“Lights are a more-is-more situation, you know?”
You squeeze your paper cup. I know it’s hard, being with the wrong person when the right person is right here.
I make a pit stop at Cooley Hardware to pick up lights and luck is on my side—No Seamus!—and I get home and there’s a box on my front porch. My serotonin surges and Jeff Bezos is a rich man because he knows how much we all just love to get a present, even if it’s a present we bought for ourselves.
I hang my lights—take that, Phil—and I go inside, down to my Whisper Room. I open my present to myself, but it’s really a present for you: Basic Text, 6th edition. Author: Narcotics Anonymous.
I’m reading Phil’s bible for the same reason that you dipped your toes in the Cedar Cove series after we first spoke on the phone. You wanted to know what I’m all about. You wanted to speak my language. I don’t need a fucking self-help book, Mary Kay, but I will do whatever it takes to help you to follow your fucking heart and end your dead marriage. It’s the giving season and tonight, I bequeath my time to you, to us.
* * *
I want to write to Dr. Nicky and tell him to read the Basic Text because it made me realize what we had in common way back when: addiction to toxic women.
I was up all night and my eyes are bloodshot and puffy—perfect—and I choose an old sweater. Lucky for me, your husband likes to tweet about his NA meetings so I’m here, in the parking lot of Grange Hall. I will meet your husband and pretend to be a fellow addict slash Sacriphil super fan boy. My plan is simple in theory—befriend him, needle him about his failure to produce another “Shark,” make him become the worst possible version of himself and undo everything he learned from his “bible.” When I’m in Phil’s head, when he’s in peak monster woulda-coulda-shoulda-been-and-still-could-if-not-for-the-damn-family mode, well, you’ll have no choice but to end your sham marriage. If I do a good job, you’ll watch Phil come to terms with the fact that he’s not a fucking husband and he’s not a fucking father.
He’s a fucking rock star, man.
And you’ll feel justified in leaving him. But if I fuck up…
I light another Marlboro Red and I’m pacing the way addicts do before they go to a first meeting. This is risky. You could find out what I’m up to, but you started this, Mary Kay. You didn’t tell me about him and the best Christmas gifts never come easy. If and when the three of us are in the same room, I’ll tell you the truth, that I went to a meeting for the same reason a lot of people who aren’t addicts go to these meetings: It was the holidays. I was lonely.
Right now, I have to focus on the mission, like a dad driving all over the city to find that stupid fucking Cabbage Patch Kid. I hear Sacriphil music in the distance and it’s him. He’s in his jalopy and he’s pulling into the parking lot, rocking out to his own song. I breathe. I can do this. Christmas is about miracles and transformation—Hi, I’m Jay and I’m addicted to heroin—and Phil gets out of his jalopy and I run through Jay’s story: I hurt my back in a car accident, got Oxy, got hooked on Oxy, tried heroin cuz it was cheaper and yesterday… well, I won’t tell my story today—this is one of those less is more situations—but a good actor prepares and the Basic Text has good advice for all of us: Find new playgrounds. Find new playthings.
Here comes my plaything now, still a little porky and sunburnt from his time in Phoenix. I freeze up like a starfucker and stare at him as I try not to stare at him. That’s Phil DiMarco! Look at him open the door! Stars: They’re just as fucked up as us! He disappears into the building and I cough all that crap out of my lungs and pat down my mothy sweater. This is it. I’m going in.
My new playground is smaller than I expected: There are two rich ladies—one likes Kahlúa, one likes Percocets—a couple of court-ordered resentful old rich people, and a trio of court-ordered teens. A friendly thirtysomething woman picks up a glazed donut. “Hey,” she says. “You ever go to this meeting before?”
“No,” I say. “You?”
She smirks. She wears two diamond engagement rings—Jesus—and she nods at your husband who is on the other side of the room, just as bombastic in person as he is on his infomercial. He points at his freshly shaven face, laughing at his own terrible joke. “Ya get it, man? I shaved the beard and now it’s growing on me!”
“Fair warning,” says the woman with two diamonds. “Some people in this group like to talk. A lot. But hey, at least it’s not boring.”
Soon we’re taking our seats and the rat is so close and the spirit of Christmas is alive in me—it is the most wonderful time of the year—and I introduce myself—my voice is shaky but that’s normal—and nobody pushes me to spill my guts.
Good.
Mrs. Kahlúa talks about how much she loves Kahlúa, how hard it is to go to holiday parties, and Princess Percocets gripes about her self-righteous daughter, and finally, your rat raises his hand. “Can I butt in?”
He rubs the back of his grimy head and takes a long, ten-months-pregnant kind of pause and I try not to picture you on top of him, grabbing his hair until he finally cuts into all that overblown, selfish silence he imposed on us. “So the wife finally got back from Thanksgiving. Felt like she was gone forever.” No shit, Shercock, but this is pretty exciting. I get to hear Phil’s side of the story, a side even you don’t get to see. “But it’s like we’re right back to fighting the way we were in Phoenix. It was rough. Thing One was in a mood, man.” I know we can’t name names but seriously, Phil? Thing One. “Me and Thing Two… we couldn’t do right by her…” Thing Two is Nomi but Nomi is not a thing. “Thing One was all over Thing Two about some book she’s reading…” Oh come on, Phil, the book is Columbine. “And she was all over me about my cigs.” Cigs. “I’m not gonna say that cigarettes are good for you, but you know what else isn’t good for you? Being nagged.”
I start to clap and stop. Starstruck. Fan boy. Phil winks. Thanks, man.
“Thing One’s got daddy issues but lately it’s outta control…” I’ve made you think about things, Mary Kay. I’ve made you grow. “The whole damn week, she’s on me to participate in the family. I try to ‘participate,’ man, I do. A local bar invites me to play…”
Bullshit. He tweeted that bar and four other bars. He invited himself.
“I score us a table and they’re cool with my kid and Thing One flies off the handle. We don’t want to go to a bar! My dad can barely walk right now! Thing Two is seventeen! Man, I know I’m not supposed to say it…” Say it, Phil. Say it! “But Thing One… she botched the turkey, she can’t stay off Instagram and for someone who loves to read so much… well she ain’t reading lately…”
You love me too much to concentrate and soon, we’ll be on my sofa reading together.
“And Thing Two is seventeen going on twelve. She needs to grow up… All she does is ride her bike around on her own in la-la land…” Phil shakes his head. “We used to be a dynasty… I was her king. She was my queen. We were heroes…” Another pregnant pause and the woman with two rings bites her lip. She’s not alone. Your poor husband is a recurring joke, Mary Kay. “I didn’t cave,” he says. “But the thing is… yes, I fucking did cave, man. I didn’t get to play for a whole week.” Lie. “I know I’ve said it before…” Say it again. Please. “But man, is this it? Is this my life?” He shakes it off. “Never mind,” he says. “You’d have to be in my shoes to… Never mind.”