Code Red

by Janie Chodosh

  “I didn’t. I was at work yesterday. I’m a vet tech. You can call if you want. Better yet, I can show you my time card. I just got paid.” He pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. The hours. The days. The times. All generated by a computer. Sure enough he was working Sunday when whoever it was came to the hospital to see on Mari. “If you don’t believe me, you can go over to the North Side Clinic and ask. I was working for Dr. Bloomberg. We had a cockapoo that was hit by a car. Poor little guy. I’m going back to check on him as soon as you leave.”

  “A cockapoo?”

  “Yep. Cute little thing,” he adds in a baby voice.

  “You are so not what you seem,” I say.

  “People usually aren’t. Now, if I were you and I wanted answers, I’d try to find out who else gave her a drink and could’ve slipped her the drugs. ’Cause it wasn’t me.”

  “THOMAS!” Trina calls from inside the house. “Come quick! Devil just threw up!”

  “I have to go. It looks like the guinea pig got into something. I’m sorry about your sister. When you find out what happened to her, I’d really like to know.”

  Seventeen

  With Thomas ruled out, I should be thinking about the other two guys who could’ve come to see Mari—Rudy and Bulldog, but I can’t stop thinking about how I’d felt earlier when Alma called and I thought she’d died. I realize I need to see her. I ask Clem if he can take me to the hospital. He agrees, but when we get in the car, he’s quiet and I remember how he seemed before when he was waiting for me outside of SCPG, like something was on his mind.

  We cruise up Alameda Street then turn onto St. Francis, the main drag through town, without talking. I look out the window as we tour the eclectic mishmash of Santa Fe—a river with no water, the upscale Whole Foods planted between a decrepit liquor store and a palm reader, a mural of corn and chile plants painted on a stucco wall in front of a tattoo parlor. Fifteen minutes later Clem pulls up in front of the hospital.

  “So, you want to go to platonic third base?” he asks, as he cuts the engine.

  I waggle my eyebrows, trying to get a smile out of him. “Sounds kinky.”

  “My dad’s coming for my concert. I haven’t told anyone,” he says, not returning my smile. “My mom doesn’t even know yet. He hasn’t been here in two years.”

  “At least he’s alive,” I snap, irritated that he’s pissed about having a father who cares enough about him in the first place to come visit. “People take things for granted.”

  Clem twists in his seat and his eyes drill into me. “Are you saying I take stuff for granted?”

  “No. I’m saying don’t take things for granted. If you’re pissed, tell him. If you’re glad he’s coming, tell him that. I’m just saying don’t wait to do the important shit. You might not get a chance.”

  He jiggles the keys and I think my little lecture has pissed him off more. Whatever. Let him be mad. Stress collides with lack of sleep and the weirdness today at SCPG and the result is internal combustion. I gear up to fight, but if I wanted a verbal sparring partner, I’m shit out of luck.

  “Do you have regrets about your father?” he asks in a quiet, thoughtful voice.

  I shrug, not ready to let go of my mood.

  “What would you say to him if you could?” he presses.

  “That he’s a jerk.”

  “That’s it?”

  I feel him looking at me, waiting for my answer. “I’d ask him why he left my mom,” I say, opening the door and getting out. “It doesn’t matter, though, does it? He’s dead. I’ll never get to ask.”

  ***

  When the elevator releases us to Mari’s floor, Clem waits in the hall as I go into her room. She’s lying on her side, the TV on low, the small bundle of her body barely a lump under the covers.

  “Hey,” she murmurs, looking at me through tired, foggy eyes. Her curls lay listless around her shoulders like something dead. I have an irrational urge to shout at those formerly springy ringlets, to yell at them to bounce back to life.

  Instead, I say the first stupid thing that pops into my mind. “You look great.”

  “Liar.”

  “Okay,” I say, digging into my pocket for the lighter. “You look…” I don’t know what to say, and finish with “tired,” the only word that comes to mind.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I am. That’s not really news though, is it?”

  The flatness of her voice together with her empty eyes and lifeless hair freaks me out—that and my little lecture to Clem about not taking things for granted. I fight off the lump in my throat.

