Second Best Fantasy (13 page)

“Of course I did. There were a couple of times I almost told you, but the more days passed, the harder it got, and then I felt so guilty, and you’ve been so content lately, I didn’t want to ruin everything.”

“So you were just never going to tell me?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Have there been others?”

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“No. I was still having sex with other people when we first started dating, I know you were too. But after a while, maybe not even quite a month, I stopped seeing anyone else.”

I decided not to tell her I kept fucking other women for about three months, not one. I was having sex compulsively because I was so afraid of falling in love with Janine. They meant nothing, so I wanted to believe this guy meant nothing to her too.

I softened a little.

“You really hurt me.”

“I know.”

“Did you miss men?”

“No. It wasn’t about that at all. I promise.”

I softened some more. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to rest more?”

“I feel fine. Tired, but fine. The cramps have stopped and there hasn’t been anymore bleeding. The doctor said there might be, but there isn’t.”

I sighed. I wanted to be angry enough to leave her, or at least to threaten to leave her. Deep within, my heart could not deny it would forgive her even if the mind didn’t want to follow.

Things, a lot of things actually, would be different if I didn’t believe she loved me. In my own history there had been a fair share of cheating on both sides, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t understand why she had done it. And I knew the remorse, the shame, the self-loathing that came afterward.
Dammit.
I got up and went over to her side of the nook and pulled her up into my arms. She cried on my shoulder and I did my best Otis Redding, “
I’ve…been…loving you…too long…I don’t wanna stop now…
” We danced into the living room and she went and pulled the Greatest Hits CD off the shelf and popped it into the stereo. He sang it much better than I did. She dragged me onto the couch and made love to me slowly, passionately, apologetically. We fell asleep intertwined among the cushions, I heard a soft rain on the windowpanes and the rooftop, and slowly drifted into peace once again.

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Someone was shouting from very far away, at least it sounded far away, fuzzy. And there was another noise, some sort of wolf howling, where the fuck was I?

“Do you hear me?! You fucking asshole! You almost killed my dog!”

I blinked and I was on my front lawn and Janine was yelling at me at the top of her lungs.

“Wait, what?” was all I could say. I had heard about this.

Coming to in the midst of a blackout. It had never happened to me before, and I thought it was funny.

“What, what about the dog?” I started giggling.

“What the fuck is
wrong
with you?!”

I was still laughing. “Um, I’m sorry baby. You’re going to have to forgive me, it seems I’ve just arrived,” I slurred.

I was so busy entertaining myself I didn’t realize she had walked away from me. There was a commotion and I turned to see her with the neighbor’s twenty-something son. I realized in a horrible instant what must have happened.

The son, Jack I think his name was, was frantically talking into his cell phone and shouting out instructions to Janine.

“Go get something hard, flat, like a broken down cardboard box or something!”

I followed her into the garage, “Here, over here.”

We pulled out some sturdy boxes and she chose one and went back outside. I watched as Janine and Jack slid the cardboard box under Joplin and then lifted him into the flatbed of Jack’s truck. In a moment he was peeling away and I stood there until the tail lights faded in the distance.

I looked around at the scene. My Toyota Corolla was in the grass. Broken bits of plastic from the turn signal housing were on the ground. The mailbox was tilted and it looked like I had sideswiped it. There was a small patch of bloodied grass where Joplin had been. The door to the car was hanging open, with the “bing, bing, bing” noise telling you so. On the passenger’s seat there was a brown bottle bag and a case of 88

Dos Equis. I couldn’t remember anything.

I was grateful none of the other neighbors were outside, although for all I knew they all were earlier. But it seemed quiet, if I was lucky no one else was home on the cul-de-sac, and it appeared that way from the amount of empty driveways and darkened windows, thank God. And I vaguely remembered that Jack’s parents, Darrin and Lisa, were out of town. Lisa had come over to ask us to keep an eye on the place, make sure Jack wasn’t throwing some wild party in their absence. Apparently, the party had been at
my
house, and I was the only guest.

