At Chatham College, I stood in a long line to register for my classes. I studied my course catalog and thought about my choices, but my classes had rather been chosen for me. Still, I was happy to be there, doing something I really wanted to do for my future.
Chatham had long been a college for women (although I later discovered one man in my program) so in line with me were other young, eager women, all giggly and chatty.
Sober for the first time ever in a collegiate environment, I stood among them.
I felt extremely uncomfortable: socially awkward, quiet, weird, completely abnormal among normals. I couldn’t take a comfortable breath. Without knowing a soul, I believed that every woman on the entire campus was more beautiful, more intriguing, funnier, smarter, more social and more interesting than I would ever be.
I knew all of my flaws and none of theirs. I compared my insides to their outsides. I’d done this since the beginning of time and found it to be the only way to guarantee my appropriate place at the bottom of the social ladder.
I had learned nothing about friendship since getting sober. I spent most of my time with Paul, and the only woman I really knew was my exceptionally fun neighbor, Louise who – I believed – only liked me because I lived next door.
My interests were stereotypically un-female: I liked dogs instead of dolls, cars instead of fashion, baseball instead of dance, blue instead of pink.
But standing there at Chatham I realized, quite suddenly: This is my chance to be accepted by women!
I looked around, excited, and pondered how to proceed. I wasn’t sure how to get comfortable, but I knew from Mount Union that I would need to find some female friends.
So when the woman in front of me started talking to everyone within listening distance about her experiences at cosmetology school, I perked up.
“I went to cosmetology school for two years!” she said to all who surrounded her. “If you ever need any advice about hair or nails, I’m your girl!”
This must be how she gets accepted, I thought. Girls like cosmetology stuff.
One girl stepped unapologetically from the crowd. “What can I do with my nails?” she cried. “The red paint is always chipping on these two fingers!”
The cosmetology student stepped toward her, took her hand, considered the problem. “Oh! You should use gel polish!” she advised.
“Thanks!” The girl nodded and stepped back.
I didn’t paint my nails, and barely knew they existed. But I realized: I am a girl! I can be part of this!
I really wanted a friend, any friend. I stepped boldly forward and held out my hands. “What can I do?” I asked meekly.
The cosmetology expert held my hand, considered it, then let go abruptly, as though I were a leper. “You have fan-shaped nails,” she said. “There’s nothing anyone can do with those!”
Then she turned her back on me and moved toward the next set of fingernails.
My eyes welled with tears. I didn’t care about my fan-shaped nails, but I was suddenly on the outside of the circle, again, all eyes turned toward other nails on other hands.
Somehow, even though I’d given it my best effort, I’d been rejected by women again.
Right then and there, I gave up on making friends and decided I’d just focus on my classes, which is exactly what I did. Other than the one male in my program (whose name, I still remember, was Robert), I never even got to know the other students’ names.
With Paul working just down the street in a hospital laboratory, I stayed committed to my secretarial job at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I stepped up whenever I could do something more than answer phones and type letters, and I felt good about my contribution.
So when the Education Department needed someone to teach a class about bears to preschoolers on a Saturday morning, I jumped at the chance. My hangover days were behind me, and I was actually excited to get up on a weekend and go into work to teach “Teddy Bears and Me” to three- and four-year-olds.
Children brought their favorite teddy bears, and I showed them pictures of different bears. We played games, we danced, and we had a grand finale parade of teddy bears roaring through the classroom.
I don’t know if the preschoolers enjoyed the class, but I had the time of my life. While I was exhausted after an hour of corralling small children, I felt productive. I felt happy – joyous even – after doing work on a weekend.
And I believed, for the first time in my life, that I’d found my calling. I’d never had more fun doing a job, or felt better about myself after doing a job, than I did after teaching those preschoolers about bears.
I wanted to be a teacher.
I was allowed to teach two more classes at The Carnegie before I made up my mind for sure.
