Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  “Then I’ll fit right in,” I laughed.

  When Kyle was up bowling, I asked James if he’d spoken to Kyle about doing voiceovers yet. “I mentioned it when he was in, and he tried to hide it, but I could tell he was excited by the idea. Maybe after you work with Murray some, Kyle can come watch you do some recording.”

  “Let him see how the pros do it,” I teased.

  After the game was over, and we were up in the snack bar having pizza, Sonya accosted Kyle with “Hey, Bandit, what’s going on with your court case? Are you going to juvy?”

  Louella, who hadn’t heard of Kyle’s situation, choked on her soda, and Sonya had to thump her on the back. Kyle was very still for a moment; I knew he was no fan of giggly girls who talked about people for entertainment. He seemed to be weighing his options in his mind but finally answered, “My sorry-ass lawyer and I just signed my diversion agreement with the prosecutor.” He ignored me clapping my hands, thrilled, and continued, “I’ve got to pay the stupid school back and do a shi—do a load of community service and write an apology to the friggin’ computer science teacher.”

  “You’re lucky, dude,” crowed Sonya. “I was thinking you’d have to go on Judge Judy, and she would so kick your ass!”

  Kyle was spared having to respond to this asinine comment by Nadina. “Sonya, you friggin’ retard. Judge Judy does small claims. Kyle, like, trashed hundreds of dollars of stuff and hacked some dickhead’s computer—he didn’t run over somebody’s dog.”

  I hardly knew where to look—looking at James would make me laugh, and looking at Kyle would make him feel even more uncomfortable—but it did occur to me that Kyle and Nadina must have talked about more than math that one afternoon, if she knew something Sonya didn’t. Sonya appeared to have reached this same conclusion because she raised her eyebrows at Nadina and dropped the subject, probably intending to dig for more details when they were alone.

  • • •

  The sun had nearly set by the time I came home. It was too early for dinner, not that I was very hungry after the bowling-alley pizza, and I didn’t feel up to doing any more writing or research, so I made myself some tea and went to lounge on the porch. Phyl had transitioned all the planter boxes to ornamental kale and coleus and arranged a little display of white and orange pumpkins by the door. I hadn’t been there more than twenty minutes when Daniel pulled up, still in the swapped car. It was dark now, and I thought briefly about sneaking around the corner of the porch to avoid him and Michelle, before I decided that was juvenile.

  As it turned out, he was alone, and with my mind full of Camden School I realized this might be a good time to hit him up about hard drugs. “How was the wedding?” I called, as he came up the steps. Although he had taken off his tie, he was still more dressed up than I’d ever seen him, and I had to admit Phyl wasn’t totally nuts always to be staring at him.

  Daniel surprised me by smiling a little and coming to throw himself in the chair across the table from my glider. “It was a wedding. Have you ever noticed that, in Shakespeare, all the plays that end with a wedding are comedies, and all the plays that begin with a marriage are tragedies?”

  I mulled this over. “You’re probably right. And all the ones with couples who are separated are half-comedy, half-tragedy. Shakespeare and you must be kindred spirits.” And Michelle had definitely been channeling Lady Macbeth that morning. “Do you and your friends hold a wake every time one of you gets married?”

  He looked at me with a wry expression. “I’m not against other people getting married, Cass. I’ve just never seen the need myself.”

  “What about the Francis Bacon I saw on your bookshelf—what does he say? ‘Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.’ Maybe you’re right, Daniel. Who needs a wife? You’ve got girlfriends for now, golfing buddies for middle age companionship, and you’ll probably be able to afford a really nice assisted-living place when the time comes.”

  “Who says I can’t have mistresses at every stage?” he challenged.

  “Good point,” I replied caustically, “I can’t speak for other women, but I know I’ve always been a sucker for lecherous old goats in wheelchairs.”

  Daniel laughed. “I didn’t mean you, Cass. I could never aspire to you.” He delivered this last remark mockingly, and I felt my cheeks warm. He was hopeless.

