Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [61]
“We still have a few minutes left before group,” I say to Tommy. “Why don’t Vera and I take a walk and I’ll give her the lay of the land?”
Tommy nods and smiles and Vera looks relieved as I take one of her spandexed arms and lead her in the direction of where Tommy took me the day we discussed my spirituality. Before Pledges, I’d never say something like “lay of the land”—not only was it a cliché, but it also sounded incredibly lame—yet something about being here had helped me not be so hard on myself.
“Look, this place is great, it’s just a little overwhelming at first,” I say to Vera as I light two cigarettes and hand one to her. “I think I was in shock my first few days. The only thing that gave me any comfort at all was that Tommy would say things to me like, ‘When you first come here, it’s so different from anything you’ve done before, it’s like walking on the moon.’ That helped me realize that it was normal to feel completely confused and overwhelmed.”
Vera smokes the cigarette furiously and gazes out at the Venice Boulevard traffic. “That’s cool and everything, but I’m really just here to stay out of jail.”
“Oh, you got busted?” I ask and Vera nods. Two other dealers here, both guys, had been busted and were trying to get the judge to reduce their sentences by completing thirty-day treatment programs. But both of them had come to really like staying sober. It was cute to see bad guys melt and become good.
“Look, if you don’t mind, can you not tell everyone you used to buy from me?” Vera asks.
“They’re not going to care,” I say. “It’s a really nonjudgmental place.”
“I’m just really trying to keep everything on the down-low,” she says and I smile because I’ve learned that reasoning with an alcoholic or addict—all of whom seem to be a bit paranoid, self-obsessed, and insecure, myself included—can be futile.
“No problem,” I say. For just a split second, I fondly recall the pink Post-It notes that she used to wrap her grams in.
“I don’t know if I should be here,” she suddenly says, her eyes darting from the rehab to the street, as if she’s weighing the possibility of literally running off. A guy named Jack did it the other day—checked in and then, in the middle of introducing himself to the other residents, ran away and took off in his truck—and I’ve learned that we can’t stop people from leaving if they want to. Tommy says that rehab isn’t for the people who need it but the people who want it—a bit of wisdom I opt not to share with Vera at this particular juncture.
“Why don’t you stick around for a day and see how you like it?” I ask. “Then, if you still think it doesn’t feel like the right place, you can do something about it tomorrow.”
Vera nods and I pat myself on the back for taking the logic I’d heard Tommy use on Peter when Peter was swearing he’d die if he didn’t go out and get a hit of crystal meth right then.
I throw my arm around Vera and start leading her back to the Pledges gate, marveling at the fact that I’m clutching a spandexed former drug dealer, grinning like a maniac.
Later that night, we residents get invited to a mini auditorium around the back of the Pledges property, where the alumni—people who got sober here—come by for meetings. The alumni meetings happen around here pretty much 24-7 and once you “graduate,” you’re encouraged to go to as many as you want. Being able to mix with all of them once a week sort of feels like getting invited to the adults’ table after an entire childhood of sitting only with the other kids.
According to Tommy, finding a sponsor and going through the steps outlined in the Pledges book is a fairly rigorous process that involves making lists of people we resent and apologizing to them. The alumni agree to show us how to do this so they can “be of service” and get out of their own problems, and the idea is that one day we become sponsors ourselves. I’m supposed to be looking for “someone who has what I want” but since the one thing I really want now is sobriety