The Right and the Real

by Joëlle Anthony

  “What’s up, bro?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Not a thing,” Josh said. “Let’s get something to eat.” And the two of them took off together without looking back.

  All around us, everyone collectively let out their breaths.

  I wanted to run to the theater and hide, but instantly Liz and Krista were at my side, their arms around me, leading me out of the caf toward the girls’ bathroom.

  “You did good, chickie,” Krista said. “I’m proud of you.”

  Liz hugged me. “It hurts now, but you’ll be okay. We love you.”

  I wiped at a single tear with my sleeve. I actually felt kind of…well, not good, but strong. And like I’d taken back a part of my life.

  “I know I did the right thing,” I said. “It just, it just—” I let out a shuddering sigh. “It just kind of…sucks.”

  “It does,” Krista agreed. “It totally does. But that’s why they make chocolate.”

  chapter 20

  WHEN THE FIRE DOOR TO THE STAIRS THUDDED SHUT around eight o’clock on Wednesday night and I heard someone swear, I laid the score to West Side Story down. It had sounded like LaVon, but he was working. Then I heard the distinct click-click-click of his bicycle as he wheeled it down the hallway. I got up and opened my door a crack.

  “Hey, LaVon.” He stood in front of his room, balancing his bike against his hip while he dug through his pockets. “How come you’re home so early?” I asked.

  He shoved the bike against the wall, swore under his breath, and set a brown paper bag on the floor so he had both hands free.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothin’,” he said, finally finding his key. He grabbed the bag and the bike and barreled into his room, slamming the door behind him.

  I’d already gone back to learning my music when recognition hit me. A familiar sinking feeling whammed me right in the gut. On the side of the paper bag had been the Oregon liquor warning. I ran down the hall to LaVon’s room. He hardly ever locked his door when he was home, I guess because he figured no one would mess with him, and I threw it open without knocking. He sat on the bed with the bottle of Jack Daniels between his knees and an empty glass in his hand. I didn’t think he’d opened it yet, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Get out,” he growled.

  “You don’t want to do that, LaVon,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  “I said get out.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, just fiddled with the bottle. I knew if I could keep him from taking that first drink, he could get through this.

  “La—”

  “This doesn’t concern you.”

  I stepped all the way into the room and shut the door. “Something happen at work?”

  “What part of ‘get the hell out’ don’t you understand?”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go if you give me the bottle.” He glared at me, but I held out my hand anyway. “You don’t really want it.”

  “Like hell I don’t.”

  “Tonight, maybe,” I said. “But what about tomorrow?”

  He didn’t answer, and I waited. I made my face as blank as I could, but horrible memories of the times I’d had this same conversation with my dad almost overwhelmed me, making me nauseated with fear. I’d kept him from drinking every time, though, and I could help LaVon if he let me.

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  He caressed the bottle. “This dickhead at work…he just…he provoked me, so I punched him.”

  “A customer?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice.

  “No. Another beer guy.”

  “Did you get fired?”

  “Nope. Lucky for both of us, he ducked, and I hit the wall. Left a hole, though, so I got suspended. Three games.”

  Crap. That meant a lot of lost income for LaVon. He only got minimum wage, but he earned a commission on every beer he sold, plus tips, and made a ton of money that way.

  “That sucks,” I said.

  “No shit.”

  I had to get that bottle from him. I held out my hand again. “How about if I just hold it for a while?”

  “How about if you don’t?” he said. “You’ll just pour it down the toilet.”

  I shook my head. “No way. I promise.”

  For a second I thought he was going to hand it over, but then he unscrewed the top instead. I wanted to remind him about his grandbaby, but I knew it would be a false move. He didn’t need the guilt. He needed time to cool off.

  “I swear,” I said. “I’ll just keep it in my room for a while. Then if you want it back, you can come get it.” He looked up at me. I knew he didn’t want to drink it. We both did. But we also understood the hold it had on him. “LaVon,” I said, “I may suck at cleaning, and I can’t drive worth a shit, but if there’s one thing I know a lot about, it’s addiction. Give it to me now, and if you still want it in an hour, it’s yours.”

  He sat there, me staring at him, him glaring at the bottle. His clock radio ticked off five silent, dreadful minutes. Finally, he put the cap back on and handed me the booze. I clutched it to my chest and practically ran for the door.

  “Call your sponsor,” I suggested on my way out.

  “She’s in fuckin’ Mexico drinking virgin daiquiris with fancy umbrellas.”

  “Call her anyway.”

  I didn’t wait for his answer.

  In my room, I held the bottle in my lap the way LaVon had. I considered having a drink myself, but I knew I wouldn’t. Except for that one time, freshman year, when Krista and I had split a bottle of Boones Ferry wine with the college guy who lived up the street from her, I never drank. That night, it had seemed fun at first, but then I couldn’t get my words out right, and it scared me.

  Everyone I knew got wasted at least once in a while, but I always volunteered to be the designated driver. Driving was just easier than turning it down. My friends all thought of me as responsible instead of scared to death of becoming a drunk. The way I saw it, as a daughter of two alcoholics, I didn’t have a fighting chance against the bottle.

