Chapter 17
Hours after Brooke’s visit, Anne still hadn’t been able to throw out the wine.
She’d canceled her recurring order, at least. But there were still three bottles of Pascal Jolivet Sancerre sauvignon blanc in the fridge, two of them unopened, and, somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to dump their contents down the sink.
And the pantry still contained a nearly-full crate.
Head throbbing, Anne sat on the back deck while the sun slowly slipped toward the horizon, tracing brown hills with gold light.
The more she thought about the open bottle in the fridge, the more it haunted her.
Hints of acidic green apple felt sharp on her tongue, almost as real as if the wine was in her mouth.
Was she an alcoholic? Was that what this craving meant?
A rush of fresh worry made her grab her phone and quickly Google: How do I know if I’m an alcoholic?
Twenty minutes and several websites later, Anne had more information, some reassuring and some not.
Apparently alcohol abuse existed across a large spectrum, with alcohol addiction at the far end.
Alcoholism was defined by a physical dependency and the inability to stop or control your drinking; alcohol abuse more broadly involved an unhealthy reliance on alcohol.
Maybe she wasn’t a full-blown addict—or at least not yet—but these websites mentioned some uncomfortably familiar habits.
With growing unease, Anne read the signs and symptoms list for something called alcohol use disorder, which spanned a scale from mild to severe.
Some of the bullet points were disturbingly familiar: Feeling a strong craving or urge to drink alcohol.
Drinking more than you’d planned. Getting excited about future plans to drink.
Building a tolerance to alcohol so you need more to feel its effect.
Unable to relax or feel pleasure without drinking.
What she’d always brushed away as perfectly normal apparently wasn’t normal at all.
Well, that fit her pattern, didn’t it?
Not counting the swallow after her fight with Sadie, Anne’s last real drink—a couple glasses of wine—had been Sunday afternoon.
Two days was more time than she’d gone without for a good long while.
At least her physical symptoms weren’t too strong, just a headache and an upset stomach—none of the intense withdrawal reactions the websites said came with severe alcohol use disorder, such as sweating or shaking or heart palpitations.
That was good news. It meant she should be able to take a break from drinking without help.
She just needed to do what she’d been planning to do all day: go into the kitchen and pour out the bottles of wine in her fridge. No good reason not to do it right now.
Just drain them into the sink. Simple.
But her legs wouldn’t let her.
Get up, she ordered herself. Just get up and do it. It’ll take you two minutes, and then it’ll be over.
She didn’t get up.
She sat there, unable to move, and thought, I always make sure there’s a wine menu before I go to a new restaurant.
Then: I never have just one glass.
And then, she thought: Maybe I don’t need to do this without help.
Before she could stop herself, she sent Sadie a text.
Are you busy? Could I call you? Just for a minute.
In less than a minute, a response popped up.
Reviewing my notes for tomorrow, everything ok?
Right. The next day—Wednesday—was Sadie’s interview at Barnard, where she’d be grilled by everyone from the dean to her prospective students.
I’m fine. Don’t worry about it, please. I hope the campus visit goes well.
While Anne stared at the screen and wondered if she should reach out to someone else—if there was anyone else—the phone buzzed loudly with an incoming call, startling her almost out of the deck chair.
“I thought you were reviewing your notes,” Anne said, skipping right past the hello.
“I’ve gone over them twice already. What is it?” Sadie sounded worried as hell. “I know you. Your ‘fine’ is someone else’s catastrophe.”
Anne managed to resist the temptation to argue against that statement. “I think,” she said slowly, gathering her strength, “that I would appreciate having your help.”
“Help,” Sadie repeated. She sounded shocked. “Of course. I happen to be tremendous at helping. Won a blue ribbon for it in second grade, even. How can I be of assistance?”
“I want to throw out the wine in the fridge,” Anne blurted out.
“I haven’t done it yet. But I want to.” Shame pressed against her chest. She felt like she was making a foundational concession to something bigger than herself, a force that had moved her in one direction for so long, she’d mistaken its hands for her own. She might as well have said I’m weak.
