Page 3 of Slightly Addictive

“How would you know?”

“It takes one to know one, like you said. I’m in that meeting for a reason.”

“Which is?”

“It’s time to clean up my act. For good. I have a penchant fortequilaand limes—in that order—and it gets me in trouble. I got two too many DUIs, and that’s frowned upon when you’re a school bus driver.”

“They let you keep driving?!”

“Chica,they don’t know.” Roxi all but “phsst’d.”

“Ah, your cop connection.”

“Yep,” Roxi leaned across the table and whispered. “I’ve slept with one of the cops a few times. We have an arrangement. She makes it go away.”

“So you’re literally in bed with a cop?”

“I wouldn’t say it that way—”

“How would you say it?”

“I’d say, I have a friend who looks out for me,” Roxi smiled with lips on her mug. Gia recognized the hurt in her eyes.

In the mostly empty diner, the air ducts above them hummed and dishes clanged in the kitchen. Sun lit every window in the joint, which was otherwise quite dark, giving the squares that defined the panes an ethereal presence. She’d started her day in a church, and Roxi had continued the theme with her confessional. Gia was reminded of the severity of their predicament. Here was someone who’d go to great lengths to cover up her actions, even if it meant breaking a law or two.

“Shit, really? Did you ever think of doing something different for work? I mean, driving kids to school?”

“Yeah, all the time. But—like I said, no one knows.”

“Youknow.”

“Si. I do.” Roxi sighed. “Which is why I’m working on it.”

Right there and then, Gia made a mental note: Friends only.

That was mine

Another Tuesday afternoon, another meeting. Gia parked her silver Toyota hatchback under a palm tree in the corner of the church parking lot, popped a piece of nicotine gum in her mouth—technically, it didn’t count as smoking—and slithered out from under the seatbelt that was permanently attached to the door frame. What a dumb idea, she’d always thought—attaching the shoulder strap to the door frame. Not that she could do anything about it. That old Tercel was all she could afford, and “afford” was a generous term. Its tires were almost completely bald, and it needed to be to jump started at least twice a month. She put gas in $10 at a time, when the little plastic indicator thing was well beyond the E. But it got her where she was going—most of the time, anyway.

Heat from the parking lot’s smooth asphalt coating radiated through her flip-flops with every step, putting a fire under her feet and filling her senses with the smell of melting tar. She recoiled when her hand found the metal handle attached to the glass door that led to the church’s Fellowship Hall.

“It’s too fucking hot here!” Gia announced to no one, then used the bottom of her t-shirt as a glove and tried again. She’d taken to wearing a wardrobe of cut-off Levis, t-shirts with the sleeves 86’d, and flip-flops. The look said starving artist or perhaps, college kid home for the summer. But minimal clothing was essential to survival she reckoned, and she was determined to survive. Palm Springs, with its bone-dry, khaki-washed mountains and bright green grass, its weathered old-money locals and Botoxed new-money vacationers, was the ultimate representation of her life. Water and oil. Black and white. Vodka and soda. If she could survive the duality of the desert, she could, well—survive.

“Hola,” a hushed voice said as a sun-kissed hand landed on her shoulder. “I wondered if I’d see you today.” Roxi’d worn a tight cotton dress—the kind that left nothing to the imagination—and had pulled her raven-black hair into a ponytail.

“Yeah, well—I don’t really have a choice,” Gia moved toward the meeting room. “You guys are my only friends. If you count first-names only and group conversations where everyone talks about their anxieties and traumas as friendships.”

“I totally do. Not much different from traditional friendship, is it? Except everyone admits they have issues instead of dancing around them and pretending liketodoestá bien, even thoughnada está bien.”

“True.”

Roxi had a point. Gia couldn’t remember the last time she had a friendship that didn’t involve partying. It must’ve been high school. Back before she started drinking. When her worst offense was skipping biology to go smoke behind the gym with the other misfits, with whom she desperately wanted to fit in. Adult Gia found it funny that her main teenaged aim was to fit in with kids who didn’t fit in. What an apt metaphor for her life.

“Welcome,” a booming voice started. It belonged to Mikael, the group’s leader. “Good to see you all here. Why don’t we begin? Who wants to go first?”

Why she stood, Gia didn’t know. Standing wasn’t a requirement. Nevertheless, she stood, causing the plastic chair to creak against its metal legs, and focusing all eyes on her. A quick glance around the circle revealed seven others. Seven people who would understand. Seven who would listen without judgment. They had to—because, as her minimal Bible study as a child reminded her, “judge, lest not ye be judged.” It was only fitting that they were convened in a church. Had anyone thought of holding group recovery meetings in less charged environments? Certainly they had. There must’ve been a reason the meetings she’d been to were always religious adjacent.

“Hi, I’m Gia, and I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink in sixteen days,” she started, the quiver in her voice nothing new. Her discomfort with public speaking had been a lifelong weakness, going back when her mother suggested she try out for the theatre club at school and she’d ended up skipping class with the thespians, giggling about how similar their name was to “lesbians.” Ah, the humor of a 14-year-old. She’d never once auditioned for a play, and though she’d couched it in a million different reasons, the only real reason was the quiver.

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