen. He looked at me with the same warm smile as Boston Cream, who had now turned his attention back to the coffee.

  “Sophie, Annie,” Dr. Jacobson said, giving us each a hug. Then I remembered where we were. Dr. Jacobson must be leading the meeting or something. There was no way he was an alcoholic.

  “So good to have you girls. Call me Jack here.” He took a green half-dollar out of his pocket. “Twelve years sober,” he said as he brought it to his lips and gave it a chaste peck. He looked at me. “I’m glad you finally came.”

  As he walked away I looked at Annie. “He thinks I’m the alcoholic.”

  “You are the needy one.”

  “Well, how do I convince him it isn’t me?”

  “You don’t. You can’t now. It would be rude. It would be like saying ‘I know you’re an alcoholic, Dr. Jacobson, and I don’t want to be in your little addict club.’”

  Boston Cream began clearing his throat, which seemed to be a signal for everyone in the room to start taking seats in the circle of chairs that were obviously meant for people smaller than the adults gathered in the room. By the artwork on the walls, I was guessing this was where the church usually held Sunday school. On closer inspection, Boston Cream looked a lot less like Eric than I thought. His face was friendlier, less severe, and he had more crinkles around his eyes, which meant that he smiled more, or used fewer products. I happened to know that Eric used an eye cream before bed every night. It was lady eye cream, the very expensive La Mer kind that they raved about in Vogue. I never thought that was at all odd or strange when we were dating. I thought it was nice to be with a man who took care of himself. In hindsight it was a little dainty. Boston Cream also had a tiny crook in his nose that was saving him from being too handsome.

  The white-haired woman next to me offered me a piece of gum. It tasted the way I imagined the inside of the woman’s purse must have tasted, stale and dusty.

  Boston Cream was up at the podium, which made him seem in charge.

  “Hi, everyone,” he said to the room.

  “Hi,” they chorused back in a singsong.

  “I’m Joe, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  Of course he was, why did I think he was here? It was obvious that I was the only interloper. “I’m four months sober today.” The entire room clapped and cheered, which was a nice touch. It is heartening to have people clap and cheer after everything you say. I could get into this alcoholic thing.

  Joe led the group through something called the serenity prayer and then gave announcements. The church would be closed next week for a workshop so they would be switching the meeting to the public library; one of the AA members had been diagnosed with cancer and they would be taking donations for flowers. Then he opened up the room for discussion. This was when things got interesting.

  First, a portly woman, who I thought I recognized from my mom’s beauty salon when I used to go there with her to get our nails done more than a decade ago, stood up.

  “My name is Rita, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Rita,” the room chorused.

  Then Rita got ten minutes just to talk. She told the room about her husband, Jim, and how he ignored her. She told us about her kids who were just entering teenagedom and becoming horrible monsters. She talked about her mother-in-law, Judy, who constantly told her that she wasn’t as pretty or as smart as Jim’s high school girlfriend and who last weekend actually invited said high school girlfriend over for a Sunday BBQ. I hated Judy! She said it all made her want to drink, but she prayed to her higher power every day to be strong. People kept nodding encouragement at all the appropriate moments. They passed her a tissue when she needed it, and when she was done, she was enveloped in a group hug. She thanked the group.

  “I couldn’t do any of this without all of you, ” she murmured. I heard Annie groan not so much under her breath. I loved every second of it.

  Then came Rob, who worked at the gas station. After being sober for ten years, Rob had a drink last week. It wasn’t just one drink. Rob drank four six-packs after his hamster, Raul, had died.

  “I just didn’t know how to handle the grief,” Rob said.

  And on and on it went. People just stood up and they told their stories. Some of them were hilarious and some were sad. Some were hilarious and sad. The entire room laughed and cried and kept clapping for every single person who stood up and shared. And even when people had messed up like Rob did, everyone was still supportive. No one judged.

  When we had heard five stories, Joe stood back up and announced that the group would like to hear from any new members. I looked at Annie. She lowered her eyes and gave her head a tiny shake.

  I could feel Joe’s eyes on the two of us, obviously the only newbies in this group.

  I felt this intense compulsion to share with this group of people, to unburden myself from all the crazy emotions I’d been feeling for the past two weeks, to finally admit all my erratic behavior to someone besides Annie and three of my other girlfriends. Those girlfriends, I had noticed, were letting my calls go straight to voice mail much more often than usual. I had gotten into the habit of repeating myself and working Eric into conversations he did not belong in. The other day my friend Megan was talking about how she got a flat tire on the New Jersey turnpike and how Triple A wasn’t allowed to come on the New Jersey turnpike so she had to wait three hours for a turnpike-sanctioned truck to come help her fix the tire.

