The Pretty Lady and the Cowboy (Songs from the Heart) (16 page)

“Hey,” I said to Jess. “How about if I take you out to dinner to celebrate our new partnership?”

“Can we have Italian? I’m in the mood for pasta and some of that great garlic bread they have at Hot Tomatoes.”

“Perfect!” I said. “Let’s go feast!”

# # # # #

Jess and I shared a huge salad and a gigantic platter of linguini with clam sauce and were on our second basket of garlic bread when I heard the
Rocky
ringtone of my cell phone. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but I answered anyway. I could hardly hear the speaker above the noise of the restaurant. I nearly hung up, figuring it must be a wrong number.

But finally I heard a woman’s voice say, “Miz Ka— Addis—?”

The static and noise made it almost impossible to understand the speaker, but that sounded enough like my name that I said that it was. “Yes.”

There were more words I could barely understand. I heard Ally’s name, “ambulance,” “infirmary”—just enough words to make me panic, not enough to give me concrete information. Heart pounding, I kept repeating, “Hold on for a minute, hold on, hold on,” while I took the phone outside. I asked what had happened, and all I could tell between bursts of static was that she had passed out and had been brought there by ambulance. It took several tries before I managed to get the address.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said, hoping the woman understood what I was saying. I was shaking as I hung up.

Jess had paid the bill and was standing beside me. “Ally?” she asked, and I nodded.

She took my arm and steered me toward her car in a space behind The Finish Line. I tried to protest, but she told me I was in no condition to drive anyone anywhere. “I think one Addison sister in the hospital is plenty for the evening,” she said, with her usual mix of concern and sarcasm.

She punched the address I gave her into her GPS and we took off. My imagination was spinning its wheels—Ally had been in a car crash again, she had walked in front of a truck, she was about to be rushed to the nearest hospital.

I had meant to call her earlier, right after we closed the store for the evening. My own plan, which I hadn’t mentioned to Ally, was to check in with her at random times so she’d never be able to count on an exact time when she “had” to be sober. But somehow seeing Levi and then waiting on the extra customers had put that plan out of my mind.

“
This was your fault,
” a voice inside my head was saying. And then suddenly I was saying it out loud. “This is my fault.”

“Seriously, Kitty?” Jess said. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for what Kitty does to herself.”

“Intellectually, that makes sense,” I said. But emotionally? I was a wreck. Again.

It took all my concentration just to hold myself together.

When we finally reached the infirmary, I was opening the car door before Jess had even pulled the car to a complete stop. I nearly ran up the steps to the entrance.

Thank heaven Jess stayed with me. The student volunteer working the information desk couldn’t tell us anything about Ally’s condition. We were directed to wait in a small private room and told someone would be with us shortly.

I panicked. Wasn’t this what always happened on
House
when his patient was dying? Didn’t they always get the news in a small room like this one? Jess, bless her, just held my hand and didn’t say anything. She knew I was beyond words anyway.

It seemed like hours before a doctor finally entered. She got right to the point after making sure of my identity.

“Your sister blacked out from drinking too much. We’re monitoring her for breathing or choking issues. She’s on an IV to give her the fluid her body needs to help rid itself of the alcohol. Fortunately, her friend found her in time and called 911.”

I wondered if this was Ava, the friend who had stayed with her at the fraternity party. Was she a true friend, there for Ally when Ally needed her? Or was she a drinking buddy?

The doctor was continuing, “This level of alcohol in the blood can have serious side effects. We’ll keep her overnight but you need to think about some long-term treatment for her. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen her here—though in the past all she really needed was a chance to sleep it off and a couple of Tylenol in the morning. The fact that this time she had a blackout suggests a growing alcohol addiction.”

“How could I not have seen this coming? How could I have missed the signs?”

“From what I’ve seen, alcoholics are often excellent con artists and the people they con most successfully are family members who want to believe only the best.”

“She promised me she would leave alcohol alone,” I said, almost to myself. “She
promised.”
Then I turned to the doctor. “How do you know?” I asked. “How can you tell when someone crosses the line between casual drinking and alcoholism?”

