Author's note: This chapter takes place the summer before Grace's junior year of college, after she's made the New Year's Resolution not to drink. You don't really need to know this, but I always hate when the timelines don't flow smoothly, so the obsessive-compulsive in me needs to be clear about the timeframes.
Okay, on with the story.
Chapter 5
The alarm clock woke Grace up at an ungodly hour. She ignored it. The noise of the bathtub filling assaulted Grace. She ignored it. The hair-dryer buzzed in Grace's ears for a solid ten minutes. She ignored it. The tea pot started whistling, and didn't effing stop. Grace's eyes flew open and she stomped into the kitchen.
"Iris," she growled, "it is six o'clock in the morning. Shut. Up. Now."
"Grace," her roommate whispered, "you know I have to be there at a quarter to seven. You think I like being up this early?"
"I don't care if you like it. Just be quiet about it."
"I try," Iris said softly.
"Why are you whispering?" Grace snapped. "You've already woken up the whole building."
"Stop being so dramatic, Grace."
"Stop whispering!"
"Stop yelling!"
"I hope you're late to work," Grace spat out as she turned back toward her bedroom.
"I'll miss you, too, Gracie," Iris smirked.
Grace whirled around.
"Don't call me Gracie," she said with narrowed eyes. "Just don't."
Iris left without another word.
Grace and Iris had been living together for four weeks, and Grace figured she had been woken up by the idiotic Iris Martinez before sunrise for three of those four weeks. It had been a trying summer. Grace was living in New York while completing an internship she had earned through her college. She had been hoping that the internship would help her decide if she should go to law school, but so far, all it had done was teach Grace to never let her college counselor find her a roommate. Iris also had a summer internship through the college, and Grace's counselor had suggested that they room together for "safety reasons."
Grace didn't think it was safe for two people who hated each other to share such a small space.
xxxxx
An hour later, Grace was on her way to work. As she did every morning while riding the subway, Grace hoped her boss was out sick. It hadn't happened yet, but she remained ever hopeful.
Grace hated her boss, Susan McComen, almost as much as she hated Iris. Susan (Grace refused to call her Mrs. McComen) had somehow found out how Grace's mom had died, and had taken it upon herself to "be the mother Grace never had." Though the conspiracy theorist in Grace took some vindictive pleasure in the knowledge that people with money and power controlled too much information, Grace was, for the most part, extremely pissed.
"Good morning, Grace," Susan greeted Grace as she had every morning for the past four weeks.
"Hi," Grace responded as she always did.
"You look so tired, dear, what time did you go to bed last night?" Susan asked.
Grace just looked at Susan as she locked her purse into her desk drawer.
"I know New York is an exciting place to be, Grace, but you have to make sure you go to bed early enough," she rambled on.
"Yes, it's very exciting," Grace deadpanned.
"Pick up a banana on your way to Mr. Nankemi's office; you need to eat. And don't forget to get Mr. Nankemi to sign that he received his mail."
Grace sighed. She was really nothing more than a glorified errand-runner with a busy body for a boss. Grace picked up his mail and headed for Mr. Nankemi's office. She didn't eat a banana.
Only later that day, when Grace realized she had missed the bagel cart that came at eleven and that the vending machine was broken, did Grace wish she had taken a banana. She was hungry. And some bastard had taken the last banana in the break room.
As a very hungry Grace dragged feet up the stairs to her apartment, a thought entered her head. I hate this. She turned around, jerkily walked down the stairs, hailed a cab, and requested that the driver take her to a bar.
"Which one?" he asked impatiently, "there's four within three blocks of here."
"Of course there are," Grace muttered.
"You gotta speak up," the driver said in a loud voice, as if to demonstrate.
"Never mind about the bar," Grace said in a normal voice, "just… take me that way." She pointed randomly to her left.
After a pause, the driver decided it was worth the fare Grace would pay to cart a crazy lady around New York City.
