“No we don’t. I can take her,” Darcy said. “Especially inthose heels she’s wearing. You run out first, and I’ll lay down some cover fire.”
Teagan sighed again, briefly closing his eyes. “We have to stay, or everyone will wonder where I went. But we can go see the kids before dinner, at least. I like hearing them talk about their paintings.”
Darcy looked over at the gallery area. It was empty now.
“I think they already went home,” Darcy said.
Teagan’s face fell.
“Are you sure you don’t want to leave?” she asked again. “No shame in a strategic retreat.”
Teagan’s eyes flicked to the empty gallery, the bar, the people gossiping about him.
“I’m sure,” he said, and Darcy was equally certain he was lying.
twenty
Teagan had called ahead to confirm there would be a vegan option for dinner, but this vegan option turned out to consist of an undressed green salad and a second helping of seven-grain dinner rolls with margarine.
Darcy had calmly retrieved some trail mix from her purse to supplement her meager rations, but stewing on his inability to even provide proper food for her gave Teagan something to think about beyond the press of the attention of a dozen other people at their table.
He hadn’t thought through how he’d respond to everyone who wanted to know about his drinking problem, his stay in rehab, his new sober companion. He hadn’t realized how interested people would be, or how free they’d feel to ask him all kinds of intrusive questions.
If he actually had possessed any interesting drinking stories, perhaps he would have wanted to talk about the things he would never do again. Since he didn’t, his only options were lying through his teeth or adopting a haunted expression and muttering that it was still difficult to talk about hisjourney, as one friend of his mother’s put it.
Hearing how proud everyone was of him, when he had done exactly nothing heroic, was possibly even harder thanit would have been to state that he’d skipped town for a month over some garden-variety anxiety.
Everyone had anxiety. Everyone was stressed. This was New York. He wasn’t special.
But that was the whole point of his ridiculous charade, wasn’t it? Recovering alcoholics got welcomed back to their jobs and their friendships. Nobody called you a hero when you got discharged from inpatient psychiatric treatment.
“When did youknowyou’d hit rock bottom?” asked Patricia Hausauer, who’d once donated a pair of Peter Max sketches that his mother later consigned to Nora’s gallery at half the price they’d appraised for.
Teagan poked at his salmon in Bearnaise sauce, wondering where the fire alarm was and how many people would be inconvenienced if he pulled it.
“You know, it’s a misconception that an alcoholic has to hit rock bottom before seeking help,” Darcy leaned in to answer for him.
She’d done a lot of that this evening. Redirecting. She had an endless supply of stories about rowdy sailors, rabid opossums, and lost yuppies that she shoehorned into conversation whenever Nora tried to bring up her art contact at Sotheby’s or one of his mother’s friends tried to pin him down on serving on a new planning committee for a different fundraiser. Teagan wanted to kiss her for it, except that he was sorry he’d put her through this evening at all.
“All you really have to do is recognize you want help with your drinking. That’s where you start,” Darcy added, swallowing a bite of dry arugula.
Most of the people at the table looked very impressed with that answer, but Nora leaned over Teagan to guilelessly askwhere Darcy had trained as a sober companion, a certain steely glint in her eye.
“Is it a difficult job?” Nora pressed.
Darcy recognized what Nora was doing and narrowed her eyes. Teagan would put all his money on Darcy in a proper fight, but Nora had spent her whole life training in the dark arts of Manhattan snobbery. Darcy looked around the table uncomfortably before answering.
“I started by working with a psychologist at a wellness retreat—”
“Oh, but you aren’t a psychologist yourself?” Nora asked sweetly.
Darcy flushed.
“No, but—”
“What did you study, then?” Nora asked. “And where?”
Teagan unobtrusively hooked Darcy’s ankle with his own, hoping to get a little warning before she started flipping tables.Where did you go to school, again?could be considered fighting words if the subject hadn’t attended an Ivy.
