Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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THE CITY OF LIGHT I’m in Paris on a magazine assignment, which is exactly as great as it sounds. I eat dinner at a restaurant so fancy I have to keep resisting the urge to drop my fork just to see how fast someone will pick it up. I’m drinking cognac—the booze of kings and rap stars—and I love how the snifter sinks between the crooks of my fingers, amber liquid sloshing up the sides as I move it in a figure eight. Like swirling the ocean in the palm of my hand. Somewhere near midnight, I tumble into a cab with my friend and the night starts to stutter and skip. She leans into me, the bundle of scarf around her face. It’s cold, and we are squished together on the vinyl seat, too lit to care about the intimacy of our limbs. The streets are a smear through the window. The taxi meter, a red blur. How did we get back so fast? A second ago, we were laughing in the cab. And now, I’m standing on the street alone. I walk through the front door of my hotel, into the bright squint of the lobby. My heels clickety-clak across the white stone. It’s that time of night when every floor has a banana peel, and if I’m not careful, I might find my face against the ground, my hands braced beside me, and I’ll have to explain to the concierge how clumsy and hilarious I am. So I walk with a vigilance I hope doesn’t show. I exchange a few pleasantries with the concierge, a bit of theater to prove I’m not too drunk, and I’m proud of how steady my voice sounds. I don’t want him thinking I’m just another American girl wasted in Paris. The last thing I hear is my heels, steady as a metronome, echoing through the lobby. And then, there is nothing. Not a goddamn thing. This happens to me sometimes. A curtain falling in the middle of the act, leaving minutes and sometimes hours in the dark. But anyone watching me wouldn’t notice. They’d simply see a woman on her way to somewhere else, with no idea her memory just snapped in half. It’s possible you don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re a moderate drinker, who babysips two glasses of wine and leaves every party at a reasonable hour. Maybe you’re one of those lucky fellows who can slurp your whiskey all afternoon and never disappear into the drink. But if you’re like me, you know the thunderbolt of waking up to discover a blank space where pivotal scenes should be. My evenings come with trapdoors. I don’t know how much time I lose in this darkness. Or what takes place. When the curtain lifts again, this is what I see. There is a bed, and I’m on it. The lights are low. Sheets are wrapped around my ankles, soft and cool against my skin. I’m on top of a guy I’ve never seen before, and we’re having sex. Hold on. Can this be right? I’m having sex with a man, and I’ve never seen him before. It’s like the universe dropped me into someone else’s body. Into someone else’s life. But I seem to be enjoying it. I’m making all the right sounds. As the room comes into focus, my body completes its erotic pantomime. I collapse beside him and weave my legs through his. I wonder if I should be worried right now, but I’m not scared. I don’t mean to suggest I’m brave. I mean to suggest you could break a piece of plywood over my head, and I would smile, nod, and keep going.
The guy isn’t bad-looking. Slightly balding, but he has kind eyes. They glisten in the low light. And I think, whoever picked up this man, she did an OK job. “You really know how to wear a guy out,” he says. I trace a knuckle down the side of his face. It seems unfair that he should know me, and I don’t know him, but I’m unsure of the etiquette. Excuse me, but who are you, and why are we fucking? “I should go,” I tell him. He gives an annoyed laugh. “You just said you wanted to stay.” So I stay with the stranger in the shadows of a room I do not recognize, looking out onto a city that is not my home. The window stretches across the wall, and I stare at the twinkling lights. I smooth my hand along his chest. It seems like the polite thing to do. He strokes my hair, and brings my hand to his lips, and if anyone were watching us, we would look like two people in love. A blackout is the untangling of a mystery. It’s detective work on your own life. A blackout is: What happened last night? Who are you, and why are we fucking? As I lie in the crook of his arm, I have so many questions. But one is louder than the others. In literature, it’s the question that launches grand journeys, because heroes are often dropped into deep, dark jungles and forced to machete their way out. But for the blackout drinker, it’s the question that launches another shitty Saturday. How did I get here?
