Zac turns the light out. They lie in the darkness for a long time. Despite her reassurances to Zac, Anya finds it difficult to settle. She catalogs all the different things people might do in the mornings that aren’t related to work.
“He’ll come back.” Zac sounds uncertain.
After the past two weeks, it’s hard to fault him. She can well imagine Cal vanishing like smoke. “Of course he will.” She uses a tone that implies Zac’s being stupid, and she hears him sigh, reassured. His feet finally find hers under the covers.
“Of course he will,” Zac says, and sleeps.
It takes Anya longer. She can’t help thinking Cal would’ve told Zac what his morning plans were if she wasn’t there.
She’s not sure what that means.
Part Two
Cal
The morning routine is both simple and sacrosanct.
It begins at six when he rolls out of bed to go for a run. Except at the height of summer, that means he leaves his house in the dark. Three times a week, he lifts weights afterward in the home gym he’s built. He then showers and cooks breakfast: usually eggs, but sometimes when he’s feeling adventurous, he’ll have plain Greek yogurt with a little mushed-up banana added in for sweetness. This is accompanied by a kale smoothie. He allows himself a single cup of black coffee. Any more than that gives him heartburn; he’s not twenty anymore. He does the dishes and opens the blinds to let the sun in.
Thus bolstered, he pours a single shot of añejo tequila, sits down at his dining room table and breathes in the scent. He sits for three minutes, no more, no less, studying it, before he pours it down the sink. The shot glass is washed with soap and set to dry in the rack. It never goes in the cupboard. It is made of clear, good-quality glass, and sits heavy in his hand.
Once that’s done, the rest of the day is his.
On the morning after he sleeps with Anya, there’s another first time. He skips the tequila ritual for the first time since he instituted it four years, ten months, three weeks and eight days ago.
Instead, he checks the calendar in the kitchen junk drawer. The best he can do means a trip to Echo Park. It’ll be an hour’s drive at least, but he can probably make it. He gets in his car.
When he came here from Nebraska, his expectations of LA were primarily the product of movies, heinous news stories, and his mother’s worried admonitions about drugs and crime. He imagined starlets in every coffee shop, criminals in every alley, palm trees on every corner. After twenty years of living here, the only thing 100% consistent with his initial outsider-perceptions is that the traffic is shit.
LA isn’t a city so much as it’s a collection of eclectic towns all smushed together pretending that proximity means they’re related. Brentwood, where Cal lives, is a completely different beast from Venice, where Anya and Zac live. Yet, for someone like Cal, someone whose job means he gets a lot of attention wherever he goes, the various neighborhoods do share one trait—they’re all filled to overflowing with people who’re always looking at him.
Zac feeds off the adoration. He loves that no matter where he goes, he’ll have eyes lingering on him, fans calling his name. But for Cal, being noticed makes the world feel loud and busy and too bright, and sometimes he dreams of a small house in a small town—a small life, really—with a fervency that scares him. He has to try not to flinch when the paparazzi take pictures of him walking out of Starbucks; he inevitably stammers when fans ask for pictures and say that they love him; he hunches his shoulders at the sight of his own face on music magazine covers on newspaper stands.
But at times like this, when his vices have him on the road at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning, he can’t help loving LA for being the kind of place that’s ready at a moment’s notice to acknowledge her citizens’ flaws, for good or ill. Whether you’re trying to hang yourself or climb out of a hole, LA will provide the rope.
Turns out Cal didn’t need that much help to do the first; he’s still working on the second.
Community centers tend to blur together after a while. They all have brown carpet for some reason, and plastic chairs with metal legs. He takes a seat in the back, his ballcap tugged down low in a defense against being recognized. The preamble is a Pavlovian trigger for him by now, his heart rate slowing at the familiar refrain. He joins in during the Serenity Prayer—something he didn’t do the first year—and then listens absently to the rest of the readings and the chairwoman’s introduction.
It’s a step meeting. Faith. Cal winces. Figures. He doesn’t add anything to the ensuing discussion. Despite being raised Methodist and being hauled to church by his parents every Sunday of his childhood, he doesn’t believe in God.
No one has been chosen to speak officially, so the chairwoman opens the floor at that point.
For what might very well be the thousandth time in the last eight years, Cal braces himself. Then he opens his mouth. “I’d like to say something.”
The chairwoman nods. Sometimes, with small crowds, they sit in a circle, and he wouldn’t have to stand up. This meeting is bigger, probably twenty people. He hates standing. Even with the ballcap on, the young woman with the tattoo on her throat and piercings that run the length of both ears recognizes him—her mouth goes round as an O. He tries to ignore it. This is a safe place. He hasn’t been outed so far, and this isn’t even close to the first time someone’s realized who he is.
“I’m Cal, and I’m an alcoholic.” He waits for the chorus of voices to welcome him, and then adds, “I’m in a relationship. I think. As of last night. And I really want a drink.”
He talks for a handful of minutes. He doesn’t name names, obviously, and he doesn’t mention that it’s a relationship with a married couple. He can barely tell himself that, let alone strangers. Instead, he mentions that he lacked the fortitude to look his demon in the eye this morning, for the first time in almost five years. He’s angry that his streak is broken, but he thinks he’s going to make it. He sits back down. He’s sweating and shaky. The man next to him smiles and nods, reassuring, and Cal nods back, grateful.
One of the weirdest things about AA is how good it can feel to have a total stranger be proud of you.
Cal ducks out at the end, avoiding socialization—and the woman with the tattoo, if he’s honest, even though she’s not making any sign of wanting to track him down—but he leaves a handful of twenties in the donation basket before he goes.
* * *
It’s still early when he gets home—barely eleven. He feels both exhausted and antsy. He’s tempted to take a nap, but he won’t sleep tonight if he does. Instead, he heads for his home studio.
He bought the house for this room alone, seduced by the high ceilings and hardwood floors. The real estate agent was apologetic that there wasn’t a single window, not realizing that was part of the appeal. Cal barely had to do more than insulate it and put up sound absorbing panels to get the acoustics every bit as good as those at the label’s studios. Zac was so jealous that he enlisted Cal to help him set his up too.