“Use it to your advantage,” Kirk says.
“How?”
“You beat heroin. You can do anything if you can do that.”
“So you want me to tell them I was an addict?”
“Have you not been going to NA meetings for more than a decade now?”
“Yeah, but it’s different when you’re being hired to work with kids. It’ll scare them away.”
“I’d rather my son or daughter be taught by an openly reformed and honest addict than a liar with a shady past he’s afraid to talk about.”
I see his point, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to sit in those boardrooms at the end of a long table, being grilled by suits.
“How’s Tommy?” he says, uncharacteristically changing the subject before I’m through.
I tell him how Tommy doesn’t like Danielle’s new boyfriend, who I really don’t know all that well. “He seems like an okay guy, but he has these sleeve tattoos that make it hard to tell if there are any needle marks. And yet Danielle seems normal enough lately, so I don’t know. Tommy’s fine.”
“Remember,” he says, “you need to keep yourself healthy first and foremost. You can’t be your sister’s keeper for her entire life.”
“You know, sometimes I feel guilty,” I say, “because this new life with Portia—it’s like heaven.”
“Don’t overthink it. Just let it be heaven,” he says, almost Mr. Miyagi–like.
And I wonder if it can be that easy—just enjoying Portia without worrying too much about Danielle and Tommy and Portia’s marital status and how the rest of the world views my bank account.
“Hey,” Kirk says, “you’ve earned your sobriety, fought hard for it, fair and square, and that’s more than most people can say. Don’t be embarrassed of your accomplishments. You think Tommy cares that you were once an addict?”
I wonder what the little man will think once he’s old enough to understand what that means—how low I once sunk—and I worry about it sometimes too. But I’ve already taken up too much of Kirk’s time, so I don’t say anything.
“You ever hear from that teacher of yours again, the one who left the party?” he asks.
“No,” I say, embarrassed yet again.
“Maybe you will yet.”
“I don’t know.”
“Life’s funny, Chuck. People surprise you sometimes. And don’t let anyone convince you different.”
“Thanks,” I say, though his bringing up Mr. Vernon makes me feel even worse about everything. Then I add, “Hope you catch some big fish and sell tons of paintings this month.”
He laughs. “Roger that. You good?”
“Yeah,” I say, even though I’m not really all that great, and then we exchange good-byes and hang up.
Like always, I think of a million things I could have asked the mysterious Kirk Avery if only I had more courage, but maybe it’s like I don’t want to mess with a good thing. I don’t want to back him into any bad corners that would make him think twice about picking up my next call.
He’s been my one constant since I quit heroin, and a constant is a powerful thing.
I spend the rest of the day listening to the clicking of Portia’s fingers on her laptop and the steady buzz of her headphones playing the classical music she likes. She’s become obsessed with some cellist named Yo-Yo Ma.
I wonder if all her typing will really help Mr. Vernon in the future. I definitely hope that it will, but I also worry that Portia is actually going to be able to help Mr. Vernon in a way I never could, and while I realize it’s petty and low to be competitive like that with the woman I love, it is also hard to imagine her successes while I continue to fail.
Her determination and belief in her abilities are a little daunting, to say the least.
CHAPTER 25
Just before August ends, when I have all but given up hope, resigning myself to another year of substitute teaching and bartending, I get a surprise call from a small Catholic school in Rocksford, Pennsylvania, a sixty- to ninety-minute drive from our apartment in Collingswood, depending on traffic.
A Mother Catherine Ebling asks if I can possibly interview immediately. When I agree, she says, “How about this afternoon?”
Portia’s clicking away in her room with the door closed, so after a shave and shower, I leave her a note and hop in the old man’s Ford wearing my one and only suit, which is tan and dated and a little too snug, but hopefully adequate.
I drive with my jacket off, the vents on high and the windows open, but I end up sweating anyway. It’s ninety-five degrees out, the old man’s Ford has no air-conditioning, and I’m nervous as hell.
“Remember what Kirk told you,” I say over and over as I drive. “That getting clean is an accomplishment—something that sets you apart, something to be proud of and not to hide.”
When I arrive at the small school, I drive past the huge imposing black iron crucifix outside and pull into the parking lot.
I mop off my face with my lucky red handkerchief, look at myself in the rearview mirror, and say, “You are a fucking rock star, Chuck Bass. A first-grade-teacher rock star. And your jacket will cover the disgusting sweat marks under your pits and on your back.”
With my jacket on and my portfolio in the leather briefcase Portia purchased for me when I first started going on interviews—I refused to let her buy me a new suit, although she offered at least a hundred times—I enter the school and am greeted by a cool blast of wind.