I wouldn’t lead with Clare. Whenever I told my friends, they would get that sad, faraway look in their eyes, and even though they pretended to listen, I sensed they were not.

I sidled up to the bar as he set a soda water and lime in front of me. At one time, he’d supplied me with drugs; now he was the most supportive of my sobriety. Jack no longer dealt, and I’d not seen him take a drink in at least a year. If he’d been behind the bar on my birthday, the tequila shots (which I had never intended to drink) would have been water.

“How about a burger and fries?” I asked.

“Sure, kitchen is still up and running.” He punched a few keystrokes of the computer. About nine years ago, after my second rehab stint, he’d just bought J.J.’s Pub, and I’d asked him for a job. He’d laughed. Said the last place I should work was in a bar. But I’d needed the money, so he’d agreed as long as I always stayed in the kitchen. Come in through the alley door, leave the way I came in. One step in the bar, and I was fired.

Two weeks in, I was in the kitchen prepping the garnishes for the bar when the cook, Tony, offered me a joint. “Jack says you need to stay sober, but this won’t hurt.”

Saying no wasn’t as easy as it sounded when all the cells in my body cried for a couple of tokes. But I’d held firm. For a while. Jack caught wind of what we were doing, and he fired Tony and me.

“Sorry I was late to your birthday party,” Jack said. “Weekends are my busiest time.”

“I remember well.” In the eight months I worked at J.J.’s Pub, staff came and went routinely. Waitresses and bartenders called in sick, quit without notice, or left early. But I’d always made my shift. Working was my way of proving that this time would be different. Turned out you could work pretty well stoned.

“You worked your share of thirty-hour weekends.”

“Who’s the manager?” I asked.

“Bill.”

The name conjured images of a tall, lean guy with thin hair. “Yeah, I remember him.”

“Goes back to the time you worked here. He quit for a while and now he’s back.” He looked as if he’d say more but then seemed to think differently. “Your party looked fun.”

“I wish you’d worn your hat,” I teased.

“Never.”

“Thanks for the camera bag. Very nice. And I love the instant cameras.”

“That was all Jo-Jo.”

I shrugged. “The party was nice. Everyone’s trying.”