“This isn’t a scientific definition, but for practical purposes, an alcoholic is someone who can’t leave alcohol alone, no matter what she promises, someone for whom one drink is never enough. I don’t mean to judge, but it’s pretty obvious to me that she’s more than just a casual drinker.”

“But isn’t heavy drinking pretty typical of college kids?” I was still trying to deny the obvious. I wanted Ally’s problem to be easy to fix. Despite everything the doctor was telling me, I was still hoping that her pinky swear promise would be enough to keep Ally sober.

“Sure, lots of kids drink at parties. But I see in her records that she’s arrived here before under the influence in the middle of the afternoon, and even in the late morning. That suggests a deeper problem. Plus, alcohol poisoning is usually the result of binge drinking, downing five or six drinks in rapid succession. And it’s serious. When she came in she was having seizures and her heart was beating at less than half its normal rate. Alcohol poisoning can be fatal.”

My mind kept silently protesting, “Why? Why would she do such a thing?” I had no idea.

The doctor had no answer either. She simply said, “I’ve written down the names of a couple of therapists who specialize in alcoholism and also the number of the local chapter of AA. If she were my sister, I’d go to an AA meeting with her. What she needs to learn is the difference between promising
you
that she won’t drink… and making that promise to
herself.
”

I was having trouble processing all this. “When can I see her?” I asked.

“Right now if you want, but she’s asleep and we’d like to keep her that way, so no talking just yet.”

Jess and I followed the doctor down the hall to Ally’s room. She was on the far side, a curtain separating her from another patient. She looked terribly young and vulnerable.

I turned to Jess. “You’d better get on home. I’ll really need your help tomorrow if I spend the rest of the night here.” The only chair in the room looked hard and uncomfortable, but I had to stay with Ally. I had to make sure she came out of this all right.

Jess didn’t protest. “Call me if you need anything,” she said, giving me a hug good-bye.

I spent a long time standing at Ally’s bedside, stroking her hair. How had this happened to my baby sister? What should I have done to help her? What could I do now?

I sat down in the hard chair, thinking, puzzling. Questions swirled around in my head but I had no answers to any of them.

I took out my phone and checked for messages. Nothing. I was about to shut it down but suddenly I remembered something Levi said—something about asking him for help with Ally if I needed it.

Immediately the private side of me, the part of me that Dad had trained never to ask for help, rebelled. I turned the phone off. No, this was a family problem, a private problem.

But I had to admit that I’d tried solving this all by myself. I’d tried bribery, tough love, laying down the law. The result of those methods was lying right here in front of me on an IV, too drunk to even know I was there.

I turned the phone back on and began texting. I knew Levi was still performing, but he’d get the message later. I had all the time in the world. I’d be here all night. I typed, “ALLY PROBLEM. I NEED HELP. JK.” I didn’t bother with abbreviations. I wanted the message to be crystal clear.

Then I turned off the ringtone, set the phone to buzz, and stuffed it in the pocket of my jeans. I sat back and looked out the window. I watched Ally. I closed my eyes and tried to doze. I walked up and down the hall for a while. Nothing I did made the time pass any more quickly.

I knew Levi’s concert wouldn’t be over until nearly midnight. And who knew what he might have to do afterwards—what autographs he might have to sign, what photographers he might have to pose for, what journalists might want a quote. Then, from the deep recesses of my mind, came the thought,
“And what gorgeous blondes he might be meeting up with.”

I had almost forgotten about the mystery woman. Shoot, now wasn’t the time I wanted to be reminded, either. But you know how nearly impossible it is to force yourself to
not
think about something. Sitting here worried, alone, with too much time on my hands, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I went over every detail of the dress she had worn when I first saw her with Levi after the concert (especially that plunging neckline), the possessive way she had held onto his arm and led him away, the kiss on the cheek he had given her at the sidewalk café. My mind kept chanting, “Who is she?
Who is she
?”

Thanks, subconscious. Sure am glad you came through and gave me something besides Ally to worry about.

