“I deserve to be happy and successful.”
Kelly stared at the yellow Post-it note for a long time, fighting the twinges of pain behind her eyes. It wasn’t the worst hangover she’d ever had, but it was a hangover and that was bad enough. Snippets of the previous evening flashed through her mind, which had gone as it could have been expected to once she surrendered to the urge to drink.
First had been the angry storming past Michelle on the way to the kitchen where she had filled a plastic tumbler from the boxed wine in the fridge. Then, when half of that was gone and her toes had started to feel warm, going to continue the argument. Of course, with alcohol doing the talking it had turned into an apology, a what-can-I-do-to-make-this-better plea that at the time seemed heartfelt. Michelle had softened, and the night ended with the two of them tumbling into bed, making what might have passed for love had an observer not known that despite the apparent willingness, Kelly wanted only to be done so she could go to sleep.
And now it was seven a.m. and it was all Kelly could do to keep from throwing up; not from the alcohol, but from disgust with herself. She had let Michelle get to her, get her riled up to the point that she lashed out against – not Michelle, that would never do – herself. Kelly sighed. She wondered if she had any backbone at all. It didn’t seem like it at the moment.
She padded to the kitchen to start coffee. Michelle would be asleep for at least two more hours, and Kelly needed the time alone to work through the jumble of emotions she was experiencing. When the carafe was full enough, she poured herself a cup of java and wandered onto the back deck. It was a warm, late-summer morning with a sky so blue it seemed infinite, but Kelly barely noticed. She sat on a deck chair and stared out across the back yard almost blindly.
“You’re a total fuck-up,” she muttered after a few minutes. “A complete fuck-up.”
It had been alcohol that brought her and Michelle together. They had met at a mutual friend’s birthday party where the beer flowed freely. Michelle had bet her she could finish the yard of ale, with the prize if she succeeded being that Kelly would go home with her. Michelle won, Kelly did, and nearly twenty years later everything was falling apart.
Kelly hadn’t been much of a drinker in the early days, even less so after her nineteen-year old sister had for all intents abandoned her three-year old at Kelly’s. Even then, Susan was more interested in getting high than in worrying about a toddler, and despite the disapproval of their parents Kelly had pursued, and won, permanent guardianship. Kaitlan kept her busy those early years, but once she became a teenager, Kelly found the time to enjoy her wine with more frequency.
Michelle had always been a constant in Kelly’s life; she’d worked for the same company since they met, working her way up from line grunt to lower management. She’d provided for them well, and had even supported Kelly’s decision to return to school at forty. Kelly now worked for a local law firm as a secretary, and while the pay was decent and the benefits worthwhile, she still felt unfulfilled. Her relationship with Michelle had waned, also, over the previous two years. While a devoted parent, Michelle still had made it clear that Kaitlan was Kelly’s and that she wasn’t going to change her life to be a mom. Michelle and Susan hated each other, and gatherings including Kelly’s sister rarely went well.
She wasn’t sure when she began to realize that her glass of wine had turned into something more insidious, but her forty-fifth birthday had dragged a niggling thought out into the bright glare of the lights. In the grand scheme of things, she supposed now, it wasn’t such an egregious mistake she had made, but it had been enough to leave her thinking long and hard about putting her glass down for good. Michelle had been a sport about it, joking that with all the dents she had put in cars over the years a busted bumper was hardly worth mention, but the comparison between the two of them only made Kelly’s realization that she had been driving drunk enough to miss a familiar curve that much worse.
“Hey.” Michelle’s voice was quiet, but Kelly jumped anyway. “Mind some company?”
“No.” Kelly tasted her coffee; cold. She made a face and looked at her partner.
Michelle sat down next to her. “God, it’s early.”
“It’s almost eight.” Kelly glanced at her watch to confirm the time. “Why are you awake?”
“Done sleeping, I guess.” Michelle shrugged. “We’re supposed to be meeting Toni and Carol for lunch, remember?”
Toni and Carol were two of Kelly and Michelle’s oldest friends. They had known each other for nearly fifteen years. Of the two, Kelly felt closer to Carol; Toni was too much like Michelle for her to feel comfortable opening up to. When the four got together, it was usually Toni and Michelle by the grill while Kelly and Carol shared wine and the latest gossip.
“I don’t really feel like doing lunch,” Kelly said.
“Oh, come on. You aren’t going to go into one of your moods just because Kaitlan’s off at college are you?”
“I just don’t feel like socializing today.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Which is exactly why you need to.”
“I haven’t finished those briefs I needed to do.” Kelly knew she was losing the argument; she usually did.
“They’ll hold until tonight.”
Kelly couldn’t help but notice that Michelle had said nothing about the previous night. It was as though Kelly had never tried to stop drinking. She wondered if, to Michelle, she never had. Michelle never encouraged her attempts at sobriety, merely tolerated what she termed Kelly’s ‘moodiness’ while she wasn’t drinking.
“I suppose you want breakfast,” Kelly commented, giving up. There was little point in arguing with Michelle about it; when Michelle wanted to do something, they did it. It had always been that way.
“Sure. Maybe we could snuggle back in bed first.” Michelle grinned at her. “I’d say there’s more where last night came from.”
Yeah, if you give me enough to drink, Kelly thought, and was instantly ashamed of herself. How long had it been that she didn’t feel close to Michelle that way without alcohol to smooth things out? “Maybe I’d better try to get my work done this morning, in case we stay later than expected at the girls’ house.”
Michelle studied her through narrowed eyes for a moment and then her face relaxed back into a smile. “You’re such a workaholic sometimes. All right, work this morning. But the Munchkin has flown, and there’s about fifteen years worth of play time I’d like to catch up on.”
Kelly managed to smile as she stood up. “We have plenty of time for that. I’ll make pancakes.”
As she pulled the eggs and milk from the refrigerator, Kelly glanced at the box of wine on the shelf almost at eye level. There would be plenty to drink at Toni and Carol’s; but the temptation to start the day early was almost palpable. With a sigh, she closed the door and turned to making breakfast. Maybe she could start on sobriety again in the morning.
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