Sadie drew in a long breath, and in that sound, Anne heard all the concern Sadie hadn’t voiced over the years, heavy and pained. “Are you throwing out the wine you keep in the pantry, too?”
Anne started. “The—what?”
“The other bottles you think I don’t know about.” It was tender, not accusatory.
Now the shame felt all-consuming. Anne swallowed her questions. How long have you known? Why didn’t you say anything? Is this one of the reasons you aren’t sure you can commit to me? “I’ll donate those. Stone and Tide might take them.”
“So you—want to stop drinking.”
“For a little while, at least.” Anne could take it one day at a time. She didn’t have to commit the rest of her life to soberness right this second. “Just to see how I feel without it.”
“Are you sure?”
No, Anne wasn’t sure. If she actually stopped drinking, she’d lose her lifelong friend, her one pleasure. Somewhere inside her, a little voice still begged, Don’t take this away; it’s all I ever get to have.
But that wasn’t true. She remembered spinning under the desert sky with Sadie.
The awed look on Brooke’s face when Anne had told her daughter how proud she was of her.
The salty eruption of flavor from that Colossal Burger.
The way James had seen her for the very first time.
Arthur’s hug. Sadie’s soft, needy mouth on hers.
There were so many other pleasures.
“Anne?”
“I don’t want to be that person anymore,” she whispered.
“Then who do you want to be?”
No one had ever asked Anne that. She’d always been the same: a first-rate student, uncomplaining girlfriend, consummate wife, efficient mother, accomplished entertainer.
The woman who’d kept her looks, despite time and gravity.
The woman who proved her excellence to anyone watching.
A terrible effort dressed up as perfect ease.
“I want to be enough,” she said finally.
“Oh, dear heart.” Sadie breathed. “That’s what I want for you, too. Look, should I come home? I can get a red-eye tomorrow night, after the campus visit’s over. The hell with taking time to think, if having me there would help you do this.”
That felt good to hear. Very, very good. And Anne considered it: Sadie, back in Anne’s home, the house briefly animated again with her sound and light and movement. The thought filled her with so much longing, she had to press her lips together to stop a small sound.
But that didn’t change the fact that Sadie still needed her space. The sooner she took it, the sooner she’d be able to give Anne an answer.
“I’ll be all right,” she said firmly. “Please focus on yourself. Figure out what you need. I’ll be here doing the same thing.”
“If you’re sure.” A strain of yearning in Sadie’s voice made Anne’s heart flutter. “Would you like me to stay on the phone with you while you pour out the wine?”
That, Anne could accept. “Yes. Please. I’d like that.”
“Anne?”
“Yes?” A slow bead of sweat traveled down between her breasts.
“There’s no shame,” Sadie said gently, “in being kind to yourself. There’s no shame in needing it.”
With her phone on the counter and Sadie on speaker, Anne got out the three bottles from the fridge, one by one, and placed them neatly in a row next to the farmhouse sink. When she uncorked the open bottle, the thick pop sounded like a dull, breathless protest.
Slowly, with a hand that was mostly steady, Anne tipped the bottle’s contents into the sink. The drain drank greedily, and a thick, overpowering smell rose up from the off-white fireclay. “I poured out the first one,” she said, to herself as much as to Sadie.
“Keep going, sweetheart,” Sadie told her, soft approval in her voice. “You’re doing so well.”
Anne blushed, pleasure mingling with her self-consciousness. One down. Two to go.
It was near dinnertime. Soon she’d trade the bottles’ fullness for her own.
* * *
The Calabasas Erewhon was nearly empty; nobody did their grocery shopping on a weeknight. Thankfully, that meant no one else hovered around the hot bar while Anne surveyed the offerings in peace.
Mostly in peace. She was here to grab something to eat, since her fridge had nothing in it except nonfat cottage cheese and a three-day-old leftover cup of kale-and-white-bean soup.