I moved the car off the grass and into the driveway. I opened a Dos Equis and sat on the front porch, wondering what to do. Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, I started to cry before Cindy even answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I killed the dog.”

“You killed the dog?”

“Well, maybe not, I mean I could have killed the dog, I almost killed the dog, Jesus Christ, I don’t know. I need help, Cindy. Like real help. I need to quit drinking, can you, will you come over please?”

I was sobbing now and wasn’t sure if Cin understood a word I was saying. “Hello?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Listen kiddo, we’ve needed to have this talk for a long time.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I’m coming over. And I’m bringing someone with me.”

* * * *

I had no idea when I crossed the line from heavy drinker to blackout drinker. It baffled me, I was so convinced I had my shit together and everything was under control. Janine and I were having a rough patch so I was drinking more to calm my nerves, she kept complaining about it. I thought she was just bitchy because the new record wasn’t doing very well. ‘Too Much 89

Trouble’ and ‘Serenity Speeches’ were still being played on the radio, but the Blue Is had lost their momentum, the record industry seemed to be changing daily along with mainstream demand, and Wolf Creek Records was struggling.

We’d been living together almost two years by then, which seems to be the point for most couples when the novelty wears off. It hadn’t for me, I was still captivated by her and my heart still flip-flopped when she walked through the door. It certainly wasn’t a honeymoon anymore I had to admit, but it was still good. We fought sometimes, but we were mostly at peace, in love with our life and with each other. The best thing was sharing the intimacy of our art, we wrote songs and poems and prose together, sharing what we each cared about deeply seemed to bind us.

Sometimes I did not know where one of us ended and the other one began.

I was writing more and more by the time the second album had been released, and I finished an entire novel while Janine was on the road to keep myself occupied. The book was even doing a little bit of business in the underground LGBT

publishing world and surprised me with its financial reward.

Although modest, I was surprised to have a return on it at all, I really just wanted to publish a novel, it had been a long time dream. Janine inspired me, she had been my muse after all.

There had been fights. Nothing serious, though. I was reviewing all the information and still couldn’t find the answer to why I was now sitting on my front porch wasted, having almost killed my own puppy, my lover gone and
very
angry with me.

Some of our fights were about drugs and alcohol, mine
and
hers, but not too often. Could that really be the one and only problem?

* * * *

“This is Daniel,” Cindy said.

Okay. I didn’t know who the hell this guy was or why Cin had brought him to my house.

“Maggie, Dan’s in recovery. He’s been sober for sixteen years.”

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Now I understood.

“Oh. Is this really necessary?”

“Well, your girlfriend is at the emergency vet with your dog you nearly ran over. Every time I’ve seen you in the past three months you’ve had a drink in your hand and were either already drunk or well on your way. There’s an open case of beer and a bottle of Johnny Walker in your car you don’t remember driving to go buy. I’d say it’s necessary.”

She had a point.

For the next hour I said nothing at all as Dan told me about his own drinking, how he got sober, and all about recovery. I was humiliated but, somehow, what he was saying to me made sense. I’d declared myself an alcoholic a very long time ago, and had been back-pedaling ever since, trying to find a way to not give up something I loved more than anything in the world, even more than music, or art, or books, or even Janine.

Imagining my life without alcohol was impossible.

“Don’t think of it as forever, that’s too overwhelming. Do you think you can not drink for the next 24 hours?”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

“If I come and pick you up tomorrow, will you go to a meeting with me?”

“Okay.”

“Good. That’s a good start, Maggie. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but believe me when I tell you I know exactly how you feel.”

I did believe him, although I wasn’t sure why. Cindy obviously trusted him, she brought him to my house on what was perhaps the worst night of my life, and she knew I wouldn’t like that one bit. Quitting drinking, and even going to twelve-step meetings, had occurred to me in the past. But then I’d dry out for a few days and feel better, and that plan dissolved. But now I was being “twelve-stepped” (a term I would learn over the next several days) by Dan, and, from where I sat, it didn’t seem like there was a choice in the matter anymore.

For another hour the three of us talked and drank coffee.

