Scars from a Memoir (4 page)

Tiffany moved over to her closet and flipped through her hanging clothes. “Dressy or casual?”

“Jeans, and maybe something tight but cute for on top.”

She pulled out a pair of dark blue jeans and a black-and-pink sleeveless shirt that tied at the waist and set both on the bed. A pair of knee-high boots came next. “For Josiah's sake, you better wear a sweater during the meeting.” She placed a black cardigan by the shirt.

Tiffany thought Josiah, a recovered tweaker who attended our meetings, had a thing for me. She wasn't very observant. Josiah had flirted during the first week, but that had long since ended. He'd asked me out for coffee, saying he could use someone to talk to, and then I found out what he really wanted. I kicked him in the balls before the night was over. He'd known I was a hooker; I had discussed it during a meeting.

After my toe hit his sack, he'd yelled, “You'll always be a whore, you used-up bitch.” I hated him. I'd never forget the burning of my face, the silence that seemed to stretch each second into an hour. He had seemed like such a nice guy. But so had Dave, a man I met in rehab who'd tried to put his hand up my shorts in the smoking lounge. So far, the men who came on to me didn't think I deserved any respect.

“I'm not going to the meeting tonight,” I said. “Sada invited me out.”

“Where is she taking you?”

“Just to her friend's apartment.”

“Will there be drinking?”

“I don't know.”

Her hands went to her hips. “You've only been out of rehab for less than—”

“Aren't you going to test me when I get home?”

“That's not the point.” She broke our eye contact and took a deep breath. When she looked at me again, her arms dropped. “I just don't want you to be triggered to use.”

“I'll be fine.”

Her eyes inspected my face as if she didn't recognize me.

I always passed her random drug tests. We were required to attend three NA meetings a week, and I went to at least five. I paid my rent and was tearing it up at my job. Didn't that prove I could be trusted?

“If I feel like I want to use, I'll call you.” I got up from the bed and stood in front of her, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I can't spend the rest of my life hiding from everything that might tempt me.”

“It's just too soon.”

I reminded her of my good behavior over the past three weeks, but no matter how much I tried to reassure her, she continued to shake her head. Staying home was the only thing that was going to make her happy, so I told her I'd wear my work clothes and turned to walk out of her room.

She called me back, took the clothes off the bed, scooped up the heels, and handed everything to me. “Just be careful.”

I got ready in the bathroom, using the little makeup I owned and some eye shadow from Diem's cosmetic bag. When I came out, the girls were still sitting in the kitchen. The dishes had been cleared, and the flowerpot had been put back in the center of the table. If Ashley and Kathy were still out here, something had to be up.

I felt their eyes on me as I went to the fridge and tipped my head back to take a sip from a can of soda. “What's with the looks?” I asked.

“We're silently praying for you,” Ashley said.

“Is there anything we can say to stop you from going?” Kathy asked.

The soda began to slosh inside the can.

I glanced at Diem, but she didn't say anything. She couldn't. She'd gone out when her family came to visit and had met friends for dinner a few times. No one had said anything to her, so why was
I different? If I started asking questions, I'd be late. With my hand on the knob of the door, I turned around. “I'm going to prove you all wrong.”

“You have no idea how overwhelming the pull can be until it's too late,” Tiffany said.

I knew. I'd been fighting it for weeks.

“I'll be back by midnight,” I said.

I hoofed it to work every day to save money, and my NA meetings were only a few blocks from our apartment, so I hadn't taken the train since before I'd gone to jail. But Sada lived in the Back Bay, which was a long walk, and it was almost eight. There weren't any empty seats on the Orange Line. There was barely enough room to stand. I leaned against the door, and when it opened, I stepped onto the platform to let the passengers on and off.

I'd forgotten what it was like to be this close to anyone. Strangers pressed against each side of me, inhaling my scent, their eyes bearing down on my body. For April, it was an unusually warm night, and I'd pushed the sleeves of the cardigan up past my elbows. With my hands gripping the rim around the door, my track marks weren't hidden at my sides. The cyst that had formed on my arm, which had to be lanced in prison, had left behind something nasty.

