Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [52]
Our perfume client has decided not to launch a new perfume. The account has gone into remission. I feel spared and am relieved that I don’t have to work on that account. I want to be as far away from Fabergé eggs as possible.
“Yeah, bummer,” I say sarcastically.
At work, Greer has a copy of Entertainment Weekly on her desk and I thumb through it. It’s amazing how many of the celebrities in there remind me of Foster from group. I’m hit by a pang. A pang of what, exactly, I’m not sure.
“I don’t like Meg Ryan,” Greer announces.
“Why?”
“I just don’t buy her ‘I’m so together’ bullshit. I think she’s really a very angry person inside.”
“Oh . . . kay,” I say. “We’re not projecting, are we, Greer?”
“Oh, fuck off,” she says.
Good. That’s the Greer I know and love.
I glance down at my desk drawer and there’s something sticking out, so I open it. The drawer is crammed with pages torn from magazines. “What the?” I say as I pull the pages out, unfold them. It takes me a moment to see that the pages were not just randomly torn out. They are beer ads. “Did you do this?” I say to Greer.
“Do what?” she says, leaning forward.
I unfold one of the ads, an ad for Coors, and show it to her. “This. Did you stuff all these in my drawer?”
“That’s weird,” she says in a way that makes me know she’s innocent. “Why would someone do that?”
I crumple them up and shove them into the trash can. I try to dismiss it as some sort of weird joke, but I can’t shake the creepy feeling. Somebody went to a lot of effort to pull those ads from magazines. Somebody put some real time into it.
It’s like something I would do myself in a blackout.
Hayden’s plane is delayed six hours. He arrives at two in the morning. We have a late dinner at a twenty-four hour restaurant in the East Village and then stay up until five, talking maniacally. Plotting, planning our sobriety. It’s amazing how drunk you can be without alcohol.
It’s unclear how long Hayden will stay. At least a couple of weeks. I’m thinking even a month or perhaps for the rest of my life. The only thing is, we made this agreement: if he relapsed, I have to ask him to leave. I can’t imagine him relapsing, because he’s so determined. And I know that I certainly won’t. Once I put my mind to something, that’s it. Of course, that was the whole problem in terms of cocktails.
I feel incredibly euphoric tonight. This must be that glorious Pink Cloud, God-rays shining through. With Hayden’s suitcases opened next to the sofa, and the sofa turned into a makeshift bed, the room feels highly occupied. I’m glad I’m not alone; instead of feeling cramped, I feel secure. At around five-thirty we crawl into our respective beds and sleep.
My alarm clock goes off at nine and wakes us both up. “Do you feel hungover?” I ask Hayden groggily.
“I most certainly do,” he admits.
“I don’t mean tired, I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean,” he interjects. “I feel like I drank a bottle of wine. I even feel guilty.”
“Exactly!” I say, relieved that he feels it too. Relieved that I am not the only one who is so unaccustomed to happiness and the feeling of impending punishment that follows.
I climb out of bed and twist, trying to pop my back. “I have Group after work, so I won’t be home until like seven-thirty. If you want, we can go to the eight o’clock Perry Street meeting.”
“Great,” he says.
“What are you going to do today?” I ask.
He smirks. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe relapse.” He laughs. “Actually, I want to go speak to someone at Carl Fisher about perhaps doing some freelance music editing.”
I ask him who Carl Fisher is.
He tells me that they are a huge and famous publisher of classical music, that he’s worked with them before. I had forgotten that Hayden was not only a crack addict, but also a classical music editor. I think, Please don’t look at my CD collection: Madonna, Julia Fordham, one well-hidden Bette Midler.
There’s nothing to do at work but wait for beer news. So Greer and I make the most constructive use of our time by thumbing through magazines, making long