The more Dan talked the more I liked him, and he related to me 91

in a way no one had before. He described how he felt when he was actively drinking and it was exactly the same way I had felt.

Describing the guilt and remorse in great detail, he even cried a little, which struck me as honest, and intimate, and real. He was very well read, and super smart, which told me the way I pictured 12-step programs had been inaccurate. With each story he told, I grew more hopeful.

I heard Jack’s truck pull up in the driveway and became very afraid about what was going to happen next. Cindy locked eyes with me and said, “Don’t say a word. Let me do this.”

I stayed in the living room with Dan while Cindy intercepted Janine at the front door. I noticed she didn’t have Joplin with her. Cindy shuffled Janine off down the hall towards our bedroom.

“She drinks too, you know,” I said to Dan. “And uses drugs.”
Although, I don’t think she has in a while,
I thought to myself.

“Don’t make this about her. I came here to help you,” he said sternly.

We sat there and listened to the muffled conversation behind the bedroom door. In a few minutes, they returned.

Janine shook Dan’s hand and thanked him for coming.

She turned to me.

“You nicked him with your tire but he got away before you ran him over. He is going to be okay but he needed to stay at the vet ER. His pelvic bone is broken but it will heal. The bleeding was from a broken tooth he got from tumbling away after the impact. I’m going to bed.” And she walked back down the hall.

I started to cry, relieved I hadn’t actually killed Joplin.

“What do I do now?”

Cindy hugged me and then sat next to me on the couch, rubbing my back.

“I’m not a marriage counselor,” Dan said. “Your relationship is yours to deal with. Here’s my card. Call me tomorrow.” And with that he stood up and shook my hand, turned to Cin and said, “We should go now.”

I sat and cried for a few more minutes after locking the 92

door behind them. I watched through the window as they removed my case of Dos Equis and brown paper bag from the passenger’s seat of the Corolla. This was actually happening to me and, in a rare moment, I looked skyward and said, “Please help me.”

I woke up on the couch with the TV on and heard Janine moving about in the kitchen. When I padded in to get a cup of coffee, she was standing at the sink emptying bottles.

She looked up, saw me, and said, “I thought this might help.”

God she was beautiful, it was difficult to believe she was even still there. Everything we’d been through together and she was still there. I loved her so much it hurt. I crossed the floor to her and pulled her to me.

“I’m so sorry, Janine.”

I cried and cried and cried while she held me, leaning up against the kitchen counter, empty bottles lined up like soldiers on the marble counter top. I dared to hope that she loved me enough to stay with me, to forgive me. Kissing her, I felt a sudden rush of sexual desire, an odd feeling to mix with my shame and remorse. I lifted her onto the kitchen island, shoving aside notebooks and newspapers and pens and mail. Tears were still running rivers down my face as I reached down into her pajama pants and thrust my fingers into her, lightly biting on her neck and feeling the pull of her hands tangled up in my hair.

I whispered in her ear while I stroked her, “Baby girl…I love you so much…don’t ever leave me…I’m so sorry…I love you so much…I need you…need you…”

She came and then buried her face in my chest, crying along with me.

* * * *

For the next two months I stayed sober. Joplin was able to return home and made a full recovery and was as happy a puppy as he’d ever been. And he still loved me so he either didn’t know or forgot I was responsible for his accident in the first place. Dan 93

had become my “sponsor” and I was adjusting to life anew. To really get a handle on things, I decided to go back to my last therapist; she had helped me five years prior when I was in the blackest depression I’d ever experienced. I felt better than I had in a long time, physically and emotionally, even spiritually. Janine was still drinking, but she didn’t drink like I did, she never had. As far as I knew, she wasn’t using any drugs either, or, if she was, she wasn’t telling me. It didn’t matter to me, she could do as she pleased, she wasn’t the one who almost killed Joplin or had blackouts, at least not that I was aware of. Her gig life was still sometimes a mystery to me, at times I thought maybe it was better I didn’t know what she was up to without me. Several people had warned me relationships that began before sobriety would not survive and I calmly explained they didn’t understand what Janine and I had and I was not worried.