Spin A Novel

CHAPTER 26

Apologies





I’m sitting in Bob’s office, watching him read through the article, a red pencil in his hand. As he reads, he makes small tick marks and occasionally draws a line through a few words. Mostly, he taps the pencil against the side of his desk while muttering to himself.

After what feels like a long time, he reaches the end and gives me a smile tinged with his trademark evil glint.

“Well done, Kate.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am, a little, given our previous conversation.”

“We had a deal.”

He laces his hands on his desk over the article. “Yes, we did. Welcome to the team.”

My heart starts to race. “I’ve got the job?”

“Yes, The Line will be lucky to have you. Though, are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to work at Gossip Central? You seem to be a natural.”

Remain calm, Katie. Taking him by the throat will erase everything you’ve worked for.

“No, thanks.”

He smirks. “That’s not I’m-too-good-to-work-here that I hear in your tone, is it?”

I try my hardest to copy an expression I’ve seen on Amber’s face when she’s trying to be charming. “Of course not, Bob.” My eyes meet his. I focus on all I’ve been through to get to this moment.

“All right, then,” he says slowly. “Report to Elizabeth on Monday.”

I stand to leave before he changes his mind. “Thank you. You won’t regret this.”

I wait until I’ve left the building to let myself celebrate. Surrounded by strangers on the busy sidewalk, I let out a whoop of joy and pump my fist in the air.

This is happening, it’s really happening.

So why doesn’t it feel better than this?

I should be calling everyone I know, happier than I’ve ever been, but instead, all I feel is that there’s something else I’m supposed to be doing, some place I ought to be.

Thirty in thirty. Can that really be the answer?

Will it kill me to find out?

I make it to the Y right before the meeting is supposed to start, and follow the signs and the smell of cheap coffee to a meeting room in the basement. Behind a door with a paper sign that reads ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS MEETING, I find twenty men and women of all ages sitting on folding chairs facing a lectern. A man in his mid-forties is leading the meeting. He has a rumpled, absent-minded-professor look about him, complete with a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a scraggly beard.

I search the room for Amber. She’s wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt, with the hood up over her head. I take a seat next to her.

“How did it go?” she whispers.

“It’ll be out on Monday,” I whisper back.

A girl in her late teens in the row in front of us is staring at Amber over her shoulder, trying to place her. She has jet-black hair and three rings through her left eyebrow.

Amber fiddles with the rim of her coffee cup. “Oh good.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Every other minute, but it’s out of my hands now.”

The Professor finishes the preliminaries and calls on the first speaker. A beautiful woman in a tailored business suit takes the podium and introduces herself. I’m surprised to see it’s Amy, looking healthy and anxious.

She coughs nervously. “Hi, everyone, my name is Amy, and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

“Hi, Amy!”

I give her a little wave, which she returns with a smile. Her eyes slip toward Amber and her smile falters.

Amy raises her hand. A round disk on a chain hangs from her finger. “Um, I’m here because I’m sixty days sober today.”

Several people clap enthusiastically.

“Thanks, but until I reach ninety, I’m still just counting days, like all of you. I was talking to Jim before the meeting started . . . Jim, I hope you don’t mind . . .” She nods toward an older man who looks like he might live on the street. He nods his bald head in encouragement. “Thanks, Jim. Anyway, he doesn’t have much, a lot less than most of us, but he found the courage to show up today instead of taking a drink. And if he can do that, than I can too, and so can you. That’s all I wanted to say.”

She walks off the podium and we all clap. Amy flushes with pleasure as she sits in her chair in the front row.

The Professor thanks her and calls on the next speaker, a good-looking guy in his mid-thirties who’s had a relapse and has been sober for five hours. He wants to make it till tomorrow. The next speaker is there for her fifth anniversary. She holds her five-year chip tightly in her manicured hand, like it might get stolen if she’s careless with it.

