Objects of My Affection (35 page)

Meh.

It seems impossible—I mean, it's been so long since I've gotten any action and I've had a crush on Niko for weeks—but there's no getting around it. As good-looking as he is, as nice, as eager to please—I'm not into him. I'm not really even here. I'm off somewhere else, worrying if Ash is okay, and if I'm going to get this job finished, and Niko doesn't know any of that. And I don't want him to know. I want him to be at arm's length where he can't see the real me … but arm's length is pretty distant for what I'd originally planned for the evening's activities.

God help me, but I want a man who would love me in spite of everything—possibly even because of everything. I've already had that once, and I'm still not over it.

“Niko … wait.”

“Wha— Huh?” He's breathing heavily as he looks at me lustily through those impossibly long lashes of his. “Something wrong?”

“I can't do this.”

“Too fast?”

I reach for my bra, slipping it on as I search for the right way to tell Niko I'm sorry for leading him on, but I need more than a pretty face and a buff body. I need someone who
knows
me, and the primary appeal of Niko is that he doesn't.

“I thought I was ready, but I'm not. I hope we can still be friends?”

Yeah, right
—that's what a guy wants to hear from the seminaked woman that he was moments ago dry-humping.

He doesn't answer, just pulls his shirt on over his head. Then he reaches for the remote. “Hey, you got any food?”

I
wake to my phone ringing. Niko is gone, and I'm on the couch with a blanket thrown over me. It takes a moment of fumbling in the dark before I find the phone and answer it. It's Ash again.

“Yes, I'll accept charges.” After I again provide credit card information—and I'm starting to wonder just what sort of charges I'm racking up—I greet my son with “It's after midnight.”

“Is it? Shit. Sorry. I need you to put money in my ATM account.”

“As I told you last time, I'm willing to mail a money order. Give me the address where you're staying.”

“See, that's the problem. My buddy is, uh, getting the place fumigated, so I need to get a hotel room for a while. Just until, uh, we can go back to the apartment.”

“And he threw you out into the street without a warning? What kind of friend is this?”

“Uh … it happened kinda fast. So can you put the money in? Like a few hundred bucks? It's freezing here. And I'm tired.”

Does Ash believe I'm that stupid, or have I in fact been so stupid in the past I would have fallen for such a fishy story? Then again … if he does need a place to stay, and I say no, I'm leaving him to sleep in the streets.

After mulling the options, none of which are good, I go with the one that will at least buy me time to come up with something better. “Tell me roughly where you are.” I head to the computer and log on. “If you truly need a place to sleep, I'll book you a motel.”

“But I'm hungry, too.”

“Tough luck. You should have thought of that before you left the Willows. I hear the food there is excellent.”

A
light is on in Marva's kitchen. Since I'm wide awake after Ash's call, I decide to see if she'd like to get some work done. When I walk in, she's sorting a set of dishes into stacks of pink, blue, and yellow. “Decided I could let go of the Lu-Ray after all. Surprised to see you up and about.”

“My son called.”

“Ah. I take it then you didn't get him to go back to rehab.”

“No, I didn't. He called saying he needed a place to stay, so I booked him a motel.”

“That'll show him who's boss.” When I slump down defeatedly onto a chair, she says, “I'm joking. Don't take everything so seriously.”

“All I've been through and he still has me wrapped around his finger. But I'm scared if I don't help him, something awful will happen.”

“That's the problem with love—it's too closely tied to fear. But you can't be afraid of your own son. That doesn't help him. As you've seen, he simply uses it against you.”

“I wish I could
talk
to him.”

“So talk to him.”

“He keeps hanging up on me.”

“You've booked the hotel. You've got an address. Go there. Do what you feel you must. Twist his arm, beg, plead, knock him upside the head.”

“I thought you said it was stupid.”

“It is! But sometimes stupid is exactly what the situation requires. I'll bet you can be on a flight first thing in the morning.”

