8:30 AA MEETING
Callie loved AA meetings, because it was the only time she could truly let her competitive side out for a stroll.
Fiddled with by an uncle? Call me when you murder him.
Gang raped by your brother’s friends? Did you chop them all to pieces?
Uncontrollable shakes from the DTs? Lemme know when you shit a pint of blood out of your asshole.
Callie walked into the room. The set-up was the same as every other AA meeting happening in every other corner of the world right now. Folding chairs in a large circle with big pandemic gaps in between. Serenity prayer in a picture frame on a table beside pamphlets with titles like How It Works! and The Promises and The Twelve Traditions. The line for the coffee urn was ten-deep. Callie stood behind a guy in a black business suit and green surgical mask who looked like he would rather be brainstorming outside of the box or putting a pin in his vision board or anywhere else but here.
“Oh,” he said, stepping back so that Callie could go ahead of him, which she supposed was what polite gentlemen did for ladies who didn’t look like heroin junkies.
“I’m fine, thank you.” Callie turned away, showing great interest in a poster of Jesus holding an astray sheep.
The basement was cool, but sweat still rolled down her neck. The exchange with Business Suit had been as unsettling as the looks in the parking lot. Because of her small stature, because she tended to favor Care Bear T-shirts and rainbow jackets, Callie was often mistaken for a teenager, but she was rarely mistaken for a thirty-seven-year-old woman, which technically—she guessed—was what she was. A quick glance around the room told her that she wasn’t being paranoid. Curious eyes looked back. Maybe it was because she was new, but Callie had been new at this very same church before and people had shied away like she might suddenly lunge at them and ask for cash. She had looked like a junkie then. Maybe they would give her the money now.
The coffee line moved up. Callie stuck her hand in her purse. She found the pill bottles she’d tucked into the pocket, a hangman’s collection she’d traded for a vial of ketamine. As discreetly as she could, she slipped out two Xanax, then turned so she could tuck her fingers under her mask.
Instead of swallowing the tablets, she left them under her tongue. The medication would enter her system faster that way. As her mouth filled with saliva, Callie forced herself to melt away with the Xanax.
This was her new identity: She was in Atlanta for a job interview. She was staying at the St. Regis. She had been sober for eleven years. She was at a stressful point in her life and she needed the comfort of fellow travelers.
“Fuck,” someone muttered.
Callie heard the woman’s voice, but she didn’t turn around. There was a mirror above the coffee station. She easily spotted Sidney Winslow sitting in one of the folding chairs that had been placed in a circle around the room. The young woman was leaning over her phone, eyebrows knitted. Soft make-up. Hair gently brushing her shoulders. Callie recognized Sidney’s more sedate daytime attire, a black pencil skirt and white blouse with capped sleeves. Most women would look like the hostess at a mid-market steak house in the get-up, but Sidney managed to make it look elegant. Even when she muttered another fuck as she got up from the chair.
Every man in the room watched her traverse the space. Sidney had absolutely no qualms about the eyes eagerly taking in her body. She had the bearing of a dancer, her posture exact, every movement fluid and somehow sexually charged.
Business Suit made a low noise of appreciation. He saw Callie catching him in the act and raised his eyebrows over his mask, as if to say, who can blame me? Callie raised her eyebrows back in a certainly not I response because if there was one thing the group seemed to agree upon, other than that alcohol was delicious, it was that Sidney Winslow was fucking gorgeous.
Too bad she was with a rapist asshole who had threatened Maddy’s tranquil, perfect existence, because Callie was going to fuck with her so hard that Andrew would be left with nothing but tattered shreds of the woman Sidney Winslow used to be.
“I can’t—” Sidney’s husky voice carried from the hallway.
Callie took a tiny step back so that she could peer into the hall. Sidney was leaning against the wall, phone pressed to her ear. She had to be arguing with Andrew. Callie had checked the court docket this morning. Andrew’s jury selection was starting in two hours. Callie hoped that he looked bruised and battered from their scuffle in the stadium tunnel yesterday afternoon. She wanted every juror to have it at the front of their mind that something was not right about the defendant.