Bliss (13 page)

“You got me,” said Demi graciously, casually, of the group joke on her. Inside, she was livid.

“You should have seen your face!” said Sarah. “It was priceless. You nearly shit yourself.”

“I nearly
bolted
!” she said. “He's the last person on Earth I'd want to walk in here tonight.”

“Oh,
please
,” said Jo.

Demi said, “Okay, you're right. He's the second to last.”

“Who's the last?” asked Eve.

“My boss.”

Maya had been furious with Demi about the permit thing. Demi couldn't blame her. Turned out, Maya had been such a nag about Demi getting the alcohol permit that day for a reason. To be valid, it had to be issued twenty-one days
prior
to the event. So when Demi showed up the next morning bright and early, crack o' dawn, to get it, it was a day too late. If Maya had made that painfully clear, Demi wouldn't have put it off. But she and Catherine had gotten to talking. One Bailey's and coffee turned into two, and then it was too late. Maya straightened it out, greasing a few wheels. She started triple checking Demi's call log, reading emails and counting expenses to the penny. It was humiliating.

After lunch today, Demi had come back to the office to find Maya sitting in her chair. “This has got to stop.”

“I'll be on time from now on.”

“You're making my job harder. I'm not going to pay you to screw things up anymore.”

Demi should have seen it coming. The ice had been getting thinner, and thinner. Then
crackkkk
. It happened. She was getting fired.

Maya got on with it. “It's not
only
how hungover you are
every day
, or how slobby and lazy that makes you. You don't really care about First @ Second. You don't! It's obvious. Your apathy pisses me off, and anger is draining.”

“What if I
pretend
to give a shit?” Demi asked, grinning.

It was supposed to be funny! A little jest to lighten the mood. But Maya's face turned to stone. There was no point in apologizing or begging for another chance. The horse had left the barn. Demi collected her personal things—not much, surprisingly, considering her years of service. Maya watching her like a hawk, like she'd swipe a precious stapler. It was unnecessary and insulting. Demi drove right home to the death trap, and baked a quiche with Catherine, so the day wasn't a total loss.

Maya was right about the constant hangovers. They were making Demi a bit slow on the uptake. With a margarita in her hand, she thought,
Tomorrow, I'm not drinking at all.
She had to detox, clean out her system of alcohol, negativity, and reunion fantasies about James. Enough with the heartbreak and grieving. She used it as an excuse to get wasted and suck at work. It wasn't James she grieved for, but the routine of their lives together. She'd organized her life and thoughts around him. With him gone, Demi didn't know what to do with herself. Without her job, such as it was, she lost the only thing that gave her life structure.

To Sarah, Demi corrected herself. “My
ex
-boss.”

“You're really racking up the exes lately,” said Eve.

It was true, but who the fuck was Eve to say that? The implication was that Demi's life was falling apart. It was fine for Demi to make jokes about it. But her friends should be trying to lift her spirits, not make her feel worse.

“I'm getting another drink,” said Demi.

“Get me one, too,” said Sarah.

“Fuck off. Get your own.”

“We were just kidding.”

“And I'm just leaving, no big deal.” Demi pushed away from the table. She could tell Sarah was relieved to see her go. She was halfway to the bar, and she knew they were already talking behind her back, saying what a sensitive, prissy bitch she was being. They could talk about her all night. She had no intention of going back to their table.

Right there at the bar, Demi found new people to hang out with. Her old pal from high school, Warren, and a few of his friends from his year-round hockey league were holding forth about the best way to hip check without getting a penalty. Demi joined right in, and matched the guys glass for glass, and stat for stat. She knew hockey, and she liked how it felt to be surrounded by men. The shots kept flowing her way, and she kept drinking them.

Sarah was glaring at Demi with her resting bitch face, like Demi was too loud or having too much fun. The drunker Demi got, the less she gave a crap what Sarah thought of her. But it would be preferable to get out of her line of sight. Demi could just go home, but then she'd be alone with a serious buzz. What fun was that?

“Hey, let's go to my place,” she said to Warren and the crew. “No one will bother us.” It seemed like a wiser idea than staying here with Sarah and her stink face. “Who's in?”

Three of the guys were into it. This would be the night of a thousand selfies. When Demi left Opus with the guys, she made sure to give Sarah the finger on their way out. They headed to the Audi. After a quick assessment—fingers to nose, walking a straight line—it was determined that Demi was the most sober, so she got behind the wheel. Two of the guys, big, sexy, muscley guys, had to squeeze into the backseat.

Warren was copilot. “How far?” he asked, putting his hand high on her thigh.

Flutter in her chest, she said, “Close. Just a few miles.”

“What're we waiting for?” he asked. Squeezing her leg, leaving his hand.

Demi pulled into traffic, driving slow, carefully. Warren's grip was distracting her, though. She said, “Move your hand.”

“Okay,” he said, and started rubbing her thigh.

“I didn't mean like that!” she said, laughing, swatting at him.

“Oh, shit,” said Bill? Jim? from the backseat.

Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror. A cop car was hugging her fender. Just in case she hadn't gotten the message, the bullhorn blasted, “Pull over.”

Demi did as she was told. The Grace was only half a block away. She could see the building. Warren was putting his stash in his underwear. The guys in the backseat were cracking up, talking trash. “You're so busted, Demi. You're screwed.”

The cop got out of his white-and-blue, and came up to her window. Demi knew his dash cam was running—it was the law. She felt tempted to wave at it. He was young with a few zits on his chin, around her age or a little older. For all she knew, it was his first day on the job. Dude was textbook. “License, registration, and insurance,” he said.

She fished them out of the glove box, and handed them over. They were valid and up-to-date. Demi had let some things slip, but not the big stuff, like car, rent, and taxes. Her father had drummed that into her from birth.