  “Eric doesn’t even know how to change a tire,” I blurted out. “O
ne time we were in the Adirondacks and got a flat and I had to change it right there on the side of the road. That’s pretty badass, right? A girl changing a tire on the side of the road? Why did he choose her, Meg? Why did he choose her over me? I’ll bet she doesn’t even know where the spare tire is!”

  The other end just went silent.

  The problem with getting up in this circle and unburdening myself was I wasn’t an alcoholic.

  But they did think I was. Dr. Jacobson apparently thought it was me and not Annie who had the problem. Who would it hurt just to talk a little and divest myself?

  I made the split-second decision that it wouldn’t hurt anybody at all.

  So there I was, unburdening all over the place. I bent the truth a little. Every time I admitted to doing something crazy because of Eric, I just substituted Johnnie Walker for Eric. So Johnnie Walker made me cry myself to sleep every night and Johnnie Walker made me so depressed I hadn’t been able to work in weeks and stacks of children’s books desperately in need of illustrations were piling up on my desk. Johnnie Walker was the reason I cut my bangs myself the other night. I must have looked the part of a very sad sack (due in part to the aforementioned uneven bangs) because everyone kept nodding at all the right moments. At one point Rita grabbed my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. Annie’s jaw was practically on the floor by the time I finally sat down amid a rousing round of applause. And here’s the thing. Afterward I felt totally better. I felt the best I’d felt even before Eric dumped me, because I had to admit I hadn’t felt very good for the last few months of our relationship anyway. I had been walking around with what felt like a rubber-band ball in the bottom of my gut, all the different bands pulled tighter and tighter. But the ball felt smaller now, lighter. I sat through the rest of the meeting with a goofy grin on my face. Annie had one too, but I knew it was just because she couldn’t wait to lay into me for what I had done.

  Joe stood back up at the end of the meeting and suggested everyone do the same and join hands. Annie’s felt sweaty in mine, and I realized I hadn’t held her hand or the hand of any adult whom I hadn’t been actively sleeping with or trying to sleep with in about twenty years. The connection felt nice, and I gave Annie’s rough palm a squeeze. To my surprise, she squeezed back.

  We bowed our heads and said the serenity prayer again. This time I paid attention.

  God, grant me the serenity

  to accept the things I cannot change;

  courage to change the things I can;

  and wisdom to know the difference.

  As the crowd dispersed Joe announced, “Remember, everyone, that I am available for one-on-one and group counseling sessions if anyone needs a little extra help this week.” He walked over to Annie and me after that.

  “Do you ladies want to grab a coffee or something?”

  Annie immediately piped up. “Yeah, we can go to my bar.”

  Joe looked confused for a minute.

  “That’s a bad idea, Annie. We’re alcoholics,” I said pointedly. “Let’s go to the diner down the street.”

  Joe followed Annie and me in his car. As soon as my door shut, Annie let it rip.

  “What the hell were you doing in there? You’ve never drunk anything stronger than wine in your life, much less Johnnie freaking Walker? Were you making fun of me? What was it all about?”

  “I wasn’t making fun of anybody. I just, I just felt like unburdening myself is all. It’s hard to be open about relationship stuff. Half your friends give you an ‘I told you so,’ the other half feel bad for you that you’re thrown back into the pool of singledom and that your so-called marrying years have been wasted. Did I tell you that Candace Evans actually said that to me? She actually said, ‘It’s such a shame you and Eric broke up; aren’t you mad at him for stealing your marrying years?’ as if there is a specified time when I can get married and after that I turn into an unmarriable spinster.”

  “Candace’s husband is gay, right?”

  “Yeah, and they’re trying for a baby.” It was funny because it was tragic and true, and even though it makes me a bad person, sometimes someone else’s misfortune does actually make you feel a little bit better.

  “Babies and adventure vacations always fix a bad marriage. Stop listening to Candace Evans. Go on.”

  “So the one or two friends who sit and listen and put up with all your whining finally become so alienated by round five or six that they stop being your friends altogether. And they’re right. They’re exhausted. You become like a broken record. They’ve heard it all before and the story never changes. He still leaves. He is still a jerk. Your theories about why just get wilder and wilder. Maybe he’s a commitment phobe. Maybe he’s gay. Maybe he’s a CIA agent. They’ve already told you all the same tropes to make you feel better. You’re too good for him. He couldn’t keep up with you. He needs a woman who makes him feel like more of a man. He has mommy issues. But eventually they don’t want to tell you anything. Because they are exhausted by the subject. It feels good to be able to get in front of a room of strangers and just share without preconceived judgment or concern that they will hate me. I feel better.”

