Ninety Days Read Online Free

and Sixth Avenue between 8th and 10th Streets, and Fifth Avenue south of 10th Street. I’m also not to go within a two-block radius of Sixth Avenue and Houston, where my old drug buddy Mark’s apartment is and where much of my last drug use happened. The area around the now shut literary agency I co-owned, just north of Madison Square Park, is also off-limits. These places are what Jack calls triggers and I am to avoid them at all costs. For a moment I worry that the meeting where I’m joining Asa is off- ​limits , but then realize it sits on the 10th Street border, half a block east of Fifth. If it were one door south of 10th Street, I wouldn’t be able to go.
    I reach Fifth Avenue—the first time since coming home—and as the old familiar Art Deco tower that is One Fifth comes into view I feel like a ghost haunting my old life. How many times did I rush down this street toward home, worrying that Noah had changed the locks? How many times did I walk up Fifth toward the agency with a blistering hangover, gutted from being up the night before? Standing on the same pavement where I once walked with such agony I can’t help but wonder: How was I that person? How did it go on for so long? I walk toward the meeting and begin to think I should never have come back, that I should have accepted my sister Kim’s offer to live with her in Maine. How did I think it was possible to be here? Every inch of this neighborhood carries a memory of my life before. I look south, toward Washington Square Park, and I can see, just a few blocks away, the two oversized green awnings of One Fifth jutting out over the sidewalk. As clear as day I can see the corner windows of the apartment where Noah and I lived for six years, where Noah still lives. The last six weeks have passed in hospital rooms, rehab, and, last night, an unfamiliar apartment. Everything that has happened—breaking up with Noah, everyone knowing I’m a crack addict, the end of my career, the company gone, all the anger and disappointment—these things have all registered, yes, but collectively and in the abstract. This moment, however, is as concrete as the sidewalk I am standing on. This place before me—with shining windows and green awnings flapping in the breeze—was home and now is not. I no longer belong here. From some far memory comes the doomy voice of my childhood piano teacher, who predicted, after too many hours spent attempting to teach my distracted, unpracticed self, that I would one day grow up to become a crack addict, just as the most notorious girl in my hometown had. You’ll have your comeuppance, she forecast on more than one occasion, without a hint of doubt in her Irish brogue. One day you’ll have a rude awakening, and when you do it will take your breath away. And so it has.
    I turn onto the street where the meeting is and see a blond woman pushing a stroller toward me. It’s Jane, an old friend of Noah’s from Yale and the wife of a former client whom I haven’t spoken to in many months. Jane’s also a bestselling and highly respected author, and as she approaches I think, Of all the people in the world who I could run into, why her? As she looks up it occurs to me that she might not say a word, that she may just pass me by and pretend I’m not there. Of course she will. I’m a pariah now. That’s what people do when they encounter a pariah. They don’t see them.
    Jane slows down, kick-locks the stroller, and steps toward me. Without a word, she gently grabs my arms, pulls me in, and kisses me on the cheek. Quick, without ceremony, over-before-it’s-happened. She pats my shoulders, looks at me tenderly, and steps away. Jane, is all I manage to stammer before she’s unlocked the stroller and is off again down the street.
    It’s 12:25 and I’m already late to meet Asa. I sprint toward the meeting, still bewildered by Jane’s kindness. I see the research library where the meeting is held and go in. The security guard asks me to