  “Did you hear about Eslee? The girl from the party?” she asks. I don’t tell her that I already know what happened. I get that she wants to tell me herself. “I heard the nurses talking. They thought I was asleep.” There’s a tearful catch in her voice, and she wipes her nose on her arm. I listen through the shadows, through the beeping of machines, through the stale smell of sickness. “The same thing happened to her that happened to me. The paramedics brought her in with liquid gold in her system and then she died.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say, a calm so artificial it probably causes cancer. “But you’re not going to die.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about how that drug got into me,” she goes on. “I keep going over that night and I just can’t remember anything.” Her voice rises with anxiety. She sits up and starts to cough.

  “You don’t have to remember anything,” I say, upping the carcinogenic calm to keep her from getting more upset. “You just have to get better.” I sit on the bed with her for a few minutes until she falls asleep, then go back into the hall to get Clem.

  I find him talking to one of the nurses whose back is to me. When she turns around, I’m surprised to see that it’s his mom, Dolores. I’d forgotten she worked here.

  She greets me with a warm hug like the one she gave me the first time we met. “Clem tells me Mari is your half sister,” she says with a sympathetic smile. “She’s such a sweetheart. I was here all weekend, so I was one of the nurses taking care of her.”

  “You were here on Sunday?” I blurt, brain tumbling back to Mari’s anonymous visitor.

  “All day,” she says with a tired smile.

  “A nurse said a boy came in to see Mari on Sunday,” I explain, trying to keep the anxiousness from my voice. “But Mari was asleep. I wonder if you saw him or remember what he looked like?”

  She steps back to let a man pushing a gurney pass. “It was busy Sunday,” she says slowly. “But I remember a boy coming in and asking for Mari.”

  “What did he look like, Ma?” Clem asks.

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. There were so many people here over the weekend. I just remember that he was a young man—a bit older than you. Oh, and he had a tattoo, but that’s not saying much, is it? Every young person seems to be tattooed these days. It would be more of a statement to say he didn’t have one.” She gives Clem a stern look as if he’s about to get inked.

  I glance at the closed door of Mari’s room, diving back into detective mode. “If you remember anything else will you let me know?”

  She assures me she will and gives me her phone number in case I have more questions. “Do you need anything, Sweetheart? A nice home-cooked meal? Anything I can do for you?”

  The offer of a home-cooked meal ignites a homesick yearning for Alma and her adobe house and the dogs and the cornflower blue kitchen—but how can you be homesick for a person you hardly know and a place that isn’t yours? “I’ll let you know,” I say, then thank her, and we say good-bye.

  “It sucks about your dad, and I’m really sorry,” I say to Clem once we’re outside, hoping this addendum to our earlier conversation substitutes as an apology. “Just don’t neglect the mom factor, you know? She’s really cool.”

  He squeezes my hand, a touch t
hat tells me he accepts my apology, and says, “Noted. The mom factor will not be neglected.”

  We head toward Clem’s car, and even though I’m all tingly from the amazing aftermath of his touch, I’m too consumed with the tattooed guy who came to see Mari to do anything about it. The description could belong to either Rudy or Bulldog— or, of course, someone else entirely—but the more I think about it, the more my thoughts ping on Rudy.

  “Maybe Rudy thought it would be cute to get Mari high,” I say, more to myself than to Clem, but of course he answers with a “huh?” because it’s a hard to ignore such a non sequitur. “Or maybe he thought if she was out of it, Amelia could hang out at the party longer,” I go on. “Or maybe”—now my temper flares— “he slipped her liquid gold because he wanted to hit on her. Then she ended up in the hospital and he panicked, so he came to see if she had any memory that the beer he gave her made her sick.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes,” Clem says.

  “I know, but you have to start somewhere. You don’t figure shit out by sitting around and contemplating your ass. I need to tell Amelia what we found out,” I say as we reach his car. “She might hate me, but she is my sister and she should know what’s going on. Can you drive me over there?” His stomach rumbles, and I quickly add, “I promise, we’ll pig out as soon as we’re done.”