As I listen, I wonder what it is about talking to strangers that makes it easier to go through a day without drinking. Because sitting here, knowing I might be expected to share something personal, makes me long for a drink, just like it did in rehab. So, if coming here day after day, doing my thirty in thirty, is going to make me want to drink, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to move past any of this?

At the end of the hour, we stand, clasp hands, and say the Serenity Prayer. And for the first time, I feel some comfort in the familiar words, from the rote repetition of a hope we all share. “Living one day at a time; / Enjoying one moment at a time; / Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.”

When the meeting breaks up, I say goodbye to Amber and cross the room to greet Amy. We hug hello.

“Well, I see you made it out in one piece,” she says, holding me away from her.

“I guess.”

“You look better, Katie. Healthier.”

“I ran for twenty-five minutes yesterday.”

“Hey, hey, hey. I told you you could do it.”

We walk up the stairs and out into the late afternoon. The honking cars and exhaust fumes shatter some of the peace I found in the basement.

“So . . . you came to the meeting with Amber?”

“That’s at least a two-coffee story.”

She looks curious, but undecided. “Well . . . I should get back to work . . .”

“Some other time then. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“You know what? The bigwigs are all out at some corporate golf event, so let’s coffee up.”

We walk to the nearest coffee shop and settle in with some expensive coffees. Two cups later, I’ve spilled my guts with the requisite number of gasps and wide eyes from Amy.

She stirs the dregs in her cup. “Sounds like you’ve had a pretty wild couple of days.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Why are you telling me all of this, anyway?”

“I guess I’m . . . making amends.”

She squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Katie.”

“Yes, I do. You were a real friend to me in rehab, and I wasn’t honest with you.”

“Well, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I’m trying not to.”

We walk toward the door of the coffee shop.

“So, what are you going to do now?” she asks.

“Go home and sleep for as long as I can before I start my dream job.” I put my hand on the door to open it, but something stops me. “Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”

“I hope so, Katie.”

Sunday night to Monday morning I wake on the hour, every hour. The red numbers on my clock radio angrily announce the time. 1:00! 2:00! 3:00! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Try to sleep if you can.

At 6:00 (!) I give up and stumble out of bed. Mindful (for once) of Joanne, I walk quietly to the kitchen and start the coffee brewing. A double whammy day—I’m definitely going to need extra caffeine.

After a run, two mega mugs of coffee, a healthy breakfast, a shower, and a long struggle with my closet to find the perfect first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life outfit (I am so putting way too much pressure on this day), I leave the apartment with enough time to walk to The Line’s offices, so I don’t have to suffer through the stress of being stuck in traffic or underground if the subway breaks down. Nothing, nothing, will make me late today.

OK, nothing except . . .

Four blocks from my destination I pass a magazine stand, and there it is, half visible through the heavy-duty plastic wrapping: a stack of this week’s edition of Gossip Central containing an article by none other than me. I shuffle the stack around so I can get a better look. There’s a party, party, party shot of Amber on the cover, and the headline reads: “INSIDE REHAB WITH CAMBER!”

So much for five days of struggling over the perfect title.

I look at the magazine stand. It’s tightly shuttered, and the owner’s nowhere in sight. Goddamnit! What time does it open? I peer at the sign. Nine. Of course. Nine is when I need to be five blocks down and twenty-nine floors up. Damn you, universe!

But maybe I could just take one? I bet I could use my keys to rip that plastic . . .

No, no, no! I will not start the first day of the rest of my life stealing. Again.

Though . . . I could leave some money, and then it wouldn’t be stealing, right? But what if other people take copies and don’t leave any money? Then maybe I didn’t steal, but I created a situation that invites other people to steal, and that’s almost as bad, isn’t it?

Hello, idiot! You’ve got twenty minutes to get to TFDOTROYL. Forget the magazine. You’ll have plenty of time to read it later. In fact, you’ve already lived it. Get a move on!

I walk away from the magazine stand with a pang of regret but with purpose. I reach The Line’s modern waiting room with eight minutes to spare and stroll confidently up to the purple-haired, nose-ringed receptionist.

