Spin Read Online Free PDF Page B

difficult
one, that the thought of going to rehab undercover to dig up dirt on a young
woman in the middle of self-destructing gave me pause. I wish I could say I was
indignant that Bob thought I’d agree to do it, or that I could convince anyone I
needed to be in rehab. But that wouldn’t be true, and the first step to recovery
is admitting that I have a problem, right?
    So, OK, I do.
    I want to work at The Line so badly I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get into Bob’s good
books. And if spying on TGND in a sober environment for a minimum of thirty days
is going to get me there, well . . . so be
it.
    F orty-two minutes and four mini bottles of Jameson and Coke later (hey,
I can’t drink at all for the next thirty days, and
I’ve never been a good flier), the plane lands, and I disembark a little
unsteadily onto the sunny tarmac.
    I grew up about forty minutes from here in a town
nestled at the base of a ski hill that’s so small it doesn’t even have a real
supermarket (just the Little Supermarket, where everything is twice as expensive
and has twice the calories). There’s no McDonald’s, no main street, no town
hall, and no courthouse. It does have a liquor store and a Santa’s Village, but
that’s about it. Unemployment’s through the roof, the high school’s twenty miles
away, and most of the residents don’t ski, despite the highest elevation in the
east sitting at their back door.
    My parents are an exception: educated and middle
class, they fell in love with the outdoor life and moved to the town in a fit of
hippieness in the late seventies to set up a commune with some like-minded
friends. Six months, four broken friendships, and two divorces later, only my
parents remained in the half-finished house nestled on a back road in a
back-road town. The house was finished just before I came along. By the time my
sister arrived a few years later, we even had indoor plumbing. Mom teaches
English at the high school, and Dad is assistant manager at the ski hill.
    I left town the day after high school graduation
and never looked back. Fame and fortune hadn’t followed, but I was surviving. I
was eking out a living in a city that spat out wide-eyed, small-town girls like
cherry pits.
    I haven’t been home in four years.
    When I stumble out of the terminal, a pretty woman
about my own age is waiting for me. She has caramel-colored hair that falls to
her shoulders and round brown eyes. She’s wearing khaki pants and a dark blue
polo shirt with a white Cloudspin Oasis logo on it.
    “Hello, Katie, I’m Carol, the intake administrator
for the Oasis.” She speaks in the local, drawn-out accent I’ve worked hard to
get rid of.
    “Hi, Carol. Thanks for picking me up.”
    That might’ve come out, “Sanks for sticking me up,”
though I’m not exactly sure.
    “Have you been drinking, Katie?”
    Hello! Of course I’ve been drinking. I’m supposed
to be an alcoholic.
    “I had a few drinks on the plane to steady my
nerves.”
    Schdeady me nervsss.
    “Well, we’ve got about a half-hour drive to the
lodge.”
    “I know. I grew up around here.”
    She smiles. “Then you’ll feel right at home.”
    Absofuckinglutely.
    We climb into the van, and Carol maneuvers it onto
the highway. I fiddle with the radio dial, searching for the station I listened
to growing up. It comes in faintly through the crappy radio. The Plain White-T’s
are singing “Hey There Delilah.”
    Feeling oddly happy (I’ve got a good song + drinks
buzz going), I roll down the window and breathe in the smell of the mountains.
Maybe all woods smell the same, but this combination of loamy earth and tangy
pines smells like home to me.
    Seven songs later, Carol slows down to make the
turn into the driveway that leads to the Cloudspin Oasis. Three cars are parked
across the road. A group of dingy-looking men holding cameras and smoking
cigarettes are lounging on the hoods. As we stop at the gate, one of them rises
half-heartedly and walks