Tangled Web (10 page)

She felt nauseous. “Grant, there’s something
I need to talk to you about.”

His face turned pale and the light in his
eyes dimmed. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I don’t know any good way to say it, and I
don’t want to prolong it.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Why don’t we eat outside
at one of those tables?”

Katie agreed. The fewer ears, the better.
They picked up their food and went outside to sit down under an
umbrella that shaded most of their faces, the warm June sun kissing
Katie’s arms. She sipped a little water, then forced herself to
relax as much as possible. She exhaled a deep breath, then started.
“Did I ever tell you about my old friend Johnny?”

“The guy in the band that you’ve known since
elementary school?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” Grant nodded. “Well, he
came to see me while you were gone.”

Grant nodded again and set his sandwich
down. “Was he messed up like last time?”

Katie shook her head. “No, he was clean. And
he looked healthy. Anyway, we hung out all night long and...” Katie
paused, rubbing her brow. She was finding it difficult to maintain
eye contact. She had to force herself to look back up to meet
Grant’s eyes with her own. “Uh, some things--some
thing
happened between us.” She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly.
She forced herself to look in Grant’s eyes again. She couldn’t read
a thing. His face was like a tombstone, rigid, cold, and lifeless.
“I don’t want to go into details, but it really made me question my
entire life.” She felt like she should say more, much more, but she
couldn’t find the words.

Grant took a sip of his iced tea and then
set it down again. Silence reigned for a few moments. Finally, he
said, “Including us?”

This was harder than Katie had expected. She
swallowed hard, the saliva in her mouth trying to drown her. “Yes,
actually, but... Well, I don’t know how to explain it except that,
well, I’m not happy with my life. I’m not happy with who I am
anymore. I don’t know that I ever was. I’ve allowed myself to
become content--with my job, with my house, and I’ve forgotten how
to dream. And...Johnny reminded me of all that I used to hope to
be, and...” She swallowed again. “Anyway, I realized that I need to
pursue my dreams before I settle down. And I can’t expect you to
wait for me while I do.”

Katie saw Grant’s tanned jaw buckle under
the pressure of his teeth clamping together. He was looking out at
the parking lot. His eyes looked like lasers focused on some
distant object, something deserving of intense scrutiny, intense
displeasure. It was meant for her, of course, but she knew that
Grant was so disgusted with her, he couldn’t even make himself look
at her. Finally, though, he turned his head to look back in her
eyes. “It doesn’t sound like you’re giving me an option, Kate. It
sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.” He took a deep
breath, his nostrils flaring. “So why don’t you just spit it
out?”

She felt like she was going to throw up, but
she was going to say what he needed her to say. “I think we need
some time apart while I figure out what I want to do with my
life.”

Grant resumed looking out at the parking lot
and was gnawing the inside of his lip. Finally, he turned his head
back to her and said, “Time apart? So, are you saying the
engagement is off?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He was looking her straight in the eye.
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’ve been giving this a lot of
thought. Do you want to marry me or not? It’s a simple
question.”

“I really don’t know, Grant.”

Grant gulped more of his tea, taking extra
time to set the glass back down. “Tell me this, Kate, and don’t lie
to me, okay? I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, but I want
to hear it from you.” He swallowed. “Were you unfaithful?”

Her eyes drifted down toward the table. Her
mouth had been watering earlier and now it felt like a piece of
carpet. It was dry and sticky, and her tongue didn’t want to move.
She grabbed her water and took a sip. But she couldn’t make herself
look at him. She felt her eyes grow watery as she finally said,
“Yes.”

He shook his head and snorted in disgust.
Then he stood and walked over to his white sedan in the parking
lot, got in, and drove away. His sandwich lay in the hot sun, a
slice of ham with mayonnaise and the corner of a lettuce leaf
poking out from underneath a ciabatta bun. The lettuce was already
beginning to curl and wilt, and Katie felt like her heart was doing
the same thing, melting under scrutiny. But her conversation with
Grant had felt fruitless; it just felt like an exercise meant to
make them both feel bad. Nothing had been solved or resolved, and
she didn’t feel any better. In fact, she felt worse than before.
Now she’d taken three hearts--hers, Johnny’s, and Grant’s--and
stomped on them, and she didn’t know that she could fix them.

