Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (11 page)

“
Letty, your face is all red. Are you hot?” Mary Kate said as she plunked down next to me. I patted my cheeks, but luckily one of Lisa’s gutter balls—and the pungent vocabulary that followed—distracted her. Mary Kate hooted her condolences across the entire bowling alley, causing Regina to squinch her eyes shut in grim forbearance. Across from us, Bob rolled his eyes, tipping a “can you believe this?” smirk that included me. I ignored them both. The only thing worse than Mary Kate bellowing in my ear would be inclusion into their mini-clique.

“
Aren’t you drinking anything?” Either Mary Kate had had a few drinks already or she’d forgotten I was sitting next to her, because she was still bellowing. Judging from the hops-scented breath, I’d go with the former. Still, it was a good excuse to get away.

Mary Kate followed me up to the bar where I ordered a diet pop. A huge cheer broke out behind us as Lisa’s ball finally managed to navigate the lanes, connecting bowling ball to pins. A closer look showed she had knocked over a grand total of two pins. An even
closer
examination revealed someone had raised the kiddy bumper rails as an assist. I grinned as she wiggled her butt and waved victory fists in the air.

The game ended soon after, Marshall winning by a large margin. As they began to choose new teams, squabbling over who got to use the fluorescent pink ball, he made his way to the bar next to me.

“
Whew!” Marshall fanned his shirt collar while I forced my mind onto images completely unrelated to droplets of sweat rolling silkily down his torso. Mary Kate waved at the bartender.

“
Nice game,” I said.

“
Well, I had an advantage in that I wasn’t part of the advance decorating team.” He pointed at the banners and balloons. “Apparently, they’d already gone through a pitcher before we even got here.”

“
Two!” Mary Kate clarified cheerfully. And then, “Shots!”

Behind us, the bartender lined up shot glasses, tipping a bottle of Cuervo over each. Oh shit.

“
Uh…”

“
Da don da dada dada da…
Tequila!
” Mary Kate sang an aborted attempt at The Champs classic. She shoved a glass in my hand and one in Marshall’s. Oh shit, oh
shit
. Saliva pooled in my mouth. Marshall reached over, clicked his glass against Mary Kate’s, and downed his. She laughed and chugged hers while I sat stupidly. Sweat beaded down the center of my back, an irritation that heightened my anxiety. Tickled, too.

“
Come on, Letty!” Mary Kate said. “Your turn! Go, go, g—”

Marshall reached over, casually took the glass out of my hand, and tossed it back.

“
Mar
-shall!” Mary Kate broke Marshall’s name up into two whiny syllables, a weirdly combined version of petulant adolescent and prissy maiden aunt. Eyes watering, he smiled charmingly and dug his keys out of his pants pocket. Handing them over to me, he said, “Letty’s my designated driver. You don’t want your boss getting pulled over for a DUI, do you?”

Hard to argue, but Mary Kate looked just drunk enough to consider it. She had a closed, obstinate look on her face.

“
Hey, you’re in charge here. When do I get my presents?” Marshall tried distracting her. It worked. Squealing and grabbing us each by the hand, she pulled us over to the table piled high with brightly wrapped gifts, then flitted back and forth trying to herd everyone over to the table. After about ten minutes, she gave up on “everyone” and settled for “most.” I sat a couple of chairs down from Marshall, holding his keys in my hand. They were still warm from his pocket.

I tried hard not to let my imagination wander to his warm-pocket regions.

The gifts helped distract me, too. In addition to several gift certificates to area shops and restaurants and a stack of instant lottery game cards, Marshall also became the proud new owner of a pile of latex vomit and a Pull-My-Finger fart machine. But it wasn’t until he unwrapped a package of Raspberry Sorbet edible underwear—female, size 4—that the crowd really went wild.

He turned bright red, but whether it was from laughter or embarrassment, I couldn’t say. Carol and Sarah, our other intern, dove under the table for the discarded wrapping paper, searching for the giver’s name.

“
It’s only got Marshall’s initials, MT.”

“
Let me see,” Lisa confiscated the tag. She frowned, then turned the tag upside down. “It doesn’t say MT. It says LW.”