Four blocks down, Grace requested that he stop. She paid him in a hurry, and walked into a restaurant. After a quick piece of pizza, Grace prepared for the walk home. She was swinging her backpack onto her shoulders when the manager flicked on the Happy Hour sign.
She inhaled sharply. Once, when she was a little girl who didn't understand why her mother sometimes acted kind of funny, Grace had asked her mom what her favorite time of day was. With a strange smile, her mom had answered that she loved Happy Hour.
"What's that, Mommy?" Grace had asked innocently.
Sarah had seemed shocked at her own answer.
"It's when people who love each other sit down to eat and talk and have fun," she had answered after a beat.
"Oh," Grace had said with a small frown, "so there are lots of Happy Hours?"
"Yes, sweetie, lots of Happy Hours."
Now that Grace was older, the memory of that little conversation sickened her. In Grace's experience, Happy Hour wasn't all that great. She turned away from the lurid Happy Hour sign and frantically rushed home. She managed to make it to her bedroom before tears escaped.
xxxxx
The night before Iris and Grace were to leave New York, Iris threw herself a good-bye party. Grace had meant to stay out late that night, but she forgot about the party and walked in as it was in full swing. She tried to slip into her room unnoticed, but Iris dragged Grace back to living room.
"You are not hiding in your room, Grace," Iris hissed in Grace's ear. "I will not be embarrassed like that."
"Well, I'm certainly not making small talk with your lame-ass friends," Grace hissed back.
"Yes, you are," Iris whispered dangerously. "Now take this drink, and go talk to people."
Grace found herself in a group of slightly tipsy college students trying to be more sophisticated than they were. All their drinks had strange, pretentious names like Tequila Sunrise and Sex on the Beach. No beer for this group; they were above it. Grace looked down at her own drink and wondered what Iris had shoved into her hand. Hesitantly, Grace brought it to her lips. She was considering taking a drink when she heard a snippet of the conversation behind her.
"Don't have another one, Mike," a whiny-voiced girl begged quietly.
"We're at a party, Elly. It's okay to drink," a deep voice murmured.
"Not for you, Mike. I think you're addicted." The whiny girl seemed near tears.
"I'm a social drinker," he whispered, outraged. Grace almost laughed. Her mom had claimed to be a social drinker for years. She had finally given up and admitted she was an addict two weeks before Grace's sixteenth birthday. Not that it had changed anything.
Grace turned around. A tall girl with jet-black hair and an average-looking guy with brown hair were staring at each other silently. Betrayal and anger marked both their faces.
"Hi, I'm Grace, Iris's roommate," Grace said brightly, surprising even herself. The girl recovered first.
"Nice to meet you," she said just as brightly. "I'm Elly. I interned with Iris."
"I'm Mike," the boy said morosely.
"Mike," Grace asked, "what kind of drink do I have in my hand?"
Mike seemed thrown for a moment, but he quickly recovered and focused on her drink eagerly.
"It looks like a Cosmopolitan," he said confidently.
"Would you like it?" Grace asked.
"No, he wouldn't," Elly answered. "In fact, we were just leaving." Mike's face darkened considerably, and Grace knew it would be a long ride home for the couple.
"That's too bad," Grace said, still falsely bright.
As the couple walked around saying good-bye to the other guests, Grace pulled Elly aside and dropped the happy attitude.
"Elly, he's not going to change," she said urgently. "Don't waste your time."
"What…what are you talking about?" Elly asked, dazed.
"If he's an alcoholic now, he'll be one forever. Leave him while you still can."
Elly's look of confusion quickly changed to bitter disappointment, then to quiet outrage. She walked out the door with her hand on Mike's arm.
Grace watched them leave over the rim of her cup. Damn, Iris could make a good drink. Maybe she wasn't the Devil Incarnate, after all.
xxxxx
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Author's note: Sorry for the long delay. Please don't take it out on me by refusing to review.