And that meant facing another exhausting choice: this time, between the kind of dinner she’d normally eat and the kind of food she’d planned on trying.
Anne didn’t have to push herself tonight. Honestly, she’d done more than enough of that for today. The stench of wine that still clung to her sink was proof enough.
Shopping basket in one hand, she picked up a pair of tongs with the other, ready to reach for a small piece of the plain, whole-roasted, sea salt-brined Alaskan salmon. It was a staple of her typical diet, pairing well with a scoop of steamed broccoli.
“Anne Lowell! My God, it’s been ages!”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
With the training of a lifetime, Anne immediately fixed her face into a polite mask of interest, then turned to face the voice’s owner.
Surprisingly, Tricia Stefanski seemed genuinely pleased to see her. Far more pleased than Anne was, although she’d liked Trish well enough back in the day. The woman had a decent head on her narrow shoulders, and a sense of humor, too, which was more than most of Anne’s former circle could boast.
“Trish!” she exclaimed. She leaned in for a quick air-kiss. “How’s things? Still at Paramount?”
“Can’t tell you why,” Trish said dryly. “I should do an adaptation of Dante’s Inferno and call one of the circles of hell ‘producing.’ Gosh, what have you been up to these last few years? I haven’t seen you since the divorce.”
Anne blinked. She hadn’t expected Trish to bring that up—certainly not so casually. “Oh, I’ve been—around,” she said vaguely. Falling in love with my best friend. Realizing I’m a lesbian. Deciding to change my entire life. “Still with Conserve Malibu.”
Trish smiled. She was thinner than Anne remembered, her cheekbones jutting out over recessed cheeks. “That’s great. You always did know how to manage a board. I remember James bragging about—oh.” She winced. “Probably shouldn’t mention him.”
Anne waved it away. “It’s fine. James and I, we’re doing all right now.” And as she said it, she realized it was true.
“Anyway,” Trish continued, and Anne recognized the strained expression on her face: that of a woman trying to get out of a conversation politely.
“I should probably get going. Just ran in quickly to pick up a few things for Victoria—she’s home from Cornell this weekend.
That girl just loves her whole wheat bagels. ”
“Right.” Trish probably hadn’t eaten a bagel since 1993. “Of course. I should get going, too—I’m grabbing dinner.” Anne gestured at the salmon.
Almost instantly, the strain on Trish’s face was replaced with a look of longing so naked that Anne nearly inhaled in reaction.
“Oh, it looks wonderful. I can’t have anything like that—I’ve been on an all-vegan, sugar-free paleo diet since January.
You know what it’s like.” A little laugh.
“I do feel so much lighter now, I have to say. Cleaner. Now that I’m not weighed down with all those preservatives. ”
Trish wasn’t weighed down by much at all. Anne could see her sharp collarbones through her loose cotton T-shirt. “I’m, ah, glad it’s working for you.”
“It is.” Trish clearly wanted to convince more than one person. “Look, we should get together sometime soon.” She gave a little wave, scrunching her fingers. “I’ll call you.”
“Can’t wait,” Anne said brightly, which made them both liars.
Once Trish was gone, she turned back to the hot bar. The salmon pieces still waited there for her, pink and glistening.
Tonight, Trish would eat whatever meager serving her diet allowed, ignoring the call of Victoria’s whole wheat bagels.
For dessert, she’d have the sour satisfaction of knowing she’d done it right.
Stayed inside the borders of what she was supposed to have.
Squeezed her appetite into a small, perfect, delicate nub.
No wants or needs that couldn’t be perfectly contained.
To Anne’s surprise, a growing compassion inside her was pushing out any judgment.
Trish wasn’t ready for her own version of a sticky booth at Burger Bliss; that was clear.
But one day, maybe, if she was lucky, someone in her life might help her realize that she couldn’t run away from being human, no matter how hard she tried.
Anne put down the salmon tongs. And then, her reach swift and sure, she grabbed a short rib bowl, dropping it in her basket without hesitation. The heat from the container still warmed her hand, a little like a promise.