When we make it inside, Tracy is getting ready for work, which I need to do, too. I have the five-to-closing shift at Bob’s.
I thought we’d sit down and talk about what happened even though I’ve already explained it a million and one times.
I hear Tracy whispering to my dad in the kitchen as I make my way to my room.
“That’s it, Tracy. She said she didn’t take them. If she knows who did, it will come out. We need to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
The Old Dad.
The Not-Drunk Dad.
The dad who also left for three years and didn’t bother calling at Christmas or our birthdays. For three years.
Pushing those thoughts away, I set my backpack down next to my dresser. I sit down on my bed and pull off my pants. I see the crumpled white envelope still in my back pocket. And seeing Jasper’s writing again creates a distinct punch to my stomach. It’s a quick jab that knocks the wind from me.
I’m not ready to read it.
After work, I tell myself.
I put it inside the top drawer of my dresser, almost too scared to close the drawer, for fear I’ll lose it or someone might take it. I take it out from the drawer and put it back in again, realizing I’m overthinking it.
I peel off my shirt and wrap myself in a towel. I go to our bathroom—my bathroom now. Jasper’s door is ajar, and I almost catch myself, waiting to hear Jasper’s voice say, Turn off the light!
I wait to hear his bed creak when he turns to the wall.
But there’s nothing but awful silence. I don’t look in his room because there’s nothing to see. Nothing’s changed because he isn’t in there and hasn’t been in there to make anything change.
I think about going to sit in his closet just to see if there’s a sign he’s watching me. I think of Rose and Daniel.
Could Daniel really have taken Gabriel’s pills and left them in the back of my car? Could he have left them on purpose?
I splash cold water on my face and feel the coldness quickly make its way to the pool at the bottom of the sink. I do it over and over and over again until I feel satisfied.
I put on my purple Bob’s work shirt with its logo and a new set of jeans. Linda’s only requirement of dress code is, no holy jeans. She doesn’t understand why we—our parents—would pay good money for holes. Tying my hair up into a ponytail, I pull out some mascara and throw on some lip balm. I always end up leaving the place smelling like a greasy onion, so I don’t worry about spraying perfume.
I push back down the bad feelings that seem to creep up like bad memories.
I need another airplane bottle.
But I deny myself because I need to prove to myself that I’m not like my dad.
Once more, I check the top drawer of my dresser and see Jasper’s letter. Good.
My phone chimes, and I see Daniel’s name come up.
It’s Daniel.
Daniel: I need to talk to you.
Then, Cao.
Cao: What the hell happened?
How do they know anything? I haven’t talked to anyone—
Immediately, I scroll through my notifications and see BeLHo’s update. I open it.
BLOG HEIRESS
QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT:
Belle’s Bitches! Boy, oh boy, do I have some juicy gossip for you today. Hot off the presses, too. Remember that little bind Gabriel Struvio got into a week or so ago? Someone stole his Ritalin medication. Poor guy. Sad face. Well, it turns out that the pills were recovered in the backseat of none other than poor little grieving girl Livia Stone. She might need a pick-me-up after all that crying.
I feel my face grow warm, and I want to scream at the dimwit who writes this blog, Check your facts! I didn’t cry!
But I can’t. Because nobody knows who the elusive writer, who seems to be all-knowing, is.
This is libel. Slander! I call war.
I think I’ll make a sandwich board and wear it to school. One that says, I didn’t take G.S.’s pills.
Then, I’ll have Cao start a Blog Heiress take-down campaign titled, Free Livia Stone!
Then, I’ll have the FBI track down the IP address. I think I still have a few connections.
Chill, Liv, I hear myself.
This, again, is where Poppy would step in and say some magical words of clarity. Wisdom.
“Poppy, where are you?” I whisper.
Nothing.
Is it possible for a spirit, or whatever she is, to be mad at me?
