Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [102]
“No way,” he says, looking bizarrely intrigued. “But why?”
“Well, I used to be really wild and crazy,” I say. “Holed-up-by-myself-at-home-not-able-to-stop-doing-coke crazy. I was completely out of control and I lost my job and was generally a real asshole. Then, just as I got my shit together, I was given the chance to write a column documenting my wild and crazy life, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So I do the column, culling all my information from my old life, and—”
“Act the part when you have to,” he says, nodding approvingly. “That is crazy, baby. I like it.”
I smile, relief over having gotten this off my chest flooding through me. “You don’t think I’m completely out of my mind?”
Now it’s Jeremy’s turn to smile. “Oh, I do,” he says. “In a great way, though.” He turns to walk back inside. “So, what can I get you? I have cranberry juice and Perrier so I could make you a—”
“That’s the thing,” I interrupt. “I haven’t had a drink in six and a half months, and I’d like to now.”
“But I thought you just said—”
“I said that I was a coke fiend. It’s the people at my rehab who have been telling me that means I’m an alcoholic, too.”
He looks at me carefully. “I’ve always heard that those people like to go around calling everyone alcoholic,” he says.
I nod. “They do. All of which is meant to say, yes, I’m game for splitting that bottle of wine.”
Jeremy looks me over, then nods. “Great,” he smiles. “Let me go get it.”
The first thought I have when I sip from the crystal goblet and feel the bitter and familiar-tasting liquid coasting down my throat is, Is this what all the fuss has been about? The rehab and the slogans and the meetings and the incessant talk about feelings has all been about this—this liquid? And, feeling even more empowered, I take another sip. It tastes…fine. Nice, even. Not like the first drop of water after having been stranded in the desert for six and a half months—not even close. Clearly, I say to myself, if I were really an alcoholic, this moment would feel monumental. But to me, right now, it just feels like I’m drinking something.
“This is nice,” I say, smiling at Jeremy. I’ve never been able to tell the difference between Trader Joe’s $9.99 wine and the kind that people save for eons because it’s such a great vintage or whatever and this has always made me slightly self-conscious. If I were an alcoholic, surely I would have studied wines and gone to tastings and whatnot, I tell myself as Jeremy blathers on about why the wine’s particular year is so crucial.
We move to the living room, where Jeremy gets out a photo album and starts pointing out pictures of him with Al Pacino, his mom, his brother, and what looks like all the current and former Lakers Girls. And it all feels very sophisticated—the wine drinking, the multimillion-dollar mansion, the photos all gathered in green leather binders. If I were at Adam’s, I think, we’d probably be drinking out of cans and sitting on his futon couch.
“My God,” Jeremy says, as I sip from my wine and examine a photo album page dedicated to a film festival, complete with pictures of Jeremy with indie darlings like Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Keener. “I can’t believe you thought you were an alcoholic—I mean, you’re barely sipping your wine.”
“I know,” I say, glowing with this latest revelation to add to my arsenal of information about what a good decision it was to drink. I take another small, delicate sip to emphasize the point.
I walk outside to smoke and Jeremy joins me a minute later, bringing a freshly opened bottle of wine which seems weird, seeing as there’s no way we could have possibly finished the first, but he’s telling me some story about how when he was an assistant at ICM, he had to take his boss’s dog’s stool sample to the vet, and I’m so riveted by the concept of such a demeaning job that I forget to even ask about the bottle.
We continue to drink the wine and I blow smoke rings and talk—about my life, my column, my feelings on