“Were you aware that you rolled through a stop sign?”

“I should have come to a complete stop. I'm sorry about that.” If she argued about it, he'd definitely write her a ticket. But if she was contrite, he might let her off with a warning.

He sniffed the air. “Have you been drinking tonight?”

“Only a tiny bit,” she said, and brought her index and thumb together to made the teensy sign. “Like a cocktail for a cockroach.”

Warren stifled a giggle, which made him snort. “Sorry,” he said.

The cop was not amused. “Please stay in your vehicle.”

Demi turned to Warren and said, “So smooth. I think he likes you.”

“You better hope he likes
you
,” said Bill? Jim? What the hell were their names?

“I've got nothing to worry about,” she said. Demi had been with James a few times when he was pulled over for minor traffic hiccups. She'd tested her sobriety at their impromptu field test back at Opus. She was fine. Rolling through a stop sign was no big deal. She'd get a warning. Maybe a ticket. And then they'd go back to her place, and see if four people could fit on her mattress on the floor.

The cop came back with a Breathalyzer, and Demi got a little nervous. Vancouver had one of the toughest DUI laws in the world, and the lowest acceptable blood-alcohol limits. A reading of only 0.05 would qualify as drunk. She had to be under the limit. She didn't feel drunk, but would she measure that way?

“You can refuse,” said Warren. “Don't do it.”

“If you refuse, you will be arrested and taken into custody,” said the cop. “You will be compelled to give a blood or urine sample.”

“By then, it'll be out of your system.”

“Clearly, you've been in this situation before.”

“I'm in law school,” he said, looking hotter than ever.

The cop said, “If you don't do it, we can take your license for a year.”

“They can threaten, but without evidence, you can fight it.”

“I'm not drunk,” she said. Demi didn't want to argue or fight anything. She could see her house. It'd been awhile since her last drink and she was starting to feel kind of miserable about getting fired and everything else. The fastest way out of this was to take the test and be on their way.

Demi took the device from the cop and blew into the nozzle, stifling a little burp while she did. The digital readout flashed FAIL in big red letters.

“You're over,” said the cop. “Exit the vehicle.”

“Should have listened to me.”

She got out. He gave her a field sobriety test. “You're swaying,” he said as she walked a straight line.

She wasn't, at all. She felt very firm on her feet. “That's bullshit,” she said, and immediately regretted it. It'd only make things worse.

The cop clicked his shoulder walkie-talkie gizmo and said, “I've got a DUI. I need a tow truck. Over. All of you, please step out of the vehicle.”

“I can't believe this is happening,” she muttered as she followed his instructions.

“Place your hands on the car,” he said to her, which she did. He swept one of her arms around, and then the other to cuff her. Then he escorted her to the white-and-blue, and locked her in the backseat.

Warren talked to the cop and then came over to confer with Demi in the squad car. “He said we can go. What do you want us to do?”

A stand-up guy. He was willing to stay with her. But what would be the point? Why ruin their night as well as hers? “My apartment is right up the street. You guys can take my keys and I'll meet you back there.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It might be awhile.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

She gave him the address. Warren got permission from the cop to take Demi's keys, and they left, off to smoke and drink and eat her quiche without her.

“What now?” she asked the cop.

“We wait for the tow truck. Then we drive to the station. You're going to be formally charged with DUI.”

“After that?”

He said, “I have no idea what's going to happen to you.”

Join the club
.

*   *   *

“Can I fix my hair?” Demi asked the matron before her mug shot.

The woman said, “You do realize you're under arrest, right?”

That shut her up. Wiseass was her defense mechanism. Maybe not the smartest strategy in jail. The reality settled in during her hour-long wait in the back of the squad car. She was going to lose her license. Vancouver was a driving town. How was she going to get around (not that she had anywhere in particular to go…)? It'd be humiliating to have to call friends for rides. And it could be a lot worse: She might do jail time. She didn't love the idea of sleeping on a bench or sharing an open toilet with twenty junkies, but she could handle it for a night or two. It would never come to that.
Or would it?
Demi started to feel a little scared.

After she was fingerprinted and photographed, Demi was cuffed again and escorted into a large room with about a dozen desks, each manned by a uniformed cop. She was taken to one of them and pushed down into the chair next to it. The matron gave a folder to the cop and removed the cuffs.

The officer was her father's age, with the same brusque no-bullshit manner. He was white, tending to fat rather than lean, with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair. In a cop show, he'd play the untalented slob who never made it off desk duty and was content to work for the pension. He opened her folder, and started logging info into the computer without really looking at her.

“Orange is not my color,” she said.

“You will be arraigned in court fourteen days from today,” he said by rote. “Will you be able to appear before the judge on this date?”

He'd printed out a sheet, and showed her a date at the end of July. Ironically, it was the opening day of First @ Second. So even if she wanted to attend the festival, she had a really great excuse not to, if Maya cared, which she probably didn't.

“I think I can squeeze it into my schedule,” she said.

He glanced at her then, and frowned. “Sign here to confirm you've agreed to appear in court on this date.” She signed. “If you fail to appear for arraignment, a bench warrant will be issued for your arrest. A bench warrant is a public record. If you try to get a job, rent an apartment, or apply for a loan, your potential employer, landlord, or banker will see that you've been arrested and failed to appear in court. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“If I don't show up, I'm screwed for life.”

“Sign here,” he said.

“You have the right to hire an attorney to come to court with you,” he said. “Otherwise, you can consult with a public defender five minutes before your scheduled arraignment. Sign here.”

On and on it went. Demi had to sign off on every single detail of what was happening to her. They went in one ear, and threatened to come out her asshole. She simply couldn't concentrate. “Is there a handout I can take with me?” she asked. “In case I forget something? That would be bad, right?”