Yoga Cocaine

Chapter 2

2

“I’m not going out with you, Jimmy.” I glower across the counter.

He looks back at me. Big brown eyes, a pockmarked face, a slightly crooked smile. I wish he’d see that I’m too good for him and stop asking me out. Alright, maybe not the me I am now—this me is working for $7.25 an hour at a lame Mt. Airy coffee shop—but the me I’m going to be. After I quit.

I hand Jimmy his cappuccino. I’ve been working at the Free Café for six months now (five months past when I thought I’d get my life together). Jimmy works down the street at his parents’ deli. Like I’d ever date some minimum-wage sandwich-pusher. The only reason I’m living in coffee hell is because I was fired from my last three legit jobs. Apparently, it’s frowned upon to get high on company time, make out with coworkers, and steal money out of petty cash.

My not-so-secret admirer looks as forlorn as a puppy that’s been turned away, treat-less, after begging for scraps. “Jessica, I’m a nice guy who wants to take you out on a date. You could do worse.”

“For sure,” I reply. “That’s what I’m waiting for—worse.”

I’m only half kidding. I have a thing for assholes. Or, rather, asshole’s things have a thing for me. Sober or shitfaced, I walk into any room and dysfunction finds me. That’s part of the reason I haven’t been to an AA meeting in a couple weeks. The last time I went, I met Garrett. He had four days sober. I had four minutes. We f****d in the bathroom.

Before AA, I had a few sessions with a therapist because I knew something was wrong and didn’t know how to fix it. After several appointments, some of which I arrived to mildly intoxicated, or missed altogether, she told me I was “unpredictable” and “lacked emotional integrity.”

Predictably, I fired her. Well, actually, since I lacked the integrity to tell her, I stopped showing up.

Now, I have April—my infinitely patient sponsor.

A few weeks ago, I heard this guy say in a meeting that, every time he sees his golden retriever, he thinks about how the word dog is God spelled backward, and how knowing that draws him closer to his Higher Power. The last dog I had, I sold to a neighbor kid for fifty bucks for d**g money. April behaves kind of like a dog. She’s always happy to see me, and, every time I call, she comes. I called her this morning, which is why, when I look up from wiping down the counter, she’s walking through the door.

Jimmy slinks out, leaving my sponsor and me alone. Now, she’s free to lecture without worrying about breaking either of our anonymity.

“Jess.” April’s tone is parental. “You have to call before you pick up. Not after.”

April does yoga too. She got me into it.

“Why do you always call after?”

I don’t answer her question. We both know why I don’t call before getting high. I don’t want to be talked out of it.

“You can choose your rock bottom, you know. You don’t have to lose everything.”

What else is there to lose? Last year, at Thanksgiving, my mom and stepdad disowned me for getting drunk and smoking dope. Well, not really. They disowned me because, in a fit of paranoia, I threw the turkey out the window, then dove under the table and screamed “It’s gonna explode!” I thought the poultry was a bomb.

I wasn’t wrong about an explosion. My stepdad blew up.

He screamed at me so loud the table shook. When I finally crawled out, Mom was crying and my sister—who is younger than I am, but more mature than I’ll ever be—whipped my car keys at my face and told me to get out.

Seeing Chloe lose her composure almost made it worth it. Almost.

“f**k you!” I shrieked as I stumbled out the door. “I don’t need any of you!”

My triumph was short-lived. I tripped on the front stoop, fell headfirst into a rosebush, and puked onto the grass.

The Chinese food delivery man who arrived half an hour later with a roast duck—Mom’s last-minute solution to the turkey predicament—saved me. Ping (that was his name) helped me up, walked me to my car, and gave me a bottle of water.

I’d have thanked him, but I was too fixated on my memories of the children’s book Mom and Dad used to read out-loud to Chloe and me. “You have the name of a duck, and you’re delivering duck,” I said, over and over, between fits of giggles.

“You no dribe ‘til you no drunk,” the delivery guy cautioned.

“Duck!” I clutched my aching abdomen. Between the belly laughs and the puking, it had gotten quite the workout.

“I no time this.” Ping wagged a disapproving finger in my face.

I leaned my dizzy head against the steering wheel.

A horn blast. Dwight standing at the door.

“I back, one minute.”

Ping finished his delivery, checked on me one last time, then left. “You no dribe,” he reiterated. “You danj’ous lady, ve’y drunk.”

I spent the next few hours sobering up in Mom and Dwight’s driveway before heading home to sleep the rest of the holiday away.

“Jess…?”

The counter is now sparkling. I’ve been ceaselessly scrubbing the same spot.

My sponsor’s expression is equal-parts pity and love. All she wants is for me to be sober. I bite my lower lip to keep my eyes from betraying me. No way will I allow myself to cry. Just as I’m about to reply, my coworker, Tina, comes in to start her shift.

“Hey, you’re like Jess’ friend, right?”

Tina is a shy, smiley girl who wears pigtails and uses the word like as a verb, noun and adjective. Her nails are pumpkin orange today, despite it being nowhere near Halloween.

“I should get back to work.”

April lowers her voice so my Valley Girl coworker won’t overhear. “Want to go to a meeting after your shift?”

Not really, I think, but what comes out of my mouth is “Can we go to a women’s meeting?”

I don’t want to risk running into Garrett.

I haven’t told April about Garrett. I’m not looking to get a reputation. I already have a reputation. I’m looking to undo it.