Intoxicated by You, page 14
They finished eating in comfortable silence, then walked back to the office slowly. They kept the conversation light, in an unspoken agreement that the intensity of their lunchtime discussion needed to be tempered with something easy. Maya teased Tom for his taste in eighties action-adventure movies, and Tom warned her against becoming addicted to houseplants after she revealed she’d brought another snake plant and a pothos back from her parents’ house.
As they made the final approach to Andersen Consulting, the air around them changed. There was a frantic energy about the building, with people running back and forth from the door around the side of the building to the street. Maya saw Chris on the phone, pacing in front of the building and shouting into the phone.
Maya rushed to Chris’s side in time to hear him say, “Yes, send an ambulance right now! There’s been a car accident just in front of Andersen Consulting. Two people are injured. We need an ambulance!”
Maya blanched, feeling as if the sidewalk had dropped out from underneath her. As she turned to Tom with a question in her eyes, he bolted past her and around the side of the building towards the gathered crowd. “Wha—?” she began.
Over his shoulder, he called back to her. “It’s Declan. I just know it.”
Fourteen
Maya was in shock. She was frozen in her spot on the sidewalk, unable to turn towards the building and enter and unable to follow Tom to the accident. She couldn’t go back to her desk, not when she didn’t even know what had happened to Declan. And Catherine. Catherine must be with him. If it was even them in the car…Tom’s gut feeling wasn’t the absolute truth, was it?
But she couldn’t bring herself to walk towards the crash site either. She didn’t know what she would see there, and she was terrified at the thought. Would there be stomach-turning injuries…or…worse? That old expression about not being able to look away from a car accident didn’t make any sense to Maya right now. She didn’t want to see what had happened, and she wished she didn’t even know about it. She wished she was back home in her bed, snuggled deep under the blanket where the outside world couldn’t reach her. Where there were no cars, no streets, nothing that could go wrong. Just an isolated, safe cocoon. She wished more than anything she was in her cocoon.
Something jolted Maya from her waking nightmare, and her eyes refocused on the scene in front of her. Her feet started carrying her towards the gathered crowd, deciding for her that it was better to be involved and help if possible than retreat. Her mental state didn’t matter as much right now as the health and safety of the people involved in the car crash.
As she pushed through the crowd, she saw Tom. He was crouched next to the open driver side door, where Declan was sprawled, his eyes half closed. Tom was speaking softly to Declan—Maya couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his tone and his expression were reassuring. Declan was awake, at least. Tom was noticeably not touching him, which Maya assumed he was doing in case Dec had a spinal injury. Better to leave him where he was until the paramedics could safely move him.
It was only then that Maya noticed the front of the car. Not only was the car on the wrong side of the street, but the front of it was wrapped around a sturdy streetlight. The hood was severely indented from the post of the light, and Maya wondered how fast Declan had been driving to make that happen. As far as she could tell, despite the crowd around the scene, there were no other cars involved. There were vehicles stopped, the ones that had slammed on their brakes to avoid being involved in the accident, but from the looks of it, they had all been successful. That was a miracle, in Maya’s eyes—in a split second, things could have been very different for the other drivers who were standing around their cars now, peering in the direction of Declan’s car.
After reassuring herself that no one else had been hurt, Maya turned backto Tom and Declan. Looking at the car head on, it dawned on her that Dec had not been alone. There was someone sitting in the passenger’s seat, though Maya couldn’t see the person’s face. The airbag had deployed, and it was still obscuring her view. She walked around to the passenger side window, and was simultaneously shocked and not surprised at all to see Catherine Andersen sitting there, eyes closed. For a terrifying moment, Maya worried she was unconscious or worse, but she heard a feminine groan at the same time she saw a slight stirring from the passenger seat.
