Well, I didn't get this out before my self-imposed deadline. My apologies.
Chapter 9
After Adam moved to New York, he and Grace got into the pattern of meeting for lunch once a week. They never talked about anything important, but both of them enjoyed the easy silence.
Adam let Grace know what was going on back home, amusing her with stories about Joan's continued attempt to find a suitable job. Turns out, substituting wasn't her thing. Niether was coaching or accounting.
Adam never mentioned Luke. Grace never asked.
xxxxx
It was a hot summer that year. Grace sometimes thought she would sufocate from the heat as she took short-cuts through alleys, or fought through crowded sidewalks.
Adam spent the summer in Italy, studying art through some sort of exchange program scholarship, and Grace missed him more than she thought she would. He always had had a calming affect on her.
Grace was moving up at the paper. She was being assigned more and more articles to write. Grace never forgot her resolve, though, and always finished her work before getting drunk. Unfortunately, between the heat, work and Adam's absense, Grace was drinking more than ever. She was drinking three to four nights a week, instead of two.
Grace was walking to work one day in late August, nursing a hangover. She was wearing very dark glasses, but still felt the sun was unnaturally bright. She was not happy. Her mood was not improved when someone ran into her and made her drop her purse.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," a high voice chirped. Grace resisted the urge to clamp her hands over her ears.
"It's fine," Grace grunted as she scooped her belongings back into her bag.
"It's just, I'm running late, and I can't be late, because the meeting is too important."
"Okay," said Grace.
"Here let me help you; it's my fault your stuff in on the floor." The strange girl bent down to help Grace.
"Uh, thanks."
The finished quickly, and straightened up again. The girl didn't leave.
"Don't you have a meeting to go to?" Grace asked.
"Oh," she said with a start, "I completely forgot. Oh my God, I'm late, and I can't be late."
"You already said that."
"Yes, well, the AA awaits." And with that she dissappeared.
The strange girl didn't leave Grace's thoughts that day. The only AA Grace knew of was Alcoholics Anonymos, but she didn't seem like the type to attend those meetings. Maybe she led them. Grace hoped not; that girl was enough to drive most people to drinking.
xxxxx
Grace christened the chirpy girl Alice because she reminded her of the rabbit in the beginning of the Alice in Wonderland. More than once in the following weeks, the sing-song chant of I'm late, I'm late for a very important date ran through her head. It drove her mad.
A billboard was put up just a block away from her work. It asked people to call some number for help with their drinking problem. More than once, the paper ran a story about the stupid things drunk people did.
Grace was finding it harder to explain away her habit. She decided to take control before she became her mother.
Grace sat down to write poetry on the first day of fall. It had always calmed her when she was a teenager, and Grace hoped it would calm her now.
Forty minutes later, she crumpled the paper and threw it away. Grace had lost it; she couldn't get her ideas on paper like she used to. She nearly cried. If she couldn't escape through poetry, then she would have to escape through drinking, and if she continued drinking she would become her mother.
Grace stood up. She would not become her mother. Grace knew she was stronger than that. Grace took a deep breath and prepared herself. It was going to be hard, and she was going to have nights where she hated life, but Grace was ready to quit.
She wandered throughout her apartment, gathering all the liquor. Grace resisted the temptation to keep the bottle of Baccardi's. She had just bought it last week, and it was one of her favorite flavers. Keeping with her plan, though, Grace dumped the contents down the sink and put the now-empty bottle on top of the growing pile.
As Grace was dumping out her second bottle of schnapps, she wondered if the pipes could take all the hard liquor. That stuff can do some serious damage. She turned the facuet on, to distill the liquid a bit.
Grace took all the bottles down to the dumpter. It was nine thirty-seven when she returned to her apartnment. She went to bed.
xxxxx
The first week was hard.
The second week was hell.
Grace didn't make it to the third week.