Then, in September of 1990, I quit my truly wonderful job at The Carnegie. With the support of my boss and colleagues, who gave me a fond farewell, I enrolled into Chatham College’s 18-month post-graduate program. If I completed the program, I would have a Pennsylvania teaching certification in early childhood education.
I could hardly wait. I’d spent my entire childhood “teaching” my sisters through Fisher Price toys. I remember making worksheets and educational games for my (poor) sisters to complete when they were in my “class.”
There was nothing more fun for me than teaching. I just hadn’t realized it for the previous ten years.
I remembered standing on a beach in my biker boots and skull rings, soaking in the sun. A little girl, just rollicking in the sand, looked at me – and I smiled. Then she ran, terrified and crying, back to her family. She saw only the drunkard, hardened by alcohol and self-induced trauma.
For a moment, I’d been in touch with my own soul – but when she ran, I vanished as well.
After years of being a drunk and swearing that I didn’t want anything to do with children, I had a year sober – and I’d become myself again. I’d turned my life around to such a degree that not only did I love children the way I had when I was younger, I wanted to spend my entire life with them.
The Chatham College program was going to cost me some money and time, but it would be worth it. I’d take tons of education classes, and I’d be student teaching in only a year.
My parents supported me. Paul supported me. Even The Carnegie supported me, though I’d gone to rehab after six months, then left the job entirely after less than two years.
I still think of that job as the one that saved my life.
Missing Bonnie’s wedding was a necessary step. And by Christmas, sobriety had buoyed me. The Carnegie had been not only supportive, but incredibly fun. The longer I stayed, the more my colleagues liked me. And the more they liked me, the more I liked them.
We had a holiday party that inspired me to write an article for the AA Grapevine back in 1990 – which was published in the magazine, back when magazines were still published. It was an exciting moment for me.
The story described just how completely and utterly addicted I still was – in spite of my clean time. It is reprinted here, in its entirety and complete with typos, below.
**************************************
A Deadly Disguise
by Kristen M. – Swissvale, Pennsylvania
the holiday cookies looked so innocent
I’ve been a secretary with the same company for almost a year, which is an amazing feat for me. As a drunk, I was only able to keep jobs for two or three weeks at a time. I consider myself fortunate to still have this one, since I’ve been sober only about 100 days.
With this job came my first attempts to socialize without alcohol. Being painfully shy, I departed from most office gatherings within ten minutes. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of: “accidentally” having a beer with my co-workers or keeping a conversation going. Christmas season brought party after party, complete with plenty of bottled holiday cheer. I skipped most of the get-togethers, but I didn’t want to be excluded completely. I made my appearance, ducked away from the booze, and swelled with pride as I scurried out the door.
During work one day, someone brought Christmas cookies – a wide variety of them. I grabbed several and popped a round, chocolate one into my mouth. “This is great,” I thought as I bit deeply into it. The taste was sweet, sour, wicked, and fantastic.
Rum. Not a murmur of rum, but a good deal (proportionately), enough to make the bit burn down my throat. I winced momentarily, recognizing with horror the oh-so-familiar taste. Then I raced back to the cookie plate and, like a squirrel storing nuts, picked out all the round, chocolate ones I could find. I ate every single rum ball.
I thought I felt rum swimming in my brain. I certainly wanted to feel some effect; why else would I eat all of them? Maybe what I felt was a psychological high. Whatever kind of high it was, it wasn’t high enough.
For a long while I wondered if I should change my sobriety date. I considered “lunching” at the bar across the street. If I was going to change my sobriety date, I wanted to do it right. How would this sound in my lead: “After three-and-a-half months of sobriety, I ate a handful of rum balls – and that was my last drunk.” How embarrassing.
I shouldn’t have eaten the first one, but it was an accident. I’d never seen a rum ball before; I didn’t recognize its hidden power. Once I tasted alcohol, the thoughts that flew through my head: Stay away from that plate; get them before anyone else does; get out of the room; have one more. But one more was not enough.
Maybe this is what Alcoholics Anonymous means by “powerless:” the complete and total inability to control oneself when alcohol is nearby, even minuscule portions of alcohol. To think: I avoided all those office parties where alcohol was served, then I tried to get drunk on cookies.