Catherine’s eyes opened, and they slowly focused on Maya. Maya watched them shift from confusion to horror and alarm as she took in her surroundings—the airbag, the streetlight, the crowd around them, Declan in the driver’s seat, and, finally…Maya. Maya approached the car, hesitating in front of the door. She didn’t know if she should try to open the door or wait for paramedics to arrive. She was terrified that anything she did might somehow make the scene worse than it already was. Her eyes were locked on Catherine’s, though, and they seemed to be pulling her closer even if she wanted to resist.
Once she was next to the door, she looked at Catherine with a question in her eyes. Are you okay? Catherine gave the slightest nod, and Maya tried to open the door. The impact had pushed the door in somewhat, making it impossible to open without wrenching on it. Maya pulled harder, afraid the movement might hurt Catherine or trigger another airbag on the side.
Finally, the door gave way and opened with a creak of the hinges. Catherine made as if to lean forward, pulling against her seatbelt, and Maya lifted a hand to gesture to her to stop. “Don’t move, Catherine. You’ve got to wait for the paramedics to get here. You don’t know how badly you’re injured, and you don’t want to make it worse.”
Catherine sat back and gulped, her eyes turning glassy. “Will you stay here with me, Maya? Will you stay here and talk to me? I don’t know what happened. I…I think I fell asleep, and when I woke up, you were standing there. What happened? Is Dec okay? Is anyone else hurt?”
Maya crouched down near Catherine, positioning herself at eye level. “I’ll stay here with you, Catherine. You’re going to be alright, okay? I don’t know what happened, but it looks like Declan lost control or something. He crossed to the other side of the street and hit that post. I think he’s okay…Tom is with him, talking to him now. And it doesn’t look like anyone else was hurt, thank God.”
“Thank God.” Catherine seemed to shrink into her chair as she sighed. “I can’t believe this. It’s just… it’s so terrible. I don’t know what I was thinking, even getting in the car with him. I know better than this. I’m so ashamed. I’m so grateful that we’re alive, that we’re okay, but I’m so so ashamed. If this was a wake-up call, then message received.” Her eyes closed as her lips formed a tight line.
“Catherine, I have to ask. Was Declan drinking? Had he had more to drink since we saw you this morning?”
Catherine gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Maya fell back on her heels. Following her conversation with Tom mere minutes ago, this was all too real, all happening too fast for her to comprehend. Even in her confusion, she felt her rage bubbling up, and it came out before she could stop it.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded. “Catherine, he could have killed someone. I don’t even care that the two of you could have been killed…your terrible choices could have killed an innocent person. A child walking down the sidewalk. A minivan full of a family on their way to the aquarium. An elderly man carrying home groceries for his sick partner. Seriously! What the hell were you thinking?”
“You have every right to be mad at me,” Catherine said, shock all over her features. “It was stupid. It was irresponsible. I made a huge, huge mistake.”
Maya stopped herself from saying anything further, as she got to her feet, numb. She felt the blood rushing to her head, the light-headedness that came before fainting, just as the sound of the ambulance arriving coincided with the feeling of two strong arms coming around her body.
Tom held her as the paramedics attended to Catherine and Declan. As sobs began to wrack through Maya’s body, he pulled her head into his chest, encircling her in the safety of his arms and rubbing his right hand slowly up and down her back. He slowly and gently guided her to take a seat on the curb, continuing to soothe her with his soft, reassuring touch on her back.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He repeated that phrase softly while they watched the paramedics take Declan and Catherine out of the car on stretchers towards the back of the ambulance. They were both checked over on site, and when it was determined that they were both fine—physically, at least—they were released.
In the time it took for that to happen, Tom was by Maya’s side, patient and comforting. By the time Catherine and Declan were released, Maya had found the ability to speak again, and she was raging. “How could they be so stupid? Don’t they know what was at stake? I…I don’t know if I can even look at her the same after this…”
“I’m sure that’s true, Maya,” said Tom. “But right now might not be the time to march over there and give her your two weeks’ notice. You see it, don’t you? The processing that she’s already doing, the remorse she’s already feeling. This might be just the catalyst she needs to get my brother out of her system and come back to herself.”
