She laughs. “I forgot you did that. I’m guessing that’s what’s decorating your floor.”
“It is.”
“Yeah, I always thought that was a shitty idea. Having it in your house, having a shot of the stuff right in front of you? Fucking stupid.”
“In my defense, this is only the third time I’ve broken a bottle over the years.”
“Oh, is that all?” She puts on an air of being fake-impressed. “You’re knocking my socks off.”
Against his will, he finds himself smiling. This has always been Tracy’s best trait as a sponsor, her unwillingness to let him take himself too seriously. She’s a blonde, square-faced woman in her forties, with two kids and a convoluted history of husbands. He thinks there were three or four of them in there before she got sober. She’s probably a good mom. She’s certainly kept him accountable over the years. It was what drew him to her in the beginning. AA usually recommends that sponsors be the same gender as their sponsees to help ensure that sexual attraction doesn’t screw with a newcomer’s program; as a bisexual man, Cal was out of luck there. He focused instead on finding someone who didn’t give two shits that he was famous. During their first interview, Tracy told him she listened to jazz and thought grown men should only wear leather in chap-form when there was a cow nearby. She thought Cal was ridiculous. He thought she was perfect.
“Giving myself too much credit, I suppose.” Blood is still dripping down his cheek. It splats on the driveway cement. Definitely giving himself too much credit.
“Or maybe not enough. I couldn’t do it. Have it in the house? No way.”
“I thought I was past it.”
She sighs. “We’re never past it, baby. Never, ever, ever. Constant vigilance. Isn’t that what the eyeball guy from Harry Potter always says?”
Cal’s not a Harry Potter guy; he doesn’t recognize the reference. “Constant vigilance. It’s exhausting just thinking about always being braced for a storm.”
“Storms pass. You simply outwait them.” She doesn’t say anything else, and that’s fine. He knows. There isn’t a single thing they can say to each other at this point—barring Harry Potter references—that they haven’t said a million times already. He knows the facts and the tips and the tricks. He knows what he has to do to be successful, what works for him.
Doing it is harder.
“You need me to come over there and clean up the mess?” she asks, sounding hesitant.
“No.” Tracy’s particular success is all about staying away from the stuff. He can’t do that to her. “No, I’ll figure it out.”
“If you’re breaking bottles—”
“I’ll call Zac. He’ll help. Thanks anyway. I only needed some distraction to get me through a few rough minutes.”
She knows who Zac is, though she’s never met him. “All right. If Zac is available. Otherwise, call me back and we’ll get that tequila on your floor sorted. I have teenage sons who need to build character.”
Cal manages a small huff of laughter. “Deal.”
“Okay. You’re sure you’re feeling better?”
“I think I’m back on the one-hour-at-a-time train.” He opens the car door and sits sideways on the seat so he can put his shoes on one-handed while he talks. “I’m going to go to Zac’s. Get away from the mess until I’m solid again.”
They talk for a few more minutes, bullshitting mostly. Cal promises to call her if he needs help, whether it’s thirty seconds after they hang up or three in the morning, and then he promises to call her tomorrow to let her know he weathered the storm. “The struggle is real,” she says before she hangs up. “And you’re a fucking hero.”
He shakes his head, never mind that she can’t see it, but he doesn’t argue. She’s taking time out from lunch with someone else to talk to him, and besides, she hates it when he “attacks her with his overwrought modesty.”
He decides not to address it even though it makes him uncomfortable. “Thanks.”
When he hangs up, he finishes tying his shoes.
Only then does he remember that Zac is pissed off at him. And sure, Cal said he’d come over today, but they aren’t expecting Cal to show up in a half-resolved crisis and asking his new—whatever Zac is to him now—to clean his kitchen for him.
He tries to picture asking, and his mind flinches from it.
He’s not sure how much Zac has put together over the years. When Cal first told him that he wasn’t going to drink anymore, Zac responded the way someone might respond to a family member saying they decided to go vegan. Acceptance tinged with faint panic that they might be forced to talk in-depth about the subject. Zac didn’t complain when Cal asked their manager to ensure that their tour stops remained as nonalcoholic as possible. He never mentioned it at all.
When Cal went to him to make amends for the Ninth Step of his recovery, it turned into a confusing mishmash of Keystone Kops–level conversation. Zac barely let Cal get five words into his apology before interrupting, repeating over and over that Cal had nothing to apologize for, that he didn’t need Cal to explain, that he didn’t owe Zac anything. He blew it off so thoroughly that Cal realized Zac would be happier if Cal dropped it. And since the Ninth Step was about meeting the other person’s needs, he did just that.
Their relationship never got particularly rocky because of Cal’s drinking—Zac was partying pretty heavily at the time too, and besides, Cal’s drunken irresponsibility meshed pretty well with Zac’s natural irresponsibility. He didn’t care when Cal missed sessions or showed up late for a gig or—one particularly memorable time—accidentally dropped Zac’s car keys down a street drain. Zac found that hilarious. It was the kind of shit Zac did all the time when they were younger, so he didn’t take it personally when other people no-showed for work stuff or plans to hang out. He just thought it was their turn. It didn’t seem to occur to Zac that an apology would even be called for.
Tracy was initially worried that Cal would find Zac’s response unsupportive. That Cal might resent Zac’s easy dismissal of the whole thing. But considering the mess that the Ninth Step was with his family, Cal could only be grateful that Zac was so unconcerned. That old saying that no man is an island? Cal spent the whole amends process desperately wishing he spent his life in the abandoned, underwater city of Atlantis, down in the isolating depths of the darkest ocean. The anxiety was so bad he only got a few hours of sleep a night for weeks. Zac’s eye-rolling offer to watch cheesy horror movies instead of talking was a refuge in comparison.
Besides, it was so Zac that Cal couldn’t take it personally. He found it bizarrely charming, actually.