The bimonthly Second Take Anonymous meetings in LA take place just off the Walk of Fame in a Hollywood strip mall, which makes this the second strip mall I’ve been to in the past week. By the time I’ve parked and walked inside, I’m so annoyed with pedestrians—twice, people walked into the street in front of my car even though I had a green light—that my nerves about the meeting are almost forgotten.
It’s only as I step through the door and into the sparsely decorated, dimly lit space that I remember I’m in arandom strip mall, and I was led here by astranger on the internet.
“Joey?”
I’m greeted by a short, squat man with dark-brown skin and a shaved head who looks to be somewhere near middle age. He peers at me with a curious, cautious gaze, as if he knows he needs to tread carefully lest I tuck tail and run.
“Richard?” I say.
He smiles, his eyes warm, and responds, “That’s me. It’s nice to meet you and put a face to a name. It’s not every day we have a new attendee.”
I nod, a stilted motion, and look around the room. There are a couple people standing near the pitiful refreshments table. A small circle of chairs is set up in the center of the room.
Richard watches me take everything in. “It’s not much—”
“It’s great.”
“It’s not,” he says with a laugh. “We don’t put a lot of thought into the ambience or food because usually, it’s us venting for two hours about our lives and how living doesn’t get any easier no matter how much perspective you think you have. It’s not the kind of conversation that works up an appetite.”
I frown.You mean this shit doesn’t get easier?
“Want me to introduce you to everyone? Or are you more of an observer to start?”
“I think I’d rather observe, if that’s okay,” I say.
Richard nods, tells me to let him know if I have any questions, then walks away to greet another man who just walked in. Feeling awkward on my own, I make a beeline for the pot of coffee.
As I’m pouring some into a paper cup, a new voice speaks up behind me.
“The coffee’s shit.”
I turn to see a young Asian American woman, probably eighteen or so, her long hair bleached to an almost-white lavender and hanging in loose waves around her face. She wears a navy-blue minidress and thigh-high boots to match, and a long white fur coat is draped over her shoulders. She looks simultaneously fabulous and comically out of place.
“As long as it’s caffeinated, I’m happy.” I shrug.
“I’m Kimiko. Some people call me Kimmy, but I hate it. So don’t call me that.”
“Kimiko it is,” I assure her. “I’m Joey.”
“Joey. Is that your real name?”
“Nickname. But I hate my full name—so don’t call me it,” I say, echoing her words.
“You new here?”
“First time.”
“No, nothere—I know you’re new here, I come to every meeting. Imean, are you newhere?” She gestures around the room on every utterance of the wordhere, and it takes me a moment to grasp her meaning: new to my second life.
“Three weeks tomorrow,” I say carefully, then I glance up and wait to be snapped out of existence. “You?”
“Wow. Three weeks. You found us fast, good for you,” she says, and is that bitterness in her voice? I think it is. “It’ll be ten years for me in December.”
“Ten years?”I repeat. “How old are you?”
Maybe that’s rude, but I’m too surprised to care. She has to be around my age. Did she start over fromchildhood?
“Twenty, biologically. Butspiritually, I’m forty-two.”