I grab my keys from my backpack and shove my phone in my pocket. I think about looking for another little bottle of magic, but refrain because that might make me an alcoholic. I have the gene. My dad—attorney by day, raging alcoholic by night. Besides, it takes years to become an alcoholic, right? Isn’t there a list of accomplishments one must do to qualify to become one? At any rate, I’m too young, right?
Here are my qualifying requirements I’ve set forth in my head to judge whether I am becoming an alcoholic or not.
Livia’s I Can Only Be an Alcoholic If
Drop out of high school or college or become disqualified from the institution for lack of a GPA.
Live on at least four couches before you go home to live with Mom or Dad at the age of 23.
See? Too young.
Hospitalization due to overdose or an alcoholic seizure.
Google is a tool to be reckoned with.
Lose a job to addiction.
Still have mine, thank you very much.
Drink in the morning.
See? I’ve never done that.
Live under a bridge with a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag or a bag of powder in my hand, blaming the world for my unfortunate set of circumstances.
I’m still enrolled in high school.
I still have a bed.
I’ve never been hospitalized.
I work.
And I’ll never live under a bridge.
I take a deep breath after seeing all the facts in black and white. Clearly, I have passed the test. I think I could be if I didn’t know the warning signs, but thankfully, I am aware of them.
I’ll respond to Daniel and Cao on my break at work.
Clocking in, I throw on my apron. Linda’s at the big fryer. I’m tired. Alcohol does that—so I’m learning—so I grabbed a tea loaded with caffeine on my way to work.
“Liv, we need to talk. In the back.”
In her tiny, disheveled office, Linda is many things, but organized isn’t one of them. Cooking books, pieces of paper, a blanket, her roll-top desk that’s far too big for the office. She grunts as she shuts the door.
She. Shuts. The. Door.
I put a piece of gum in my mouth.
The last time Linda shut the door was when I came by to pick up my paycheck before we went down to Los Angeles to get Jasper. To find Jasper.
“Sit.”
I look around. “Where?”
“Oh.” She walks around her desk again and uncovers a stool.
“Lieutenant Rogers came by, looking for you, today.” Linda sits back down in her chair as I take a seat. Her eyes size me up and not in an accusatory way.
My stomach grows uneasy. Can she smell the alcohol?
You passed Livia’s I Can Only Be an Alcoholic If test, my conscience says loudly. I’m entitled.
But the alcohol isn’t why I’m in here. I allow her words to settle into my brain. It’s the pills.
“Linda, I didn’t take the pills.” My hands begin to sweat.
“I know you didn’t, kid. Look, I know you’re goin’ through a lot. I also have known you since you were six with no front teeth.” She takes her finger and points to her front teeth.
“Wh-what’d you tell him?”
“I told him that, if he’s not careful, I’ll tell his wife that he comes in every Saturday night before we close to get a double bacon cheeseburger. Wife’s got him on some strict diet or whatever.” She waves her hand because it’s not the point of our conversation. “I also told
him that he knows you didn’t do it. So, why come up here, all official in a uniform, and scare the wits outta Liv, me, and my customers?” She pauses. “Said, if he had questions for you, he’d go to your house, not work.” She stops and cradles her forehead with the palm of her hand, pushing her permed bangs out of her face. “I just wanted you to know, so you’d be prepared for when he comes to your house. And he’d better not come back to my place of business in that damn uniform unless it’s Saturday night, and he’s buying his double bacon cheeseburger.” She tries to make me smile.
How did this life get so messy, so illegal?
Bile grows in my stomach and moves up into my throat, creating a burning sensation.
“Get to work, Stone.” Linda winks.
I nod and stand. Almost out the door, I turn back to Linda. “Thanks,” comes out twisted, almost sad. Desperate maybe. I didn’t mean it to, but it did.
I grab a pen and pad of white paper to take orders. I push my stomach against the 1970s gold-glitter Formica countertop.
Cao walks in. Her eyes sinister.
“I’m sorry, Cao. I was going to text you back on my break.”
