Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

happens in my memory. In my memory, we’re standing there, talking, and then—she’s gone. Spliced
from the scene. November leaves scuttling down the empty sidewalk near midnight in Paris. And I
turn toward the rotating glass door, and I walk inside.
That tall guy behind the concierge desk. I’ve seen him before.
“How was your evening, mademoiselle?” His voice is almost comically low. A basso profundo,
my mother would say.
“Excellent,” I say. No slur in my voice. Nailed it. Slick floors like this can be dastardly in heels,
and I’ve suffered a few spills in my time. Walking along, perfectly upright, and then boom. Face
against the floor. I wave to the concierge, a good-night parting. Nice people here. Look at that: I made
it all the way through the lobby without a slip.
And then the curtain descends. You know what happens next. Actually, neither of us does.
I USED TO have nightmares I was thrust onstage in the middle of a play, with no clue what I was
supposed to say. In another version of the dream, I memorized lines for the wrong play, and nothing I
said synced up with the characters onstage. I would wake up in my bed, collarbone slick, sheets in a
noose around my legs. Later I discovered these were textbook anxiety dreams, which made me feel
comforted, but lame. Even my subconscious was a cliché.
I used to tell myself, when I woke from those dreams, spooked and fog-brained: This could never
happen. People never get to opening night without knowing the name of the play. This is just a
catastrophe scenario, fired off by neurons. It isn’t real. And yet, when the curtains opened up in my
mind that night in Paris, and I was in bed with a guy I didn’t even remember meeting, this is what I
said:
ME: I should go.
HIM: You just said you wanted to stay.
It’s strange to me how calm I remained. I was still wrapped in the soothing vapors of the cognac,
no clue where I was but not particularly concerned. I’ll figure this out.
I was pretty sure this was my hotel. I recognized the swirly brown carpet, the brushed-steel light
fixtures. The bed had the same fluffy white sheets. But the oddest ideas drifted through my head. I
thought maybe this guy was my boyfriend. I thought maybe he was the man I came to Paris to
interview. It was like coming out of a very deep sleep and dragging the upside-down logic of dreams
into real life. As though I woke up kissing a pillow, but the pillow happened to be slightly balding
with kind eyes.
The panic started when I noticed the time. It was almost 2 am.
“Shit, my flight leaves in a few hours,” I said.
Actually, the flight wasn’t until 11 am, but I understood there was not nearly enough time between
then and now. The awfulness of my circumstances began to dawn on me.
I dug my tights out of a ball at the foot of the bed and slapped my bra on so fast the eyeteeth were
crooked. I hopped and stumbled as I zipped up my boots. I was knocking over things, shit clattering
behind me. Sensation was returning to me in stages. Strange body parts felt sore. Later, it would sting
when I peed.