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“Now?” she asked.
I took her hand. “Whatever the lady desires.”
We took the elevator down, and I handed our concierge a hundred to pay for the pizza and hold it for us if the delivery came before we got back.
After crossing the street into the Common, Amy snaked her arm around my waist, and I reciprocated, trying to match our strides.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“What was it about Josh that you didn't want to tell me at our first dinner?”
She really did want to get into sensitive subjects tonight.
I'd kept this from her. Hell, I'd kept it from everybody, including my family.
“It's something I'm not very proud of.”
“We all have those things,” she responded. “I just want you to let me in, so I can help.”
“I told you I had a really rough time after Roberta passed away.”
She nodded, but didn't respond or prod me. We walked in silence for a moment.
I turned us right to follow a path toward the center of the Common. “Josh played a bigger part in helping me with that than I told you before.”
“He sounds like a really good friend,” she said.
Josh was much more than just a good friend. “One day he was trying to get me sober. I got super pissed at him and kicked him out, after which I tried to drown my troubles with even more alcohol.” I paused. “The stubborn son of a bitch wouldn't take no for an answer. He came by again that night. He made the manager let him in when I didn't answer the door. I was more than passed out. They tell me I was comatose. He called 9-1-1 and got me to the hospital.”
I took a deep breath before continuing to the hard part. “When I woke up in the hospital, the doctors told me that if Josh hadn’t brought me in when he did, I would have died of alcohol poisoning. I had no idea you could actually drink yourself to death, but the statistics are that six people a day in this country drink so much that they don't ever wake up. If it weren't for Josh…” I paused. “I would've been one of those six that day.”
“I’m glad he helped you,” she said as we took a turn past the bandstand.
We walked a ways before I continued. “Anyway, he spent the next week with me, twenty-four seven, and got me turned around. So you see, I owe Josh more than I can ever repay. Both our jobs are on the line with these deals Winterbourne is messing up, and it’s the only thing Josh has. That's why it's so important to me. That’s why I don’t want anything to do with Winterbourne and why I resisted hiring your friend.”
“That makes sense. I'm really glad Josh took care of you,” Amy said kindly. “He sounds like the kind of friend I wish I had. I know it was hard to share this, and you can count on me to do my best for you and for Josh.”
“Sometimes he can be a real pain in the ass.” I chuckled. “But to say he's one in a million is understating it.”
I had confided in Amy something no one besides Josh and I knew, but I felt relieved now that I’d told her. It didn’t feel right to keep things from her.
“Your family doesn’t know about this?” she asked.
“It's painful to admit, but no. I guess I was just too ashamed to share it with anybody. Outside of Josh, you're the only one who knows my secret shame.”
She squeezed my hand. We turned right again back along the edge of the Common toward my building.
“You should tell your brothers and your sister sometime. I think it would help,” she offered.
We continued in silence. I stopped us across from our building. “Maybe later. Right now it’s just too fresh.”
When we reached the lobby, the concierge had our pizza safe behind his counter. “I already had to turn down two offers to buy it from me, Mr. Quigley,” he said.
“Thanks for not giving in, Carl.” I took the pizza, but declined the change and told him to keep it.
Upstairs, we had finished half the pizza when my phone rang.
