Somehow in my drunken state, I realized I was being much harsher on Nathan than he deserved. He hadn’t broken up with me. He hadn’t left me for a member of his band. He hadn’t gotten me evicted from his apartment. He had just been annoyingly hard to interview, and now I was screaming at him in the street. But it was too late to back down. I had already crossed a line and I was too drunk to make any kind of meaningful apology. That would have to wait until I could walk straight. I waved my hand at both of them. “I’m going back to my hotel. Across. The. Street. Don’t you dare follow me.”
And with that, I turned unsteadily on my heel and stalked off, leaving both of them standing outside the bar. Good, I thought to myself as I walked away towards the hotel. They deserved each other.
Chapter Thirteen
The ringing of my phone set off an explosion of pain my head. My mouth felt as if it was full of cotton balls, my body ached, and I was pretty sure that if I tried to stand up, the entire world might flip upside down. I had no idea where my phone was, but the noise it was making seemed to be all around me. All the lights in my hotel room were still on, which caused another sharp jab of pain in my head each time I tried to peel my eyes open. They seemed to be glued shut.
I swept my hand across the bed, finding piles of pillows and sheets, but no hard rectangular electronic device that was clearly in league with the devil. Suddenly the noise stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. As I pulled one of the pillows closer to me, I realized I was still fully dressed. Eyes firmly closed, I gave myself a good pat down discovering that not only was I still wearing my bra, T-shirt, and jeans but I was also still wearing socks and shoes. Yet I hadn’t let that stop me from crawling completely under the covers.
Groaning, I rolled over on to my back as the previous evening’s dramatics came back to me in painful Technicolor. Sitting in the bar with Nathan, seeing Nick on stage with his band, Nick and Anne Marie playing the song about me with new, updated, unwelcomed lyrics, me drinking half the beer in Texas in an effort to avoid reality and then throwing up in the street. Nick asking me if I liked the song and then my whole, glorious, expletive-laced monologue about how bad Nick was in bed, how good I was, and how much I wished I was in bed with Nathan. And on top of all that I had been mean to him. Like, truly, unnecessarily mean. What the hell, Hall? Nathan was not Nick and it wasn’t fair to even compare them.
Fuck me, I thought, my head pounding. I had truly and completely fucked up this assignment. There was absolutely no way Nathan was going to speak to me again, let alone allow me to interview him in a professional capacity. Good job, Hall, I told myself. You’re a fucking moron who can’t hold her booze.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the phone started ringing again.
“Argh!” I moaned and yanked my pillow out from under my head and threw it across the room. When I lay back on the bed, however, my skull cracked against the very device I had been struggling to find. “Ouch,” I muttered and squinted at the screen. My mother. Of course.
Knowing that it was unlikely she’d stop calling, I pushed ACCEPT and held the phone a good distance from my ear, my head still throbbing in rhythm with the now silenced ringing.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“That’s my girl,” Mama said, her own voice as raspy as mine. I didn’t know how she did it, but somehow my mother knew exactly when I was hung over and always chose to call me as early as she could that morning. I forced my eyes open wider and blinked at the digital numbers on the clock next to the bed. 12:30. OK, well, that was early for her, I supposed. From the gravel in her voice, it would be an easy assumption that she had been out just as late as I had, probably doing much of the same thing. Though my mom rarely ended her night screaming at two men in the middle of the street. Usually it was just one man and it was in our living room.
“Morning, Mama,” I said, struggling to sit up. I felt damp and rumpled in yesterday’s clothes, but I was glad to see that I hadn’t thrown up again once I arrived back at my room. The last thing I wanted was to leave the staff of this fancy hotel an indication that I was a drunk like my mother instead of the professional I aspired to be. But if last night was any indication, I hadn’t fallen that far from that particularly boozy tree. Like mother, like daughter, I thought, trying to swallow my own embarrassment and nausea.
“How’s Austin?” she asked. “Having fun?”
“Uh huh,” I said, realizing that fully formed sentences were going to be a bit of struggle until I had a shower and a bathtub’s amount of coffee.
“How’s that interview going?”
“Good,” I lied.
“Is that hot shot ball player being nice to you?”
“Uh huh,” I lied again.
“Have you copped a feel yet?”
“Mama!” I chided her, the effort making my forehead throb.
“I just saw him on the TV the other day,” she said. “And goodness, does that boy have a nice tush.”
I just shook my head, knowing it was no use trying to argue with her. Especially because she was absolutely right. Nathan did have a great tush. One that I was never going to be allowed within fifty feet of once news of my behavior reached the Register. I would be lucky if I ever got an assignment like this again. I’d probably be demoted, destined to deliver coffee and answer phones for the rest of my career.
Leaning my head back on the headrest, I tried to think of how I could salvage this situation, but I was out of ideas. This wasn’t something that was forgiven in journalism. This was very, very unprofessional. And worse, I had been mean to someone who’d tried to help me. I winced at the memory of everything I had said to Nathan. I was the one who had been the real jerk in that situation.
“You sound terrible, hon,” my mom said, reminding me that she was there. “Go splash some water on your face and pour yourself some whiskey.”
The thought of drinking any more alcohol made me to dry heave.
“Hair of the dog!” my mother said. “It works.”
“Mmhmm,” I barely managed. “I gotta go.”
“Good luck with Mr. Hot Ass,” Mama said and then hung up.
Even though I knew it wouldn’t help my headache, I pulled up my email to see if I had missed anything. To my extreme displeasure there was an email from my editor. Short, but to the unfortunate point.
“Please send notes and/or interview rough draft. Want to get an idea of how it is coming along.”
I stared at it for a few moments, my stomach twisting and churning. And this time, when I heaved, I had to race to the bathroom, barely making it as the rest of my evening was emptied out into the toilet.
***
An hour later, I was freshly showered and on my second cup of hotel coffee and just beginning to feel like a human being again when there was a knock at the door. Even thought I was pretty sure I had put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, the last thing I wanted was for the cleaning staff to come into the room and discover how much I had trashed the room in my drunken state. The bed especially was in an embarrassing state of disarray, sheets scrunched to the middle of the mattress, pillows and blankets strewn across the room. My sad, broken suitcase was leaning up against the wall, looking a little how I felt—defeated and unable to fulfill its purpose. I grabbed a robe and wrapped the terry cloth belt tightly around me. It was soft and cuddly, just warm enough for the perfectly air-conditioned room, and covered my black lace clad body from the gaze of whatever poor cleaning person was on the other side of the door.