The Sweet Dead Life

by Joy Preble

  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 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?”

  “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 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.”

  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.

  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.

  What Happened at BJ’s BBQ and After (and I swear this is all true):

  “Order whatever you want,” my brother told me as he directed me to a tiny table for two. “You’re hungry, right? You need to eat with that Cipro. I’ll bring you a water. You can have a Coke later if you want. But no ice cream if you have cobbler. You can’t take that stuff with dairy products.”

  I smirked. “You a doctor now?”

  “Amber reviewed your meds with me.” I noticed that the two zits that had sat in the middle of his chin for, well, ever, were gone. “Is there something on my face?” Casey asked when I stared for a couple beats too long.

  “No.”

  “Then stop staring. I need to work.”

  “Who is she?” I demanded. “Seriously, Casey. Enough.” I wanted a sandwich, but mostly I wanted the tru
th, especially if he was now taking medical advice from this stranger who’d inserted herself in our lives. “What’s going on with you two? Aren’t you pissed that she was nosing around about Mom and Dr. Renfroe? That’s not her business. She’s like a stalker or something. Doesn’t that bother you? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  His face got that weird look again.

  Suddenly, I found myself spilling my suspicions. Maybe because for the first time in a month I actually felt decent enough to form coherent thoughts for longer than five minutes, until I had to puke or pee green again. “She’s got to be a narc,” I said. “Do you owe Dave money, maybe? Is that what she has on you?”

  Casey snorted a laugh. “Amber’s not a cop. Believe me.”

  How could he sound so sure?

  “Then what? You know something, Casey. So why aren’t you telling me?”

  “You’re just hungry,” my brother said calmly. “You’ve been sick so long you probably forgot how cranky you get when you don’t eat. Chopped beef sound okay to you? And fries, right? Jorge’s cooking tonight. But remember—”

  “Yeah, yeah. No dairy. Got it.”

  It was official. Casey’s overall niceness was weirding me out even more than Amber’s stalking. If he was feeling so damn nice, I could use that to my advantage. I would eat and do my homework and eventually wrangle the truth out of him if it killed me. Well, maybe not that.

  I MANAGED HALF of the chopped beef without any reversals—impressive since my stomach was still grumbly—and was attempting Jorge’s perfectly crisp French fries when I noticed Casey talking to Lanie Phelps over by the drink station. Yes, that Lanie Phelps. Blonde-haired, tall cheerleader Lanie Phelps who until yesterday wouldn’t have given my brother a cold, much less her undivided attention.

  She looked—What exactly? Sad? Embarrassed? She was shaking her head, over and over. Casey was nodding. Then he laid that soothing hand on her shoulder. She stared up at him, eyes wide.

  If I hadn’t known Lanie better, I might have guessed she was apologizing. But that would be impossible. This was the girl who seemed to prize, above all else, the ability to perform and look good while doing so on America’s Next Sensation or whatever celebrity-judged talent show was most popular. She was incapable of apologizing. At least she had been back when she’d informed my brother that she did not date loser potheads. I almost wished Amber Velasco could lend me one of her little secret narc hidden microphones (seriously, what was in that utility belt?) so I could overhear the conversation.

  Then came the truly flummoxing part: Casey leaned over and whispered in Lanie’s ear. And she giggled.

  I must have gasped, because Casey turned to me.

  He pursed his lips. Then he whispered something else in Lanie’s ear. She giggled again, this time covering her mouth. Her hand dropped and she flashed another apologetic smile. Casey jerked his head towards the bathrooms and proceeded in that general direction. Lanie followed.

  My French fry dropped onto my half-completed algebra worksheet.

  I counted. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi …

  At twenty, I decided they weren’t coming back.

  At forty Mississippi I was positive.

  All doubt had been removed. The universe had turned against me. What I would give for a freaking cell phone. I needed Mags. She could explain these mysteries to me. This had to be a sign.

  Bryce plodded by. His short-sleeved white shirt gapped a little where it was buttoned over the biggest part of his belly. There were sweat stains in his armpits. I was glad I’d put down the fries.

  “Hey Jenna,” he said. “How ya feeling?”

  “With my fingers,” I told him.

  He laughed. Bryce found extraordinarily stupid comments highly amusing. It was one of the few things I liked about him. “Where’s Casey?” he asked.

  Yes, Bryce ran a tight ship here at BJ’s. I figured maybe he knew something I didn’t. Maybe Lanie was applying for a job. Maybe my brother was showing her how to scrub the toilets. It was possible. Anything was possible. Perhaps this is what the universe was trying to tell me.

  Bryce scanned the dining room. “Hmmm,” he said. He shambled toward the kitchen. A few seconds later, he headed toward the bathrooms, disappearing down the narrow hallway. I retrieved my French fry, popped it into my mouth, chewed and waited. Another possibility: this was a new and extraordinarily clever method for my brother to ignore my questions about Amber.

  All of a sudden Bryce’s shouting rang out through BJs: “Do you still want to work here?”

  An instant later, Casey and Lanie reappeared. Her face was bright red and she was fiddling with her shirt like it needed readjusting, but Casey’s hair was un-mussed. So if he wasn’t showing her how to scrub toilets, they must not have done too much. But his ‘Hi My Name is Dick’ nametag sat askew on his chest. Lanie made a beeline for the door and vanished into the night.

