The Mask, Chapter 8

8.
October 8th, 201911:00 AM

"Julie. Julie? Hey, Jules! Wake, up girl! It's time for your Tuesday accountability check. C'mon, sleepyhead. Let's go."
Julie Lomax opened her eyes. Everything looked blurry and smeared. For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The ceiling didn't look like her bedroom's, even though it did look familiar, somehow. She closed her eyes, rubbed her face, and mumbled behind her hand, "Gimmaminute."
She rubbed her face hard, one more time, and opened her eyes again. This time, she recognized a series of blotchy water stains in the far right corner of the ceiling. In the living room. She'd fallen asleep on the futon in her trailer's living room.
For a brief moment, cold panic gripped Julie's heart. She didn't remember falling asleep on the futon. She'd been tired; it'd been a rough night at work, especially because those weirdos who had showed up, but even so. She remembered sitting down with a Sprite, intending to unwind before bed...
Nothing.
"Jules?" The voice sounded concerned. "You okay?"
For another breathless second, she didn't answer. The trailer was dry. It had been dry for almost a year now. She came straight home from work, hadn't stopped at the Mobilmart on Haverton; she knew she hadn't. And yet, when she glanced fearfully at the small and dinged coffee table before the futon, she fully expected to see a glass of moonshine, a bottle of vodka or whiskey, or even several beers...
Nothing except the Sprite can. 
"C'mon, kiddo." The locked door to her trailer rattled. "You're freaking me out a little."
Julie reached out a trembling hand. Picked up the Sprite, and, terror clutching her heart, brought the can's mouth to her nose. She sniffed, certain she'd catch the sweet whiff of schnaps, or the stinging scent of whiskey or moonshine...
Nothing but Sprite.
"Julie!"
"Yeah," she called as she rose off the futon on slightly shaking legs, her voice cracking with relief. "Yeah, hold on. I'm fine, Cassie. I'm fine."
Of course, maybe she should've said sober instead. She certainly was sober. Fine, however? She wasn't sure about that, at all. She hadn't been fine for awhile. She wasn't sure when she would be fine, if ever. And after last night's strangeness, fine seemed a long way off. For now, sober would have to do.
*
"I swear to God, Cass. I really truly believed I'd fallen off the wagon, for a minute. Totally expected to see bottles of booze on the coffee table."

They both sat in Adirondack chairs on the small porch attached to Julie's trailer. Cassie was dressed in jeans and a red and black-checkered flannel shirt over a white t-shirt. Julie in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. Mugs of  coffee steamed in their hands. 

It was noon, but because they both worked the evening shift last night - Cassie at the Webb County Assisted Living Center, and she at The Golden Kitty - it was their mid-morning. At least she was off until The Kitty opened up again tonight. Cassie had the 2-10 shift at The Skylark Diner tonight, then had an overnight shift at the Living Center, then worked at Arcane Delights, the used bookstore on Main Street, from 11 - 5 tomorrow. How Cassie did it, Julie had no idea.

Julie sipped from her coffee and swallowed. "Really, Cass. For a second there, I thought I'd gone on a bender last night without even knowing it."

Cassie offered a small, knowing smile. "It happens. You're only a little over a year in your recovery. I think sometimes the fear of slipping felt worse than actually slipping itself."

"You slipped when you got sober?"

Cassie nodded, her smile fading slightly. "A few times. Nothing major, thankfully. But falling off the wagon always hurts, no matter what. Nothing to do but get back on again."

Julie nodded, but she didn't like the idea of Cassie Tillman slipping during her recovery. If someone like Cassie struggled getting sober, she didn't hold out much hope for herself.

Until a year ago, she and Cassie had only been casual friends. They'd attended Clifton Heights High together, shared a few mutual  friends, saw each out on the town occasionally, and that was all. Julie wasn't sure when she first realized Cassie and she both lived in the Commons Trailer Park, but they would see each other coming and going, say hello, and that was it.

A year ago, Julie tossed back one too many shots of whiskey and moonshine at a "private party" she'd been dancing for. The rest of the night ended in an indistinguishable blur. She had no idea what happened. No idea what she'd done, who she'd done it with, or even worse, how many she'd done it with. The next day she found herself face down in her own vomit on the ground outside her trailer.

She didn't remember much of what happened next. Someone had apparently called Cassie (why Cassie and not 911, Julie had never figured out), and Cassie had gotten Julie cleaned up, inside, and somehow managed - despite her three different jobs - to take care of her for the next two weeks. She took her to Dr. Fitzgerald at Utica General, got her checked into the detox unit, and when she was released, got her hooked up with an AA group which met at All Saints every Thursday.