  Making my tone sternly business-like I said abruptly, “Now that we’ve settled that, I have two quick things I wanted to discuss with you.” He waved his hand as if to indicate I should go on. “One was that my brother Perry might be dropping by unannounced some time or times in the future because he’ll be working in Portland for a few months. I don’t imagine he’d stay more than a couple days at a time, if that’s okay.” Daniel nodded, so apparently Joanie was right and he didn’t care.

  I hesitated then a little over the drug question but decided there wasn’t any nice way of going about it. Better just to plunge ahead. “You don’t still do drugs, do you?”

  He stared at me, his mouth twisting in amusement. “I never can guess what you’ll say next, Cass.” Watching my blush deepen, he finally said, “Was that still part of the first item on the agenda, or was that item two? Does your brother need a local dealer when he visits?”

  “Umm…two. That was related to item two,” I clarified.

  “The answer is no, I don’t still do drugs. I haven’t since college. Why?”

  I fidgeted nervously. “Well, in college then, did you just smoke pot?”

  “No,” he replied unhelpfully, appearing to enjoy my discomfiture.

  “Then what did you do?”

  “A variety of things.”

  “LSD?”

  “Once.”

  “Ecstasy?”

  “Several times.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Several more times.” He leaned forward in his chair to read my expression. “Is this about another ‘friend’ of yours, Cass?”

  “Yes, I have a…friend…who’s trying to cut down on the hard stuff, and I just wondered what ‘the hard stuff’ might be.”

  “For a church girl, you keep some strange company.”

  Waving this off, I persisted. “If this friend’s boyfriend were in the Seattle music scene, do you think those are probably the drugs she’s exposed to?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Probably all those and more. The drugs and permutations of drugs keep multiplying. I would bet she’s seen speed and ketamine and GHB, poppers—ah, to be young again.” I knew he said this last just to irk me, so I ignored it. After a pause he said, “If she’s not too addicted, she may find it’s easier to quit the drugs than the company and the culture.”

  Troubled and thinking of Mike, I asked, “But is it possible to quit the drugs without quitting the company?”

  Picking up one of Phyl’s little pumpkins, he spun it by its stem, setting it whirling like a top. It bumped off the porch into the rhododendrons. “It’s pretty difficult,” he answered finally. “Depends how close you are with the company. If she’s just using with strangers she sees on weekends at some rave it can be done, but if the company is closer than that—good luck.” Bending down gracefully, he plucked the pumpkin out of the bushes and replaced it on the pile. “She might just find the company doesn’t want to let her go.”

  Chapter 13: Shootout at the Petco Corral

  Phyl’s birthday fell on a Friday, but we decided to celebrate Thursday at our regular open house. True to her promise, Joanie’s masterpiece of a red velvet cake stood under its glass dome, and while she worked on a lasagna, I made a quick dash to the mall to pick up a little birthday gift. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and drop in at the Petco to see Nadina at work.

  It wasn’t hard to spot her tall figure pushing a broom around, bizarre though she looked in the work-issue blue polo shirt. Min and I used to be frequent Petco visitors, it being the low-maintenance, Eastside alternative for moms who didn’t feel up to the half-day Woodland
Park Zoo trek.

  “Do these guys ever do anything?” I asked Nadina, pointing to the snoozing, dog-piled ferrets. “Every time I’ve been here they’re all piled up asleep like this.”

  “I’ve seen ʼem move,” she said imperturbably. “They get really active around dinner time, but they sleep 18-20 hours a day. Also, they’re probably depressed because they really ought to be able to run around outside their cages. Come check out this dog I groomed totally by myself.”

  “By yourself? Did you get a promotion?”

  Nadina snorted. “Nah, we just had a lot of dogs today.”

  She led me into the separate, glassed-off grooming center and pointed proudly at an immaculate Cocker Spaniel. All the dogs began barking their heads off when we walked in, and I watched bemused as Nadina went from cage to cage, murmuring to each one with a tranquilizing effect.

  “Nadina, you are amazing!” I marveled. “First Benny, now this. You really ought to think about becoming a veterinarian.”

