The Cohabitants 3

A week and a dozen bottles of wine went by. Then the fisherman called again but didn’t leave a message. Then he sent her a photo of himself on a boat holding a fish. The fish was looking into the camera as if to say, Can you believe this guy? In the photo, he was wearing a frayed t-shirt and a grey-and-white trucker’s cap with the initials EBC. She knew those initials stood for Emerald Bass Club because on Facebook she had seen him wearing a hat like that in almost every photo.

Fishing did not interest her, but the luscious blue green outdoor setting in those pictures filled her with nostalgia. She realized that although she was living in Portland and enjoying café society, she had a strong attraction to the outdoor life. She missed it. In the photos he sent her—deer at his bird feeder, a spring garden in bloom, a lake at sunrise—she saw the life she used to live on her farm. Then he sent her a video with the soundtrack of coyotes howling in his backyard, a soaring chorus that tugged at her memories of living with the wild. He was living the life she lost.

When he called again she answered. But before she could say anything, he said, “I think we should meet face-to-face.”

That sentence was a gong. After her Mary Jane flameout, she had not expected to speak to him ever again. His directness was intriguing. Brave. He obviously had emotional stamina and was ready for a go at round two. She liked that. He suggested they meet for a dog walk at a state park and talk outdoors in keeping with pandemic social distancing protocol. He said he wanted to meet Moon, her Weimaraner. It would be casual. Low stakes. Just walking the dog and talking. 

She heard herself say okay and her relationship zombies sat up in their graves and wagged their fingers to warn her of the risk. She told herself she was doing this for her dog. The three of them would meet in a week in a mall parking lot in Salem. From there they would go together to Silver Falls State Park. 

When the call ended she immediately went into the bathroom and turned on all the lights to gape at herself in the mirror. Awhile back he had told her he did not drink alcohol; didn’t like the taste of it. At the time, she was drinking while she was talking to him on the phone. In fact, she had been buzzed for most of their long distance relationship. But face-to-face, she couldn’t drink with someone who didn’t drink. She didn’t want to get drunk with a sober person. A sober person would be like a microscope on her flaws. So she went on a binge diet of sobriety.

Irritability set in immediately. Ants crawled her under her skin and nibbled her muscles. She twitched. Her smile was cracked glass. Eating dinner alone in her apartment she thought how nice it would be to have wine. Just to help her food digest. During the saloon scenes in a cowboy movie, she thought about whiskey. A vodka commercial made her mouth water. She could smell the gin in James Bond’s martini. But she couldn’t have just one. Her problem had always been moderation. She would open a bottle with the idea that she was going to have just a glass. Then she drank the whole thing. And she never ever thought she was drunk. 

The last time she quit was years ago. Back then she had embarrassed herself getting drunk on champagne punch at a friend’s holiday party. The catering staff had to walk her to her car. She got the hiccups and made them giggle. But they let her drive anyway. Then on that Christmas morning, she woke up at a friend’s house with a mysterious blue bruise on her foot and no memory of what must have been a painful incident. Too many times, she didn’t remember driving home. 

Those warning signs from the goddess led to a 2015 new year’s resolution. She abstained from alcohol for a year. Long enough to learn how boring people were when they were drunk. The lessons were humbling. She thought her abstinence would last forever. But then she met a guy who collected wine. He poured her a glass without even asking if she wanted one, and she drank it because who doesn’t want to drink an expensive bottle of wine? She was too embarrassed to admit she didn’t drink. That was her slippery slope, and in one night she slid all the way to the bottom. She was still sliding when the pandemic hit.

Lockdown made it easy to drink. The city changed the rules for liquor sales to keep businesses alive. Her local coffee shop, which was a wine bar at night, was allowed to sell whole bottles of wine, and since they were open early in the morning, she could buy a couple bottles of wine with her morning coffee. It didn’t take long for that ritual to burst her capillaries. And of course, she gained weight. When she drank too much she craved sweets and if there was no chocolate in the cupboard she wasn’t too snooty to melt butter in a pan and burn some brown sugar. She thought of it as fast candy. A delicious treat that hit her liver hours later with the buzzing energy of a horse fly thumping a windowpane. 

It only took a few days to realize her body preferred sobriety. She slept better. Her eyes were clearer. And she was saving money. She started making coffee for herself in the morning instead of going to the wine bar/coffee shop and being tempted. She stayed home at night instead of walking to a restaurant for dinner because she couldn’t order food without alcohol and she didn’t want to watch other people drink. She didn’t want to look at a pint of craft brew and try to guess how it tasted. Seeing other people drink made her want to shout angry warnings about blood sugar.

Her mood was twisted too tight, but her jeans weren’t and the ring on her finger came off without soap. The bloat was gone. She seemed to move at a quicker pace. Perhaps because she was trying to escape herself. Cocktail hour made her blood feel empty. She needed to be busy. When her inner lush begged for a Knob Creek Manhattan, she took Moon for a walk and allowed her fantasies to go feral again.

The touch of a fisherman was unknown. Each day she stood naked in the mirror and reminded herself of the possibilities. If things went well there would be nudity in her future. She couldn’t be jittery. Telling him she quit cold turkey would be like admitting she had a tape worm. Eyes on the prize. Two person sex was the only possible compensation for not drinking Barolo. So she stood up straight, faced herself in the mirror and practiced smiling.