The Sweet Dead Life

by Joy Preble

  2) Dr. Renfroe earned his paycheck. (Not that we could pay him, of course. But I pictured buckets of metaphor money falling over his head.)

  BEFORE ALL THAT, Maggie caught us trying to escape the cafeteria. She dashed to follow Casey, Amber, and me.

  “I’m taking Jenna to the hospital,” Casey told her. “She’ll call you later.” He placed that same hand on Maggie’s. She looked sort of startled—like she’d seen a ghost—but then just said, “Okay.”

  She must have felt it, too. Because somewhere my brain registered that this was not at all like Mags. Unless she thought he was trying to hit on her.

  “Do you think it’s from the cafeteria food?” I managed as Casey and Amber half-walked, half-dragged me out of Ima Hogg. I was feeling worse. (Maybe because I was being poisoned? Or because I thought I should feel worse now that I knew I was being poisoned?)

  Amber showed the security guard a piece of paper and he waved us on. This also registered in my head as strange, but I was hyperventilating so it was all I could do to keep walking. Of course it was the Ima Hogg cafeteria food. Mrs. Holtkamp had been a little shifty-eyed lately when she watched me punch in my free lunch number. Damn soft taco plate lunches.

  “Don’t know,” Casey said. He was gripping my left arm, Amber, my right, as they hauled me toward the visitor lot. “Dr. Renfroe needs to do more tests. There’s some kind of toxin in your system, Jenna.”

  “How did it get there? Do you have it, too?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? How do you know? Did he test your blood?” A worse thought occurred to me. “What about Mom? Maybe that’s what’s going on with her.”

  “I’m not being poisoned, Jenna,” Casey stated. “I’m positive. I don’t know about Mom. We thought of that, too. We’ll check it out.”

  “We who?” I may have been losing consciousness, but no blackout was going to keep me from calling him on this “we” BS. “Who are you?” I demanded, glaring at Amber.

  Casey clammed up. He unlocked the Merc.

  “We’ll get to that, Jenna,” Amber muttered. Her Camaro was parked two cars down. “I’ll follow you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why?” I said with all the indignation a poisoned person could work up. (Knowing that someone or something had been causing my not-scabies—or whatever—made me feel like snapping heads. Possibly Amber’s.) “Why do you have to go with us, Amber? You’re not my family. I know you hauled us out of the Prius, but enough is enough. You can stop following Casey and me around now.”

  Amber did not respond. She had that same odd look on her face that my brother kept getting. The one that said she knew something that I didn’t. Well of course she did. We’ll get to that, she’d said.

  “Just get in the car, Jenna.” Casey muscled me toward the rear of the Merc. “We’ll sort it out later.”

  There was nothing to sort out. But I had used the last of my fading energy haranguing Amber. I needed to sit down and catch my breath. Casey opened the door and shoved me inside. “Lie down if you need to.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I collapsed on the cluttered backseat. My nose wrinkled. My irritated gaze roved over the crap. An empty pack of Pall Malls. A Kit Kat wrapper. A margarita glass. A bunch of pictures of Mamaw and her bunko group, most of which looked like they were taken at a casino. A folded plaid blanket. And on the floor, a balled up Jack in the Box sack that smelled freshly of tacos, possibly the breakfast variety. Dave and Casey must have made a stop after they dropped me off this morning.

  I curled up on the seat, pulled the blanket over me (simultaneously discovering the source of the mothball odor) and flipped through the pictures, trying to ignore the burning sensation on the bottoms of my feet. Mamaw sure loved the slot machines. She was posed in front of at least a dozen of them.

  I had never gambled. If Dr. Renfroe didn’t come up with a cure, I might not get a chance. Not that I cared. I always figured if someone gave me a last wish, I’d ask for Disney World. I did not want my obituary to read: Jenna Samuels, the girl who breathed her last at Isle of Capri Casino. We might be broke, but I was not a low-rent girl.

  Casey drove like a proverbial bat out of hell. (Actually, I do not know what bats drive like or if they populate the underworld. I just know that we went fast enough to plant my head in the seat.) I tried not to think about what had happened last night. At least this time, if we hit something or skidded off the road, we had a fighting chance. The Mercury was a beast.

  DR. CHEST HAIR Renfroe was pacing the lobby when Casey guided me into the ER. (Fortunately, said hair was concealed under a shirt and tie.) Casey actually tried to pick me up and carry me, but I put up a stink and he let me shuffle in on my own. Amber caught up with us in the same curtained cubicle where I’d been dropped the previous night.

  “Have you been to West Texas lately?” Dr. Renfroe asked. “Or to the desert? Arizona maybe? Or New Mexico?”

  It was Ed Lyons, RN, interrogation déjà vu. Only with a Southwest flavor.

  “No,” Amber answered for me.

  “I can speak,” I snapped. She was standing just far enough away that I couldn’t kick her. Or pull her still perfectly smooth bangs.

  Casey cleared his throat. One well-groomed brow arched. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Jenna’s blood test shows traces of snake venom,” Renfroe said. “There’s something else, too—something we haven’t been able to identify. That’s why I’m going to take some more blood. I think I can treat you, but I need to be sure. And we need to understand how this is getting in your system. Tell me again how long you’ve been having these symptoms.”

