Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 225

You guys,

We were at Frank Family Vineyards when I pushed my empty glass across the table and asked for another pour of Chardonnay. 

Amy turned to me. “Are you sure you need another glass?” 

I’d been laughing and talking and feeling the buzz of Napa when Amy had to go and squash the pleasure out of my fun. Why the fuck would I not have another glass?

“I’m fine,” I told her, then avoided her the rest of the afternoon. 

We were there with a big group of people I hardly knew except for Amy and Sam, who was my new boyfriend at the time. He and I were in the honeymoon phase and this was a chance to meet his closest friends—friends who all seemed smart, successful, put-together, adult. I was a 32-year-old waitress who half-heartedly called myself a screenwriter even though I’d barely written in months. 

I didn’t have much to offer but I could be fun. I could get drunk and be fun, I knew how to do that. 

I dressed in the morning at our Airbnb and looked in the mirror at my short shorts and flowy top and suddenly felt self-conscious. Sam’s friends did not need to see my ass. I put on different shorts with a different top and it still felt wrong. Nothing felt right. I didn’t feel right. But we were to be shuttled all afternoon from one winery to another so I knew I would feel okay eventually. Everything would be better once I had a few drinks. 

And everything was better, except for Amy, judging me, scolding me, embarrassing me.

It was my fault. I never should have told her I was working on myself, reading self-help books, cutting back on drinking. It happened one night over the phone, probably on a no-drinking night, on a night I had journaled or some shit. I’d sheepishly confessed about my fears around being an alcoholic and my desire to change. She was proud of me, she said. 

It was one thing to work on myself when I was alone, safe from the outside world. I could meditate, journal, do yoga, eat intuitively, and keep my drinking under control. But a celebratory social situation was permission to abandon self-improvement for three measly nights. 

It wasn’t until I got home that Amy emailed to inform me that Sam’s best friend’s wife, Kathy—who organized the trip and had a high-powered job and wore modest, country club clothes—didn’t have a good impression of me.

“If she wants to sit up on some kind of high horse,” I replied, “and judge me for being too drunk when she has literally hung out with me two times—once in Mexico, where everyone was drunk, and once in Napa, where everyone was drunk—then so be it.” 

Kathy didn’t know me but Amy was my best friend and even she was embarrassed by how I’d acted. She told me I had a lack of awareness for people around me. She told me I was loud, that I interrupted people—I interrupted her. “I'm not going to apologize for being loud,” I replied. “I am loud. And sometimes when I drink I get louder. And that embarrasses you. Nothing I can do about that.”

I worried how Sam might react to all this, if he might be embarrassed by me, too. But he was on my side. There was nothing wrong with how I acted, he said. There was nothing wrong with how much I drank. We were in wine country. We were having fun. 

Shortly thereafter Amy confided in some friends about what happened and they defended me. “Charlie’s your girl!” they all said. “You should have her back! Why are you giving her shit for getting drunk in NAPA?”

I finally went to Amy’s place to talk about it in person. She said she didn’t care about stupid fancy Napa or if someone was being judgemental. I was her friend first and she was sorry. 

Everyone I spoke to had validated my side of the story, even Amy. I was right. I didn’t do anything wrong. I accepted her apology but as I spoke the words, “Thank you,” and “It’s okay,” it felt like I was getting away with something. Like I’d stolen a cheap necklace from Contempo Casuals but looked on as Amy was taken away in handcuffs. 

Two years later I would get fired for drinking on the job. When I explained to others I’d just gotten engaged and was having a celebratory glass of wine at the end of my shift, everyone was appalled by the injustice of it all. My friends told me it was unfair and that my bosses were the worst and that, most importantly, I didn’t do anything wrong. Sam told me I hated working there, anyway. 

But I knew, just as I’d known in Napa, just as I knew every time shame found me in the shower for years after and I’d squint my eyes and wash it away and think of something else—I was wrong, and my drinking was out of hand, and I didn’t want anyone to know.

—

Until next week,

Charlie