“Kate Sandford, reporting for duty.”

“Huh?”

That line didn’t work for John Kerry either. Let’s try this again.

“My name’s Kate. It’s my first day.”

“It is?”

Oh my God! Was it all a joke? Was Bob just f*cking with me this whole time?

I give it one last try before I run from the building in a total panic.

“I’m supposed to be meeting Elizabeth at nine.”

Her face clears. “Oh, right. She mentioned something. I’ll call her.”

“Thanks.”

“You can take a seat over there.”

I sit nervously on the couch, eyeing the magazines on the coffee table. There’s a copy of last week’s Gossip Central, but what good is that?

“Kate? Good to see you again?” Elizabeth says a few minutes later. She’s wearing a skin-tight pair of dark jeans that taper to the ankle and a pink tank top.

Classy and up-talking as always.

I rise and shake her hand. “Thanks, Elizabeth. You too.”

“Great? Follow me?”

She takes me to a wing of the office where there’s a long row of cubicles that reminds me of the gossip call center below us. She stops in front of an empty cubicle across from a large, glassed-in office.

“So, this will be your office?”

I look at the nondescript fabric dividers. There are a few stray pushpins stuck into the fabric, a fancy phone, and a desk chair.

“Perfect.”

“Are you ready to get started?”

Sure, only . . . once again I’m here for a job, and I don’t even know what it is. I guess that’s still me. Leap before I look.

“Um, so what will I be doing, exactly?”

“You’ll be covering small local bands for now? Reporting to me? But we’ll get into more at the story meeting? At eleven?”

“OK, great.”

“It’ll be in the Nashville Skyline room? You remember?”

Will I ever be allowed to forget?

“Yes. And I’m really sorry about that.”

She shows me her teeth. “No problem? I believe in bygones, you know?”

“Thanks.”

“Why don’t you settle in? Oh, and I have something for you?” She walks into her office, picks something up off her desk, and walks it back to me. “I thought you’d like to read this?”

I take this week’s Gossip Central from her almost reverently. So much of my life seems bound up in these glossy, gossipy pages.

She goes into her office, and I sit down at my desk to read my article. It’s a twelve-page spread, full of lurid pictures of Amber and Connor. At the front of it all is my name. Reporting and story by Kate Sandford. That’s me, that’s me.

My phone beeps. It’s a text from Amber.

Read it. It’s perfect.

Thx.

Phone is ringing off the hook.

RU going 2 answer?

Thinking about it.

Good luck.

CU @ the meeting later?

Thinking about it.

30 in 30.

Yes, Saundra.

#*#!!

Two more texts come in, one from Greer and one from Scott, both congratulating me. I text them back a thank-you as my desk phone rings. I stare at it. Can that be for me? I haven’t given anyone this number. I don’t even know the number.

“Hello?”

It’s the receptionist. “I have John Macintosh for you.”

“OK.” The phone clicks. “Hello?”

“This is John Macintosh from FYI magazine,” says a medium deep voice with a slight Southern twang.

“Yes?”

“Connor Parks is saying that everything you wrote about him in your article is untrue. Do you have any comment?”

“He’s saying what?”

“That you’ve fabricated the entire story. At least as it relates to him. He did confirm what you wrote about Amber, and a lot more besides.”

I’ll bet he did, the f*cking a*shole.

“So, do you have any comment?”

I look down at the picture of Amber passed out at Connor’s feet. “I stand by everything I wrote.”

“And do you have anything to say to Connor’s accusations?”

“No, I have nothing to say to him at all.”

“Any regrets about going undercover to get the story in the first place?”

Oh, I have regrets, but I’m not going to talk about them with you.

“No comment.”

“Have you spoken to Amber since the article came out?”

“No comment.”

“Do you know anything about her going missing last week?”

“No comment.”

He makes a disappointed sound in his throat. “All right. Thank you, Ms. Sandford.”

