A short story on the tension between what we wish we did and how to get there.

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Jay, a skinny middle-aged woman with brittle nerves and a frazzled expression, flew out of her shitfaced dreams, crashed onto the pillow, mouth shoved into lumpy duck down, screams muffled, and then fell fully back into the nightmare of reality, life, whatever you call it. Jay scrambled out of the tangle of white cotton sheets, thinking, this is getting old.

A framed picture of Lizzy, her daughter, taken a few years ago sat on the bedside table, a little dusty. The cat, unfazed by the theatrics, dropped a mouse-like toy on the pillow and began to purr. Jay pulled her close, wrapped her arms around the scruffy bugger, lay down and shut her eyes. A few more minutes. A few more hours please. But the nightmare waved at her through the closed eyelids, as if Lizzy was calling Mom! Mom!

Jay sighed, sat back up, muttering – Fine. Fine. I’ll get up. I’ll go to work. I’ll feed the cat.

The early monsoon rains still fell, a downpour that usually came in July at four o’clock on the hour, had now flooded Silver City from the time she fell into bed and was still coming down hard. Climate change? Oh, don’t be silly, thought Jay with a hint of humor, it’s just a little wet. Outside, a few cars splashed through giant puddles, filling those potholes in the highway through town. Deep enough they were that she’d once stuck a pair of Lizzy’s boots in, top down as if someone had fallen in. The local newspaper had taken a photo for their Neighborhood News section, demanding the roads be fixed in a timely manner. That was three years ago now. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

It was Wednesday, wasn’t it? Trash pick-up tomorrow then? Jay stuffed herself into a pair of clean jeans, a nice white blouse, sensible shoes, and tied her hair up. She loved teaching. She had loved teaching. These hangovers and those undergrads at Western University weren’t such a great blend though, what with her headaches and chronic impatience but a paycheck every two weeks paid for the necessary shopping of more booze and pills. Great. Her mother would be proud. Not. The cat jumped up onto the counter, next to the car keys, and demanded to be fed.

– You’re not my cat. Lizzy found you, not me. I don’t even like you.

Jay filled the bowl with dry kibble and another with some milk. – I wish you wouldn’t sleep in my bed. You could use hers, Kitty, she won’t mind.

Jay stood there until Kitty finished her milk. She petted the cat and rinsed the bowl.
Fine. Fine.

The road to work was muddy and slow going in her little Fiat. The rain slapped the windshield and Jay peered through the blurring glass. Jay wanted a drink but perhaps she could wait until lunchtime today? The mail still lay unopened on the passenger seat, official looking, she hadn’t dared to read it last night. She’d meant to. After just one glass of Cabernet, she’d thought that’s when she’d look. She’d forgotten though and had had five drinks, probably more, and then, well, here she is, on her way to work again, to teach other people’s kids as if they didn’t know any better. Well, they didn’t. The record against Jay was unofficial. New job. New co-workers. New beginnings. And a new mailman. He was nice. Young but nice. He’d waited patiently while she’d looked for her glasses so she could sign the confirmation receipt. An average build, brown eyed, dark hair, just a regular young man in a uniform. She’d tried to flirt, forgetting that she wore old blue pajamas with tangled hair, wrinkled skin, and grey eyes sunken with tossing and turning all night long. Well, he’d not reacted at all. Just doing my job, ma’am, kind of an attitude. Oh great, she’s really growing old now. Almost forty and see what happens? No one notices her. No men that is. She was truly alone, and it wasn’t all her fault, was it?

Jay pulled into the car park beside the admin building. Dana, one of the good ones at the school waved at her from across the way. She didn’t wave back until she’d parked. Grabbing her letters and bag, she ran though the rain to the kitchen door. Dana’s domain. She was a good cook, detailed and playful with ingredients. She wore her hair short, walked with a swagger and was a bit of a gentle giant, some six-foot-tall, solid but with the softest hands and secrets of her own, or that’s what Jay imagined. Dana didn’t talk about herself, not normally anyway. Jay burst inside the kitchen with the usual request.

– Do you have anything yummy for a-

– Hangover?

She grinned and nodded. – Perhapsmaybeyes.

Dana laughed. – Coffee and breakfast burrito with bacon. Red or green or Christmas? Oh, and a slice of heirloom tomato coming right up.

Jay sat down at the counter in the relatively large aluminum lined kitchen. A couple of stools for their morning ritual of coffee and a chat. Dana was a bit of a good guy, knew about Lizzy, her kid. The bureaucrats taking her away after that third drunk driving charge. That last time had been with Lizzy, her arm broken in the crash into that creek behind their place in Las Cruces. It could’ve been worse, so much worse and Jay knew it. But the loss of her daughter, her only child, only bit of family left, had driven her deeper into the bottle. Bottles. She didn’t like to count.

Since then, Jay had north to a smaller city and got a decent job at the University. Dana worked there, knew the story, and didn’t seem to care. A sober sort was Dana, not one to drink nor judge, safe.

Sipping on the dark coffee, Jay told her about the screaming cat dream, the hole in the road, the rain and wet boots, all of it and all she did was nod, refill the coffee mug, pass over food. She glanced at the pile of letters, and Jay pushed them over.

– You do it. I can’t.

With a sigh, Dana pulled out some reading glasses and checked the mail. One by one, there were five letters. She read them all saying nothing until the end. Jay watched her focus, shift through the contents, making two small piles, touching the envelopes, tidying the edges.