Cassie had never shared much about her own personal battle with alcohol. Just that she'd walked the same road, and knew what Julie was going through, and what she had to face, and pledged to walk through it with her. Julie didn't care that Cassie had been a little secretive about her own struggles. Far as she was concerned, if it hadn't been for Cassie, Julie probably would've drank herself to death by now.
"So," Cassie said with no preamble, "how was last night? What did you have to drink?"

Julie sipped her coffee and swallowed again. "Water and Gatorade. That's all."

Cassie sipped her own coffee, swallowed, then said, "Did you want to drink last night?"

Julie nodded freely, because that kind of bald honesty was the only thing which had kept her sober so far. "Hell yes. Bad. Worse than usual. Probably why I crashed so hard when I came home last night. I never thought wanting to drink so bad and saying no to myself over and over could be so...exhausting."

Cassie tipped her head. "It is. It's a mental and spiritual exhaustion which eats away at your resources. I know this is a touchy subject...but that's why you really need to consider different employment. Staying sober doesn't happen through white-knuckling in the face of temptation on a daily basis. It happens through intentional choices to maintain healthy boundaries."

Julie sighed. "You're right. I know. It's just..." she waved at the rows of trailers lined up in their regimented plots, waved at their tiny patches of grass, poor excuses for lawns. "You know, all the time I danced at The Kitty, I never once saved the money I made. I've been doing that for a year, and I've almost got enough money to buy a small house."

She looked at Cassie. "I dropped out of high school. Have no job skills. I'm twenty-seven. I know staying at The Kitty puts my sobriety at risk, especially because that creep who owns the place, Lancing, would rather see me drunk all the time and open to 'freebies' for him and his buddies. But where else can I make this kind of money?"

Cassie tipped her head, as if deciding to table the discussion for a later date. "Why were you triggered last night? What set you off?"

Julie shivered at the memory and cupped the coffee mug closer to her body, as if she could draw warmth from it. "These...these two guys came to the club last night. Actually...I think it might have been Jody and Jack Riley Jr. They both have matching skull rings, and I thought I recognized those on their fingers."

Cassie frowned. "What did they do?"

"That's the thing. Nothing. They just stood in the foyer at the front desk where you pay cover. Stood there, staring, their arms hanging all weird. Like they were puppets, and their strings had been cut, or something. Anyway, that wasn't the worst part."

"What was?"

Julie clutched her mug even tighter. "They were wearing these masks. These weird masks with stringy black hair, big bulging eyes, and huge, gaping mouths." She shivered again at the memory. "God. It looked like they could bite a person's face off, those mouths."

"That's all they did was stand there? That's it?"

Julie shook her head. "You don't understand, Cass. You couldn't see their eyes, or their real mouths...but it was like, you knew they were staring at you, and knew their real mouths were open and drooling behind their masks."

"How'd they get in?"

"They didn't, not really. They came through the open door and stood there, staring, and I think Lydia - it was her night to collect cover - was so spooked she couldn't do or say anything. And the weird thing is...if she had gotten into the club, I think maybe no one would've stopped them. Everyoe would've let them walk right by, they would've been so freaked."

Cassie grunted. "What stopped them?"

Julie took another sip of her coffee, found it had cooled and grimaced at the taste, and set it into her lap."Thank God Conroy was working last night."

Cassie smiled a little enviously.  "Isn't he the big biker with crosses tattooed all over him?"

"Yep. A cross on each shoulder, on his forearms, on the back of his hands, on the inside of each wrist, and I think one on his chest and his back. Not to mention the big gold cross necklace he wears around his neck."

"I love it that your lead bouncer is a 'born again Christian there looking after the girls' spiritual welfare.'"

"Honestly? He doesn't drink, he's the perfect gentleman, he won't let the other bouncers touch us, he never touches us, and he's the first one to toss a rowdy customer. And I mean literally toss. That's the kind of Christian I can get behind."

Cassie glanced at Julie coyly over the top of her mug, eyes glittering. "Or on top of."

Julie slapped Cassie's knee playfully. "Stop."

"So what happened?"
 
Julie shrugged. "It was weird. Soon as they saw Conroy coming toward them, they turned and just about ran out the door. It wasn't just that they were afraid of Conroy - I mean, his biceps are as big as my head, so I get it - it was almost like...like they didn't want him to touch them. Like he had something they didn't want to catch? I dunno. It was weird."

"And that bothered you all night? How long were they there? Sounds like only ten to fifteen minutes."

Julie shook her head. "Yeah, but that stayed with me all night long. All I could think of for the rest of the night was how they looked at me and the other girls. Like...like..."

Julie drew her knees up to her chest, feeling colder than ever as she remembered those bulging eyes, and wide, gaping mouths. "Like they were hungry," she whispered. "Like they were hungry, and we were what they wanted to eat."