If that isn’t powerlessness, I don’t know what is.
Other than marrying Paul and having his babies, my only goal in sobriety was to self-advocate. I did not want to be a meek little mousy thing, like I’d been before I started drinking. I didn’t want to be bullied in adulthood. I wanted to stand up for myself, to be myself, and to not care what anyone thought of me.
Unfortunately as soon as alcohol was removed from the equation, I morphed back into the quiet, wanna-do-good little girl I’d been in 1978. As such, it took a lot of practice for me to learn to stand up for myself, to figure out what I wanted without being all wishy-washy during decision-making times, and to say no when I needed to do that.
Most important on my list of things to do right: stay away from triggering people, places and things.
But when the Grateful Dead returned to town in July, with Crosby, Stills & Nash opening, I couldn’t miss it.
And I couldn’t take Gregg or Kurt or Bonnie, or any of the people with whom I’d gotten wasted. Paul said he didn’t have any interest in being “part of that scene.” So I camped out alone for tickets, put on my old hippie hat, and took my sister, Tracy, to the arena.
The place was packed with dancing young adults in baja hoodies and flowing skirts, every single one of them high as kites. And I was stone cold sober, trembling, walking among them, trying not to notice.
We got to our seats, sat through a really great set by CS&N, and then I begged Tracy to leave.
“Please?”
“Okay,” she said, and we walked out. She didn’t have to be asked twice. I never even attempted to see the Grateful Dead again.
So a few months later, when Bonnie called me from North Carolina, I faced a major dilemma. I’d never spent one sober minute with Bonnie, unless you count mornings at college before we ingested our first beers.
And Bonnie was getting married.
She was marrying an Australian who needed a green card. “You have to come to my wedding!” she whined. If I ever wanted to see her again, this was the time. Plus I loved North Carolina. But ….
I remembered Marti’s wedding – which I had survived sober before my rehab days, only to come home and get drunk for another six months. I remembered my cousin’s wedding, where I’d drunk from all the abandoned glasses while everyone else danced. I remembered the last time I’d seen Bonnie, doing LSD at a Grateful Dead concert.
And I remembered how I felt being sober at the Dead concert with my sister.
“I can’t,” I said, almost in tears. “I know I would drink and I can’t drink.”
“You don’t have to drink!” Bonnie said.
“I just can’t.”
Another day, I called Bonnie to see if she had any interest in trying Alcoholics Anonymous. “It’s all about a higher power,” she yelled loudly through the phone, directly into my ear. “And there is no power greater than me! I am the highest power!”
Of course Bonnie was drunk.
This made me glad I hadn’t gone to her wedding; I’m not sure I would have survived. Bonnie got divorced – twice – anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter that I missed the celebration. I wasn’t invited to the second.
Like most other friends, Bonnie drifted away.
Meanwhile I learned how to talk, eat, shop, play games, read, watch movies, drive, work, socialize, dance, party and live, all without the influence of alcohol.
It was hard.
But I had Paul.
Paul introduced me to Louise, who immediately became my favorite person on the planet. Louise was the life of the party wherever she went, using brilliantly sarcastic wit to leave friends, colleagues and even strangers in hysterics.
When I met her, Louise was telling stories, drinking iced tea, and laughing like I hadn’t laughed in years. I admired her right away, and I envied the ability of the people around her to laugh.
Sober laughter took me a long time to learn, but that changed as I got to know Louise.
Louise lived in Oakmont, a Pittsburgh suburb further north than I’d lived before. Oakmont was a darling little community with local stores and restaurants that stayed afloat whether the steel mills closed or not. It was so adorable, it was practically fictional.
When I was younger, my parents used to drive through the brick streets of Oakmont, me admiring the little stores and movie theater as we rumbled past over bricks. I’d think: This is what a town should be. And then we’d be past it, and I’d forget about it until our next trip through.