I hang up, and my phone rings again. This time it’s someone from OK. Then People, Us, and a few British tabloids I’ve never even heard of. I say the same thing over and over. No, I don’t have any comment. No, I won’t be giving any interviews. No, I can’t reveal my sources.

In between the tabloid calls, I get a call from my mother. She read the article online, and she has a few questions. Yesterday, I plucked up my courage and called my parents to tell them the whole story. They took it pretty well, considering.

“Does that mean you didn’t need to be in rehab?” my dad asked, talking to me on the staticky cordless phone I’ve been trying to get them to replace for years.

“I’m not sure, Dad. I think maybe I did, but I’m still trying to work that out.”

“I think it was a good thing, dear,” my mom said from the phone that hangs on the wall in the kitchen where I used to talk to Rory for hours.

“I thought I’d come home next weekend, if you’d like,” I say to my mom after I explain what “K” is, and how you use meth. The Rehab Education of Kate Sandford.

“We’d like that very much.”

I twine the cord around my fingers. “You could invite Chrissie for dinner too, maybe?”

“Of course, dear. I’ll make your favorite lasagna.”

“That’s Chrissie’s favorite dish, Mom, not mine.”

“Is it, now?”

When the phone finally stops ringing, I have half an hour until my first story meeting. At The Line! Oh. My. God. And all I had to do was sell half my soul to get it.

No sweat.

I start making a list of ideas that will hopefully impress my new colleagues but end up with a list of the people I need to apologize to: Mom, Dad, Chrissie, Rory, Greer, Scott, Amber, Amy, Zack, Joanne, Saundra, Henry, myself.

Myself.

Myself.

Myself.

“Are you ready for the meeting?” Elizabeth asks, coming out of her office a few minutes before eleven.

“Absolutely.”

I follow her to the Nashville Skyline room, feeling nervous. Going back to the scene of the crime doesn’t really appeal to me.

Laetitia, Cora, and Kevin (all of who I vaguely remember from my interview) are there, and we reintroduce ourselves. Kevin calls me “Undercover Brother,” which I actually take as a good sign. If people are going to hate you, they use your name to your face and a nickname behind your back.

“So? What do we have this week?” Elizabeth asks.

“The Jonas Brothers have a new album coming out,” Cora says.

Kevin shudders. “Ugh. Please tell me we’re not covering that.”

“Agreed? That is totally not our demographic?”

“Arcade Fire’s new album might be more appropriate,” Laetitia says.

“Perfect? Kevin, see if you can get an interview? Maybe we’ll put them on the cover? Anything else?”

I raise my hand. “Has anyone heard of a band called The Spread?”

“Nope,” Kevin says.

“Well . . . I’ve been following them for about a year now, and I’m convinced they’re going to be massive. They’ve just been signed, and I thought they’d be perfect for one of those ‘Who you’ll be listening to this time next year’ segments.”

I wait nervously while Elizabeth ponders the suggestion.

“Sounds good? Do a thousand words and show it to me? By Friday? Now what else?”

At lunchtime, I swallow my pride and walk two sandwiches up five blocks to Rory’s building. I stand in the doorway of her cluttered office watching the best friend I’ve ever had reading something with such concentration it takes my breath away. It scares me that I’ve done all the things I have in the last couple of months without her to rely on. She’s the only person I’ve managed to hold on to in my life, and, like Saundra said, self-sufficiency is not something I need to work on.

“Hey, stranger,” I say.

Her head snaps up. She looks pale, and some of the hollows have returned to her cheeks.

Did I do this? Did I sabotage her recovery when I sabotaged my own?

“Hey, yourself.”

“Can I come in?”

She nods. I remove the large stack of paper from the chair in front of her desk.

“Careful.”

I smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t mess with the system.”

“What do you want, Kate?”

I sit down and hand her the sandwich bag. “I thought we could have lunch together.”

She drops the bag on her desk like it’s contaminated. “And what? Just forget everything that’s happened?”

“No. I want to tell you everything that’s happened.”