Silence descended on the group, then they turned as one to face me.

I blushed so hard my brain almost ignited. “
Me?
” And then, stupidly, “It’s not
my
birthday.”

Everyone burst out laughing, and someone passed the panties over to me. I flung them at the garbage can fifteen feet away, making a basket. The group cheered wildly.

After the wrapping was pulled off the final present, people started sorting themselves into two groups. Led by Regina and Bob, about two-thirds grabbed their jackets and started making good-bye noises. The others—made of sterner stuff and tougher livers—headed for the bar.

Lisa walked up, a slip of paper pinched between her fingers. The gift tag. “I thought you might want to have this,” she said.

My initials in sloppy block letters were written on one side, a used piece of tape with shreds of gift wrap running along the top edge. I flipped it over to examine the back. Nothing.

“
I already looked there,” Lisa said.

“
I don’t suppose you saw who carried it in earlier?” That was stupid. If she had seen someone she would have said so already.

“
That won’t help. I brought it in.”

“
You did?”

“
Yep,” she said, nodding. “When I came out of the file room I found it on my desk. I was afraid Marshall would see it, so I shoved it in my purse without looking. When I got here, I remembered it and stuck it on the table. But if you’re wondering if I got you raspberry flavored undies…” She gave me an I-don’t-think-so look. “Anyway, the whole thing seems kind of creepy, so I figured you’d want to know.”

“
Creepy is right. Thanks, Lisa.”

I found it strange to sit with my hand wrapped around a sweating glass of generic pop while all around me people laughed and drank. Not strange in a bad way though. Strange in a
Gorillas In The Mist
kind of way. I felt like an anthropologist watching the mating rituals of an obscure race.

Almost everyone I watched managed to party without forgetting the essential point that we would all have to face each other on Monday, but there were a few who got a little blurry around the edges as the night wore on. Several offered to buy me a drink, but nobody seemed to mind when I refused, especially when I jangled Marshall’s keys and used the code words: designated driver. I couldn’t help trying to figure out what made these folks different from me. Where was the line between social drinker and raving drunk? When had I crossed it?
Was there really no going back?

I was so absorbed in the scene I almost forgot to call Robert. He’d been less than thrilled when he’d heard I was canceling our Friday date night, especially to go to a bar. But eventually, grudgingly, he acknowledged the importance of attending the boss’s birthday party. Originally I’d planned to leave and meet up with Robert once the party got rolling, but since Marshall had entrusted me with his keys, I was stuck. It was past 9:00, which meant the AA meeting would be over, so I called to let him know the change in plans. He wasn’t as irritated as I expected, which perversely annoyed me almost as much as the mini-interrogation that he put me through.

“
You’re not drinking, are you?”

“
Of course not.”

“
No urges or cravings?” Robert asked.

“
No; it’s weird watching people drink, though.”

“
Weird how? ‘I feel left out’ weird?”

“
No, more like wondering what makes me … what I am … and not them.”

Speaking of weird, I discovered I was twisted into that strange body posture that people on cell phones in noisy places assume: hunched over, one finger stuck in my ear, head turned from the room like I could find a cone of silence if I put my nose two inches from the countertop. On top of turning myself into a pretzel, I was striving for a voice range that would allow Robert to hear me over the bar noises but not inform the entire bowling alley that I was, indeed, an alcoholic.

“
What do you mean ‘what you are’?” Robert misinterpreted my attempt at subtlety. “Why are you avoiding?”

“
I’m not
avoiding
, but I’m in a public bar and I don’t want—”

Somebody was tapping on my shoulder. I held my ear finger up: one minute.

“
Yeah, well, you already know how I feel about the whole bar thing,” Robert continued. The tapping grew more insistent, and I swatted backwards, waving the tapper off. “You’re not getting hit on, are you?”

More tapping. Giving up, I swung around abruptly. Marshall held a bowling ball, pointing at me, then him, then the ball. Trying not to giggle, I shook my head and turned my attention to the phone again.

“
Letty? Hello?”