Louise lived in a duplex – and the other half of her house was vacant. After being attacked, I rented it quickly, in spite of my fear of living next to a female (who might not like me!) Then I spent years at that residence enjoying the company of my next door neighbor and, eventually, my dearest friend.
On most nights, Louise and I would sit outside and smoke cigarettes. We both had cats, and we’d watch them chase critters (and once, birds chasing my cat) along the street. Louise would tell me stories from her shift working as a prison guard, and I’d share my museum day. We’d be visited from passers by, delivery drivers, kids down the block.
“Where I’m from,” Louise said as we whiled away the hours on our shared porch, “they call this stoopin’.”
I don’t know what we talked about, night after night, hour after hour, but I became closer to Louise than any other person in my life. Louise was a better friend to me than any I’d ever had. She not only shared her time with me and allowed me to simply sit and enjoy her company, but she helped me learn how to live life on life’s terms.
For example, when I tried to make a joke and nobody understood it, Louise told me, “It’s not always your fault when people are rude. Sometimes people are just rude.” I’d been blaming myself for other people’s cruelties for my entire life; I’d always blamed myself.
Louise also taught me how to take care of my house. For example: “Baskets,” she said one night. “Ya gotta have baskets.” Then she took me into her house and showed me all the baskets she used to stay organized in her own home, in a stylish, trendy way. I’ve been using organizational baskets for 30 years.
Louise was a single mom to a gorgeous, blossoming teenager, and Louise always put her daughter’s needs above her own – and everyone else’s. Louise showed me how strength guides parenting.
Louise was a fiercely loyal friend, and taught me to be one, too. Louise became my role model for how to live life. She stood up for herself (“Nobody else’ll do it for you!”) and laughed at life from every angle. She was her own person; nobody else was like Louise. She taught me that I could be myself, too.
And somehow Louise loved me enough that I started learning how to love myself.
By the following summer, sobriety was moving along quite swimmingly. I spent my time focused on the future when, I was sure, Paul and I would be happily married with our 2.2 children and white picket fence. I had nine months sober, my job, some true freedoms, and my tiny apartment in Swissvale (where Paul never even once spent the night).
And I had my darling cat, Kitty, who seemed much happier since I’d gotten sober. Except one night, Kitty disappeared. She had been sitting on the kitchen window sill enjoying the summer night’s breeze when – poof!
Kitty was gone.
My apartment was so small, I thought I’d lost my mind. Did I let her out? I opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch. “Kitty!” I called. “Kitty!”
With barely a sound, a dark-skinned man wearing a black ski mask appeared from around the corner. He stepped toward me quickly from the darkness of my yard, holding a huge knife above his head.
He ordered: “Sit down.”
I sat on the porch steps.
He hovered over me, easily six feet tall, held the knife at my throat. With his left hand, he unzipped his pants, shoved his penis at my face and demanded: “Suck it.”
Instantly I remembered how to anesthetize myself, even without alcohol. Trauma can teach. I became numb.
I thought: I would rather be dead.
I shook my head.
“SUCK IT!” he growled in a very loud whisper.
I stared at the ground, shook my head again. Doing this would ruin my sex life, I thought. I didn’t move a muscle.
The man stood there, penis hanging out, perplexed. “Do you see this knife?” he asked.
I nodded without looking up.
He shoved the knife onto my neck without actually cutting me. “Then suck it!” he demanded, whacking me slightly in the face with the thing I did not want.
“No,” I said. The knife felt cold.
I’m okay with death, I thought. I did not move.
The guy looked around, considering his options. He held up one finger. “Wait here!” he growled.
Then he stepped over me and walked into my apartment where, I’m sure, he found no one lurking.
I did not “wait here” to find out.
As soon as he stepped past me, I unfroze. I leapt from the porch, tore through the backyard and raced across the street. Years of drunken, barefoot summers made this part easy. I went to the nearest lit house and banged on the door, rang the bell, banged on the door again.
When no one answered instantly, I turned the knob – not locked! I ducked inside, hiding, shaking, terrified. No people – but a landline phone sat in the foyer on a table.