I could make up a story to cover the last eight years, but the scars on my arms told the truth. So did my ankles, the skin between my toes, even the veins that had burst on my boobs. I was like that board my dad used to tack papers to in his office. Eventually, the cork fell apart because it had too many holes, and my dad got a new one. Did my battle wounds really prove I was a survivor? Or was I too damaged to be glued back together?

I got off at Massachusetts Avenue. A few blocks to the right was where my old hotel used to be before it'd burned down. I'd lived there with Sunshine, the prostitute who taught me how to turn tricks, and Claire was our neighbor. Claire, my best friend, died in the hotel fire with the broken heart that I'd given her when I wouldn't stay sober. After my first attempt at rehab, I moved back in with my boyfriend, Dustin, and empty packets of heroin and dull syringes had covered the floor of our room.

I turned left and focused on my feet, the sound they made as they hit the pavement, and the different colors of shoes I shared the sidewalk with. After a few blocks, something made me look up: Michael's old apartment building. The scene from the last time I'd been here flashed in my head.

*   *   *

Michael didn't say anything when he came outside. He stood against the building with his arms crossed. But his scent filled the air. He smelled so clean, like the hospital room.

“I need help,” I said. “I'm starving.”

His eyes didn't move from mine. His posture didn't shift; his expression didn't soften. He still didn't say anything.

“Please, Michael, I need your help.”

“I'll only help you if you're willing to help yourself.”

Help myself? Did he mean tell the cops the truth about how I'd gotten busted with a van full of heroin and take the plea bargain, go to jail and get sober? If he thought I was going to do that, he was crazy.

“Can I have some food?” I asked.

He covered his face with his hands. “As much as I want to feed you,” he said from behind his fingers, “I can't until you get clean.”

“All I need is some food, and I promise I won't ask for anything else ever again.”

He shook his head and reached for the door.

“You can't leave me like this,” I shouted. “I'm starving.”

The door slammed in my face. I banged on the glass, leaving smudge marks and prints. “I'm your sister,” I yelled.

He got into the elevator.

“Please,” I screamed. My foot slipped and I fell hard, my ass hitting the pavement.

*   *   *

My eyes opened and I reached behind my back, spreading my fingers and pushing against the same glass I had left my prints on. Michael had asked for only one thing. If I had accepted his offer and turned myself in, would things have gone differently?

There wasn't an answer to that question. Standing in front of his building wasn't going to bring him back; what I'd done had forever changed his destiny. What I
could
do was prove to Michael, my parents, and my roommates that I was strong enough to stay sober. I glanced over my shoulder, taking one final look at the lobby before I walked the three blocks to Sada's place.

I called her from the box outside her building. When Sada met me at the door, she was out of breath. She led me up two long flights of stairs and down a long hallway. Once we got inside her apartment, she left me in the living room and told me she had to finish getting ready. I guess it didn't matter that I was fifteen minutes late.

Everything in the apartment was so girly, and pink. Furry lampshades, shaggy rugs, and jewelry used as decorations. I'd never seen a plant with earrings, but Sada's had pierced leaves.

“There's wine in the fridge,” she said.

“I'm good, thanks.”

She poked her head out from the bathroom. “Not a wino?”

“Not a drinker.”

“You're a straightedge?”

A straightedge was a person who didn't smoke, drink, or do drugs. But, according to Sada, that term now included people who didn't eat or wear anything that came from an animal. She had said a lot of her friends were straight, and they had some weird symbol tattooed on their wrists to prove their loyalty.

I'd found an
out
for tonight.

“I guess you could say that, but I'm not a vegetarian.”

“Don't tell Cutter that,” she said. “He'll give you a lecture on animal cruelty.”

“Who's Cutter?”

She walked by me and yanked down the collar of her shirt so that it hung past one of her shoulders. Her bra strap was leopard print. “You'll meet him tonight. He's a straightey too.”

Her purse was hooked to the corner of a painting; she grabbed it, along with her keys, and we left.