  “Um …”

  “For about a month now,” Amber piped up. This time, even Casey looked annoyed.

  “You sure it wasn’t three weeks?” I spat. “I thought you’d have an exact day count.”

  Amber chose not to respond, just looked at me sort of blandly then shifted her gaze to the doctor.

  “You should be thanking her,” Dr. Chest Hair observed. “If she hadn’t convinced me to do these other blood tests, I wouldn’t have found it. You didn’t present like someone being poisoned. And I was worried about internal bleeding from the accident. Whatever it is, and however it’s been entering your system, it’s diluted somehow. Snake venom is mostly water anyway. It’s the enzymes that cause the destruction. Whatever’s gotten into you, it’s slow-acting. But I’m fairly certain it’s been what’s making you sick.”

  Snake venom? I was being poisoned by snake venom? Somehow I doubted that the lunch ladies at Ima Hogg were skillful enough at chemistry to have caused this. Besides, it was not like my taco plate lunch sat separately from everybody else’s. So if it wasn’t the food, then what was it?

  Dr. Renfroe swabbed my arm and drew some more blood. I turned my head the other way. Amber was actually right; it had been a little over a month. The first day I remember feeling really bad had been the Saturday when Maggie and I had gone shopping for her Halloween costume. Maggie always made a big deal out of Halloween. She liked to dress up as these obscure people that no one had heard of. This year she’d gone as Enrico Fermi, the nuclear physicist who helped create the atomic bomb. Her mother had driven us to the big Salvation Army thrift store in Houston so Maggie could look at their vintage suits and ties. (Maggie was fussy about what she defined as vintage. “Just cause it’s used doesn’t make it vintage. It has to be authentic.” We spent a lot of time looking at frayed labels.)

  I’d spent the night at Maggie’s. About two in the morning, I woke up totally nauseated. I figured it was the extra-large cheese pizza. Or maybe the nachos that I’d brought from our huge stash of take-out leftovers that Casey kept supplying. Probably wasn’t a good idea to add jalapeños and brisket, either. Or top it off with barbequed turkey and fried tofu in black bean sauce and then cover it with shredded cheese. Of course, it turned out that nausea was only the beginning. What I’d thought was just an upset stomach didn’t go away. Instead, it multiplie
d into all my other symptoms, culminating with lime green pee.

  But snake venom? If someone was feeding me diluted snake venom (with who knows what mixed in?) then why was I the only one getting sick? There was nothing I ate that wasn’t also eaten by other people.

  Like Ed the RN, Dr. Renfroe ran through some questions about my eating habits. Was I hungry? How often did I puke? Could I connect the puking to any specific food? Did my tongue swell after eating peanuts? Could I think of a food source that only I consumed? I told him my answers: Sometimes. Lots. Not really. No. No. He looked peeved. I guess he was waiting for me to shout something like: Oh! It was the moo shu chicken. I’m the only one in the northern Houston suburbs who ever orders Beijing Bistro moo shu. Ho Nguyen has some serious explaining to do.

  “My feet hurt,” I said. They did hurt. Always. I didn’t even bother looking down there anymore. I shoved my feet in my boots and went on with things.

  Doctor Renfroe capped the blood vial. He made me press a cotton ball to my arm and then covered it with a Band-Aid. “Your feet?” He set down the tube of blood and looked at me.

  I nodded.

  “She has a rash on her feet,” Casey and Amber said in unison. They looked at each other kind of sideways. The narc scenario seemed likelier and likelier. She must have been tapping his phone. This was bad.

  “Let me see,” said Dr. Chest Hair. “You didn’t say anything about that last night.”

  “I was unconscious,” I grumbled. “I think that got in the way.”

  He helped me pull off my Ariats. I really loved those boots. Maybe I would shine them up later tonight if we got this whole poison thing under control. I kicked off my socks, too. Then he bent down and lifted my legs and looked at the bottoms of my feet.

  “Hmm,” said Dr. Renfroe. “Huh.”

  I hunched over so I could look. Casey and Amber moved in closer. Their shoulders touched as they bent over my feet. Both of them smelled nice, I realized. (This was a relative first for Casey.) Like mountain air maybe. Or one of those Christmas candles in the jars—the expensive ones, not the cheap crap from the Dollar Store. But I still felt like I could barf at any second.

  “Ow!” I said when the doctor poked a gloved finger into the sole of my foot.

  “Does that hurt?” He poked again.

  “You think?” Yes, it hurt, Doctor Chest Hair. I do not yell “ow” just to hear myself holler.

  “Hmm,” he said again. Stuart Renfroe, MD, looked at me. Then he looked over at my Ariats. He looked back at me. He held out his hand. “Give me those boots,” he directed Amber. She gave them to him. He peered inside. He flashed his head lamp in there and looked some more. Then he picked up my foot and studied the bottom again. Then back to the boot.

  Was there some boot chicanery going on?

  Amber grabbed up some swabs from the metal tray on the counter.