“
I’m here, Robert. I just got distracted.” Marshall grabbed my foot, and I slapped at his back. “Stop it!” I hissed.

“
Stop what?”

“
Nothing, Robert. Things are getting a little goofy here.” Marshall stuck his tongue out at me, which I ignored, turning my back on him. Seconds later, something tugged at my foot again, sliding my shoe off. I decided I was dealing with a shoe fetishist—not something one normally learns about one’s boss. Or ever wants to.

I tried to pick up the trail of Robert’s conversation, but I’d missed a chunk. He was talking about a new guy who’d had his First Step meeting earlier that night. Apparently, Robert had asked him out with the gang for coffee, which explained why he didn’t make a fuss at my no-show. Robert liked meeting newcomers and showing them the ropes. My foot was getting cold and I needed to track down the shoe-napper, so I didn’t mind when Robert signaled he was ready to go.

After hobbling up and down the lobby area, I finally located Marshall at the shoe counter. He’d convinced the clerk to hide my shoe, and he triumphantly held up a pair of petite bi-colored rentals.

“
You can’t just steal my shoes and expect me to join you bowling.”

“
I only stole
one
shoe. So you can play
one
game.”

I didn’t need a degree in Alcohol to know it was useless to argue. Sighing, I took the shoes and shuffled over to the chairs.

Bowling can be fun. Bowling with a crowd of inebriated therapists—not so much. Nobody paid the least bit of attention to when their turn came up, leaving huge blocks of time open for important stuff like doing shots and falling off the molded plastic chairs. Hannah, a brilliant social worker who wore granny skirts and spoke in whispers, kept insisting that we should play strip bowling, which lent a whole new meaning to gutter ball. Mary Kate kept getting on her hands and knees, crawling to the line, and rolling her ball by shoving it two-handed from the prone position. Apparently, the lane was being “wiggly.”

Being the only sober one in the batch, I should have been able to wipe the floor with all of them. However, Marshall was just drunk enough to be relaxed and not drunk enough to see double. He kicked butt. He also shook butt—his own—every time he got a strike. Absolutely made losing worth it.

When he finally let me pour him into his car, it was nearly midnight. Thankfully, Carol’s husband, Steve, showed up to chauffeur the more “relaxed” co-workers to their various homes. He’d come prepared, shoving empty plastic ice cream tubs in everyone’s laps as they giggled and crawled over each other and wrestled with seat belts. Some, I suspected, were not quite as drunk as they portrayed, but were simply reveling in the freedom from their normally staid professional lives. Mary Kate, on the other hand, sat in the front passenger seat with her nose smooshed flat against the window, gazing blearily out the window. I waved. She blinked, which I interpreted as “good-bye.” Close enough.

I got in the car and started the heater. Marshall sat with his head canted back on the seat, eyes closed, a slight smile on his face. Soft jazz played on the radio, but I turned it off, preferring the silence. Carol’s husband tapped on the window while I struggled to adjust the seat forward.

When I lowered the window, he asked, “You sure you’re okay to drive?”

I smiled. “I haven’t had a single drink all night, but thanks for checking.”

“
Letty’s a good girl,” Marshall murmured. “A very, very good girl.”

“
I got an extra bucket,” Steve said, waving it at me. I looked over at Marshall.

“
Are you going to need a bucket?”

“
No way. I’m smooth.”

“
Smooth?”

“
Smooooth,” he said. “Like velvet.”

I looked at Steve. “He says he’s smooth.”

“
Take the bucket.” Steve shoved it through the window, and I placed it on the floor between Marshall’s feet. I expected an argument, but the only sound of life from the passenger seat was soft, rhythmic breathing. Well, great. Velvet Boy was asleep.

Luckily, Marshall’s fancy car was equipped with a user-friendly navigation system. I hit “Favorites” and “Home” and let a robotic female direct me through the dark night.

I hadn’t been out driving this late in a long time. Toward the end of my drinking days, I had taken to drinking at home, alone. Such a cliche, but at the time I thought I was cleverly avoiding all the drunks out there on the roads. Silly me. The only drunk I had to fear was locked up in my apartment with a bottle of booze.