  Her eyes lit up briefly, before doubt shadowed them. “Man, Cass, I don’t even know if I’m gonna make it through high school. But, hey, being a vet would give me all kinds of access to drugs. Did you know lots of dog drugs and people drugs are basically the same, only the dog drugs are cheaper because they don’t have to get FDA approval?”

  I frowned at her. “That knowledge will come in handy when you’re stricken with heartworm. What a criminal mind you have! Besides, if you get through high school and college and veterinary school, it’ll be because you managed to kick the drugs and alcohol.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You sound like all my teachers and counselors now. Look, I told you I don’t hardly use now, and if my friends and I want to get stoned on a weekend or go to a party when there’s nothing else going on, it doesn’t hurt anyone. I’m going to school, right?” When I didn’t answer, she groaned, “God, Cass, haven’t you ever even been drunk or anything? Your idea of fun is going to church and working on that dumb Star Wars book.” She opened the Cocker Spaniel’s cage and plopped him on the stainless steel grooming table so that she could clean out his crate.

  “I have too been drunk before—a few times,” I objected.

  It was true, but I hadn’t thought about it in at least a decade. When Troy and I graduated high school, I insisted we head off to college unencumbered. He wanted to stay together, but I wanted to break up. While the hiatus didn’t last long—we were back together by Thanksgiving—the few months apart were more than long enough for me to get into trouble. “I got drunk in college,” I said, “because that’s what everyone did freshman year in the dorms, and I wanted to fit in and try it out, so I got drunk.”

  “See?” said Nadina, slinging the dog waste in the trash can. “Sometimes you just need stuff to relax. Even smart people in college. That’s all I’m doing, relaxing and having a little fun with my friends. I mostly stay away from the heavy shit now, even when Mike and his friends do it—”

  “I didn’t think getting drunk was fun or relaxing!” I interrupted. “I would wake up smelling like barf or with my shirt on backwards, feeling totally used and trashy the next day. I could hardly look at anyone because I had fuzzy memories of acting like an idiot. Not to mention making out with guys my sober self wouldn’t even consider. If it was fun at the time, it didn’t seem worth it later. After a few nights like that I kept it to one drink per party, and I found different friends who wanted something else out of life. Don’t you want something else out of life?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like—like purpose and meaning,” I floundered. “Like becoming the person you were created to be.”

  “What?” Nadina looked stumped. “I don’t know! I haven’t thought about it,” she said defensively. “What’s wrong with my life and my friends?”

  “I just wonder if your friends always want what’s best for you. Like, do you have any friends who don’t use?” When she didn’t answer, I ventured, “Do you and Sonya use together?”

  Scowling, Nadina began brushing the Cocker Spaniel so hard that he whimpered a little. “Sonya says she’s gonna do what the counselors say and go to rehab. We didn’t do anything together—we just got hammered a few times at her house with her brother. Just beer and stuff from her parents’ liquor cabinet. What all teenagers do.”

  “So if Sonya goes to rehab and decides she’s going to be sober, how are you going to help her?”

  Nadina exhaled loudly, suddenly angry. “I don’t know, Cass! Why are you riding me today? Just keep out of my fucking business, okay? I already have enough people trying to tell me what to do!”

  So much for my Trust-Building training. I obviously needed remedial lessons, and in the meantime, my blood pressure was rising. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Nadina. I’m just asking you questions because I don’t understand why you would—”

  “You don’t know anything about my life,” she exploded, setting some of the caged dogs whining. “You think because you’re my ‘mentor’ and spend a little time with me you can start judging me and my friends? You think you know what my life is like? You think ʼcause you went to your fancy college and live in your fancy house and have all those goody-goody friends that you’re better than me?”

  “Better than you?” I echoed, keeping my voice as steady as I could. We had learned in our last mentor training that addict behavior could involve irrational aggression, lying, and fighting, but it was still hard to let it roll off me when Nadina was so in-my-face with it. I held up my hands to interrupt: “Just hang on right there, Nadina—where do you get off thinking that about me?”