She walks to the counter. Cao doesn’t drive. Her mom’s scared she’ll die in a car accident. So, Beth told Cao she had to wait until she was eighteen to get her license.
The difference between sixteen and eighteen?
“Hormones and life experience,” so Beth says.
Cao calls it “the apache helicopter technique.” Her mother hovers.
Cao clasps her hands together and leans on the counter. “So, I have this best friend who got some pretty shitty news today. And I’ve blown up her phone”—she motions an explosion with her hands—“but for whatever reason, she hasn’t found the time to send me a snap, text, or a call to say, Hey, best friend, I’m all right. I’ll reach you later.”
“I’m sorry. Add me to the Shitty Best Friend list I know you have shoved between your mattress and your bed frame,” I say, not allowing my culpability to cross the counter and wrap her up. I don’t want to drag her into this mess.
She writes my name down with her finger on the counter. She smiles. “You okay?”
I nod, trying to pull together in my head the facts and non-facts that have come together in a matter of a day. And the added lieutenant visit still makes my stomach turn.
“I know you didn’t do it.”
“I know I didn’t.” I pause and look both ways to be sure that everyone is out of earshot, though everyone looks away quickly—the other workers, customers—as if Cao and I, together, were a two-headed tiger. “But you know when you’re so sure of something and then self-doubt lingers somewhere in your brain, so you spend time trying to convince yourself that you didn’t do it?”
Cao bites her lip. “Like convincing my parents that I’m okay with who I am when they’re convinced I’m suffering from an identity crisis?” Her left eyebrow perks up. “So with you, sister.”
“Wait. How’d you get here anyway?” I look past her to see who drove her here.
Cao sighs. “Don’t freak. But I got pissed when I read the blog and immediately thought of Daniel because he’s the one who has been in the back of your car recently. So, basically, not gonna lie, I called him out on private message before I knew what the situation was, and, well, that prompted a phone call on my end.”
I catch Daniel’s eye in the driver’s seat of what looks to be a brand-new BMW, though I’m not really good with cars, makes, and models. I classify vehicles in three ways—truck, car, sport utility vehicle. The only reason I know it’s a BMW is because it says BMW in big letters on the hood of the car, toward the grill. I can see why Daniel didn’t want to give Mr. Pearson the satisfaction of driving the beautiful car. It screams arrogance.
Daniel waves.
I wave, my fingers dropping casually.
“I told him that I needed to go in first and do the talking. He argued. Liv, did he argue. He called you several times. Wanted to explain himself. He even called Principal Lundberg.”
My eyes grow big. “What?” I say in my not so quiet voice.
The few customers look over.
I roll my eyes. “Come back at seven, and I’ll take my break,” I tell Cao, flustered. Not sure what to think.
Daniel and Cao park right up front again and walk in.
Why does he have to wear such revealing things? Like white T-shirts that hug his chest. And glasses, the black-rimmed ones that make him look far too smart for his own good. Can he just keep his hands shoved in his pockets, so I don’t have to see those either?
They sit near the far window, out of earshot from everyone. I grab the large basket of cheese fries and two Cokes and sit down with them. Cao and Daniel are on opposite sides of the table, and I side with Cao.
He’s clearly all right with my choice as he leans in. His eyes burrow into me.
“Do you want to start or me?” Cao says to Daniel with urgency.
“I’ll start.” He pronounces start like stot. “I took the pills from the Struvio chap.” He doesn’t whisper. He doesn’t make it a secret. He tells me. And the world.
I’m quiet. I let Daniel speak.
“I must have gotten out of your car too quickly, and they must have fallen from my pocket.” He pauses, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“But why?” comes out of my mouth in an accusatory tone. Like I’m a saint.