She’d dreamed about those hands.

Jay took a breath and looked into her black eyes. – Yes? she asked.

– No. Not yet. The blood test came back positive again. They offered you a month in rehab though. The other letters are from a few such residential places. The University would pay, if that’s the problem?

Jay shook her head in shame.

At home later that afternoon, she began the ritual of two bottles of red wine per night. No wonder her tummy was so soft and squishy and jeans too tight. She took a shower to wash off the undergrads’ boredom, slipped into blue striped pjs, and set up on the porch facing the main road heading out of there. One day, she’d just pack up again, that she knew. Starting over was easy for someone like her. She was halfway through the first bottle when a car pulled up in her driveway. Jay sat up a little straighter. The interior light came on, but she couldn’t see who it was in there. She hid one of the bottles under the table.

Dana climbed out, unfolding herself from the Honda, then reached back inside for a bag. She nodded at Jay across the yard and paused, then straightened up, as if deciding on something inside. She strode over and climbed up the steps, setting the groceries on the top step with a grunt.

– Dinner is quesadillas with cheddar and fresh pico de gallo salsa. Got any allergies?

Jay shook her head.

– I didn’t know what you’d be drinking, wine or beer. I brought Reed’s ginger ale. There’s enough for us both if you want to try it. Come on, show me the kitchen. I’ll get to work while you tell me about Lizzy, and I’ll tell you about leaving Questa. My family.

Jay was too surprised to say much of anything. She led the way through the messy living room and out back. The kitchen luckily wasn’t too bad. Just the bags of empty bottles made her cringe. Dana ignored them and settled in to make the salsa, humming, giving Jay time. Dana spoke, timber low and melodic, it would be a wonderful singing voice thought Jay, hardly hearing the actual words. –  The Southwest suits loners like us, doesn’t it? Pass the salt.

It did. She did.

Dana chopped limes and tomatillos, diced the onions, stirred in the chiles and cilantro. The kitchen smelt divine. Jay’s tummy rumbled. Dana carried on chatting about the ingredients coming from the farmers’ market and asked, – What will you do to celebrate when Lizzy comes home?

Kitty sat at the back door, tail swishing. Dana glanced over, threw a piece of cheese and that was that, enough for Kitty to wind around her legs for the next ten minutes as Jay watched and wished she could go to bed, alone. It was too close inside. The air stifled. The silence was oddly comforting though. Finally, she spoke to Dana’s back.

– It’s not that easy.

­– Start there. And Dana nodded at the pile of recycling. – You’re not the only one with problems, you know that, don’t you?

She blushed, knocked back her wine, and stood. – Like you’re the expert? On life? Messing up? And that’s why you work in a kitchen in a small-town school in the middle of nowhere? Another loser like me? Sure. Fine.

Jay poured another glass of red, gulped it down, ignoring the look on her face. She turned her back. – I’m not hungry.

Dana chopped more roma tomatoes. – I knew how to DUI safely, if you know what I mean. Take the back roads across the mesa, avoid the cops, make the most of those old drive-up liquor stores on the way home from work. Taos has such open spaces, straight roads, it was easy. One afternoon, I’d been speeding up, wandering over the lines, texting my son, checking on his team’s results because I’d forgotten to go to the game, oh, and then of all things, too predictable but true, I smashed into a school bus of kids just like him. The ones who’d beaten his school on the field only an hour before. No one died, just my place in the family. In the community. My wife kicked me out. I don’t blame her. Then Junior stopped talking to me after that newspaper article came out with the number of empties on the floor of the passenger seat, where he’d usually sit. It was all too much, having queer moms, my drinking problems, and that our little family freak show had become laughingstock at his high school. He couldn’t deal.

Jay looked at her own pile of empty bottles. One week’s worth.

Dana said, – Fifteen. All beers mind, but…it was only that day’s.

She sliced the onion. Grated cheddar. Eyes down. Shoulders leaning forward. The cat begged without luck. – I paid for it. Rehab that is. I couldn’t face the shame of asking for money so did it myself. You could too. Probably. Possibly. I don’t know you well enough to say for sure.

Jay said nothing but took out the recycling. She stared up at the heavy clouds, a distant shadow hanging over the mountains to the north of town. The monsoons had passed on. The air smelled of damp dirt and the creek flowed, surged with run-off from the hills. She counted the empties. Twelve. She was doing just fine.

Back in the kitchen and with a cautious smile, she opened a ginger beer for Dana. They sat down opposite each other, with a plate full of melted cheese and tortillas, enough for them both on the wooden table. Those competent hands. Short nails, a slight red streak as if from a burn on one wrist, a pale scar on the other. Jay suddenly realized how much she’d like to reach for them one day. Sometime soon, be held close, contained. 

Dana asked, – Hungry yet?

– To answer your question, about Lizzy. Coming home? We’ll go to the river, we used to go once a month in summer. Lizzy loves to paddle and swim, always has. Maybe I’ll get us an inflatable kayak, one big enough for all of us? The three of us that is? If you’d like to come?

Jay poured herself another glass of wine, saying, – I’d like to float away down the Rio Grande.

Dana scratched the cat’s back as it rubbed against the chair, and passed over the salsa, saying, – Eat up. And yes, the river’s full enough.