“Catalyst?” demanded Maya. “Is that what this is? Just a divinely appointed happening intended to wake her up? People could have died!”
“I won’t argue with you about that,” said Tom. “The fact that they didn’t…well, that feels like divine providence to me, whatever that means, though I imagine to you it feels like dumb luck. Maybe those are the same thing…I’m not a philosopher or theologian. But I’d suggest we let Catherine think and feel what she needs to think and feel today. Let’s be there for her, see where she gets on her own. You’re welcome to give her your letter of resignation tomorrow. Plus, I’m pretty sure if you gave it to her today, it’d be lost in the haze of shock-induced memory loss. She’s not exactly going to be coming in to the office for the rest of the work day today, is she?”
“You make a fair point,” said Maya. “And I don’t want to make this all about me. You’re right. I should be there for her, however I can be.” She shook her head. “But this…this changes things. It has to. I have to work for someone I can respect. Someone with some integrity and honor.”
“I don’t doubt for a minute that you will,” Tom said. “You can do whatever you want, Maya. And maybe now’s not really the time, but I hold to what I told you before. If you want to work for someone you respect, someone with integrity and honor, well…then what’s wrong with working for yourself?”
“Yeah, definitely not the time for it.” Maya said. “I mean, I appreciate the compliment, but I can’t think about that right now. Nothing personal, no offense.”
“None taken. Shall we get these two home now?” Tom gestured to Declan and Catherine, who were making their way over to them on the curb, looking tired, bruised, and about two inches tall. The ambulance had left, along with the tow truck that took Declan’s car away. “I’ll take Dec to a hotel, and you can escort Cath home. I think some time apart to think about what they’ve done would do them both some good.”
“I totally agree,” said Maya. While Tom put a hand on the back of Declan’s neck and guided him towards the garage where his own car was parked, Maya put her arm around Catherine and walked her to the office building.
“Is your car here, Catherine? I can drive you home.”
Catherine’s eyes filled with tears. “Would you do that for me, please? Thank you, Maya. So much. For…for all of it. I’m so embarrassed, and you’re being so kind. I don’t deserve it. I’d like to go home, take some time to wrap my head around what happened today, but I don’t trust myself to get myself there. Could you drive me? Please?”
“Of course. Your keys, please?” Maya followed Catherine to the parking structure behind the office building where her car was parked in the position of honor designated for the CEO. She had Catherine input her address into her phone’s GPS, then put the car in gear and drove the two of them to Catherine’s condo in silence.
“We’re here,” Maya announced as she pulled up in front of Catherine’s lakeview building. It had valet parking, naturally, so she was prepared to drop Catherine off, leave the car in the capable hands of the valet, and then take a bus back to the office. Catherine, however, had other plans.
“Will you come upstairs with me, please? I think I need to talk to someone.” There was a vulnerability in her eyes Maya had never seen before. She was seeing through the armor Catherine wore every day, the battle gear that made her someone to be feared and respected, not someone who would share their feelings or even dream of shedding a tear.
“Yeah, I’ll come up.” Maya said, picking up her purse from the backseat and exiting the car with Catherine.
They rode up the elevator in silence, Catherine fidgeting with the keys in her hand while Maya said a silent prayer to whoever was listening that she’d be able to help Catherine. That she’d be able to be whoever Catherine needed her to be right now, rather than lecturing her once again about how stupid what she had done today was.
As she entered Catherine’s condo, Maya was stunned by the view of the lake through the floor to ceiling windows that greeted them. This condo must have cost a fortune, and for that view alone, Maya understood why it was worth it. She stared in awe at Lake Michigan, grounding herself in the comfort of its gray-blue water as she followed Catherine to the living space that faced it. In answer to Catherine’s gesture, she sat down next to her on the couch and waited for Catherine to speak.
Catherine was looking at her phone intently, as she had been throughout the ride home. She set it down on the couch in between them, looking up to make confident eye contact with Maya.