  “Bye,” Casey called after her.

  My eyes narrowed. My fists clenched at my sides. There was sparkly peach lip gloss smeared on his left cheek. His grin was wide and happy. Not stoned happy. More like the real thing. So, unless I’d completely lost my mind (wasn’t ruling that out) the Ex that “broke my heart forever” (Casey’s uninspired phrasing during a cheesy stoned rant) had planted a sloppy smooch on his face. In the BJ’s bathroom.

  Okay. Deep breaths. Calm down. Think. This could explain things: the way he suddenly seemed to care about his appearance, his sudden good mood. Maybe Lanie had called him after he’d nearly died in our car wreck. Maybe she had finally realized what a jerk she’d been. Casey could have kept all this from me, after all. Why not? Maybe he was embarrassed because he knew how much I hated her.

  In a way, though, this could be perfect. If he and Lanie were getting back together, it would focus Casey on something besides Amber.

  On the other hand—Really? Lanie and Casey, reconciled? Last I heard, she’d dumped the star running back at Spring Creek because he was “too short, in the ambition department.” Casey had shared this little rumor with me, also when stoned. (Then again, “stoned” could account for most of the last year.) I glanced at the remains of my chopped beef and fries. By now, almost every table was filled with people and platters of sliced beef and ribs and potato salad. There was a line at the door. The tables around me were all Casey’s. I saw my chance and leaped from my seat. Finally.

  While Casey was taking orders, I could corner him. I’d gnaw on his ankles if I had to, but I was not letting him back to the kitchen without telling me something true about Amber and whatever he knew that I didn’t. If he ran, I’d chase him. Besides, no way would Bryce let him leave in the middle of another shift.

  Now here is the weird part, which in itself sounds weird. But this was even weirder than poisoned boots and missing fathers, stalker EMTs and gambling grandmas who suddenly loan you their cars, and heinous ex-girlfriends who reappear to possibly hook up with my brother in the bathroom. This was, well—I didn’t know what it was—which I guess was the point.

  I advanced on Casey. We made eye contact. He got that (by now) familiar but strange calm look on his face. Flipped open his order pad. Whipped a pencil from behind his ear. Turned his attention to the family of six crowded around a four top. Launched into his spiel about how BJ’s uses mesquite chips in their pit …

  And that’s when it happened.

  I was passing by three guys sharing two pitchers of beer and eating ribs. They’d been through a prodigious number of slabs already; bones were piled high on the platter; some littered the table like a barbeque graveyard. One pitcher was empty. The other was full. The chubbiest guy—with a receding hairline that did not bode well for his follicle future—reached for the full pitcher of beer. And I swear on all that is holy that his hand never got to it. I swear that it tipped all on its own. Slid to the end of the table and poured to the floor in a mighty splash as I was speed-walking by.

  I slipped. Maybe in the time before persons unkn
own had tried to do away with me by putting snake venom in my footwear, I might have been agile enough to hop around it. I’d been on the track team after all. I used to be a limber girl. Even Lanie knew that because way back when, she’d been harping on me to try out for cheer. I was thin and wiry, she’d said. Just right for the top of the pyramid.

  But I hadn’t been that Jenna in a while. My arms windmilled. My feet scrabbled in the puddle of beer. I was going down—

  And then my brother was at my side.

  He caught me by the waist the second before I crashed to the floor. I had been positive that he wasn’t even looking my way. Just as positive as I’d been that the pitcher of beer had tipped on its own. Maybe the antivenin wasn’t working as fast as I’d assumed, after all.

  “You need to be careful,” Casey said.

  In a daze, I sloshed through the beer back to my table. Casey held my chair, waiting until I flopped into it. “Done with that?” he asked. He removed my dinner basket and scooted off to finish taking the order he’d begun.

  AT THE END of Casey’s shift, we hauled ourselves into the Merc and drove to Mario’s Grille. By then I had recovered my wits enough to work up a new head of steam.

  “I know you’re holding back on me,” I insisted. “You always tell me stuff, Casey. Does Amber have a secret or something? Did she make you take a blood oath or threaten you?” Narcs went corrupt all the time. Especially narcs who were actually dealers. Or worked two jobs, like as an EMT. Or just weird chicks. Yes, I was making it up as I went along, but it sounded way more reasonable than what I’d actually experienced at BJ’s.

  He laughed, but his jaw flickered. “You’re being ridiculous, Jenna.”

  “I’m being ridiculous? This from the guy who lets a stranger take blood from our mother. Amber pops up everywhere! That’s not normal.” I was still half-convinced that she’d been in his room last night.

  “She’s just—she’s not a stranger, Jenna.” His cheeks flushed.

  “Not a stranger. That’s the best you can do?” I grunted and stared ahead at the dark road. Hell, maybe he did like her. Maybe that was all this was about. My brother had the hots for Amber Velasco, EMT/narc/stalker. He was just too shy and backward to tell her, so he settled for making out (or close enough) with Queen Bitch Lanie Phelps instead. Of course, that didn’t explain why Lanie Phelps wanted to make out with him, but maybe when your ex almost dies it kicks up weird hormones. “Who is she?” I asked for what felt like the millionth time. “Who?”