that town. She found a bigger bookstore and a great little grill that served wonderful burgers. She then drove out to the barn to check in with Cal who was up to his eyebrows in what appeared to be crown molding. There was a lot of hammering and sawing going on upstairs and Cal was painting the molding. She told him all about Timberlake and Leadville as if he didn’t know for himself. Maggie came back from Sully’s, dirty from gardening, and informed Sierra she would be joining them for dinner, then went off to shower and change.
The next few hours proceeded like a beautifully choreographed dance. Sierra ran the Shop-Vac around while Cal cleaned up his paintbrushes and folded up the tarps. Tom and his son came downstairs covered with sawdust and Sierra laughingly vacuumed them off. Tom and Cal had a beer, and some corn chips and salsa were put out. Sierra had a Diet Coke with Jackson while Maggie, refreshed, fixed herself orange juice. Cal began to putter in the kitchen getting chicken ready to put on the grill. Tom and Jackson left and the three of them were like a small, cordial family. Maggie told Sierra to be sure to check on Cal while she was in Denver working. The dinner of chicken and vegetables, casually thrown together, was delicious and nutritious. Then the dishes were cleaned up. It was like the fantasies Sierra had. Fantasies of a family, of feeling normal, of belonging.
She watched as Cal was kissing Maggie’s neck and rubbing her belly. Then she remembered it wasn’t really hers. It was their life and she was a guest.
Sierra borrowed trouble and darkness. It was a bad habit. A dirty little secret she kept. Deep inside you’re very lonely and unhappy, her inner voice reminded her.
“I have to get going,” she said. “Thanks for dinner and everything.”
“Don’t run off,” Maggie said.
“Don’t you have to get up early and head for Denver?” Sierra asked.
“Not that early,” she said.
“Get some sleep,” Sierra said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
As she drove back to Timberlake she asked herself, Can I make this work? Must I always feel like some weird outsider? She knew that Cal and Maggie weren’t doing that to her.
When she got back to town, still early in the evening, there seemed to be a lot of activity in the hostel. Sure enough, a group of young girls had come in and they were loud. There was lots of laughing, shouting, talking at the top of their voices. She got to her room and saw a duffel on the second bed in her room, but the rambunctious girls were just a room or two away. Well, Sierra wasn’t going to undress for bed in that case. Most of her belongings were in her car and she had only her backpack with her. She’d go back to her car in the morning for fresh clothing and shower and change then. This was the downside of staying in a hostel—it was a busy young people’s kind of place and one traded privacy for cheap housing.
She sat on her bed and dug around in her backpack for something to read. Out in the car she had several books on recovery that were nearly memorized by now. She didn’t feel like that tonight. She pulled out her copy of Pride and Prejudice. It was battered all to hell. Sierra carried three novels—Pride and Prejudice, Forever Amber and Gone with the Wind. That pretty much established her as a tragic but hopeful romantic. It had been hard to leave Wuthering Heights behind and that was telling. No happy endings for Sierra. Not yet.
The noise escalated and Sierra hoped someone would complain. Mrs. Singleton didn’t stay the night in the hostel—she had her own small house in town. The young man who was left in charge for the night was pretty social; he might not mind the noise. Or the girls. When Sierra had checked in there were no single rooms and Mrs. Singleton said that chances were good no one would need a bed in a double and if anyone did, it would most certainly only be let to a woman.
She opened her book, midway, hungry for a little of Mr. Darcy’s evolution from aloof snob into a real hero. She put her smartphone on one of her music downloads, her earbuds in her ears and settled in to ignore the noise of girls having fun. She didn’t last long. Less than an hour passed when she went downstairs and told John, the young man in charge, he’d have to do something about the noise.
“I’ve talked to them a couple of times,” he said. “College girls. I don’t want to ask them to leave if I can avoid it.”
A little bit later one of the girls stumbled into the room. She looked about eighteen. And she was drunk.
“Roomie!” she greeted with a slur.
“Crap,” Sierra said. “You’re drunk!”
“Jes a little,” she said, then hiccuped. She held out a fifth of whiskey. “Wanna little?”
Before Sierra could even answer, the girl fell on the bed. Facedown. Dropping the fifth so it spilled onto the rug.
“That’s that, then,” Sierra said, looking back at her book.
But the girl stank. The room smelled of whiskey. And she was, of course, snoring like a freight train. The odds were good she’d end up sick.
Sierra packed up her things. She went downstairs and right out the door without saying a word to John. She’d work it all out later, ask for a refund. Right now she was feeling like this whole idea, all this bloody do-it-alone crap, was the biggest mistake of her life. She was on the verge of tears, but Sierra never cried. She punished herself by holding it fiercely and stoically inside. She could call Cal and Maggie, but she didn’t want to. What would they think? That Sierra the emotional cripple was going to hang on to them forever and they’d never be free? That three days in Timberlake and she was falling apart? So much for independence! She’d always be the baby to Cal even though she was thirty and had done some hard living.
She sat on a bench outside the dark barbershop and called her old sponsor and former roommate, Beth. The phone went straight to voice mail. She said, “Just me. Everything is fine.” Then she disconnected.
Well, so much for that.
Her phone rang immediately. Beth.
“It’s late,” Beth said. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just a little screwed up. My head is on wrong. I’m staying in a hostel and got a drunk roommate—she can’t be twenty-one. Not that that ever stopped me. But I can’t be in that smell. I’m sitting on a bench on the main street of this little, dinky town and the only action is down the street at the only bar and grill and I can’t think. I can’t move. I don’t want this to be a mistake. Maybe I’m not ready. Jesus, it doesn’t take much to send me off the rails, I guess.”
“When did you last go to a meeting?” Beth asked.
“It’s been a while,” she said. “I’m not really settled in yet...”
“I guess you’re not if you’re staying in a hostel. Weren’t you going to be with your brother?”
“I never intended to stay with him,” Sierra said. “He’s just married six months or so and they’re pregnant. I’d be in the way. I want to see him a lot, not live with him. I have to figure this out.”
“Here’s what I want you to do. If there’s a meeting tonight—go to it. Then I want you to go to a motel. Worry about money later. Hit the first meeting of the day tomorrow. It might even be a two-meeting day. No more hostel business—you don’t want to be living with a bunch of college kids on a vacation bender...”
“The
