Guerline nods, and I scribble down the number to my Tracfone.
“If you could call Angelique’s school, give permission for the principal or a school counselor to speak with me?”
Another faint nod.
“I’m living above Stoney’s,” I repeat now, seeing the exhaustion starting to take over. “I also work there several nights a week. If you need to reach me in person, please feel free to find me there. I am not just here for Angelique but also for you.”
Emmanuel mutters something sardonic under his breath. But Guerline grasps my hand firmly this time. I am unexpected and unfamiliar to her, but she is a woman with nothing to lose.
This is how most cases start. With a bubble of desperate hope and tentative trust. Where things go from here, how Guerline and Emmanuel might view me months from now . . .
Emmanuel walks me back downstairs. He doesn’t speak a word, relying on the rigid set of his shoulders to radiate disapproval.
“You love Angelique,” I state softly when we reach the lobby. “She’s a good older sister. She looks out for you.”
He glares at me, but I see a bright sheen in his eyes. The pain he’s trying hard not to show.
“You really done this before?” he asks roughly.
“Many times.”
“How many people have you actually found?”
“Fourteen.”
He purses his lips, clearly taken aback by that number.
“Good night, Emmanuel. And if you think of anything I should know.” I stick out my hand. This time he takes it.
Then I exit the triple, out into the crisp fall night, where the sun has set. Bright lights wink in the distance. But on this block no streetlights are working. Not the best idea for a lone woman to be walking around after dark, but I hardly have a choice.
I square my shoulders and head briskly back toward Stoney’s, grateful it hadn’t occurred to Emmanuel to ask the next logical question:
Not just how many people I’d found but how many people I’d brought home alive.
None.
At least, not yet.
CHAPTER 4
Leaving Guerline’s apartment, I can just make out shadowy clusters of people on front stoops as I pass. I walk with my hands tucked in the front pockets of my olive-green jacket. It would be warmer if I buttoned it up, but I don’t want to risk any restrictions to my movements. Especially as the first shape peels off from a front porch, exits the chain-link fence, and falls in step behind me.
I don’t pause or turn around. I head straight to the end of the block, where the red crossing light forces me to draw up short. Footsteps behind me. Closer, closer.
I move to the side, clearing an opening beside me. The second person stops in the empty space. Black male. Anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five. Tall, broad-shouldered with an oversized Patriots hoodie that makes him appear even taller and broader.
He glances at me. I keep my gaze straight ahead.
The crossing light turns green. He steps off the curb, one of his strides easily twice the length of my own.
I’m just starting to relax, walking now in his wake, when I realize I can still hear footsteps behind me. A second set, which I’m immediately paranoid has been there all along. I make it across the intersection only to realize the next block of triple-deckers is as dimly lit and ominous as the last.
Turn around and confront the person? Pick a door and pretend it’s my final destination?
Options. I should pick one, exercise some kind of caution as the footsteps quickly close the gap.
I whirl at the last second, preparing to meet the possible threat head-on.
The Black girl behind me draws up short. She’s wearing skinny jeans, a tight-fitting ribbed cotton shirt, and huge silver hoops, along with a black leather jacket and matching stiletto-heeled boots.
She lifts a finely etched eyebrow. “You nuts, lady? This is not a place to be walking alone after dark. Yo, Jazz, hold up.”
Then she scoots around me, catching up with the broad-shouldered kid and looping her arm through his. They saunter down the block.
I tell myself I’m okay.
Mostly, I bolt quickly down the maze of streets to Stoney’s bar.
* * *
—
I’m a recovering addict. It’s taken me a couple of tries, but I’ve now been sober for nine years, seven months, and eighteen days. And yet I still love walking through the doors and inhaling the scent of a tried-and-true local pub. It feels like coming home.
Many of my fellow AAs manage their recovery by avoiding booze and any situation involving alcohol. In the beginning I did, too. Well, kind of. I spent hours circling the outside of my local watering hole, wanting desperately to go in, willing myself to stay outside. That’s how I met Paul. He recognized me, what I was going through. And for a while, he believed in me, when I wasn’t ready yet to believe in myself.
I did the ninety-in-ninety drill. Got a sponsor. Got a new sponsor. Decided the program wasn’t for me. Worried sobriety wasn’t for me. Mostly, quietly, desperately understood that being me wasn’t for me. I didn’t know how to do it. I never had.
After more than a dozen years of AA and two reboots, I know firsthand there’s more than one path to sobriety. AA’s simple truth, however—admitting helplessness over alcohol and finding strength through a higher power—remains the best starting point that I’ve experienced. I attend my meetings. I read from the Big Book. I find comfort in the company of people living honest, messy, difficult lives without taking a drink and yet being okay. Even finding joy.
I had to go back to working in bars. Serving is one of the easiest and comparatively well-paying jobs, given my transient lifestyle. Besides, being around booze isn’t one of my triggers. Nights like this one, when I’m feeling overwhelmed and lost and a little bit sad, are the challenge for me.
Stoney glances up when I walk through the front doors. So do a few others. The late hour has brought out dozens of customers. Most of the tables and barstools are now filled. Loners, couples, groups of friends. Those who are having fun, those who are drinking hard.
I don’t mingle and I don’t judge. There but separate. That part has always come easily to me. Like a lot of drunks, I’ve spent most of my life feeling alone in a crowded room. Drinking was one way of making it easier to take.
I head to the kitchen to take Stoney up on his offer of food. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and now that the drama of the day has passed, I’m starving. I discover a short plump Black woman wearing a white apron and working the grill with a metal scraper in one hand and a wooden spoon the other.