He saw Annie right away, the silvery fall of her blond hair an unmistakable marker in the crowd. She leaned close to the person sitting beside her, a series of contrasts: light and dark, tall and short, broad and narrow. The darker head turned to look back at the people arriving, and Jay recognized her face immediately.
“Over here!” Susan called to him, waving an arm and getting up out of her seat. Annie turned her head, too, and smiled at him, her slim fingers making a ‘come here’ gesture that was so small and subtle Jay wasn’t sure that he actually saw her make it, or that maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part. It didn’t matter. He wove his way through the clusters of people over to where the two women sat, and found himself in Sue’s friendly embrace. “I’m so glad to see you again,” she said, her arms hugging him tight. “Where have you been? Hitting it up with all the hoi polloi in Beverly Hills and Hollywood?”
“No, no, just going to morning and afternoon meetings,” he said with a gruff laugh. He knew Sue was teasing him, but given pause to think it occurred to him that he had been going to more ‘high profile’ meetings in communities where the aspects of AA were veiled beneath an aura of ‘see and be seen’ attitude. They were more the places to make deals and bud relationships than to get the home grown, solid support alcoholics needed. Jay suddenly knew why so many members at his meetings relapsed.
“I forgot that you don’t have your day job right now,” Sue playfully needled. She hugged him again and planted yet another kiss on his cheek. “Glad that you’re back with us common people. It’s a good thing Annie found you.”
“ Yeah, it is.” Jay was completely of like mind. In fact, he’d been feeling that it was a good thing that Annie had ‘found’ him all day, particularly when he was in her presence. Even though he wasn’t sure what she was talking about half the time, particularly when it came to her work, he found her to be one of the most soothing and kind people he’d ever known. It brought back memories of conversations from rehab that he’d entirely forgotten; of long nights and longer days when it was only the coffee and cigarettes and the company of others with like problems that got them through the endless hours of analysis and self-searching. Annie had been a quiet but powerful force in his life and the lives of so many others that Jay now understood they had taken it for granted. She had been the one who had responded to the program quickest and who had coddled others along, too. She had always seemed to want recovery more, who had the least amount of excuses for her drinking, and who appeared to be eager to let that part of her, and her life, go.
Susan moved out of their embrace, allowing Jay the freedom to bend down and place a kiss on Annie’s upturned cheek. Soft. No make-up. He unconsciously licked his lips and the familiar flavor of foundation wasn’t clinging to his mouth; he tasted only the tang of his own salt.
“We saved you a seat,” Annie told him, scooting over to allow him to pass her and get to the empty chair between the one she sat in and the one Susan had commandeered.
“Thanks, damn, this meeting sure is crowded,” he commented, settling himself between the two women.
“Convenient time,” Susan commented. Her hand settled on his bicep, alternately squeezing and stroking it. “I missed you,” she muttered into his ear. “You shouldn’t be such a stranger.”
“I know,” Jay replied, feeling the impact of her gentle rebuke. He felt it needed some explanation, some response, and the only one that rose to his lips was his pat answer to so many questions. “I’ve been real busy with the wedding.”
“I’m sure,” Sue said, and something in the tone of her voice made Jay turn to face her. There was nothing in her face to reinforce that tone, that tone that he heard as ‘you’re lying’, and he wondered if it was really her, or only an echo of his own knowledge that yes, indeed, he was lying. The sarcasm was thick.
“Really,” he insisted. Sue smiled, and nodded, and her hand hugged his arm yet again. Between all of these physical responses, Jay weeded out the true one: that no matter what the reasons were that he had been avoiding some of his friends, Sue didn’t really care and was willing to accept his lie. She was truly glad to see him, and likewise, he was glad to see her again, too. “Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. Then louder, “hey, I’m not the most reliable guy on the planet.”
“And we’re not the most reliable people, either,” Annie interjected. Her voice startled Jay, for he didn’t realize that she was actually paying attention to him or Sue, but apparently she had been, but it was Annie’s warm hand on his thigh that made him twitch in his chair. “There’s no good reason for us not to have kept in touch, either, is there?” she offered, her eyes boring into his as he felt her fingers give the smallest caress to his leg.
Jay couldn’t speak.
“No,” Sue agreed. Before any of them could return to their conversation, there was a call to order in the room, and the mad shuffle for chairs, coffee and confections began. “I’m going to get some cookies. Anyone want anything?” Sue offered.
“I’m fine,” Annie told her. Jay remained dumb, shaking his head a little.
“Sure? They have doughnuts,” Sue said in an effort to tempt Jay.
“Okay,” he managed.
“Save my seat,” she said, and she muscled her way through the crowed to get to the refreshments.
Jay sat unmoving, not wanting to lose the contact of Annie’s small hand. She had very small, very narrow hands, and he studied the one on his leg in the most unobtrusive way he could, looking at it through his thick, lowered lashes, studying the tapered, unadorned fingers. Annie, he saw, was paying him no attention anyway, she was looking at the speaker at the front of the room. Still, her hand remained on his leg releasing a penetrating warmth that made him intensely aware of its presence, of HER presence. There was a sense of déja vu in her touch, and Jay allowed his eyes to close completely in an attempt to capture the memory that was flitting around the edges of his mind. It was easy enough. It had been in a similar, yet smaller setting; a group therapy session at the clinic in Arizona. Annie had been sitting beside him on the floor, the both of the cross legged, the both of them hugging large, soft pillows as they listened to others in the group talk about their experiences and troubles. Something had gotten to him, what it had been he couldn’t remember, but he had been overwhelmed in a wave of emotion and dropped his face into the bulk of the pillow that was squeezing up from between his arms. Then there had been Annie’s hand, that selfsame hand that touched him now, and it had rested with the same gentleness and heat on his leg exactly as it rested on his leg now. Jay opened his eyes and did what he had done then; he covered her hand with his and held on. Annie turned her head and smiled at him, turned her hand and held his back, and leaned close to him.