“I can't do that. Tomorrow's the last day before the yard sale. I need to be here.”

“You think I can't carry on for one day without you? That you're the only person in the world who can place things into a box? You certainly do have an overinflated sense of your own importance.”

“But there's so much left to do.”

“It's not as if I have to do any heavy lifting—I have that Niko fellow to do that sort of thing. That is,” she says, smirking as she reaches into the cupboard for another stack of plates, “if you didn't tucker the poor boy out tonight.”

I don't even bother to be embarrassed or try to make an excuse for why Niko was over; I'm too busy contemplating Marva's suggestion. It's ridiculous, of course. I can't possibly leave the day before the yard sale—there's too much left to do, and Marva can't be trusted to do it. I could just see her sending Niko to retrieve things from the warehouse the moment I left, then Will refusing to give me the bonus as a result. Still … the whole reason I'm doing this job is for Ash. Earning that bonus isn't going to mean a thing if he's back on drugs.

I heave a sigh and say a silent prayer because—as bad as the timing may be—I don't see how I can afford
not
to go.

After giving Marva instructions on what to pack up tomorrow, which I suspect she'll ignore, I head back to the bungalow and schedule a 7:00 a.m. flight. Then I curl up on the couch, but I'm so stressed out it's hard to sleep. It's going to be next to impossible to convince Ash to go back to rehab. It wasn't easy the first time, and I had a professional interventionist there who knew how to close the deal.

Eventually I manage to drift off, knowing I should be figuring out what I'll say, but lulling myself instead with the thought that, in mere hours, I'll get to see my baby.

I
t's shortly before noon when I pull the rental car up to the motel, which looks as if it's worth the $30 a night I paid and not a penny more. It's close enough to the airport I could have taken a cab, but my goal is to get Ash to come with me. I'll drive him straight to the Willows, less than an hour away. As a step toward earning his affection, I stopped to pick up a deli sandwich in case he's as hungry as he said. I actually practiced my side of any argument the entire flight over, and I'm coming in with a plan to be firm, unafraid, and—beyond that—to wing it.

I show the clerk my credit card to get a key, and in minutes I'm at Ash's room, sliding the key card in and opening the door.

“Ash, it's me, Mom,” I say once the door is open a crack. This motel looks dodgy enough he might have slept with a knife by his side, so a little warning would be prudent. The blackout curtains make it pitch-black in the room. The only light is what I'm letting in, and it illuminates my son's sleeping shape. He's on his side, curled up with a pillow as if it were a teddy bear. His hair is going in about twelve directions at once, and he has several days' growth of facial hair, the usual blond peach fuzz that's more scruffy than manly. He doesn't stir. He's snoring lightly, and the sight of his tangle of legs and arms and kicked-off blankets wallops me with a wave of nostalgia. As
when he was a colicky baby, I take this moment to feel the rush of fondness for my son in slumber—before he wakes up and starts squalling and wrecks it all.

It's when I open the door farther and step in that I see the empty baggies and open prescription bottles on the nightstand—and, ugh,
not using anymore, my ass.
Instantly furious—both at him and at myself for being so gullible—I step in, slam the door shut, and flick on the light. “Ash, wake up. It's your mother.”

“What the f—?” He scrambles to sitting, confusedly grabbing pillows and sheets around him, as if I haven't seen him in his boxers a million times. “What are you doing here?”

I toss the bag with the sandwich in it onto the bed. “Bringing you breakfast.”

He seems to accept this answer, sleepily scratching his head. I set my purse on a table and pull up a nasty, stained chair. Debating for a few seconds whether I dare sit on it, I finally sink down directly across from him. We're going to be a while. “You're using again.”

“Wha—? No, I'm not, I …” He at least has the decency not to bother continuing with the denial, what with the evidence right in front of us.

“It wasn't a question. You need to get up and put some clothes on. I'm taking you to the Willows.” Whoever I'm channeling right now sounds firm and assured, so I go with it.

“No way.”