  She responded by slamming her own hands down on the grooming table. I don’t know if she even heard me. “You think you have better friends and a better life?” she shrieked. “Just because you don’t use? You use, Cass. You just call it different things. Mike says—Mike says—your church and all your do-good stuff is just a—a crutch to make you feel better about yourself. He says you’re just a lonely, sorry-ass person with a dead husband and a dead kid!”

  Any well-trained mentor detachment I had cultivated to this point fell away from me sharply. Aggression, fine. Irrationality, fine. But this was below the belt. She was panting now, and I was panting, and we faced each other across the shiny grooming table like enemies. The dog between us whimpered nervously, but neither of us bothered to comfort it. I could feel rage and pain clawing their way from my stomach to my throat, and I wanted to lash out at her. Stupid girl! Stupid, vicious, hurtful, ungrateful girl! Feeling that old tightening in my chest, I gripped the table to stay upright. Count, Cass. Count to twenty. Make that fifty.

  When I finally managed to speak, my voice was shaking. “Yes, Nadina, Mike’s right. I am a lonely, sorry-ass person with a dead husband and a dead kid, and I am no better than you or anyone else on this planet, and I’m worse than some. All of us need a little help to get through life: I know it, and you know it, and Mike knows it, and God knows it. Everyone’s got a crutch, but some of the things we use for crutches are God-given gifts, and other things are just going to break off in our hands and make us hurt worse than ever. The drugs don’t love you. The alcohol doesn’t love you.” I wanted to say that I was pretty sure Mike didn’t love her either, but my courage and my anger failed me there. I felt my shoulders sag as the emotion drained, and I just felt defeated. “I’d better go.”

  Nadina was still glaring at me, but suddenly her eyes were welling up. “So that’s it? I pissed you off and now you’re not going to hang out with me anymore?”

  “What?”

  She hammered on the table with her fist and the dog yelped and peed. “You heard me! I pissed you off, and now you’re not going to be my mentor?”

  “God almighty, Nadina—you want me to be?” I demanded, perplexed.

  Some of her tears overflowed, and she dashed them away angrily. “I’m not going to see you anymore, am I?”

  She was incomprehensible. After turning on me like a wild animal and laying m
e open, she tells me that, actually, she’d like to keep me? Shaking my head, I put a tentative hand on her arm, which she instantly flung away. “If you want to see me, you’ll see me.” What did she want? What did I want? With an effort, I added, “And, Nadina, I apologize. I didn’t mean to come across like I was judging you and your friends. I—I don’t know you very well yet, and I certainly don’t know your friends, and trust takes a long time to earn. I meant it out of concern. I’m sorry.”

  To my alarm, her face crumpled, and she started crying in earnest, burying her face in the fur of the now-truly-anxious Cocker Spaniel. I tried to pat her shoulder. “Shhhhh. Nadina, it’s okay. For Pete’s sake, you’ll mess up your nice grooming job. Put the dog back and clean up the pee and calm down. I think your manager’s coming over.”

  “That bitch?” Nadina screeched, hiccupping. She thrust the dog back in its cage and wiped her face quickly on a towel, seconds before a tall, wizened woman with huge glasses and long red fingernails let herself into the grooming center. “BLAISE,” the nametag on her chest proclaimed: “I’m here to help.”

  “Nadina?” she asked, in the grainy voice of a seasoned smoker. “Everything okay here?” Her eyes took the scene in, from Nadina’s puffy red eyes to my frazzled expression to the pee on the grooming table, and she added, “Everything okay, ma’am? That your dog?” Indicating the Cocker Spaniel.

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. I’m just a friend of Nadina’s. I popped in to say hello, and she wanted to show me what a great job she did on that little fellow. I’ll be going now.”

  When I revealed my non-customer status, the manager put her hands on her hips and turned on Nadina. “You know we’re not supposed to let folks wander around the grooming center, and I thought I had you sweeping up that spilled cat litter on 7. You better clean this up and get back out there.”