  Despite our protesting bellies, he agrees and we set off for Alma’s house. The drive is mostly a straight shot along a frontage road with the backdrop of pale desert to the west and mountains to the east. When we arrive, Clem says he’ll hang outside with the dogs while I speak to Amelia. Nobody comes to the door when I ring, so I turn the knob. It’s open. I go inside, leaving Clem with Biscochito and Sopapilla.

  The first thing I hear when I step into the house is the sound of breaking glass followed by an elaborate string of expletives. I stroll cautiously to the kitchen where the dramatic soundtrack is playing out.

  The word tornado comes to mind, the kind that sends trailer homes hurling through the air. Dishes, bowls, pots, and pans occupy every inch of counter space. Some of the kitchenware has migrated to the floor—a blender, cookbooks, baking trays. Flour coats all exposed surfaces. Eggshells drip the remains of their yolks. What appear to be dried cornhusks litter the floor. In the middle of it all stands Amelia, skinny legs sticking out of cut-off sweats, a blue bandanna tied over her hair, arms covered in flour.

  “Everything okay here?” I ask from a safe distance at the doorway.

  She whirls around and glares at me. “Does everything look okay?”

  “What happened? Did the cookie monster break in?”

  “Hilarious.” She grabs a stainless steel mixing bowl and a wooden spoon and starts manically mixing some sort of pasty, yellowish gunk. “The stupid freaking masa isn’t setting. Gran was supposed to buy masa harina. Not wheat flour! Not bread flour! Corn flour! You use corn flour to make tamales. And I thought we had two dozen corn husks, but we only had one dozen, and where the hell’s the steamer, anyway?”

  “Is someone having a birthday?” The only reason I ever knew anyone to make a special meal was if someone under ten was having a party, and even then, the meal usually came from a box.

  “No! It’s not a birthday!” Just then something on the stove releases a ssssss sound and bubbles out of a pot. Amelia races to the stove, grabs the pot with bare hands, and promptly drops it.

  I walk calmly to the stove and turn it off, then go to the freezer for ice. I hand her the ice wrapped in a dishtowel I find on the floor. “So, if it’s not a birthday, then what?”

  She presses the ice to her fingers and juts her chin toward the table without answering. I pick my way through the kitchen Armageddon and on the table find a letter to Amelia. “Dear Amelia,” I read out loud. “You have been accepted as a contestant onto ‘Teen Chef’ with host, Andre Lamour, filming in Albuquerque on July 18th. You will be featured on the “Show Me How Spicy You Can Be” main course episode.” I stop reading and look up. “This is great news. What’s the problem?”

  “No. It’s not good news. Definitely not good news. It’s bad news. Bad. Bad. Bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll have to tell Mari I got accepted, and I’ll have to tell Gran, and they’ll make me do it, and I can’t.” Amelia tosses the ice into the sink and picks up the mixing bowl again. As she stirs, a blob of yellow batter flies out of the bowl and nails me in the face like a suicidal gnat.

  I wipe away the blob and drop into a chair. “You don’t have to tell anyone.”

  “What, and lie?” She glares at me as if I suggested Ramen noodles for dinner, PB and J on white bread, mac and cheese from a box.

  “Not lie. Just don’t tell.” I start picking up dishes and carrying them to the sink.

  “And then what? Just not do it?”

  “I guess.” I turn on the water and wait for it to get warm. “You just said you didn’t want to.”

  Amelia slams the bowl on the counter. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I said I can’t.”

  “Why? You have something to do on that day?”

  Her answer is a glare.

  I pour dish soap into the sink. As I watch bubbles form, I remember the first night I came here and what I heard Mari say about Amelia being on a cooking show. “Don’t you get five thousand dollars if you win?”

  She shrugs.

  “And didn’t you already beat out, what, twenty other people to make it onto the show?” I ask, turning off the water.

  “Seventy-five.”

  “Right. So you must really suck.”

  “Whatever,” she says, snatching up a dishtowel. “So I can cook, so can a lot of people.”