Daniel leans back against the bench seat and runs his hand through his hair. “I have a difficult time when people steal things. I have a difficult time when people lie. And I have a difficult time when I see a freshman buying manufactured drugs from a senior who probably shouldn’t have them in the first place.” Daniel sighs and continues, “In the restroom two weeks ago, Struvio was conducting an illegal activity, which involved narcotics, out in the open for everyone to see. I walked past the two of them, and they were completely oblivious to the world around them. He told the buyer that the pills weren’t his Ritalin medication and that they were oxycodone. Still, he’s not very smart. I assume he disguises the bottle—for obvious reasons.” He stops.
“What if he was lying to the kid? What if they were his Ritalin, and he was just looking to make a few dollars?” I say.
“Thirty dollars a pill is not a few dollars, Livia.” Daniel’s voice is terse, and I’m caught off guard. The first time he’s ever changed his tone with me. “Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway. Selling drugs is selling drugs. His pills. Someone else’s pills. Oxycodone or Ritalin. It really doesn’t matter. Does it?” His hands are splayed out across our small table in the corner. Daniel pushes his glasses up further on his nose with his index finger.
He’s right. It’s as if I’m trying to defend myself.
“So, while in sports, I rifled through his backpack and took the pills,” Daniel says like it’s more of a confession than an act of possibly saving a life.
Cao clarifies, “Sports is PE. The British.” She rolls her eyes to be funny, trying to make light of an epidemic that’s been spreading through Belle’s Hollow for years now.
“But why would he report the pills missing?”
Daniel smiles. “This is the lying part I hate. His mother reported it to the school. Blamed the school and the students for stealing her son’s pills.”
“How do you know?”
“Right? I asked that, too!” Cao shakes her head.
“This is like telling the same story twice with the same person.” Daniel shakes his head. “I was in the office when his mother came in. A bit off her head, she started yelling at the school receptionist about her son’s Ritalin being stolen.”
Cao says, “When her son is the one selling oxycodone. And probably the Ritalin, too. Psh.”
Daniel stops.
Cao stops.
They stare at me.
“Well, you won’t take the fall for this, Daniel.”
My dad is right. Since my car was unlocked, anyone could have put the pills in my backseat, trying t
o frame me. Do I tell Daniel and Cao this? Or do I keep it from them, so they won’t have to take the fall for me in case I go down? In case I’m booked into prison at seventeen, possibly eighteen, for harboring drugs on a school campus. Shit. What if they test the drugs and find out it’s not Ritalin and it’s oxycodone? Doesn’t that change from a misdemeanor to a felony?
Lieutenant Rogers will be back to talk to me, my family.
I make a split decision because I’m running out of break time, and I feel like it’s the right thing to do for at least Daniel and Cao. “Can you tell this same story to my dad?”
Daniel stares at me. “Yes. I’ve already put a call in to Principal Lundberg. Left a message,” he says.
I wince. “Did you tell her why you were calling?”
“No.”
“When she calls back, tell her you have a question about your school visa.”
He shrugs. “Okay, but why?”
“My dad’s a lawyer.” A washed-up, alcoholic attorney. “There’s more to the story, and I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll explain later. Go to my house, and tell my dad everything. He’ll know you’re coming.”
There’s the old Livia. Hi. It’s nice to see you again.
The old Liv waves vivaciously at the new Liv across the same street, like a mirrored image.
My heart sinks as the old Livia fades into particles, calling to the new Livia, When did you get so ugly?
When Cao and Daniel leave, I text my dad to tell him that they’re coming over to explain the pills to him. And I also tell him about Lieutenant Rogers.
Immediately, he texts back.
Dad: OK.
He doesn’t ask about Lieutenant Rogers.
When I get home, exhausted, smelling like a grease pit, I shimmy off my shirt and jeans and leave the trail of Liv behind me. Makes me think of Jasper. He coined the term trail of Liv. He used to say that he always knew exactly where I was when I got home because there was a trail of clothing behind me.
I jump in the shower and take a quick one. Putting on last night’s pajamas, I peek into Jasper’s room.
Please just let me see him there, on his bed, listening to his music, his Vans tapping to the beat that plays in his ears.
Standing Sideways Page 16