At work, Sada did most of the talking. She was an art major from Chicago who didn't know whether she wanted to be an artist or a jewelry designer—maybe create a business out of the hairclips she
made. She'd broken up with her boyfriend last week after he'd carved her name into his leg. I guess she wasn't into body modification, even though she had a full sleeve of tattoos.

She didn't know much about me, other than that I was from Maine, had lived in Boston for a while, and used the same brand of tampons as her. She wasn't one for questions, and I liked that about her. She also didn't like silence. There was never a moment of it at work, so during the walk, she told me about everyone I'd meet tonight. There was a melody to her voice; her words were like lyrics, flowing as if she read them off a page. I was so entertained by her expressions that I almost ran into her when we got to the doorstep of the apartment.

After we were buzzed in, I followed her down the hall to the back of the building. Nobody seemed to mind when she entered without knocking. They all stopped their conversations, turned toward us, and yelled her name.

“Loves, I have someone for you to meet.” She looped her arm through mine and led me into the living room.

Like Sada's place, this wasn't your typical college apartment. At least not the ones I'd been to at the University of Maine. There were framed canvases on the walls and matching leather furniture. There was even an herb garden on the kitchen pass-through window.

The apartment belonged to Nadal and Asher. They were identical twins, and the only way to tell them apart was by the freckle between Asher's eyebrows. Sada told me that Tyme, Nadal's girlfriend, wanted to be with Asher instead. I wondered what was so special about the freckled one. Tyme was at work, so I wasn't going to get a chance to ask her.

Someone came out of the kitchen holding a tray of shot glasses, each filled with a dark green liquid. It looked like the slime that came in those plastic eggs from the nickel machines at the grocery store.

“Cutter, this is Nicole. She's a straightey too,” Sada said.

Cutter was colorful. The only part of his body that wasn't tattooed was the whites of his eyes. His earlobes were so stretched they would have fit around my wrists.

“You'll enjoy this then,” Cutter said, handing me a shot glass and passing out the rest of them.

I smelled it. “What is it?”

“If you like it, I'll show you how to make it,” he said.

A half circle had formed around the three of us. As I glanced at each staring face, I felt myself turn red.

“Is there alcohol in it?” I asked.

“No, love, he's a straightey too, remember?” Sada said.

Cutter made some kind of toast—about big boobs and great legs—and I tipped my head back. And then I waited. The mixture was so thick I had to scoop it with my tongue.

Something got stuck between my teeth, and I used my nails to dig it out. “Was there grass in there?”

“It didn't come from a lawn,” Cutter said. “I grow my own.”

Sada, her arm still looped through mine, pulled me into the kitchen. Soda was the only nonalcoholic drink in the fridge, so I grabbed a can and handed her a bottle of wine. I was hoping that after I chugged down a few gulps, the Coke would peel off the flavor in my mouth like it did to the paint on cars. It didn't.

When we returned to the living room, more weird names were thrown at me from the people who had just arrived. All the girls were dressed like pin-ups; different colors streaked their hair, thick makeup covered their eyes and faces, and art was inked all over their skin. Maybe Sada needed more Nicoles in her life. Maybe that was why she liked me.

“I'll be right back,” she said, disappearing down the hallway.

With Sada gone, the energy instantly changed in the room and everyone left the dining area. A few people went to the kitchen. Some sat on the couch, so I joined them, squeezing in by the armrest. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been alone and sober with people who knew nothing about me. In rehab, we all had something in common. In jail, too.

“Sada told me you guys work together?”

Asher stood next to the armrest, the lamp shining on his freckle.

“We do,” I said. “How did you two meet?”

“I had a class with her last year. She's a hard one to miss. The professor didn't call on anyone but her.”

“We have customers who will only let Sada make their coffee.”

I waited for him to say something, but he didn't. He crossed one arm over the other and rested his chin on his palm. Then he smiled.
The hair on top of his head was spiked, the tips slanted forward like there was a breeze from behind him. The rest of his head was shaved, and he had a swirl of piercings on the left side of his skull. Except for the ruby in the middle, they were all black diamonds.