Not.

# # # # #

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew it was nearly three a.m. and my phone was buzzing.

“H’lo,” I said.

“Woke you up again, didn’t I? Maybe someday I’ll get to do it in person,” Levi said.

This was exactly what I’d been wishing for: some sense that he wanted our relationship to continue.

And this was exactly the wrong moment for it. I couldn’t wrap my head around it right now, couldn’t respond to it. It was like being given a chocolate truffle while you were in the middle of getting your wisdom teeth pulled. Or like getting the bike you’d been wishing for the day after you broke your arm.

“It’s Ally,” I said. “Again. I just don’t know what to do.” I briefly told him what the doctor had told me.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Give me a few minutes to wake Jim and I’ll be right over.”

“But it’s the middle of the night,” I said. I desperately wanted the peace and security I felt whenever Levi put his arms around me. But beyond that, I had no idea how he could help me. And I knew he must be exhausted.

“JK, I’m still wound up tighter than a drum—takes me hours to get to sleep after a concert. Tell me where you are.”

I gave him the address. “Thanks,” I said simply.

“Room number?”

I told him that, too, and then settled back again to wait.

I was wide awake after that. A nurse came in to check on Ally. She removed an empty IV bag and hung up a new one. She took Ally’s blood pressure, but Ally hardly stirred, just pulled her arm away slightly and moaned a bit. The nurse checked to make sure Ally’s airways were clear.

“Sometimes we need to intubate in cases of alcohol poisoning,” she said. “But so far so good with your sister.”

I guess that was one thing to be thankful for.

Levi arrived seconds after the nurse left. I stood to greet him and he gently wrapped his arms around me. I took a deep breath, feeling safe, if only for the moment. Levi was a master of saying nothing at exactly the right time. We just stood there, my head on his chest, breathing together.

I finally found my voice. “I just don’t know what to do,” I said. “The doctor said I should start thinking about treatments for alcoholism.”

Levi pulled back enough so he could look into my eyes. “I can only tell you what worked for me,” he said.

“Did your sister have an alcohol problem, too?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

He smiled ruefully down at me. “JK, I’m an alcoholic.”

I could feel myself tensing up again. I took a deep breath, tried to puzzle out what this meant. For some reason, Ally’s comments about Levi’s ex-wife sprang into my mind.

“And your divorce?” We had never mentioned his past. He looked a little surprised that I knew he had been married before, but he didn’t shy away from answering.

“She couldn’t live with my drinking. Even after she left me, it took me a long time to figure out that I couldn’t live with it either. I’m afraid country music and booze have a pretty long history together.”

I remembered Dan’s comments about the ambulances that line up like taxicabs outside country western concerts.

“And what worked for you?” I asked.

“Rehab. Lots of therapy. AA. A few guardian angels. Alcohol is a darned hard habit to break.”

I found myself pushing out of Levi’s embrace. I could feel a kind of panic setting in. “And now?” I asked, trembling.

“Now I try to stay sober, one day at a time.”

Try
, he said. Meaning he didn’t always succeed? Meaning he was always one drink away from disaster?

“I don’t know if I can handle this,” I said. “First Ally, now you?”

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said. Once again, he showed his talent for calm understatement.

I was silent for a long time. “Is this what you’ve wanted to talk with me about?”

“It is. I’m not perfect, JK.” He hugged me tightly to him.

“No one is,” I said, and kissed his cheek.

“I hear that ‘but’ in your voice again,” he said. Honestly, I had never known anyone who could read what I 
wasn’t
saying as clearly as Levi did.

“But,” I hesitated, then took a deep breath and continued. “I’m not perfect either. And just now I don’t think I can handle the fact that you and Ally share the same…” I trailed off, not knowing what to call it—disease? I finally settled on “problem.” “You and Ally share a potentially lethal problem. I’m worried to death about Ally and that’s all I can manage to deal with.”

“And?” Levi asked.

My whole soul was rebelling against the direction this conversation was headed. But I had to be honest and answer him.