The Sweet Dead Life (5 page)

Here was the truth: Dad was gone, no matter what Mom had rambled incoherently at me before today's catastrophe (Correction: yesterday's.) Mom was never going to be herself again. I might as well accept it. But the truth not only sucked, it also confused me all over again. Why the hell
had
Dad disappeared five years ago? He had a family. He had a job. He was a sports reporter for the
Chronicle
. He had even published a book on the history of Texas barbeque which you could still find in some stores:
Texas Q: 60

Different Sauces, But Only One Truth
.

People like that--people with homes and vacation plans for Disney World--

do not walk out of the house one morning and never come back. They do not leave a note on the kitchen table that cryptically says, "Y'all take care. I love you," underneath which they place a certificate for a fajita dinner for four at Manny's Real Tex Mex in the city. (Coincidentally, Dad had been working on a new book about Mexican food when he flew the coop.) By the time we realized that his departure was permanent, the gift certificate to Manny's had expired.

But that was the whole point. I could drive myself crazy over the past. Sixty different possibilities, but only one truth.

34

He was gone. And in the here-and-now, we had no car and virtually no Mom.

Casey and I sat at the kitchen table and ate our turkey sandwiches and chips. (I let him have both packs.) We drank our waters. Neither of us spoke.

My brother kept eyeballing me like I was going to explode or something.

"I never saw that pickup truck," he said finally. "I just wanted to get you to the hospital, Jenna. I swear." He chugged the rest of his water. I watched him swallow. He looked upset, worried--and something else I couldn't name.

"I know," I said.

My brother wadded up the sandwich sack and tossed it in the general direction of the kitchen counter. Obviously his guilt about almost squashing me while I was already dying of not-meningitis had not made him any less of a pig. Which in a way, was a relief. Everything felt so weird right now,
too
weird. But he was the same old Casey, even if he'd been fixed up at the hospital so well that Amber, highly annoying EMT, deserved a medal.

Maybe that's all it was with Casey and her. He was just grateful. I'd been so sick, I'd just forgotten that he wasn't all
that
out of shape before the accident.

I was sick, so I wanted him to be sick, too. I was "projecting," something Mr.

Collins had accused me of doing when he assigned my detention. This was fancy talk for saying that the only reason I'd called him an asshat was because my family was screwed up.

I had informed him that I did not need to be psychoanalyzed. He had been impressed by my vocabulary.

"You want me to sleep in your room?" Casey asked, helping me upstairs.

I frowned at him. "Um, no."

He laughed. I noticed that his chipped lower front tooth was no longer chipped.

35

"Did you file your tooth?" I reached out to touch it and he backed away.

Okay then
. Casey retreated to his own room.

I was already half asleep as my head sank into my pillow.

IT WAS STILL dark outside when something woke me. I realized that I had to pee, so I started toward the bathroom when I noticed light shining from under Casey's door. (Let me add here that sharing a bathroom with Casey has not been the highlight of my existence. This includes but is not limited to my distaste for the permanent yellow stain at the base of our mutual toilet because my brother is incapable of aiming into the bowl.) That's when I heard noise coming from Casey's room. Voices. Was he really up at four in the morning listening to Katy Perry again?

I stood in the hallway, listening.

No. Not Katy Perry, just the same floaty, droning drum-filled instrumental stuff that I'd heard after the accident, coming from the ambulance. And the voices: one was Casey's of course. The other sounded like ... Amber.

Okay.
Now
it made sense. He'd figured out what music she liked, found pictures of her online and was putting on a little show for himself. Amber might be a drug dealer, but I had to admit she was good looking, maybe even the cheer type, like stupid Lanie Phelps. I bet Casey found some of her old high school photos. That had to be it. Yes, it was gross and disturbing.

But it was logical.

I pressed my ear to the door. The white glow seeped out onto my bare feet.

My toenails sparkled.

"I can't be," I heard Casey say.

"But you are," said the voice that sounded like Amber. "Get used to it."

36

Wait
. Was she actually in there with him? No way. But her voice definitely didn't sound like it was coming though his crap computer speakers. My head spun, and not from not-Ebola. I was too confused. My brother was not what one would define as a chick magnet. He hadn't even
wanted
a girlfriend since Lanie dumped him. (As if he'd had a choice! He was practically my legal guardian, except for the legal part.) Plus let's face it, Casey found it acceptable to wear a shirt with a Hostess Twinkie on it. He did not have middle-of-the-night visits from older women with gainful employment and an EMT uniform. Unless said women came to sell him weed. Right. That had to be it.

My heart pounded. I figured I'd give them fair warning.

"Casey." I rapped sharply on the door. "What's all that racket?"

The noise stopped abruptly, like turning off a faucet. The light went dark. I opened the door to Casey's room.

He was sprawled on his back in his bed. Asleep. Alone. I tiptoed around the room a few times to make sure.

I shook my brother awake. "Was your computer on?" I asked him.

"You must have been dreaming," Casey said. "Do you need me to help you back to your room?"

This wasn't worth answering. I slammed his door behind me, stomped into the bathroom, peed loudly, flushed twice, and stomped back to my room.

The universe had spit out something. And no, it was not my not-Ebola and my runaway father and incapacitated mother. I had no clue
what
it was. At least not yet.

37

I am not usually a list girl. But I needed to organize all the weirdness. Maybe if I put it in categories, it really
would
make sense--like an algebra problem or one of those optical illusions--like the one where if you look at it one way it's a lady sitting at a mirror and if you squint just right, it's a skull.

So: categories. They had to help.