Her eyes widen in surprise, and only get wider as I fill her in on the missing details. I take her straight through from the dinner with Amber to waking up with Henry to our tour through hell. By the time I get to turning the tables on Connor, I can tell that Rory has forgiven me. All I have to do is ask.

“So, do you forgive me?”

Rory picks up her forgotten sandwich and takes an absent-minded bite. “For what?”

“For everything. For lying to you. For thinking I could do any of this without you.”

“But you have done it without me.”

“But I don’t want to anymore, Ror. I need you.”

Rory reaches her hand across the desk, and I grab on and hold it tightly. Since neither of us wants to cry at her work, we leave it at that.

Ravenous, I unwrap my sandwich and put half of it in my mouth. Those rehab pounds are going to come back with a vengeance if I don’t impose some self-control.

“So, enough about me, what’s up with you?”

Her face lights up. “Well, they made me a director.”

“About f*cking time.”

I spend the afternoon working on my article on The Spread, and fielding a few more calls from journalists. When I check the Internet, it seems to be all anyone’s writing about. What’s true? What’s false? Will Camber ever get back together? Someone claims they were together Sunday, or was it Saturday?

Connor issues a formal denial, Amber stays mum. This seems like the right strategy, because the coverage is leaning in her favor. Everyone’s disgusted with Connor’s behavior and his desperate attempts to slur her. Amazingly, no one seems to clue into the fact that Amber must be the source of all the gory details. Except for Connor and Henry, of course. There’s no way they don’t know.

I leave the office at five, feeling more tired than I have in a long time. An honest day’s work, tomorrow will be another. TSDOTROML. One day at a time.

When I get back to the apartment, Scott’s there, hanging out with Joanne.

“I thought I’d take you out to celebrate your first day of stardom,” he says.

“That’s sweet.”

Scott gives me a knowing smile. “But . . .”

“But, I have somewhere I have to be.”

“An AA meeting?” Joanne guesses.

“That’s right.”

“I could come with, if you like.”

“Scott, that’s an incredibly nice gesture, but it’s kind of something you have to do alone.”

“I don’t have any plans, Scott,” Joanne says, smiling at him in a way I’ve never seen her smile before.

Interesting. Joanne’s into Scott. And come to think of it, Joanne’s looking particularly nice today. Her hair is less Annie than usual, and she’s wearing a black shirt over her jeans that makes her skin look milky. Is this just a coincidence or did she know he was coming?

Scott seems disconcerted. “Oh, sure, right. What are you in the mood for?”

“How about that Thai place near campus?”

“OK.” Scott turns to me. “You sure you don’t want to join?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Scott gives me a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-to-me? look before following Joanne out of the apartment.

Sorry, Scott.

I head to my room and close the door behind me. I lie down on my bed and slap my earphones into my ears, pressing play. My semi-sentient machine matches my mood by tossing out Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ “Apologies,” a song about love ending, and what can this make me think about but Henry? Henry, Henry, Henry.

Did I mention that he never called me back?

And I’m pretty sure it’s not because he didn’t get the message. Or, to be honest, the six messages I left him between Friday and Sunday when I finally got the message, and stopped dialing his number.

I’ve got to get a grip. I’ve gone further down the road of being “that girl” (that stalking, can’t-make-it-without-a-particular-man girl) than I ever wanted to. He doesn’t want to be with me. Maybe he did. But he doesn’t now, and I have to find a way to move on.

And this music isn’t helping. I click it off and stare at the ceiling. How does one move on, exactly?

Beep! Beep!

Maybe another piece of technology will be more helpful?

It’s a text from Amber.

U coming or what?

Then again, maybe not.

I stare at my phone, watching the electronic numbers march toward zero hour. If I don’t leave in three minutes, there’ll be no meeting for me tonight.

And what would that mean? Would I start drinking again? Would I be putting TFDOTROML in jeopardy?

Am I willing to take that chance?

I swing my legs off the bed and stand up.

I don’t have any chances left.