Ninety Days Read Free Page A

boys I’m embarrassed to be seen with disappear into the night. Call me, most say, but I’ve already thrown out their numbers in the bathroom at the diner. Asa, I’ve decided, is the one I can relate to. He has the same cautious, easy-does-it tone that Jack has but he’s less distant, softer. He tells me about a meeting I should try. Everyone calls it The Library because it’s located in some kind of research library and, it turns out, it’s a few blocks from One Fifth, where I lived with Noah until two months ago. He describes the people there as a mix of gay and straight, educated and not, all very serious about sobriety. He gives me the address—which I write down on the slip of paper where I’ve written Dave’s Charles Street address—and tells me to meet him there tomorrow, ten minutes before the 12:30 meeting.
    It’s late. Midnight or after. We walk a few blocks and I say good-bye to Asa on the corner of 17th Street and Eighth Avenue. I’ll see you at the meeting, he says and reminds me again where it is and when. Absolutely, I say, pathetically grateful I have somewhere to go tomorrow, someone to meet. I realize that beyond this and dinner with my friend Jean later in the week, I have no plans. No lunches, dinner parties, movie dates, plays, concerts, conference calls, business trips, breakfast meetings. Nothing. Asa gives me a hug and walks east down 17th Street. I watch him go, watch his white shirt and red hair bob through the dark until they disappear.
    I get lost on my way back to Dave’s writing studio on Charles Street. I’m not familiar with the West Village even though I’ve lived four blocks east of here for six years and a few blocks north for three. The streets jumble together, and after going this way and that, each time I’m convinced I’ve finally figured out where I am, I stumble—again and then again—onto Seventh Avenue. It’s as if a spell has been cast and I’m doomed to end up there no matter what route I take. I’m exhausted and consider hailing a cab but I’m too broke and too embarrassed to ask for a ride that may be only one block. I feel as if I’m twenty-one again and have just moved to New York from Connecticut. I’m lost, have no apartment, no job, no family, no spouse. No one is expecting me. Every lit window taunts with the smug glow of an enviable life. Through heavy drapes and tasseled blinds I see the edges of beautiful living rooms shining with lamps and polished wood, perfectly littered with framed but not yet hung art and piles of books. Couples scurry home, leaning into each other, whispering stories and stressing opinions. Do they know how lucky they are? I think as they rush toward what I imagine are paid-for, mortgage-less, rent-free apartments and town houses. I watch them and wonder what Noah is doing. My chest tightens as I picture him winding down the evening with someone else, the two of them returning home together as we had countless times. I imagine him telling the story of his awful addict ex-boyfriend for the first time to astonished, sympathetic ears.
    I finally end up back on Charles Street. All the buildings look the same, so I double-check the scrap of paper to make sure I have the right address. It’s now almost one o’clock and every light in the building is off. I fiddle with the lock, turn the key, and, as softly as I can, enter the vestibule. I take my shoes off—gently, quietly—and toe the first step. The wood beneath the carpet croaks like the loudest frog. How can I ascend these stairs without making a racket? How do I get back to the safe, chandeliered little apartment without waking the whole building? I climb the second and third steps and they’re even louder than the first. I’m sure the woman on the second floor is already calling Dave. Telling him that the hooligan staying in his apartment is thrashing in the stairwell, waking everyone. I can almost hear Dave cursing to Susie, swearing to her that this is the last