* * *

The doorbell to Katie’s little one-bedroom
apartment made a tinny sound, announcing to Katie that someone was
at the door. It was late, though, so she wondered who it could be.
She slid the chain lock into place and opened the door. A tall,
scrawny man stood in the doorway, so close it was almost impossible
to make out a face. She pulled the door open as wide as it would go
with the chain to get a look. The man’s eyes were droopy and his
pale, yellowish face was gaunt and hollow. “Johnny, is that
you?”

The man who looked old beyond his years
nodded as though his head might snap off his neck. A faint smile
crossed his face. “Katie, am I glad you’re home.”

“What the hell?” She closed the door enough
so that she could unlock the chain. Then she opened the door and
grabbed Johnny’s arm at the elbow. She was horrified. He was
nothing but bones and he smelled horrible, as though he’d been
living inside the carpet of a frat house where they’d been doing
beer bongs and weed for three months straight and urinating in
random places. He had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks
were sunken underneath a full but scraggly beard. He looked as
though he hadn’t eaten a good meal in ages. She couldn’t even tell
how long his hair had grown, but it was stringy and pulled back in
a ponytail. “What happened?”

Johnny tried to smile his trademark grin,
but his skin didn’t have its usual elasticity. It was tight and
leathery. He looked like shit. He looked
sick
. “What hasn’t
happened, Katie?” He sighed. “The world has fucked me over.” He
shook his head. “No. That’s not true, and that’s not why I’m here.
Katie, you’re the only person I can trust and the only person I
could come to.”

Katie nodded and took Johnny’s hands in
hers. Maybe he has AIDS, she thought, or cancer. She forced herself
to concentrate and listen. “I’m here, Johnny. You can trust me.
What can I do?”

“Oh, Jesus, Katie. I’ve been doing this shit
too long.”

“What do you mean? The road?”

“No, Katie. Junk. Smack. Mr.
Brownstone.”

“Mr.--” She got it. “Oh, crap.”

He nodded. “Yeah, heroin. It’s bad, Katie. I
thought I could handle it, but...”

“Oh, Johnny.” She held him in her arms as he
wept. He felt thin and weak to Katie. She didn’t have any soothing
words to say. She’d never experienced addiction, so she doubted she
could say anything meaningful. When he relaxed, she said, “So what
do you need me to do?”

“Can I stay here for a while? I need
someplace to crash. I’m gonna quit, but I need to be somewhere safe
with someone I trust. Is that okay?”

“Is what okay?”

“If I hang out here for a while. I’ve got to
quit this shit before it kills me. And there’s no way I’ll be able
to do it with my so-called friends.”

“Of course. You’re always welcome here.”

Johnny nodded, his eyes dilated, his mouth
dry and lips cracked. “Thanks.”

“So, if you’re quitting heroin, shouldn’t
you see a doctor or check into rehab or something?”

He shook his head. “They can’t do anymore
than you could.” He paused. “Are you sure you want to help?” She
nodded, pursing her lips. “Can I have a glass of water, and then
can I tell you what else I’ll need?”

Katie’s head bobbed up and down. “Sure. Just
a sec.” Katie bit down on her lip as she went to the kitchen to get
a glass of water. How the hell had Johnny let this happen? She’d
known he had done some illicit drugs in the past--he’d assured her
that “that’s what rock stars do: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.”
But she’d also thought he was only doing them recreationally and
that, when he wasn’t on the road, he was clean and sober.

Well, that idea had been a stupid
assumption.

Now he was an addict, and she could tell by
looking at him that it was killing him. She worried about what was
going to happen and what he needed her to do. She brought him the
water and sat next to him on the couch. He sipped in silence, just
staring at her coffee table. Katie thought she should at least feel
relief--at least he didn’t have AIDS or cancer, and at least he
wasn’t addicted to meth or crack…not that heroin addiction was a
walk in the park.

Johnny finally looked at her, and she felt
horrified seeing him. His cheeks were sunken, and he had dark
circles under his eyes. His pupils were dilated slightly, so he had
the unnatural look that people have when they leave the eye doctor.
His skin was pasty and had a film of perspiration. Katie could
hardly believe the man sitting next to her was her old childhood
friend. He said, “The next few days are going to suck. Bad. But I
need to do it. I’ve done it before, so I know I can, but it sucks.
That’s why I knew I needed to be with a friend.” Katie nodded. “So
here’s what I need. Aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, and probably some
beer.”