1) Amber's email:

Normally I don't read my brother's email. I have enough disturbing stuff in my world. But when I woke up again and heard Casey in the shower, I figured it wouldn't hurt to poke around his room while he was otherwise occupied--

and risk touching a laptop still in dire need of disinfectant. That's when I found this:

38

Email from Amber Velasco, Nosy, Annoying, Possibly Weeddealing Paramedic

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Your sister ...

Just checking on your sister. I don't usually do this, but ... I snagged your email from the hospital report. I hope you don't mind. If you need anything or have any questions, feel free to call me. And if you want to talk face-to-face, I tend the bar on Saturday and Sunday nights--sometimes also Wednesdays--

at Mario's Grille. Just come on in. I'll be looking for you.

Amber Velasco, EMT.

I'll be looking for you
.

Really, Amber? Subtle. She wasn't asking Casey to meet her. She was telling him. So he
must
have owed her money, or something. At least she had sort of asked about me. Conclusion: Maybe she wasn't an entirely evil weed dealer. People can be all sorts of things. Just look at the Samuels family.

2) My brother's outfit and Dave's Grandma's car:

After I nosed around Casey's laptop, I hiked downstairs to check on my mother. She was wearing the same pair of sweats but had now changed into a Green Lantern T-shirt Casey had outgrown. She seemed only vaguely aware that I had had some kind of seizure in her presence yesterday. Even foggier was the memory that she had called BJ's hysterical

39

and looking for my brother, or that she had even taken a taxi to the hospital.

I got her to eat some toast and take a vitamin. I figured it would be pointless to show her the hospital bill that would now be added to the mountain-sized pile of things we hadn't paid. Then I trudged back upstairs, just as my brother strutted out of his room.

He was wearing clean jeans and an unwrinkled, collared khaki shirt. Strutted might not be the best description. Hip-swaggered probably covered it more accurately. Where had he gotten this shirt? Who had ironed his jeans? Why was he walking like that? I decided to stick with something he might actually answer.

"How are we getting to school?"

"No worries." Casey waved his hand, shooing my concern like he'd shoo a fly. "I talked to Dave. Mamaw Nell is loaning us her Mercury for awhile."

Mamaw Nell was Dave's grandmother. She was eighty-two, weighed about one hundred and five pounds soaking wet, chain-smoked Pall Malls, and had a voice that sounded like metal dragging across gravel. Dave had lived in the spare bedroom of her patio home since his parents kicked him out of the house last year. Either Mamaw Nell was a saint or she had a greater tolerance for Dave's pharmaceutical activities than the generation between them. I had never quite decided.

Casey looked both uncomfortable and smug. Was such a combo even possible? Maybe it was more like embarrassed at his wonderful new self-confidence. I'd be embarrassed if I were him, maybe just on general principle. He rubbed his neck and fiddled with his collar. A horn blasted on our driveway. Dave and the Mercury had arrived.

40

Mom had already retreated to her room. The muffled sounds of
The Price is
Right
echoed from behind her door.

Outside our house sat a copper-colored car the size of a small boat. The Prius, had it not been at Lonnie's Body Shop on Rayford Road receiving its last rites, would have beeped its uninspired little horn in awe. Also, the Prius would have called Dave an asshat for bashing its sad little self into the Jack in the Box menu in the first place.

We climbed inside. Dave let me ride shotgun. The car smelled like margaritas and mothballs. Mamaw Nell--Dave told us by way of explanation when I gagged and threatened to upchuck on the front seat--made frequent trips with her bunko group to the gambling boat on Lake Charles to play the nickel slots.

"Doesn't your grandma need her car?" I asked, trying to speak and hold my breath at the same time. Dave's ancient Corolla, I knew, was finally out of the shop. Why hadn't he just given us a ride?

"Yeah, well, it was freaky, if you want to know the truth," Dave said with a stoned chuckle. He slumped back in the seat cushion, one hand lazily on the wheel. "I was in the bathroom when my cell phone rang. When I came out, there she was, talking to your brother and offering him her car." He turned to Casey. "What all were you saying to her, anyway? After you hung up she was going on and on about how, like, amazing and polite you are. And I was like, 'Do you know him, Mamaw?' Anyway, here it is. She says y'all can keep it as long you need to."

I figured my brother would question this gift. Casey had his problems, but even he knew that Dave was a pot-smoking loser who frequently manipulated the truth to suit his better interests. He'd even attempted to teach me to roll joints

41

one night, even though I didn't smoke the stuff, causing my brother to blacken Dave's left eye.

"You know what?" Casey reached over from the backseat and put his hand on Dave's shoulder. "Why don't you let me drive?"

"Better driver than you," Dave drawled.

But he slammed to a stop when Casey squeezed his shoulder again.

"Damn," Dave said. "What the hell? You been working out or something?"

"Something," my brother said.

Dave let Casey drive the rest of the way to Ima Hogg. Yes, I know this should have made me nervous. But it didn't.

One more thing: Mamaw Nell had sent Casey--not me--a tin of her famous snickerdoodles. And a Starbucks gift card. Yes, my brother had emerged unscathed (improved, even) from a car wreck, but he got the free car and the get-well gifts.

Conclusion: Mamaw Nell, like her grandson, was an asshat.

3) How Maggie reacted:

Mags was standing near the front door of Ima Hogg scribbling on a piece of paper when the three of us pulled up.

"Maggie," I hollered, staggering out of Mamaw's car, trying to escape the mothball/booze aroma wafting after me.

It had been too late to call her when we'd got home. (Besides, in one of her final coherent moments, Mom had refused to let me own a cell phone before I got to high school. I'd been furious about this until we went broke. After that, I saw it as one less thing I had to give up.)

"You're supposed to be in Spanish," I said.

42