  Annie got quiet. “I can see that. I can also see why they say these meetings work for people with real addiction problems, but, Sophie, I don’t think I can do this every day, not with all those people in there. Not with old customers from my bar and my goddamned kid doctor, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know if I have it in me to get up in front of that group and talk.”

  “Well, you heard Joe at the end of the meeting. I think he is some kind of doctor or counselor. Maybe you could do some one-on-one sessions with him.”

  “I have to. With him or someone else. My probation mandates that I see an addiction counselor and attend a group meeting for the next ninety days.”

  The ride was too short to talk about much else, and soon we were settled into a corner booth at Nell’s Diner with three coffees and three slices of banana cream pie, Nell’s specialty.

  “Sophie, I was really inspired that you were able to be so open at your very first meeting,” Joe said with one of the warmest smiles I have ever seen. That smile was so honest and so real that I couldn’t keep up my perfidy.

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” I blurted before shoving a heaping spoonful of banana into my mouth so I couldn’t say any more. The lines between Joe’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, moving them to the same side of his face as the crook in his nose, and the sides of Annie’s mouth curled into an anticipatory smile.

  I swallowed.

  “Well, I may not be an alcoholic, but I think I am addicted to something more dangerous. I’m addicted to love.” Annie was finally surprised, and her smirk now turned into interest. It felt good to say it. That’s what I was. I was addicted to love (#RobertPalmerWinning), to the idea of loving bad men and staying in bad relationships. “I am. Every time I said Johnnie Walker, I meant some boyfriend I had who made me act like a complete lunatic. It’s a serious problem being a love addict.”

  Joe opened his mouth, closed it again, and then sucked a breath in through his nose. I steeled myself for a lecture and to be called a liar.

  “So you listen to Dixie Chicks on repeat sober and cry for hours at a time? And watch, what did you call it, Downton Abbey for four days straight?” he asked, recalling some of the pathetic things I had mentioned doing while I was “drunk” in the meeting. When I looked up to meet his gaze, I saw he was trying to suppress a smile. I nodded.

  “You did need to let it all out.”

  “I did!” Now I was leaning over and explaining with my hands, which is what I do when I get really excited. “I think we all need to talk about it. I think if women had a place to go when they get dumped or, worse, when they can’t leave a relationship that is seriously unhealthy for them, it would really help their self-confidence and self-esteem. That was the great thing about the AA meeting. No one acted like they were better than anyone else. They just listened. That’s all anybody wants. They j
ust want to be listened to, and they want people to tell them that one day it is going to get better. One day they won’t wake up feeling like crap anymore. I think we also want to know that other people have the same problems we do.”

  Now that I started on my rationale I couldn’t stop.

  “When you’re going through a bad breakup or you’re in a bad relationship, you have these blinders on where all you see is people in good relationships. Then you hate those people and feel even sorrier for yourself.”

  Finally finished, I heaved a sigh.

  Joe nodded and gave me a smile that said we would revisit my crazy in just a bit. He looked to Annie. “And you?”

  “Oh, I’m a drunk, a court-mandated drunk. Stole a cop car and banged up some mailboxes the other night, might have killed a cat.”

  Annie was exaggerating for effect. On our way home from the police station the only thing she had shown the least bit of remorse about was Fluffy. We had driven straight to Mrs. Dinkdorf’s house to see after the feline and been assured that Fluffy did indeed have nine lives and had managed to dodge Annie’s siren-blaring advance. She had simply run off into the woods to chase after a badger for the evening, sending Mrs. Dinkdorf into a panic and causing her to report Annie’s shenanigans to the police.

  “Worst of it is, I’m a functioning drunk and since I own a bar, it’s an asset, not really a liability.”

  Annie came from a family of highly functioning alcoholics, all of whom functioned until it was too late. She never really knew her mom, who had left Yardville when Annie was six to pursue her dream of being an actress in Hollywood. But when we were kids, we would sometimes see her cast as “suburban mom” in commercials for kitchen cleaners and three-ply toilet paper. I don’t know if Annie ever found it ironic that her mom left her life in the suburbs in order to portray one on television. It wasn’t something she liked to talk about a whole lot.