  I watched the second hand move around on a watch I’d snagged from the lost and found at work. I thought I heard LaVon’s voice through the thin wall, hopefully talking to his sponsor, but no matter how much I strained my ears, I couldn’t be sure.

  Exactly one hour later, his door opened. I thought about not answering mine when he knocked, but I’d promised. I unlocked the deadbolt and handed him the bottle. He walked past me into the bathroom. I heard the glug, glug, glug of the whiskey going down the drain. When he came out, he handed me the empty bottle and went back to his room.

  I sank onto my bed, relief flooding me. I knew some people would think I’d taken a chance, that I should’ve gotten rid of it, but I’d been to enough Alateen meetings to know that you can’t stop an addict from drinking. Even if I’d ditched the whiskey, if LaVon wanted to get drunk, he would’ve gone out and gotten more. I couldn’t have stopped him any more than I could stop my dad from joining a cult. People do what they want, especially ones with addictive personalities.

  I didn’t want LaVon to start drinking again for himself, but in all honesty, I had my own selfish reasons too. In the meetings my grandpa had taken me to, they’d drummed into our heads that as the children of alcoholics, we would be drawn to others with addictions. We’d try to help them because we couldn’t help our parents. I’d promised myself back then to never hang out with anyone who had an unchecked addiction problem. If LaVon had had that drink tonight, I would’ve ended our friendship for my own self-preservation. And missed the only adult in my life a lot, too.

  While I was thinking this, I found myself walking up and down my tiny room, swinging the empty bottle…pacing…contemplating…remembering what they’d told us. Was my need to help my dad get away from the Right & the Real any different from my intrinsic need to help addicts? Dad had made his choice. I’d weighed in with my opinions, and he’d ignored
them. I was on my own, just as if he’d started drinking again.

  And he didn’t want my help. That much was clear. The church had taken him from me, but I’d allowed them to take my life too, and suddenly I was really mad at myself about it. I should’ve been happy and excited to get into drama school, but I couldn’t enjoy it because I didn’t have a plan to get the deposit. That wasn’t like me. I’d always been a fighter, but lately I’d spent so much time feeling sorry for myself I’d forgotten who I was.

  I looked around for a Sharpie. I needed a plan. A big plan. One that would get me to New York. I found a red pen in my backpack, but I didn’t have a sheet of paper large enough for what I wanted to do, so I wrote right on the wall. Stub could fine me, I didn’t care.

  It’s My Life!!!!!! A Plan for My Future!

  The fat red letters looked so satisfying on the wall like that.

  “Hmmm…let’s see,” I said aloud. “First things first.”

  Let my dad live his life.

  I’d done everything I could. I’d tried talking to him, calling his therapist, mailing him information, being there for him. If he didn’t want my help, well, I just had to get on with my own plans.

  Quit West Side Story.

  It was drastic, but it had to be done. It was already the middle of February, and I had less than three weeks before my deposit was due. I needed to work as much as I could. I would sacrifice one role in a high school play to make the rest of my career happen. And after that, I needed to save a lot more money for the move to New York, but that was another plan entirely.

  Turn down the counselor job at theater camp.

  When I’d met the camp director last fall at a theater conference and he’d offered me room and board plus fifty bucks a week to be a counselor this summer, it had sounded great because I knew it would be a blast. But it wasn’t a luxury I could afford anymore. I needed to earn a lot more than that. Besides, once basketball was over, LaVon would work at the soccer stadium, and he’d told me he could probably get me a job there, where I could make a bundle selling hot dogs in the stands. Also, they paid people to sing the national anthem, and I intended to try out when they held the auditions. I could rock our country’s toughest song.

  Don’t even think about Josh.

  For my own sanity. Sometimes I missed him so much I ached, but it was better this way.

  Tell my friends the truth about my dad.

  That would have to wait a couple of months. On April 20, I’d be eighteen. I could tell my friends everything then, and no one could do a thing to me. Everyone always says once you turn eighteen, you’re an adult, but it had never meant that much to me until now. Once I had my birthday, no one could send me to live with my mom. Also, I would go see my dad’s lawyer. He was the trustee for the estate, and I was pretty sure he’d be interested in knowing what my dad was doing with Grandpa’s money.

  “You know,” I said aloud, “I live here now. As awful as this motel is, it’s the only home I’ve got. I might as well unpack.” I pulled all my clothes out of the boxes I’d been keeping them in and put them in the crappy dresser. The drawers were hard to open, but so what?

  Then I lined up my shoes under the bed, put my makeup in the bathroom cabinet, and opened the box Dad had marked Stuff Hanging on Your Walls. I wanted some photos of my friends and the map of Manhattan I’d bought in New York. In the very bottom of the box, under all the loose clippings from the school newspaper about the plays I’d been in, I found the large framed print of Laurence Olivier. It not only had the signed photo, but included a letter of authenticity. And on the back, Grandpa had taped the receipt, in case I had to have extra proof of its worth for any reason.

  I took it over to the bed and sat down with it in my lap. Could I do what I had to do? I ran my hand around the edge of the frame, wiping off the dust from years of hanging on my wall. I smiled.…LaVon was right, I was no housekeeper. Grandpa would understand. He’d want me to go to drama school.

