'You're not exactly a drooling drunk.'
'No.' She laughed. 'More like a comatose drunk, just like my mom-good old genetics.'
She laughed again. Squeezed the steering wheel.
'Now my dad,' she said, 'there was your angry drunk. And my brother, Tom, he was a genteel drunk. Witty, charming-very Noel Cowardish.
Everyone loved it when he'd had a few too many. He was an industrial designer, much smarter than me. Artistic, creative. He died two years ago of cirrhosis. He was thirty-eight.'
She shrugged. 'I postponed becoming an alcoholic for a while-always the contrary kid. Then, during my internship, I finally decided to join the family tradition. Binges on the day off. I was really good at it, Alex. I knew how to clean up just in time to look clever-and-together on rounds. But then I started to slip. Got my timing mixed up. Timing's always a tricky thing when you're a closet lush.... A few years ago I got busted for drunk driving.
Caused an accident. Isn't that a pretty picture? Imagine if I'd killed someone, Alex. Killed a kid. Pediatrician turns toddler into road pizza-what a headline.'
She cried again. Dried her eyes so hard it looked as if she were hitting herself.
'Shit, enough with the self-pity-my AA buddies always used to get on me for that. I did AA for a year. Then I broke away from it-no spare time and I was doing fine, right? Then last year, with all the stress-some personal things that didn't work out-I started again.
Those teeny little bottles you get on airplanes? I picked some up on a flight, coming home from an A.M.A convention. Just a nip before bed.
Then a few more... then I started taking the little buggers to the office. For that mellow moment at the end of the day.
But I was cool, always careful to put the empties back in my purse, leave no evidence. See, I'm good at subterfuge. You didn't know that about me till now, did you? But I got you, too, didn't I? Oh, shit!'
She hit the wheel, then rested her head on It.
'It's okay,' I said. 'Forget it.'
'Sure, it is. It's okay, it's great, it's terrific, it's wonderful.
.
One night-a really shitty one, sick kids up the wazoo-I polished off a bunch of little bottles and passed out at my desk. Bill was making a security check and found me at three in the morning. I'd vomited all over my charts. When I saw him standing over me I thought I was going to die. But he held me and cleaned me up and took me hometook care of me, Alex. No one ever did that for me. I was always taking care of my mother because she was always.
She rolled her brow on the steering wheel.
'It's because of him that I'm pulling it together. Did you notice all the weight I've lost? My hair?'
'You look great.
'I learned how to dress, Alex. Because it finally mattered. Bill bought me my coffee machine. He understood, because his family was also... His dad was a real nasty drunk. Weekend lush, but he held down a job in the same factory for twenty-five years. Then the company got taken over and dissolved, and his dad lost his job, and they found out the pension fund had been looted. Completely stripped. His dad couldn't find another job and drank himself to death. Bled out, right in his bed. Bill was in high school. He came home from football practice and found him. Do you see why he understands? Why he needs to do what he's doing?'
'Sure,' I said, wondering how much of the story was true.
Thinking of the Identikit face of the man seen walking into the darkness with Dawn Herbert.
'He raised his mom, too,' she said. 'He's a natural problem solver.
That's why he became a cop, why he took the time to go back to school and learn about finance. He has a Ph.D Alex. It took him ten years because he was working.' She lifted her head and her profile was transformed by a smile. 'But don't try calling him Doctor.'
'Who's Presley Huenengarth?'