I picked up a stranger’s phone and dialed 9-1-1.
“There’s a guy! With a knife! In my house!” I shrieked. “I don’t know what to do! I think he killed my cat!”
Within seconds, the older couple who lived in the house appeared, eyeing me.
I started apologizing, “I’m so sorry!” I said, bursting into tears. “I didn’t mean to break into your house! I just needed a phone!” They stood and nodded, unsure but supportive.
The police came and found no one, never found anyone. I couldn’t have identified a ski-masked man anyway.
The police found Kitty in the backyard, rolling around like nothing had happened.
Shaking and crying, I stayed in the house across the street until my parents came to pick me up. I slept at their house that night – and every night, until I found a new place to live.
As summer wound down, and my 25th birthday rolled past, I was feeling entirely dependent on Paul. I didn’t know the word “dependence” but I knew I felt antsy and irritable. I wanted to do my own thing – whatever it might be.
Something didn’t feel right when I wasn’t with Paul. So one Saturday night in September, I went to an AA meeting.
As I sat at my table alone, with no foundation on which to build my new identity, I thought, If this meeting doesn’t work, I’m going to drink.
The meeting was dark and smoky. People talked. I waited for my miracle. I sat through the entire meeting, waiting.
Surprise! Being at the meeting did not change me. I still felt irritable after the meeting was over, and it was Saturday night.
So after more than four months sober, I walked to the local bar and I got drunk. I had less foresight about buying beer than I had when choosing what to eat for dinner.
I didn’t think, I should call my sponsor.
I didn’t think, My family will be disappointed.
I didn’t think, Will I be able to stop if I start again?
I didn’t even think, What if I die?
I simply walked down the street, walked in the door to my favorite dive bar, and ordered a beer.
The only difference between this drunk and all the others is that I was, for the first time ever, completely aware that I was shutting the door on reality.
For four months, I’d been invested in reality. On this night, I wanted fantasy.
It was that simple. I didn’t call Gregg; I didn’t get high. I didn’t do anything I used to do, except play the jukebox. When I went into the bathroom, I found my dead eyes staring back at me.
That fast, my eyes were lifeless again.
I sat at that bar until it closed and then I went home and passed out on the couch without even making it into a bed.
On Sunday morning, I awoke feeling the way I’d felt every day for literally years before rehab: Brutally dry. Pounding. Sad. Aching. Guilty. Nauseous. Morose. Parched. Desperate for anything to liberate me from my hangover – but with no alcohol or drugs within arms reach.
I lit a cigarette, drank a liter of Diet Coke and stared at the wall.
This does not feel good.
I thought about Paul – sober Paul – and realized that I had just done something that would destroy our relationship forever. I didn’t think about my own life, or my family.
I invited Paul over to talk to me on Sunday evening, and he showed up on time as always. He was barely inside the house and I said, “I drank.”
Paul hugged me. “You’re an alcoholic,” he said. “That’s what we do.”
“But I’ve ruined everything!” I said. “I had four months!”
“Are you going to drink today?”
I looked into his beautiful green eyes and remembered that I had something to live for.
“No,” I said, “but ….”
“Then you have today,” Paul said. “That’s all you need to have is today.”
I did not understand this concept at all, but it sounded like he wasn’t dumping me. On the contrary, it seemed like he was helping me.
“Let’s go to a meeting,” Paul said.
So we did.
And through this white-knuckling, do-it-for-Paul mentality, I got sober again – staying on the periphery of AA, using Paul as my rock, my god, my everything.
Instead of depending on AA, I just depended completely on Paul.
After meeting Paul, I willingly tossed aside my own life. Being sober meant doing whatever Paul did, mimicking his actions and behaviors, soaking in his knowledge and education, following him around wherever he went.
We hiked mountains, vacationed by the water, camped in cabins, saw concerts, went to AA dances, rode the motorcycle, wandered through gardens, zoos, museums and architectural wonders. We discussed world religions, AA and existential concepts, ideals for our futures. We laughed a lot.
