Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [51]
In my pre-recovery days, I’d have leveled the playing field with gin or vodka or wine or beer by now. I might not ever look like her, but I could pour in the security, composure, and assertiveness.
Owning these thoughts made sobriety feel like a horror movie unfolding one frame at a time. Any faster risked exposing the monster inside, and that would be entirely too frightening.
“Hey, now she's a girlie, for sure.” Theresa said to her fingernails as she chiseled off the red polish, the chips drifting to the floor like bloody snowflakes.
Empty urine specimen bottles lined the counter, patiently waiting to be claimed by their owners due back soon from their weekend passes.
Matthew looked up from labeling the last one. Strange sort of Welcome Wagon gift all in a row. Not something I imagined Mrs. Cleaver in her shirtwaist dress and pearls handed off to the Beav as he walked through the door after a date. Hi, sweetie, so glad you’re home. Now, be a good boy and go pee for me. And wash your hands. I have brownies waiting.
In the alternate universe of rehab world, though, these babies had status. A rite of passage—like being assigned a parole officer meant being one step closer to civilian life.
“Play time's almost over.” Theresa yawned, still attacking her nail polish and bypassing the social grace of covering her stretchy mouth with her hands. “Wait till they see …” She stood up and sent a flurry of red acrylic snowflakes to the floor. “Oops.”
“See what? The mess you need to sweep off the floor?” I two-stepped around the red shavings and moved in the direction of my room to deposit my two gift boxes.
“Oh.” The two letters rolled out of her mouth like they were on an amusement park ride. “You gonna pretend nobody's gonna pay attention to Glamour Girl? You jealous?”
Am not. Am not. My inner child pouted, stomped her feet, held her breath. My outer adult sent her to her room. “How ridiculous! Besides, do you even know how impossible it is to get blood out of designer clothes?”
I glanced at the door to Jan's office: closed. “Why would I be jealous of someone who has a bigger problem than I do?”
“I dunno. She come in here, and you doing elevator eyes up and down that girl. Like this.” Theresa paused for a demonstration. “Then you get this weird look.” She looked down and patted the pockets of her shorts, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of one and a stick of spearmint gum out of the other. “I’m getting me a light. Going outside for a smoke. You can come if you want.”
An invitation to secondhand smoke leading to a slow, painful death, or I could stay and let my own thoughts keep me company. Both paths led to pain. “I’ll put these away and find you outside,” I said.
Theresa's eyebrows elevated a notch. Her expression reminded me of my students when I’d release them from morning detention two minutes after they arrived.
She walked over to Matthew, one of the keepers of the lighters. “I’ll wait. Ain’t like you going far.”
How true. How true.
“Be right there,” I alerted the back of her head as she leaned over to light her cigarette.
Journal 9
The tuxedoed waiter, with a deft and understated flair, snapped open my napkin and guided the fluttering white linen to my lap.
My last memory of fine dining was having a lobster bib tied around my neck the night of Senior Prom. “I’m not that impressed. They’re just crawfish on steroids,” I told my mother the next day and pretended the butter-drenched lobster jetting onto my ice-pink taffeta dress after I tried stabbing it with a fork didn’t happen. I hadn’t bothered to order lobster since then.
Tonight, though, was a covert operation leading me out of familiar territory and into Etienne's, where a reservation