Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

order.
I had lost so many things that fall in New York. Sunglasses. Hats, scarves, gloves. I could have
outfitted an orphanage with the items I left behind in taxicabs. But what amazed me was how many
things I did not lose, even when my eyes had receded back into my skull. I never lost my cell phone. I
never lost my keys. I once woke up with the refrigerator door flapping open but my good pearl
earrings placed neatly beside the sink, their tricky backs slipped back onto their stems.
Part of this was simple survival. You could not be a woman alone in the world without some part
of you remaining vigilant. I was a woman who tripped over sidewalks and walked into walls, but I
was also a woman who, at the end of the evening, held on to her valuables like they were a dinosaur
egg.
How did my purse get in my room? This new evidence was forcing me to reevaluate the story I’d
already settled on. I suppose I might have dropped the purse off on my way to the guy’s hotel room.
But a side trip like that was a serious break in the action that didn’t track with a drunk’s impulsive
style. The more likely scenario is that I went upstairs first, decided my room was entirely too quiet,
and then headed back to the bar for company, leaving my purse behind. A woman locking up her
diamond ring before she leaps into the sea.
I called the front desk. “You’re never going to believe this,” I told Johnson. “My purse is in my
room.”
“I told you this would work out,” he said.
“And you were right.”
I changed into my pajamas and curled into a fetal position under the covers. An empty bed had
never been so divine. Maybe I should have been relieved, but I had the haunted shivers of a woman
who felt the bullet whiz past her face. Now that my crisis was resolved, I could start beating myself
up for the ways I had failed. All that I could have lost.
This was a familiar crouch—staring at the ceiling at 3 am, lashing myself. Such a wretched place
to be. Alone in the dark, with your own misery.
The phone rang.
“I found a leather jacket in the bar,” Johnson said. “Do you think it’s yours?”
And here comes the part of the story I wish I didn’t remember.
JOHNSON STANDS IN my doorway. He’s so tall. He must be six two. My leather jacket is draped over
his arm like a fresh towel. I stand there with my hand on the door and wonder how much to tip him.
“Can I come in?” he asks, and there is not an ounce of me that wants him inside my room, but he
was so helpful to me earlier, and I can’t scheme quickly enough to rebuff him.
I step back from the door and give him entry. I’m still thinking about the tip. Would five euros be
enough? Would a hundred?
He closes the door and walks to my bed. It’s not far from the entryway, but each step breaches a
great chasm. “You broke my heart when you cried earlier tonight,” he says, sitting down on the
mattress. He’s only a few feet from me, and I remain with my back pressed against the wall.
“I know, I’m sorry about that,” I say, and I think: Who is manning the desk right now? Are we
going to get in trouble?
He leans forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “I was thinking, a beautiful woman