I’d revel in pretending we were an old married couple when he needed to study for his MBA program, lift weights, visit his family, try new recipes or wash his vehicles (very regularly). He shared his favorite music – Jethro Tull and Neil Young – and I rediscovered quality song lyrics.
I started reading books again – Stephen King’s The Stand, followed by every other Stephen King book I could find. Once I tried to make dinner for Paul and created a bowl of tasteless tofu squares – so I tried new hobbies. I rented movies. I read books about cats and tried to train Kitty.
Mostly I just did whatever Paul did, or sat and stared at him as he studied, or watched PBS’ Newshour, or swam like an Olympian in a nearby swimming pool. I didn’t need to build a life of my own, because all I wanted was a life with Paul.
Why would I need to be anyone other than Paul’s significant other? What point would that have? I didn’t need to find myself, to learn about myself, to create – or recreate – myself. I didn’t need to do anything to keep myself sober, because staying sober for Paul was enough.
There were a few things that concerned me, but only momentarily.
For example, one day after I showered, I hung up my towel in Paul’s tiny bathroom as I’d done for many years in my own home. I carefully folded it so that it would dry evenly, rather than crumpling it or hanging it on a hook. I thought I’d done a fine job of hanging that towel.
But Paul directed me back to the bathroom and showed me that I had not, actually, done a fine job.
“See my towel?” he said. “See anything different?”
I looked. I did not see anything different. “They look the same,” I said.
“The tag is showing on yours,” he said. He picked it up, flipped it around, and hung it back on the rack. “See?” No one would ever see that tag now!
In his otherwise empty one-bedroom basement apartment.
“Why does it matter?” I said. “Who’s going to see it?”
“I’ll see it,” Paul said. “It drives me crazy when the tag is showing.”
From then on, I hung up the towel at his house with the tag in the back. At my house, I tried hard to keep that tag hidden, in case he came over.
Then there was the matter of the dead skin exfoliator we used during every shower on our feet.
“You don’t want to have dead-skin heels like Pop-Pop!” he reminded me.
Paul’s grandfather was 86 years old; I was not quite there yet. But I scrubbed my feet at Paul’s house. I thought this was how sober people lived; I didn’t want to screw up.
Paul learned from me, too: he traded his Honda for a Harley so, when we rode, I was way more comfortable. And more people ogled his bike.
Otherwise, I just followed wherever Paul led. I didn’t even have to think for myself. I had no idea how.
Paul became my new favorite drug.
Afraid to show my true colors too soon, I asked Paul to pick me up at my parents’ house. He showed up for our first date – on time – in a sporty maroon Mazda.
He has a car AND a motorcycle?! I raced upstairs and changed out of my motorcycle boots. It never occurred to me that one person could own more than one vehicle.
What is important about Paul, though, is not that he had a car, or that he arrived on time. It’s not important that he worked in a science lab, that he was working toward his Masters degree, that he lifted weights every day in a makeshift gym in his closet, or that he ate tofu and eggless mayonnaise and spent an inordinate amount of time teaching me about healthy ways to live.
It’s not even important that Paul was 32 years old when I was 24 and that he had never been married, although that should have been a clue as to how our relationship would eventually end.
What’s important about Paul is that I worshipped him. He treated me with kindness and did not lie. Paul was bright – so much smarter than Gregg or Larry that I thought he was a genius. Paul made me laugh like no one had made me laugh in many years, and his dry humor was amazingly on-target.
Paul and I stayed together for almost three years: The Forever One.
We had long, deep, philosophical conversations while lying on a rock on a riverbank in the summer sun.
He once went outside to the tiny garden he’d planted and snipped a few colorful flowers as I watched him through the window.
“For you” he mouthed through the window as I sighed. He smiled that incredible smile and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the whole world, getting those flowers.
He was humble and sweet and caring and brilliant and funny and gentle and considerate and generous and loving. His apartment was meticulously clean. He cared for himself in a way I’d never seen modeled before, so he was drop-dead gorgeous on the outside, too.
