The Sweet Dead Life (9 page)

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Ariats were almost always on my feet, unless I was asleep. Dr. Renfroe aimed his little ear-examining pen-light down into the black hole of the left boot.

"Aha," he said.

After that, I got a little too foggy to follow. Apparently there were little stiff threads poking up from the soles that seemed to match the pin pricks.

Somehow the insides had been coated with poison, and this was how it was entering my system. At least that was the current theory.

The last thing I remember: My boots were bagged up, too. Ed the RN was called to bring a biohazard sack.

Goodbye, Ariats. I loved you with all my heart before you tried to kill me
.

AFTER THAT, I must have napped. When I woke up, a very nice detective whose name totally escaped me asked a few questions and then headed to Boot Town to question Jesus Olivier about my Ariats. Something told me this would be a dead end. Jesus had been so insistent that I come back and buy another pair when I got more money. This did not strike me as the behavior of a man who wanted to poison me. Besides, I had let him step me up to the extra bottle of leather cleaner, hadn't I? There was no reason for him to hold a grudge.

When the cop left, I realized that I had no footwear. Ed the RN came to my rescue.

"Here," he said cheerfully. "I found you a pair of clogs that look like they'll fit."

This was how I left the hospital--wearing somebody else's purple Crocs. I wasn't sure what was worse--knowing I'd been poisoned or having to go out in public in the clogs. It was a toss-up. First, however, I received an IV of antivenin, (it

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was a crap shoot as to which type of snake), a shot of Cipro (plus two weeks of pills), and a tetanus shot. Dr. Renfroe was keeping the option of a blood transfusion on the table, and he would call us about the new blood test. But if he was right, I should start feeling better. My pee might even stop looking green. Maybe. He wasn't sure of that part. He thought the color could be caused by something else, although he had ruled out Ed's theory of algae or oysters. At that point Dr. Renfroe also proved that he should not leave medicine for a comedy career by referring to my green urine as a "red herring" and then chuckling.

Also, I was warned not to take tranquilizers or antihistamines because they might screw with the effects of the anti-venin.

In short, I would live. At least until whoever had been trying to kill me figured out another way to do it.

Stuart Renfroe, MD, did not say that last part. But in my head I knew it was true. I might be sick and dizzy but I was still a straight-A student.

The wiggly knot in my stomach had returned, possibly a permanent resident.

I almost wished Casey would lay his hand on me again.

I clogged my way back to the Merc.
Do your thing, antivenin. I am done like
dinner with my not-Ebola
. I pictured the antivenin in purple Crocs like the ones on my feet, only smaller, clogging its way through my system, making me feel better.

Suddenly, I remembered that I had not eaten lunch.

"We need to check on Mom," Casey said. "Amber's gonna take her blood so we can get it looked at. I'd bring her to hospital, but after how hysterical she got last night, I don't think she'd go. This way she won't be scared."

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"You're seriously going to let
her
stick a needle in Mom's arm?" I decided it was best if I talked about Amber like she wasn't still standing there with us.

"Jenna," Casey said. His cell phone buzzed. He answered.

"Shit," he said when he clicked off. "It was Bryce. I have to work tonight.

Kemp Lundquist has the flu." He seemed to consider something. "You're coming with me. You can do your homework at one of the tables."

"And after that, you'll come by Mario's Grille," Amber added. Her tone was pleasant but firm. Like she was the boss of both of us, or an aunt or something, when she was none of the above. "I'm bartending until midnight."

Casey nodded. I gawked at him. Why the hell was he agreeing with this?

"What for? No!" It is hard to be stubborn in borrowed purple clogs. It is hard to be anything but tired and humiliated.

"How long have your mother and Dr. Renfroe known each other?" Amber asked, ignoring my protest.

"I--what? Why do you care?"

"Just work friends? Or does she see him outside Oak View Convalescent?"

"She sees him when he drops by to visit," Casey said.

I glared at him.

"And when he comes over to your house, how long does he stay?" she asked.

