Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [22]
Mrs. Favish dropped me off outside the Wightman School one Tuesday night in December. She’d wanted to accompany me in, but I hadn’t let her. After watching her drive away, I stood under the streetlamp smoking cigarettes purloined from my mother’s purse, trying to get up the nerve to go inside. Richard found me there, shivering in my jean jacket, and, guessing where I needed to go, delivered me to the classroom on the second floor. The real alcoholics met in the basement, and there had been a light turnout for his meeting, which, apparently, was the norm during the holiday months. Many alcoholics relapse during the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Richard later told me. Something about the holidays made it easier to recall, and harder to resist, all the pretty good reasons they have for drinking.
Even though I was the only kid in my Al-Anon meeting, I kept going back faithfully, week after week. Maybe it was the sympathetic faces of the members, mostly women, sweet maternal types, careful, indulgent listeners—who, just for the record, weren’t listening to me; I was a silent fixture in the meetings, an angry kid, reeking of stale smoke and cheap Jovan musk oil. Perhaps it was the idea of having a secret—I hadn’t told my parents I was going. No one knew—except Mrs. Favish.
Probably what kept me going was Richard. Eventually we became friends. Often when my meeting got out, Richard would be waiting for me. I soon learned he’d been attending the twice-weekly AA meetings for about a year and a half. He had gone at the insistence of his lover. Although the relationship didn’t survive, by the time they were ready to throw in the towel Richard had totally quit drinking and had formed a surprisingly supportive network of friends at AA, most of them middle-aged ex-steelworkers who had, over the years, consumed a few too many Iron Cities. He claimed they put up with him because Richard’s failed love affair now left one of his Steelers season tickets unused. Still, it was a pretty amazing trick for a thirty-something, gay antiques dealer with a former taste for expensive, single malt whiskey.
It was sweet of him to ask about Thanksgiving. It would be nice to have some company. I’d invited Renata and Michael, but they were going to be in Bermuda. Hope has been hinting around for an invitation, but the thought of two single, middle-aged women alone with a turkey breast had been simply too depressing to contemplate, so I hadn’t picked up the bait. It would be nice to have Richard, though. He’d liven things up, and I’d invite Hope, too—a good deed, I tell myself.
By the time I finally put Chloe down for a nap, it’s already two o’clock, and I’ve yet to call Jake back. I reach his voice mail and leave a message for him to call me. I also call Richard, who is probably at today’s Steelers game, and leave him a message as well. “Hi, it’s Mira. I’m still on the streets, temporarily at least, but I’m resisting all attempts at rehabilitation. If I can’t manage to graduate from anger management, they will lock me up and throw away the key. Help! We would love to see you for Thanksgiving, and yes, I promise I will call my father.”
But I don’t, not yet at least.
It’s the sort of rainy day in mid-November when the lamps need to be lit in the middle of the afternoon and you find yourself wishing you owned a cardigan. While Chloe sleeps, I change my clothes. No reason to greet Jake in a flour-covered sweat suit. I put on a blue V-necked sweater and, almost as an afterthought, loosen and brush my hair. The apartment, which I take some pains to tidy up, is suffused with a cozy, apricot glow, the rich woodsy smell of a long-simmering soup, and the heady aroma of freshly baked bread. I turn on the gas fireplace, put