“I think I need to go to an AA meeting,” she announced. “Tomorrow. Will you come with me?”
Maya blinked, unsure if she had heard Catherine correctly. “Really? Why? I mean…why me?”
“I have a problem. I would never have admitted it to myself before the last week. It didn’t seem like a problem then, not really. I’d just have a glass of wine to unwind in the evening, and who doesn’t do that? But then, reconnecting with Declan, it’s like it flipped a switch. A switch I should have left unflipped. The drinking has been constant. Like I’m trying to keep up with him. Or prove that I’m as much fun as I used to be. Or… I don’t know, numb myself to the fact that he’s not who I once dreamed he was.”
Maya was silent. She nodded to show Catherine she understood what she was talking about, but she stayed quiet, encouraging her to continue to speak her piece.
“Today was rock bottom. I don’t want to go any lower than I did today. I made some really reckless decisions today, and I put everything I’ve built in my career on the line, too, showing up to work drunk like that. But I don’t even care about that. This isn’t about my business. This is about the fact that I could have died in that car or I could have been there, passed out drunk in that car while Declan killed someone else. And I would have never forgiven myself if that happened. I just keep playing it over and over again in my mind, how terribly it all could have gone today. I can’t believe…” she trailed off.
It was time for Maya to speak up. She reached over and took Catherine’s hand in her own. “You’re so brave, Catherine. What you’re saying…I didn’t expect this. I was worried about you today, and then when I saw you in that car…I just…I got so angry. So angry at you for all that you almost threw away, all the risks that you took. Honestly, I was ready to walk away. I didn’t even recognize you any more. I drove you home, ready to leave you here and hope that some day you’d have a revelation like this. But here you are, ninety minutes after the fact, having the breakthrough and revelation I could only have imagined for you. I’m so in awe of you right now. Your strength, your vulnerability to share this with me…just….thank you. Thank you.”
It felt like healing, sharing this moment together. All the anger and rage that Maya had been carrying around for the driver who killed Nina had almost transferred itself to Catherine today. It had come damn close to severing any connection between them beyond repair. And yet now, in this moment of sharing such raw pain and honest truth, Maya felt herself cracking open, the ice wall that had erected itself the moment she saw the accident thawing in a gush of chilly water.
“You’ll come with me then?” Catherine’s voice was timid as she looked up at Maya. She had been staring at her hands in her lap once she started speaking and as she listened to Maya. Now, she was a scared little girl, asking another young child at school if they wanted to be her friend.
Maya squeezed her hand in both of hers. “I will. Of course. If it means something to you to have me there, then I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Anything I can do to support you, I will. I hope you know I really mean that.”
“I do. You’ve already done so much. I… I just left you. I left the whole company in your hands, and I disappeared. Declan’s always had that effect on me. When he’s on my radar, no one else exists, no other responsibilities matter. I just get so focused on him, on staying near him and staying shiny enough to keep his attention…” Her voice trailed off again as her eyes filled with tears.
“You shouldn’t have to make yourself shiny and twinkly and entertaining just to keep the attention of someone. Not if that person really loves you,” Maya told her. “If you have to dance and twirl and drink until you’re sick to make him want to be with you, it’s not love. It’s something else.”
“I know.” Catherine sounded small when she spoke. “I think the best thing my younger self did for me was run away from him all those years ago. And then the worst thing my older, supposedly wiser self ever did was run right back to him. And why?”
“I was wondering that, too. Why did you reconnect with Declan after all this time?”
“I don’t really know,” Catherine shook her head. “Seeing Tom again…he’s always been such a good friend to me, such a pillar of strength and integrity. But seeing him in person, not just chatting with him in an email, made a connection, I guess. Because in the past, it was never just me and Tom, it was always me and Tom and Declan. So being with Tom and that starting to feel so natural again…. it just felt like someone was missing, I guess. And I had to go and find him.” Catherine hung her head. She looked small to Maya, smaller than she’d ever known it was possible for Catherine Andersen to look.