"Hello? Why do you care?" I stomped my foot. She didn't even blink. I made a mental note: Crocs are not intimidating to anyone.

Casey yanked me away, but even he seemed flummoxed. (Incidentally, flummoxed was my second favorite word from last week's vocabulary list. It means very confused.
Your interest in my mother has me flummoxed, Amber
Velasco
.)

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Amber pursed her lips at the both of us. "Just trying to get all the details."

Question: Why would an EMT-slash-bartender need details? Answer: she wouldn't unless she was a narc. Maybe Dr. Renfroe had noticed something and was on to her. He was a smart guy. He would not fall for her fake EMT

chicanery. Or maybe her weirdness was some kind of attempt at trying to move up in the medical world. Maybe she just wanted all the glory for figuring out what was wrong with me and figured if she wormed her way into our good graces by helping Mom, then she could hang around some more until she found a way to take credit for my hopefully miraculous recovery.

That's the way some people were. They might look like they were helping you but actually they were in it for themselves.

"See you at your house, okay?" Amber said.

"Okay," Casey said. He hurried me towards the Merc.

Amber waved. Her ponytail bounced in the breeze. The space around her seemed ... brighter than the rest of the parking lot, even though she wasn't standing under one of those horrible fluorescent lights. I was going to have to get my eyes checked. Maybe Dr. Renfroe knew a good ophthalmologist.

"I don't like her," I hissed at Casey as I hoisted myself into the front passenger seat. "I don't see why you keep letting her hang around. We know what's wrong with me. We don't need her."

He turned the key in the ignition. The Merc coughed into life.

"You don't know everything, Jenna," my brother said mysteriously. "She's cool. Really you're just gonna have to believe me, okay?"

I folded my arms across my chest. No, Casey. It was not

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okay. Nothing was okay. I wanted to say all of these things, but I didn't.

"Who would want me poisoned?" I asked. I decided to shift topics.

Discussing Amber Velasco, who she really was, and what her possible motives could be for casting some weird mind control spell over my brother would only make me queasy again.

"I'm trying to figure that out," he said.

Something in his voice told me that he really was. Somehow, in one day, my brother had morphed from stoned laptop perv to responsible brother who tried to solve mysteries. It was like we'd fallen into a Scooby Doo cartoon, only without Scooby.

Amber met us outside our house. She shimmied from the Camaro carrying her EMT bag.

I clogged inside, once again trying to pretend she wasn't there. It was the only solution to the problem of her constant presence. Like wearing a stranger's purple Crocs. Sometimes that's just what you have to do.

Mom was in bed. No big surprise. Do we burst out and tell her I'd been poisoned? I didn't want to spook her. She blinked at us as we walked in the room. She was still wearing Casey's old Green Lantern T-shirt. A sticky-looking stain about two inches in diameter--juice? drool?--now graced the middle. For some reason, her computer was up and running and logged onto the Internet. Our neighbors all had wireless; we had discovered it wasn't that hard to mooch onto their connections when we got behind on paying for ours.

Mom's eyes focused on Amber. "Hi?" she said, her voice rising like it was a question.

"This is Amber," Casey said. "She helped us last night when we had the accident, remember?"

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"Accident?" Mom tilted her head. "I went somewhere, didn't I?"

Casey reminded her of what had happened. He gave her the short version.

Car wreck, hospital, consent form--
remember
? Mom's eyes spilled over with tears. I winced at the dust on the furniture, at my mother lying half propped up in her bed, at the sheets that need washing and the various bottles of over-the-counter medicines and vitamins on her nightstand. Of the things that I didn't want Amber to turn out to be, one of them was a witness to our family's pitiful situation. Too late for that, though.

"Don't worry," Amber said quietly. She stood closer than I wanted, so I edged away, the damn purple clogs heavy on my feet against the carpet that needed vacuuming. "She's going to get better, Jenna. I ... I just have a feeling."

I socked her in the arm. Hard.

"Jesus!" Casey yelped. "Jenna. What the hell?" His face flushed red. He looked from me to Amber to my mother and then back to Amber.