“Beer?”

“Yeah. Something to calm me down.”

Katie nodded her head. “Well, I think I have
all that stuff.”

“Okay, um, then I just need to sit it out.
Oh, I guess I’ll probably need a trashcan too, in case I, uh, throw
up.”

Katie nodded again. “Okay.”

“I’m sure you want to know what to expect.
I’ll probably have problems sleeping, so maybe some movies to watch
would be good. And I’ll feel achy and really sick and nauseous.” He
grabbed Katie’s hand. “No matter what, though, don’t let me leave.
Remind me that I begged you to not let me leave.”

“All right.” Katie took a deep breath.
“Maybe you should take a shower, and I can make up the couch for
you to sleep on. Unless you want my bed. But you said you wanted to
watch movies, and my only TV is out here.”

“The couch is fine.”

Katie was relieved that Johnny looked a
little better after his shower. He certainly smelled better. He
came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel around his waist, and
Katie was even more shocked at seeing his skeletal body. She’d seen
Johnny without his shirt a lot--he often took it off onstage--so
she knew he’d lost a lot of weight since the last time she saw him.
His ribs were clearly visible and his pecs and what had once been a
six-pack were nothing to speak of. “I didn’t think about this. I
don’t have anything to wear that’s clean.”

“Well, I can wash your clothes in the
morning in the laundry room downstairs, but let me see what I have
for now.” They finally settled on a pair of stretchy sweat pants
and a large t-shirt that Katie sometimes wore as a night shirt. She
made up the couch with several blankets, a sheet, and a pillow. She
also placed a trashcan beside the couch. “Hey, Johnny?” she called
from the bathroom as he sat on the couch.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have aspirin or Pepto. I do have
Tylenol and Maalox. Will they work?”

“They’ll do. Beggars can’t be choosers,
right?”

She brought them out and set them on the
coffee table. She took his water glass back to the kitchen, rinsed
it out, and filled it with fresh water and a couple of ice cubes.
She called to the living room, “Are you sure you want a beer?”

“Not right now, thanks. But maybe later.” He
looked up at Katie as she came back in the room. “Hey, thanks for
doing this.”

Katie lied. “No problem.” She did want to be
there for her friend, but what lay ahead actually scared the shit
out of her. She wanted to help, though, and she would. She wanted
her old Johnny back.

“Well, just so you know, the symptoms could
start anytime between now and tomorrow. I don’t know when. I just
wanted to warn you. And I might get scary--you know, shaking,
cramping, in a lot of pain, vomiting. And I’m sorry about
that.”

“Johnny, don’t worry about it. Just get
better, okay?”

She brought him a stack of DVDs, bolted the
front door, and hugged him. She told him there was beer in the
fridge if he wanted it and told him he could wake her up if he
needed her. His visit became a long three days that blurred in her
mind. She wound up calling off of work for two days to care for
him, and at one point she almost took him to the hospital until he
begged her not to. The first night he woke her up around 3:30 and
asked if he could sleep next to her in her bed. She wound up
holding him the rest of the night. He had been right about
everything that would happen, but his words weren’t able to prepare
her for how it would make her feel.

And seeing her friend like that removed all
traces of her infatuation. Katie knew that, because of Johnny’s
career, the temptation of drugs would always be there. They would
always be available, cheap, and easy. And now that Johnny was a
recovering addict (she hoped, at least, that he’d remain in
recovery), the siren song of heroin would always beckon to him. She
knew she would never be able to compete with the triad he’d named:
sex, drugs, and the music.

More than that, though, she pictured the two
of them together, Johnny in the shape he was in as a heroin addict
and Katie who was slowly seeking a healthier lifestyle after her
father had died from cancer. Johnny was now unappealing. She still
loved him as a friend and had no animosity toward him, and even
after seeing him at his worst, she wasn’t repulsed by him. He would
always be her friend, and she would always care for him. But the
fact that he’d buried himself in a drug and let it completely
overrun his life, that he’d been killing himself took any shine off
the apple that Johnny once was. Her old high school crush faded
away. And she was glad and relieved, because Johnny had held her
heart tightly for more than ten years, and it had caused her to say
no to third and fifth dates, discussions about the future, and far
too many interested men before they reached second base. When
Johnny left her apartment a week later a healthy man, Katie felt
that her head was healthy too.