Best Kept Secret: A Novel

The following Thursday, after we rehash everything that happened with my mother over the past couple of weeks, my new job and my new sponsor, Andi and I talk about the friendship I’ve started to forge with Kristin.

“Did you really think you were that unique?” she asks. “Plenty of mothers use alcohol to manage their stress. You just happened to get caught. That makes you one of the lucky ones.”

“How do you figure that?” I say, now fiddling with the edge of my cardigan. I can’t seem to keep my hands still. My body feels like lit sparklers are lodged beneath my skin.

“Well, let’s look at the facts. How many times did you go to jail?”

“Never.” Uh-oh, I think. Here she goes, questioning bullets, my name etched on each one of them, no one else to cushion her barrage. I sink down a bit in my chair, wishing there was a place where I could take immediate cover.

“Okay. How many times did you deserve to?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, locking my hands together, drumming my fingers on the backs of my hands.

“Sure you do.” She is unflappable, leaning forward in her seat. “How many times did you drive with Charlie in the car when you were wasted?”

I squirm. “Okay. I get it. I know what you’re saying.”

“Do you? Charlie’s not dead. You’re not dead. Ergo, you are lucky.” She keeps her eyes on me, reading my reactions like a hawk. “Did you ever kill anyone else?”

“No,” I say quietly, now holding my body completely immobile. I don’t want to give her any further ammunition. I want to run away—it’s more difficult to hit a moving target.

“Again, lucky. Women go to jail every day because of their addiction issues, Cadee. They kill people. This disease isn’t picky about who has it.”

“But I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yet.” She holds my gaze steady with her own. “You haven’t killed anyone yet.”

“I hate how that feels.”

“How what feels?”

“That I have a ‘disease.’ “ I hook my fingers into invisible quotation marks in the air around the word “disease.” “It sounds so pitiful.”

She cocks her head toward her right shoulder. “Is it pitiful if someone has cancer?”

I sigh. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air, then letting them drop back down. I try to withhold another sigh. “Cancer is tangible. People feel compassion for you if you get cancer. Not so much if you’re an alcoholic. And a mother who drinks? Forget it. Straight to hell. Big, fat scarlet letter ‘A’ branded on our foreheads for life. Me and Hester Prynne? Like this.” I hold up both my arms in front of me, crossing my fingers to emphasize just how intimate the heroine from The Scarlet Letter and I could be. “Same letter, different sins.”

“You want people to feel sorry for you, then?” Andi tilts her head to her other shoulder, squinting.

“No!” I say. “I didn’t say that.” How can I like this woman as much as I do when she so thoroughly manages to piss me off ?

She ignores this, straightening her head, and looks at me head-on. “Oh. I see. You feel sorry for yourself.”

I cross my arms over my chest and press the tip of my tongue into one of my lower molars, but don’t respond. I’m too irritated to be in control of what might come out of my mouth. She does not seem to be bothered by my silence, which serves only to annoy me further.

“It also sounds like you’re still stuck on wanting alcoholism to be a matter of morality or willpower,” she goes on. “It’s not a character flaw, Cadence. It’s a disease. It’s diagnosed by a set of observable and consistent clinical symptoms.”

“Okay, so how exactly do I accept the diagnosis?” I ask, taking a deep breath in and releasing it, attempting to let go of the tension clinging to my body. I know I need to stop arguing with her. But defiance seems to be littered throughout my psyche. I keep stumbling on it unexpectedly, and then find myself shocked when I continue falling down: Well. How did that happen again?

“Most of it you’ve already done.”

“I have?” I’m sure I look confused.

“Sure.” She smiles, references my file on her lap. “You admit you couldn’t control your drinking, even when you tried. You tried to stop, over and over again, and you couldn’t. Right?”

“Yes.” Something inside me is crumpling, like a pop can under pressure. I feel myself giving in, capitulating beneath the weight of the facts laid plain before me.

“You admit your life became unmanageable, right? Things got completely out of your control—your work, your ability to parent Charlie?”

I give her a curt nod. Her words feel like they are skinning away a warm blanket from my body on a cold winter’s night. I hate this. I hate that I cannot rationalize my way out of what she is saying. I feel trapped, yet oddly hopeful at the same time. A pinprick of optimism that says if I can accept this about myself, I might be able to find a way to manage it. Maybe I can put down the shovel, gather some different tools.

“That’s step one in accepting. If you weren’t an alcoholic, things wouldn’t have progressed to that point. You could stop drinking when you tried. ‘Normal’ people decide to stop and they stop. End of story.”

I think about how I see myself in the women I’ve met and the people I’ve listened to in meetings. I’m like Kristin and Serena and Laura; I’m like Scott. I’m even like Vince, who took a mouthful of lawn. They all understand what it is to feel that sense of incomprehensible demoralization. The compulsion, the shame, the secrets, the lies—I can relate to it all. Alcoholism isn’t a physical diagnosis. It frustrates me to no end that there’s no blood test I can take that will tell me definitively, yes, you’re an alcoholic, the way I’d know I had diabetes or cancer. Instead, it’s looking at the circumstantial evidence that led me to this place. When I do, it’s impossible to ignore that whether I like it or not, odds are that I am an alcoholic.