  I laid it carefully on my bed and added to my list on the wall.

  Auction Sir Laurence on eBay.

  Once I’d written it down, I knew it was going to be okay. Someday I’d be rich and famous, and I’d hunt it down and buy it back. I thought about opening the carton with my plays and scripts in it, just to thumb through them, but decided against it. My plan had been to wait until I was either at home, which wasn’t going to happen, or in New York. For now, I’d leave them sealed up. It would be like a reward when I finally got there.

  I had settled onto my bed to admire my list when I thought of one last thing.

  Get rid of the Beast somehow.

  There had to be a way to order a replacement title. Unloading it would solve almost all my problems at once. I should’ve been a little more careful about how I worded that last item on the list, though.

  chapter 21

  I SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF THE BEAST, SIPPING my third mocha of the morning while Krista drove us to school. I’d told her a story about a cute guy at the Coffee Klatch giving me free coffee to explain why I’d been getting it there for the last two weeks instead of stopping at our usual place. Krista always paid me back for hers, which was good because only mine was free. My hands shook a little, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the caffeine or because I was nervous about telling her my plans. Probably both.

  You’d think since Krista was the costume designer and not actually in the musical, she wouldn’t care if I quit, but I knew she’d lose it when I told her. If you’re not into theater, or you only do it for a laugh, then it’s no big deal to miss a production here or there, but if you’re serious about it, your senior year, the musical is like…like what prom is to all the popular girls. It’s what the whole four years have been building up to. And just because Krista worked in the costume shop did not mean she’d be okay with me giving up West Side.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because you’re acting kind of weird. You’re smiling, but it doesn’t seem real. You look like you’re going to throw up.”

  That was exactly how I felt too.

  “Well…I have some good news and some bad news,” I said.

  “Do tell.” The Beast swerved a little into the next lane when she glanced over at me.

  “Watch out,” I said. She looked over at me again, making a face, and a car honked at her because she’d almost clipped its rear bumper. “Maybe I’ll tell you when we get to school. You should concentrate.”

  “Just tell me now,” she said. “How bad could it be?”

  “Well…I have to get a job.”

  I saw her body tense up. “And?”

  I spit it out fast. “I have to drop out of West Side Story.”

  “I missed the good news,” she said.

  “The job,” I told her, trying to put a spin on it with a big smile. “Money for New York. We’re moving to New York, remember?”

  “Why would you want a job now, though?”

  “I don’t want a job,” I explained. “I need one.”

  “Oh, yeah…Miss Princess needs a job. That’s a laugh.”

  Tears pooled in my eyes, and I stared out the window. “I’m not happy about quitting either,” I said.

  “You can’t drop out. It’s our senior year. This is supposed to be our last big thing together. I have designed the most gorgeous dresses for Maria, and I know you’ll beat Liz out for the part. Mr. Lazby practically told me that.”

  “Really?” I felt my resolve waver.

  “He said they’d be for a petite actress. Does that sound like Liz?”

  Oh, man…I wanted to play Maria so badly. I wished she hadn’t told me.

  She pointed at the dashboard. “That’s weird. The fuel light just came on.”

  Crap. I’d been driving on fumes and prayers for days.

  “Did it?” I said.

  We came up to the huge intersection closest to the school, which is always dangerous in the morning because kids are
usually racing to get to class. Instead of paying extra attention, Krista was tapping the gas gauge with her green fingernail as if that would somehow miraculously make it work.

  “Oh! My! God! Krista!” I grabbed the dash as she barreled through a red light. Two cars honked at us, one from each side in stereo. A blue compact swerved, missing the passenger door by inches. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!”

  My whole world slowed down, and it really was like they say, going into a tunnel. Everything around me closed in, instantly giving the feeling of claustrophobia. Somehow we made it across the frantic intersection without being killed, though, and everything sped up instantly. I clutched my seat, my heart thudding so hard I thought it would explode. Krista’s face had gone white, but she recovered faster than I did.

  “It was yellow,” she said.

  It was so red.

  Blue lights flashed next to us, and Krista pulled over into the bike lane and turned off the engine. A minute later, Officer Pepper from the Doughnut Shoppe parking lot walked up to the driver’s side window, and Krista rolled it down. I turned my head away, hoping the cop wouldn’t recognize me.

  “Good morning,” she said in a flat sort of voice. “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “Yes,” Krista said. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to run it, but the gas light came on, and it distracted me for a second because I thought the tank was full, and…and…” She burst into tears.

  “It’s all right,” the officer said. “Just take a deep breath. No one was hurt.”

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” Krista said, again.

  “I’m sure you’re a little shaken,” she said, still in that monotone voice. Somehow it sounded reassuring, and my heart finally started to beat at its normal pace again. “Everybody’s okay. Take a second to calm down, and when you’re ready, I need to see your license and registration.”

  Krista gulped back her sobs, and I was grateful she had all her purple hair tucked up inside her newsboy hat. You never knew how authority figures would react to her look, but she almost passed for normal today.