Page 51 of Blue Umbrella Sky
Milt laughed. Nothing was funny, but there was a sense of joy bubbling over. “Yes. It’s his real name. Least as far as I know. He makes me think of these impossible expanses of blue skies we get out here. He makes me hopeful. I just might be falling in love.” Milt’s gaze went quickly down to the surface of the kitchen table.Where did that come from?
Dane stood up. He crossed to Milt and bent down to hug him. “Your hope, I’m sure, isn’t misplaced.” He squeezed Milt a little harder, that way he had, bordering on painful, and then straightened up. “Since you did all the cooking, why don’t you let me clean up and take Miss Ruby out for her final walk?”
“You don’t have to do that—” Milt started to protest.
“Milt, Milt, Milt. You don’t get it. I’m trying to get rid of you. I need to get to bed. Now, it’ll take me ten minutes to load up the dishwasher and watch your pup pee. Would you just go so I canalsoget the couch made up?”
“Got it.” Milt stood, gave Dane a lingering full-body hug. It felt good, real, and right.
He went off to his bedroom.
Chapter 18
BILLY REALIZEDhe wasn’t sure. Jesus, when would life, and the decisions we needed to make, ever become simple? Uncomplicated? When he was a kid, Billy had thought that growing up meant knowing what you wanted, how to get it, and exactly what road to travel for happiness. Now he thought the older he got, the more confusing things became.
Milt was right for him.
Milt was wrong for him.
The time for true love was now… or never.
Billy sat in the 7:00 a.m. AA meeting at Sunny Dunes. This meeting was especially for the LGBT people, and Billy attended almost every day because it made for a good start. Apparently a lot of other people felt the same way, because the room was usually packed with between fifty to a hundred people.
Maybe it was due to the early morning light and the promise a new day held, but Billy loved this meeting particularly because it was so friendly. There was always a greeter outside (and Billy had been coming to this meeting long enough that he usually knew the designated greeter, but even if he didn’t, it was always nice to be hugged), making each and every person who came into the room feel welcome, whether he or she was there for the first time or had been coming for years.
Inside, it often felt like a family reunion, with lots of laughter, chatting, and more hugs. The big room had become as familiar and as comfortable as his own home. Once upon a time, before he was in the program, Billy would never have imagined an AA meeting could be so friendly, so full of life and fellowship.
But he knew that for many of the people gathered here, and for him, this was a new life. And for many of them, their only life. Why shouldn’t it be fun? Why shouldn’t it feel special, warm, inclusive? Sobriety didn’t have to mean, Jon McGregor once told him, that one had to be sober, not in the strictest sense of the word. We could feel happy and whole if only we’d accept the gifts and miracles that were ours to claim if we simply followed what the program laid out—honesty, openness, willingness.
Because the meeting was so large, Billy didn’t always get to share, nor did he always want to. But today he wanted to make sure the meeting’s leader that morning noticed his raised hand.
He had something to say.
It took three tries, but finally Billy got called upon. He’d been worried as he watched the clock edge toward eight.
“Good morning! I’m grateful to be here today among all of you guys. Thanks for the lead, Brian, and congrats to everybody who took chips. You’re awesome.” Billy stared down at the black Cons he wore, realizing time was wasting.
“Guys. I’ve fallen in love.” When Billy said the words, he drew in a sudden breath. In that little space, several people applauded, and a couple said, “Uh-oh.”
“And the good news is he’s a great guy. Handsome. Charming. Loves animals. Sweet as all get-out. So-so cook. Can’t carry a tune in a bucket. But a keeper, I think, in just about anyone’s book.” Billy sighed.
“And he’s a normie.”Normiewas what people in the program called those whodidn’tsuffer from the disease of addiction/alcoholism. Normies had never been in recovery, because they’d never needed to. Normies didn’t use buzz words and phrases like “easy does it,” “let go and let God,” “progress, not perfection,” “higher power,” or “character defects.” Normies could go out to El Portal in Cathedral City and have a margarita or two with their enchiladas. They could have a Bloody Mary at brunch at Spencer’s. Enjoy a beer on a hot day. All with no problems, all with no worries that one sip could lead to a thousand.
Normies really didn’t “get” what recovery was all about. And why should they? It wasn’t a part of their world.
When Billy mentioned that his new love interest was a normie, a groan went up in the room, which wasn’t the reaction Billy had hoped for. Where was that applause when he needed it?
“Anyway, he knows my past. He knows I’m in recovery. He knows I go to meetings.” Billy held back that “he” had followed him to a meeting once. No need to dwell on stalkerish stuff like that.
“I think he accepts who I am. A drunk.”But does he?Billy wondered. The subject of Billy’s disease had not come up for serious discussion. Not really. “But he knows about my clean time. He knows I love the program and that I love you guys.
“Here’s the problem. I worry that, if things progress and get serious, it’ll be weird. Like, maybe he’ll expect me to stop coming to meetings. Or he’ll be jealous of the friends I have in the program. And believe me, kids, when I say there’s no way I’d subject some of you to him.” There was hooting and laughter. “Just sayin’. See? You get me. I can say that to you and you understand. I can tell you about the bender I went on and how three Chicago police cars chased me home. We can laugh about that. I can talk about being passed out on the floor of the men’s room of a movie theater and we can have ourselves a righteous chuckle.
“Him? Maybe not so much. He might not find things like that amusing. He might be put off, or worse, disgusted.
“And I can’t blame him for that.” Billy sighed, stretching out his legs in front of him.
“What if we don’t have common ground? What if it all goes to shit because we’re not on the same page?”