Great. That’s just great. I had hoped that admitting this to myself for the first time I might find relief, as Andi had. What I feel instead is a sense of folding in on myself—dull, reluctant surrender.

“So, I need to tell you that Laura won’t be returning to our group,” Andi says, interrupting my thoughts.

“Oh, no,” I say. “Did she relapse again?”

Andi nods, her lips pressed together into a grim line.

“Shit.” I sigh. “Can I still call her, though? Just to see how she is?”

“Of course you can. She’s going to need all the support she can get.”

I don’t have Charlie the second weekend in June, so I ask Serena to schedule me for double shifts at Le Chat Noir to fill up my days. Nadine is right—having structure definitely helps me get out of my head. When I’m at the restaurant, I’m much too busy to think about anything other than not dropping the enormous tray I’m carrying, or whether the woman with the red-rimmed glasses wanted home fries or fruit with her egg-white omelet. I’m not wallowing in fear—I’m taking care of an immediate task.

Another unexpected benefit of the job is the constant interaction with customers. It forces me to be friendly in a way I’ve never really been, and I quickly learn that my openness encourages theirs; a big smile and a sincere inquiry about their well-being goes a long way in making them feel like there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing than taking care of their needs. Letting down my guard is uncomfortable at first, but the more I do it, the more natural it feels. It’s also great to go home with cash in my pocket, and while I don’t think waiting tables is something I’ll do forever, it’s enough for me while I figure out what exactly it is I really want to do with my life.

Around ten o’clock on Saturday morning, I am slammed with two parties of six people and a handful of other tables thrown in just to make things interesting. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck as I fly between the kitchen and the dining room, mindful to keep a smile on my face while I pour fresh-squeezed orange juice and ask the line cook to, pretty please, add a side of thick-cut, peppered bacon to one of my orders.

“Looks like you’re kicking ass and taking names,” Serena says, watching me carefully balance an enormous round tray filled with plates.

“I’m surviving,” I say with a grin. “For a little while, at least.”

“A single just sat down in your section,” Serena points out. “Want me to get Barb to take it?” Barb is the other daytime server at Le Chat Noir, a tough-talking, big-hearted veteran in the food service business who has worked for Serena for five years. She has taken me under her wing, relieved to finally have a coworker who isn’t young enough to be her grandchild.

“Nah, I’ve got it,” I say. “Just have to get this food out and I’m good.” I deliver the tray to my awaiting table of eight, happy that Barb taught me the trick of making a seating chart on the back of my notepad to keep track of who gets which order. I learned quickly that customers get annoyed when I accidentally put the wrong meal in front of them. When all the food is sitting in front of the proper person, I flip around and walk over to the small table in the back corner of the restaurant, reviewing my tickets as I move across the dining room floor.

“Well, now, look who it is,” Vince says as I approach.

My gaze lifts from my notepad and there he is, sitting at my table, alone. “Vince,” I say, stopping short. “What’re you doing here?” He wears gym shorts and a white T-shirt; his dark hair is slicked back like he’s just stepped out of the shower. I can’t help but notice how the short sleeves cling to the muscular cut of his arms. Damn. Look at those triceps. I feel a sudden, familiar pull in my pelvis. Oh, right. That’s lust.

He grins. “Well, I was hoping to eat.”

My stomach flutters nervously. “Do you live near here or something?”

“My office is just around the corner, so I belong to the gym in the building. I didn’t know you worked here.”

“I just started a couple of weeks ago.” I glance over toward the kitchen and see Serena is leaning over the beverage bar, watching me with great curiosity. Smiling, I turn back to Vince, pen poised above my notepad. “What can I get you?”

“How about the chorizo breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee with my waitress?” His green eyes twinkle as he smiles at me again.

“Very funny. I’m working. But I appreciate the offer.” I notice an appealing dimple in his left cheek and spark briefly on the vision of sticking my tongue into it. Man, he is cute.

“Are you free later?”

I lower my voice and lean down toward him. “My sponsor told me I’m not allowed to date yet.”

“Date?” he says with a playful edge to the word. “I was just going to see if you’ll be going to the Fremont meeting tonight.”

My face flushes pink and I pull back, unable to meet his gaze. “Oh. Sorry,” I stutter. “I didn’t mean to presume.”

He laughs. “Cadence, you’re not reading this wrong. I’m attracted to you. But I know how early recovery goes and I’m not looking to screw that up. I’d just like to get to know you.”

“As friends?”

He nods. “Yes. I think the great Nadine might allow that.”

I smile. “I think so, too.” I go back to the kitchen and put his order in the system.

“Who is that?” Serena asks. “He is one fine-lookin’ man.”

“Just a friend,” I say, and force myself to believe I’m telling the truth.