“It’s really great to have you here,” she murmured to him. “Just like old times.”
Just like old times. It wasn’t two years ago, but it seemed like a lifetime. It was hard to believe, but the simple touch of Annie’s hand in his brought back the memories from Arizona more vividly than any meeting since had or could. That time had been so fresh, as well as raw, and her hand could make it wash over and through him in an instant.
“D... d... do you come here every night?” he stammered.
“Sometimes,” she replied, and her hand squeezed him as she smiled and gave a slight jerk of her head toward his mouth. “That’s like old times, too,” she gently teased, and her smile made him chuckle.
“It comes and goes,” he admitted, although it had been some time since his stutter had appeared. He wrote it off to the atmosphere and the serendipity he felt; nothing more. “Jesus, this place is like a circus,” he said, trying to change the subject and hoping that talking about things less personal, with less private implications, would keep the tripping of his tongue in check.
“It seems a lot more busy tonight than usual,” Annie conceded.
“Cookie?” Susan offered, thrusting her hand in front of the both of them. “Doughnut,” she stated, placing the sticky, glazed baked good she had half wrapped in a napkin in Jay’s free hand.
“No, thank you,” Annie said with another movement of her head. Her long hair floated with the motion and several strands stuck to the doughnut.
Jay didn’t think, he simply reacted. He let go of Annie’s hand and picked her hair out of the glaze. In one fluid motion he twirled the strands around a finger and stuck them into his mouth, sucking the icing from them, curling his tongue around them and tasting not only sugar, but the subtle hint of Annie’s shampoo and perfume. It was Annie who disentangled her hair from his fingers and sucked on it, too. For the moment, Jay felt everything going on around them recede into some foggy distance. He felt the noise and activity dim as he focused on Annie and only Annie as she slipped the strands of hair through her lips a second time and the wet point of her tongue peeked from between her lips. Desire, pure, carnal desire, something he had thought was dead and gone, rose to the surface inside him in one great rush. Something was happening, but Jay wasn’t exactly sure of what it was. His initial thought was that Annie was coming on to him, but it was a thought that he instead turned on himself, figuring that it was him coming on to her. She was just being Annie, her usual, unaffected self. He was being Jay, and he shouldn’t have done what he had done.
“S... s... sorry,” he stuttered, not caring anymore that he stuttered, knowing that she had heard him stutter his way through other, more embarrassing conversations; sensing that she understood his particular deficiency in this area and didn’t hold it against him, or up to any scrutiny.
“Don’t be,” she replied, and she slipped her hand into his again as the demand for order and silence came from the podium once more.
Jay, at a loss, turned his eyes to the moderator and stared at nothing, his thoughts focused more on the hand that held his, the warmth emanating from it, the come on he wasn’t sure was a come on or not, and his own behavior. Old times. Old patterns. He had reacted without thinking and that was something he hadn’t done in a long time. It drove home the fact that the spontaneity in his life was gone; a fact he didn’t even realize was a fact until at that very moment. He had done nothing spontaneous since leaving rehab. Nothing until today. Here and now was spontaneous. Even going into Annie’s shop had been spontaneous. It seemed to him that everything about her was like that; of the moment, in the moment. He needed to have that back in his life.
He looked at the woman beside him from the corners of his eyes and the protection of his lashes. If he never saw Annie again he would be grateful to her for the past twenty-four hours, for making some things clear to him that he hadn’t known were vague. With thoughts of being in the moment at the front of his mind now, instead of lurking in the murky recess of the back of his mind, he lifted Annie’s hand in his and dropped a kiss on her knuckles. She turned her attention to him, smiled, and nudged at him playfully with her elbow before looking back at the front of the room.
Jay pushed any thought of never seeing Annie again out of his head.
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The house was dark and silent when Jay returned home. He would have lingered longer at the meeting, but Sue and Annie had left directly after the formal portion of the evening, Sue needing to return home to her young son, and Annie having relied on Sue for a ride. The temptation to offer Annie a ride home was great, but something that passed between the two women had forewarned him to not even bother to make the offer. In the long run, it didn’t matter. Jay had been waylaid by several other people who recognized him from previous meetings, or so they said, and so he had contented himself with hugs and pecks on the cheek good-bye, and promises of returning soon, later that week, possibly tomorrow, before spending a few hours making acquaintance with this person and that.
During the long ride back to his house he thought that, all in all, it had been better for Annie and Susan to leave; better that he had some time to decompress from the evening, gorge on pastry and coffee, and give himself some perspective.
The dogs didn’t stir from their positions near the back entrance to the house where Jay let himself in. He stepped over them, noted that the usual reek of ‘dog’ was missing from them, and smiled to himself. There was a single light on in the kitchen that he turned off before wandering through the house and up to bed.
Sarah was asleep in the pinpoint glow of the reading light on her side of the bed. Jay was happy to see that the dream catcher above his side of the bed was still there in all its asymmetrical glory. He kicked off his boots and tiptoed around the bed to turn out the reading light. For a moment he stood over her and stared. Her beauty, to him, was undeniable, but it did nothing to move him. He tried to capture the erotic rush he had felt earlier in the evening, and couldn’t. He tried to dredge up some nostalgic feeling of desire, to focus on some memory he had shared with the woman sleeping in his bed, and couldn’t. Sarah shifted in some miniscule way, and the ring on her hand glinted in his eye, a none too subtle reminder of the path his life was on.
Jay turned out the light.
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© 2004 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2004 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