Page 3 and 4: Begin Reading Table of Contents New
Page 5: PRELUDE
Page 9 and 10: WOMEN WHO DRINK I was 33, and lying
Page 11 and 12: she did not get—but I’ve never
Page 13 and 14: In my 20s, friends called with that
Page 15 and 16: I discussed roofies with Aaron Whit
Page 17 and 18: a while, a columnist would come alo
Page 19 and 20: ONE
Page 21 and 22: when no one was looking, and I woul
Page 23 and 24: steps, not talking. As much as my f
Page 25 and 26: Our home was on a major artery thro
Page 27 and 28: She’d transformed, like Olivia Ne
Page 29 and 30: I threw up seven times. Hunched ove
Page 31 and 32: STARVED One of the curious aspects
Page 33 and 34: more successful her eating disorder
Page 35 and 36: orrowed. She couldn’t miss the si
Page 37 and 38: To make it more confounding, Miles
Page 39 and 40: efused to be won. I drank cup after
Page 41 and 42: DRESSING IN MEN’S CLOTHES I start
Page 43 and 44: coffee. But that seemed like a very
Page 45 and 46: you to imperil our amazing friendsh
Page 47 and 48: I FINALLY GOT a boyfriend near the
Page 49 and 50: FOUR
Page 51 and 52: The production guy passed my desk a
Page 53 and 54: drank myself to the place where I w
Page 55 and 56: ehind me, and told him I was moving
Page 57 and 58:
my Harp as soon I walked in the doo
Page 59 and 60:
FIVE
Page 61 and 62:
“Your key, mademoiselle,” said
Page 63 and 64:
My friend Meredith lived in an apar
Page 65 and 66:
“This was fun,” I said. He was
Page 67 and 68:
OF COURSE. OF course I’d gone to
Page 69 and 70:
like you should not be crying,” h
Page 71 and 72:
SIX
Page 73 and 74:
When the bottle was drained, I’d
Page 75 and 76:
But no, really, I had it this time.
Page 77 and 78:
off a gargantuan diamond. I thought
Page 79 and 80:
INTERLUDE
Page 81 and 82:
ain, which allowed his body to deve
Page 83 and 84:
SEVEN
Page 85 and 86:
But his once-sallow cheeks were ros
Page 87 and 88:
announcing their baby. Nobody wants
Page 89 and 90:
want to remain silent and unknowabl
Page 91 and 92:
Bubba curled up alongside me when I
Page 93 and 94:
EIGHT
Page 95 and 96:
for me? My friends didn’t necessa
Page 97 and 98:
ecause otherwise you have to go int
Page 99 and 100:
said, and she was right. The next w
Page 101 and 102:
fill-in-the-blank letter of apology
Page 103 and 104:
NINE
Page 105 and 106:
the tastes of a frat boy, or a grum
Page 107 and 108:
Mine was a recipe for unhappiness.
Page 109 and 110:
He tugged too hard, then I tugged t
Page 111 and 112:
SEX My first date in sobriety was w
Page 113 and 114:
30s to stare down a personal profil
Page 115 and 116:
and said, “Look, I dressed up for
Page 117 and 118:
“I’m thinking: Well, that was f
Page 119 and 120:
he’s impotent or not, I don’t k
Page 121 and 122:
ELEVEN
Page 123 and 124:
the scorn of strangers. They skip t
Page 125 and 126:
Addiction was the inverse of honest
Page 127 and 128:
I worshipped alcohol, and it consum
Page 129 and 130:
THIS IS THE PLACE A few months befo
Page 131 and 132:
Anna and I have had 20 years of the
Page 133 and 134:
saying in midsentence. My dad loses
Page 135 and 136:
from here, I told myself. There wil
Page 137 and 138:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR SARAH HEPOLA’S w
Page 139:
Contents COVER TITLE PAGE WELCOME D
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Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

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