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an addict, I find that this refined eveningscape does not feel comfortable.
    Over dinner, Dave keeps talk within the firm boundaries of opera, his family, and popular culture. Only once does he ask how things are going and I am careful not to sound too positive or too discouraged. I don’t actually say, One day at a time, but I might as well. I am like a careful apprentice with a benevolent but stern mentor. Aware at every second that I am lucky to be given any time at all in light of his many kindnesses—the pickup and drop-off at rehab, the use of the writing studio on Charles Street, all the phone calls and e-mails he’s had to field from concerned and angry people who became aware that he was in contact with me after I disappeared months ago. I tread carefully and wonder if we’ll ever be at ease with each other again.
    Once the opera is over we take a cab downtown. I’m grateful he directs the driver to my address first and then his own, as I know my days of paying for cab rides are over. We say our good-byes and I head into my building for what will be my second night there. I get into the elevator, which—despite the fact that the apartment is relatively cheap and the building is all rentals—has an elevator man. The one on duty now is not one I’ve seen before, so I tell him to go to seventeen. He says, OK, boss, in an accent that I think must be either Croatian or Georgian. I get to my apartment and notice two large paper shopping bags hanging from the doorknob. When I see the quiche boxes from Eli’s bakery jutting out from one of the bags, I know they’re from Jean. There is a card taped to a handle and on it my name is scrawled in Jean’s inimitably looping and jagged cursive. Inside it reads, Welcome to your new home and your new life. With so much love, Jean. I open the door and unpack the bags, which are filled with quiches and salads and roasted meats. Some of the food is from Eli’s bakery, some from Zabar’s, and some made by Jean’s chef, Paul. There are even delicate Austrian chocolates from the Neue Gallerie. After I put the food away, I stand in front of the now full refrigerator and shout, THANK YOU, JEAN! I realize, with relief and a little gust of confidence, that I don’t have to buy food for at least a week.
    I go out to the terrace. It’s a crisp spring night and the lights of the city are dancing. It’s after midnight, so I can make out only the ghosty outline of the now dark Empire State Building. I’m relieved to be away from Dave, away from what I imagine to be his nervous scrutiny. I think about his writing studio on Charles Street—the creaky steps, the downstairs neighbor poised to pounce at the slightest hint of nefarious activity. I think of the entire precarious time there and remember how during the first afternoon, within minutes of Dave’s leaving, I’d been consumed with the desire to get high. How lucky I didn’t, I think. What a miracle the craving passed. The city blinks its light, police sirens sound, faint music from another apartment comes and goes with the breeze. And then, just as it had that afternoon, the old craving returns. How do I describe it? It’s like skin that feels perfectly fine one moment and then is ablaze with an itch the next. It looks the same: skin—harmless, unfettered skin. But all at once it’s screaming to be ravaged with fingernails and rubbed raw.
    I look back into the apartment through the small square window in the door and think, There is nothing and no one to stop me. I can get high in this apartment, which is mine alone, and no one is coming home or arriving in the morning. I then look down at the scattered traffic on Seventh Avenue and think, If all else fails there are seventeen floors and a hard sidewalk. I know I should call Jack. Or Asa. Or one of the dozen numbers that are now in my phone from people at The Library and other meetings. CALL SOMEONE! I say out loud, but even as I say the words I know it’s too late. My