Every once in a while, lately after online counseling sessions with Edwina, Placida still craved wine or beer. She was not alone in being ”triggered” like this; the topic regularly cropped up at her AA meetings. She’d never liked the hard stuff, but in her college days at Trinity she could consume an entire six-pack within two hours, believing that it laid a foundation for fun. The problem that arose was how to do without it. There wasn’t a party every night, and she needed an excuse.
By her junior year she was downing either eight 12-ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon or a 1.5-liter bottle of California chardonnay in the course of a weekday evening. Nothing cooled Placida’s tongue like white wine, in the sense that without it, she tended to be argumentative and cynical; after half a bottle, she mellowed into a fine companion, she thought— optimistic and agreeable. Beer had a different effect, though, energizing her while she half-assedly worked on research papers or skimmed psychology journals, the gleanings of which were lost to conscious memory in the overnight sloshing of her brain-pan. But she learned to take notes and compile relevant quotations even while drunk. Beer made her feistier. Alone in her apartment she’d do verbal battle with assertions she disagreed with as she reviewed various scholarly texts (at that time hard copy).
Placida had never owned her own car. Having arrived in Hartford CT directly from Springdale, PA (childhood home of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson, Placida always reminded people), she fell in love with public transportation. She did have her driver’s license since her parents had needed her help with picking up supplies, bringing produce to market, and other errands which Placida found distressingly boring. She disliked the pickup truck as a vehicle; it represented something she did not want to be: a half-Mexican farm girl, one of three half-Mexican siblings living on someone else’s property tilling the recalcitrant soil. It didn’t matter that her father had managed to secure a position as math teacher at the high school she attended; that only caused other students to mock her further— “teacher’s little chihuahua.” At Tecnológico de Monterrey her father had been a respected professor. Here, he was lucky to be allowed to stay. Her mother Gina, with a master’s in social work, had been relegated to domesticity and crop rotation. Placida felt sorry for both of them.
The timing had been right for her to snag that Trinity scholarship back in the 1980s. Joey had just turned 16 and was able to take her place as family errand-mule. Once classes started Placida hadn’t looked back, except for holiday visits that she limited to short weekends whose evenings would find her guiding a rented Cadillac across the Allegheny River on the Ninth Street Bridge into New Kensington— “birthplace of the aluminum industry”— to hang out at MacKenzie’s Pub. It was on her way back from MacKenzie’s on New Year’s Eve of her senior year at Trinity that the accident on the bridge changed her life and her relationship to alcohol.
Now Mario and Gina were gone, and their section of the Halberts’ farm had been sold for development. Placida Morales was in touch with her siblings only via social media, and not very often. Clients came and went, but she felt much closer to them than she did to family. Even Edwina, as annoying as she had turned out to be, brought out Placida’s nurturing instinct. She was beginning to regret her experiment with the beard and the different last name, at least as far as Edwina was concerned. With the half-dozen other clients with whom she used the disguise, she had no such regret.
— Macoff
By her junior year she was downing either eight 12-ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon or a 1.5-liter bottle of California chardonnay in the course of a weekday evening. Nothing cooled Placida’s tongue like white wine, in the sense that without it, she tended to be argumentative and cynical; after half a bottle, she mellowed into a fine companion, she thought— optimistic and agreeable. Beer had a different effect, though, energizing her while she half-assedly worked on research papers or skimmed psychology journals, the gleanings of which were lost to conscious memory in the overnight sloshing of her brain-pan. But she learned to take notes and compile relevant quotations even while drunk. Beer made her feistier. Alone in her apartment she’d do verbal battle with assertions she disagreed with as she reviewed various scholarly texts (at that time hard copy).
Placida had never owned her own car. Having arrived in Hartford CT directly from Springdale, PA (childhood home of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson, Placida always reminded people), she fell in love with public transportation. She did have her driver’s license since her parents had needed her help with picking up supplies, bringing produce to market, and other errands which Placida found distressingly boring. She disliked the pickup truck as a vehicle; it represented something she did not want to be: a half-Mexican farm girl, one of three half-Mexican siblings living on someone else’s property tilling the recalcitrant soil. It didn’t matter that her father had managed to secure a position as math teacher at the high school she attended; that only caused other students to mock her further— “teacher’s little chihuahua.” At Tecnológico de Monterrey her father had been a respected professor. Here, he was lucky to be allowed to stay. Her mother Gina, with a master’s in social work, had been relegated to domesticity and crop rotation. Placida felt sorry for both of them.
The timing had been right for her to snag that Trinity scholarship back in the 1980s. Joey had just turned 16 and was able to take her place as family errand-mule. Once classes started Placida hadn’t looked back, except for holiday visits that she limited to short weekends whose evenings would find her guiding a rented Cadillac across the Allegheny River on the Ninth Street Bridge into New Kensington— “birthplace of the aluminum industry”— to hang out at MacKenzie’s Pub. It was on her way back from MacKenzie’s on New Year’s Eve of her senior year at Trinity that the accident on the bridge changed her life and her relationship to alcohol.
Now Mario and Gina were gone, and their section of the Halberts’ farm had been sold for development. Placida Morales was in touch with her siblings only via social media, and not very often. Clients came and went, but she felt much closer to them than she did to family. Even Edwina, as annoying as she had turned out to be, brought out Placida’s nurturing instinct. She was beginning to regret her experiment with the beard and the different last name, at least as far as Edwina was concerned. With the half-dozen other clients with whom she used the disguise, she had no such regret.
— Macoff
I can't imagine what's so interesting about Edwina so looking forward to what is to come.
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