  “Yeah, but it’s your dream. It doesn’t matter about everyone else.”

  “Well, dreams are shit.” She mops up egg yolk with the dry towel, creating an even bigger mess. “They never come true.”

  “That’s optimistic.”

  “It’s not optimism or pessimism. It’s truth. Look around. The world’s filled with people who had big dreams and thought they’d do something with their lives. It turns out that ‘something’ is a crap-ass job and a bunch of bratty kids.”

  “That’s your truth, not mine,” I challenge, refusing to give in to her lack of imagination.

  “Okay Little Miss Orphan Annie. Let’s play a game. What are your dreams?”

  I don’t have to play her little angst-filled game, but I answer despite myself. “To go to college and make something of myself.”

  “Just give in to the system, huh? Do what everyone expects?”

  I take the bait, which I’m certain is what she wants. To fight. It’s like cutting, a way of feeling something, a release. I shouldn’t give her what she wants, any more than you should hand the cutter a knife, but I do. “No,” I say. “To do what nobody expects. Nobody expects the offspring of a single mom heroin-addict to go to college. They expect me to screw up my life just like she did. So don’t talk to me about sucking up to the system. And, by the way, you know what your problem is?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Just one?”

  “You think everyone else is to blame for your unhappiness. Well, you know what? That is one big pile of Sopapilla shit. If you want to blow off your talent as a chef to make a point to the world, be my guest, but news flash—if you don’t give a crap, neither will anyone else. And by the way, in case you haven’t noticed, your sister’s in the hospital and she needs you.”

  “Thanks a lot for the info, Sis,” she says sarcastically. “What would I have ever done without you?” She marches out of the room, leaving me alone.

  As I let myself out, I realize I didn’t even tell her about Rudy. Just as well, I decide. Amelia’s an angry drama queen and a hopeless mess who will be absolutely no help in figuring out what happened to Mari or in finding Rudy. If I want to find him, I’ll have to do
it on my own. Good thing I have an idea for the next person to talk to: Holly Redding.

  Eighteen

  On the way back to the college I tell Clem my plan to visit Holly, and he agrees to drive me to the UpsideDown! office the next morning before he has to be at rehearsal and I have to be at work. When we arrive at St. John’s, I ask if it’s okay if he scrounges something to eat without me. He says yes, and I say good night and head back to the dorm by myself, shortcutting through a thicket of chamisa bushes. I’m starving, but more than that, desperate to be alone and think about everything that’s happened today: Eslee’s death, Esha and the funding cut, ruling out Pretty Boy as a suspect, Dolores’ information about a tattooed guy, ruling in Rudy as suspect numero uno, Amelia and her pity party.

  I’m lost in these thoughts when I notice a hummingbird. The creature makes me think of Mari and the calliope, and I stop for a closer look. That’s when I realize it isn’t a hummingbird, duh, because what kind of hummingbird flies at night? The bird, in fact, isn’t even a bird. It’s a moth, an amazing insect the size of my first. I watch the moth probe a white flower with its needle-like tongue. As I stand there communing with nature, I notice something about the flower looks familiar. And then I remember. It looks exactly like the flower I saw on the web today when I was researching Brugmansia. Virg said liquid gold comes from a rare Peruvian plant. What’s it doing growing here? Then I remember something else.

  I rush back to the dorm and stop in front of the O’Keeffe poster of the white flower that’s hanging in the main entrance. The painting is of the same flower as the one growing outside. There’s no mistaking the huge, white, tubular bloom. Does Brugmansia grow in Santa Fe as well as Peru? If anyone would know about O’Keeffe and her subject matter, it’s Rejina. I ignore the time, go up to her room, and knock.

  “It’s open,” Rejina calls.

  I crack the door to the vague smell of pot, Jimi Hendrix music, a flickering candle instead of electric light (another no-no in the Guadalupe rule book, lest we burn down the college and the surrounding tinderbox of land). Bro Boy’s stretched out on the bed in red sweats and a t-shirt. Rejina’s sprawled out next to him, dressed, though barely, in a tank and tiny shorts.