"Your sister's upset," Amber said. "Let her be."

Now she was defending me? I almost laughed. Mom sat up straighter. Her eyes brightened. I lowered myself to sit on the side of the bed. She took my hands in hers. Her skin was rough, like sandpaper.

"Your father's alive," Mom said. "He really is."

I felt my eyes widen. "You know this?" My mouth went dry.

She nodded. "I do. I told you yesterday, Jenna. I've been searching online."

Mom drifted, her gaze wandering from my face to the bed to the ceiling. "I ...

it's just so hard to remember." Tears drizzled down her cheeks. "I think he left me some messages. I think it has to do with Mexico? He's 75

afraid of something. That's why he hasn't come back. I just don't ..." She faded again. Her mouth moved, but she didn't form any actual words.

"Mexico?" I shook my head. "Are you saying that Daddy's in Mexico?"

More tears. "I don't know," she wept. "I keep trying to remember, and sometimes I start to, and then it goes. I just can't ..." She bent at the waist, buried her face in her lap.

"Do you want to go to the doctor, Mom?" For a moment I almost forgot about Amber. Gently, I propped her back up. I knew she would say no. She had been saying no for over a year now. At least she didn't seem poisoned.

Basically comatose, yes. In need of a hand to the bed sometimes. Forgetful about flushing. But when I flushed her toilet, her pee looked like regular pee.

Her feet weren't rashy, and if she was always thirsty, she was hiding it pretty well. I had to beg her to drink. Just getting her to swallow that daily vitamin was a struggle, but she needed something to keep her going. Dr. Renfroe had suggested many times she suffered from depression. She refused to believe it.

Casey turned to Amber. "What if this isn't just depression?" he asked her.

"What if it's something else?"

The hair on my arms stood up. He had said what I was trying not to think. But that's why we'd rushed home in the first place. Because I was being poisoned (keep working, antivenin) and we were worried that maybe the same thing was happening to Mom. But inside my head, a voice whispered,

"Hey Jenna Samuels, remember Maggie's philosophy of life. There are no
coincidences."

Mom slumped back on her pillows and closed her eyes. I scooted closer to her, and when Amber stepped toward the bed, closer still.

"Let Amber help, Jenna," Casey said. "Please."

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It was the "please" that made me ease off the bed. He edged around me and stroked Mom's hair, then pressed his hand to her cheek. She sighed and smiled. Her eyes stayed closed.

My heart gave a smack against my ribs.
I
was the one who always got Mom settled down. Not Casey. He--well--he agitated her sometimes. Like part of her deep down, through the terrible fog, knew that he was doing things that didn't make her happy. The cannabis. The hanging out with Dave. Even if she didn't snap out of it and say something to him, I could always see that he made her edgy. I knew this because her reaction always pissed me off.

Casey did everything for her, and she had no clue.

My heart gave another knock when I realized that I hadn't even noticed Amber take Mom's blood. The little tube was in her hand. She popped it into a plastic Ziploc and placed it into her EMT bag. I almost protested but decided against it. Instead I straightened Mom's comforter. Casey set a fresh glass of water on her nightstand. He even used a coaster.

"I've got a friend in the lab," Amber said.

Of course she did. I was too exhausted to put up any kind of fight anymore. I hoped my antivenin was doing its job. Extra fun: I had five pages of algebra problems to do for Mr. Maybe Not Quite an Asshat Collins--plus whatever homework I needed to find out about for the classes I'd missed.

And as for Dad, well, screw him. He had no business showing up in the middle of all this craziness, even as a ghost in some wishful fever dream of Mom's. I had long ago decided that he didn't want to be found. Nothing had ever given me the impression that he was dead. But nothing had ever given me the impression that he wasn't, either. Now I wondered.

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I kissed Mom's forehead. Her skin felt cool, not cold or clammy or hot. Her breathing was calm and even.

We locked up the house and left.

We were two blocks away when I realized that I was still wearing the clogs.

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