This man was everything I’d ever wanted, and he was real.
Paul lived alone, had a full-time job and never traveled. He paid a pittance of rent to his dad, a dentist who worked upstairs, so Paul had lots of money. Every week he would buy chicken salads from the Village Inn down the street. We’d sit at Paul’s kitchen table with our salads and clean glasses of water, and I found this to be heavenly.
When we met, I had two months sober. Paul had seven months sober after a seven-year stint in AA – and then a relapse. He had not lost any of his wisdom from those seven years so I considered him my guru. We went to meetings together regularly, and I went to meetings on my own sometimes, but my “higher power” was Paul.
I saw no reason to change that until it was way too late to do so.
The details of our relationship don’t matter. What matters is that I got out of rehab and immediately started worshipping a man. And he was human and fallible and imperfect and I summarily dismissed all of his flaws except when I started trying to change him into my model of perfection.
He was, after all, my living god.
While it is essential to recognize this flaw in my character as the primary reason that I did not get sober until 1992, this part of my story must be shortened accordingly.
Until that day, the Walk of The One was unique: tall above the crowd, head tilted back just enough for a slight chin-jut, his back so straight it looked like he’d graduated from posture class, arms swinging relaxed at his side.
In years since, I have learned that this walk correlates closely with emotional unavailability. I’ve always found this to be the most attractive quality in men, subconsciously seeking emotional unavailability above all else.
At the picnic, I saw Paul and couldn’t stop staring: wavy brown hair cropped close to his neck, bright green eyes, a flawless smile that lit up the entire park, over six feet tall yet determinably humble. When he slid his sunglasses from his eyes, they didn’t go onto his head but rested on his forehead – a trick that I found astoundingly cool.
Paul was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
Since I only had two months sober, I didn’t remember how to talk to someone I liked, so I reverted to high school tactics. I followed Paul around the picnic staying far enough back that I wouldn’t arouse suspicion, getting closer when I thought he wasn’t looking, then ducking away to avoid accidental eye contact. I just wanted to stare at him.
Eventually, though, it became painfully aware that he was going to leave. I was accidentally following him to the parking lot when I realized I was the only one striding across the green lawn with him. I thought, You have to say something or you’ll never see him again!
And so I did.
“Hello?” I called, in the mousy voice that always reappeared when I was sober. I could only do “loud” as a drunk, although I’d sworn that I wouldn’t be so passive and meek in my newly sober adult life.
He didn’t turn around.
“Hello!” I said a bit louder. And then he turned.
My heart fluttered and flew into my stomach, making me want to wretch. I had no idea what to say.
“Hey,” he said and smiled. That smile. (His dad was a dentist.)
“I just … wanted to introduce myself,” I stammered. I held out my hand, like they do in AA. “I’m Kirsten.”
“Hi Kirsten,” he said, pronouncing it perfectly. “I’m Paul.” His voice was low, smooth, gorgeous like him.
He wore fingerless leather gloves when he shook my hand; he noticed me noticing them. “I was just gonna go for a ride,” Paul said, gesturing toward the parking lot. “Wanna go with me?”
I looked to where he was pointing and there, in the summer sun, was a clean, shiny red Honda motorcycle. It wasn’t a Harley but, (sorry Larry), I wasn’t going to pass up this chance for anything in the world.
“Sure,” I said, happy to do something that wouldn’t require so much talking.
I had no choice but to put my arms around Paul’s waist, to keep me from falling off the back of the bike. I hadn’t ridden sober in a very, very long time – maybe not since my Uncle Tony rode me to the end of the block when I was nine.
Paul and I rode for less than an hour in the bright summer sun. He pointed at a few things, and I soaked in his voice, his body, his essence. The ride was breathtaking but my breath was already gone.
We returned to the parking lot and I climbed off the bike. Paul tied the helmet on the back and asked, “Do you want to go out sometime?”
“Sure,” I whimpered.
We had our first date the following week.