“Ash, you told me you were clean, but you aren't. It's obviously not working to do this on your own. You need help. There's no shame in that. The only shame is if you don't take the help that's being offered.” I'm impressed that I managed to pull out something so wise to say, until I realize I'm quoting the welcome letter I received from Organize Me! after I hired them.

“I only did it to take the edge off. It was a onetime thing—I was stressing about not having a place.” He opens the takeout bag and pulls out the sandwich, examining it with a grin. “You remembered. Ham and cheese. Mayo, no mustard. Lettuce, no tomato.”

“I believe I can still manage to recall my son's favorite sandwich.”

“Not entirely—you forgot I like the Italian bread more than the plain wheat. It's got these seeds on it—”

“Get dressed. You can eat in the car.”

“I'm not going.”

“Yes. You are.”

“No. I'm not.”

Here's the problem—being tough is impressive and all, but doesn't work with Ash. It never has. Cajoling, tricking, pleading … all potential successful actions. But try to tell my stubborn boy what he has to do, and all that happens is that he sits right where he is and infuriatingly bites into the sandwich you were kind enough to bring him, chewing as if he's got all day and his mother doesn't have a nonrefundable flight back to Chicago at six o'clock. Still, I stay focused on the goal: Get him back into rehab. Don't be afraid. I've risked too much coming here to back down now.

“So then what is your plan?” I ask.

“You say that like you assume I don't have one.” He leans over the bed and digs through his duffel bag. “But I do. Here.” He hands me a glossy brochure. It's for the Betty Ford Center in California. “Got this from a guy in NA. Bet you thought I didn't really go to any meetings here, did you. This guy says this one's the best. They all say it. It was started by the wife of a
president.
”

Is he serious? I look at his proud expression. Yes, he is. He honestly believes that I'm going to pay for an entirely new stint in rehab. “Ash, I can't afford this. The Willows is already paid for.”

“The Willows sucks. It's boring.”

“It's rehab! It's not supposed to be a thrill a minute—it's
work.
”

He sets the sandwich down directly on the bedspread, which makes me shudder—it's probably years since it's been cleaned. “I'm not scared of work, but that place is bullshit. Once I got through the first couple days, they couldn't tell me anything I haven't already figured out. And you didn't even say you were happy that I'm talking about going back to rehab—that I'm not giving up.”

“I
am
happy, but I have to be realistic. The Willows is a respected facility. It certainly wasn't cheap. Who's to say the Betty Ford is any better?”

“Everybody,” Ash says excitedly, and it's so achingly sweet to see him enthusiastic about anything that I allow him to show me the brochure, to explain about how its program is better suited to his type of addiction. Though there's not a chance I'm sending him there. I don't even know if I'm going to get that bonus anymore. Even if I do—and please let everything be going okay back at the house—paying for the Betty would take every bit of it. It'd completely wipe out the future I'm working so hard to create from the rubble. I can't do it, which is what I tell him.

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, he's back to his usual pissed-off self. “Can't … or won't?” he challenges.

I don't take the bait, but instead say, “What will help is that I'll be driving you personally to the Willows, so I can talk to them when I check you in. We can tweak the program so it works better for you.”

“They'd have to fire all the staff and change the whole place. That ain't going to happen. But at this other one—”

“Ash, I'm not paying for another rehab.”

He narrows his eyes at me, and if eyes are the windows to the soul, then his soul is looking pretty tired and bloodshot. “So you're going to do nothing—just let me slide back. Because you're too cheap. I'm not worth the money. Real nice.”

He may as well have slapped me. I can practically feel the marks across my cheek. What is most painful, however, is that it's working. I'm not angry, as I should be—I gave up everything to send him to rehab, and now he's calling me cheap?

But I'm not mad. I'm scared.

He may as well be holding a gun to his head, daring me to tell him to pull the trigger.

I take a calming breath.
Don't be afraid of your own son.
“Nobody is letting you slide back. If it happens, it's of your own doing.”