  “Can you hand me a—Oh. Thanks.” Dr. Renfroe took the swabs from Amber. Maybe mind-reading was part of EMT/narc training now. He dipped the swabs inside my boot. Amber took the swabs and sealed them in a baggy. “Do you wear these boots a lot?” he asked me.

  “I love my boots.”

  “You have tiny cuts on your feet, Jenna. Little pin pricks. I think they’re from your boots.”

  “So?”

  Dr. Renfroe looked at me like I was particularly dense. “If those swabs show what I think they will, we’ve found the source of your poison.” He frowned at my boots again in case I had still not caught on, which finally I had.

  “These?” I nearly shouted. “My boots are poisoning me with diluted snake venom? How is that possible? I couldn’t even afford real snakeskin! These are just plain old leather.”

  My brain began spinning like an out of control Tilt-a-Whirl. Did silver-belt buckle Jesus at Bubba’s Boot Town want me dead? This seemed not only impossible but highly ironic. But who else? Nobody else had access to them. My Ariats were almost always on my feet, unless I was asleep. Dr. Renfroe aimed his little ear-examining pen-light down into the black hole of the left boot.

  “Aha,” he said.

  After that, I got a little too foggy to follow. Apparently there were little stiff threads poking up from the soles that seemed to match the pin pricks. Somehow the insides had been coated with poison, and this was how it was entering my system. At least that was the current theory.

  The last thing I remember: My boots were bagged up, too. Ed the RN was called to bring a biohazard sack.

  Goodbye, Ariats. I loved you with all my heart before you tried to kill me.

  AFTER THAT, I must have napped. When I woke up, a very nice detective whose name totally escaped me asked a few questions and then headed to Boot Town to question Jesus Olivier about my Ariats. Something told me this would be a dead end. Jesus had been so insistent that I come back and buy another pair when I got more money. This did not strike me as the behavior of a man who wanted to poison me. Besides, I had let him step me up to the extra bottle of leather cleaner, hadn’t I? There was no reason for him to hold a grudge.

  When the cop left, I realized that I had no footwear. Ed the RN came to my rescue.

  “Here,” he said cheerfully. “I found you a pair of clogs that look like they’ll fit.”

  This was how I left the hospital—wearing somebody else’s purple Crocs. I wasn’t sure what was worse—knowing I’d been poisoned or having to go out in public in the clogs. It was a toss-up. First, however, I received an IV of antivenin, (it was a crap shoot as to which type of snake), a shot of Cipro (plus two weeks of pills), and a tetanus shot. Dr. Renfroe was keeping the option of a blood transfusion on the table, and he would call us about the new blood test. But if he was right, I should start feeling better. My pee might even stop looking green. Maybe. He wasn’t sure of that part. He thought the color could be caused by something else, although he had ruled out Ed’s theory of algae or oysters. At that point Dr. Renfroe also proved that he should not leave medicine for a comedy career by referring to my green urine as a “red herring” and then chuckling.

  Also, I was warned not to take tranquilizers or antihistamines because they might screw with the effects of the anti-venin.

  In short, I would live. At least until whoever had been trying to kill me figured out another way to do it.

  Stuart Renfroe, MD, did not say that last part. But in my head I knew it was true. I might be sick and dizzy but I was still a straight-A student.

  The wiggly knot in my stomach had returned, possibly a permanent resident. I almost wished Casey would lay his hand on me again.

  I clogged my way back to the Merc. Do your thing, antivenin. I am done like dinner with my not-Ebola. I pictured the antivenin in purple Crocs like the ones on my feet, only smaller, clogging its way through my system, making me feel better.

  Suddenly, I remembered that I had not eaten lunch.

  “We need to check on Mom,” Casey said. “Amber’s gonna take her blood so we can get it looked at. I’d bring her to hospital, but after how hysterical she got last night, I don’t think she’d go. This way she won’t be scared.”

  “You’re seriously going to let her stick a needle in Mom’s arm?” I decided it was best if I talked about Amber like she wasn’t still standing there with us.

  “Jenna,” Casey said. His cell phone buzzed. He answered.

  “Shit,” he said when he clicked off. “It was Bryce. I have to work tonight. Kemp Lundquist has the flu.” He seemed to consider something. “You’re coming with me. You can do your homework at one of the tables.”

  “And after that, you’ll come by Mario’s Grille,” Amber added. Her tone was pleasant but firm. Like she was the boss of both of us, or an aunt or something, when she was none of the above. “I’m bartending until midnight.”

  Casey nodded. I gawked at him. Why the hell was he agreeing with this?

  “What for? No!” It is hard to be stubborn in borrowed purple clogs. It is hard to be anything but tired and humiliated.

  “How long h
ave your mother and Dr. Renfroe known each other?” Amber asked, ignoring my protest.

  “I—what? Why do you care?”

  “Just work friends? Or does she see him outside Oak View Convalescent?”

  “She sees him when he drops by to visit,” Casey said.

  I glared at him.

  “And when he comes over to your house, how long does he stay?” she asked.

  “Hello? Why do you care?” I stomped my foot. She didn’t even blink. I made a mental note: Crocs are not intimidating to anyone.

  Casey yanked me away, but even he seemed flummoxed. (Incidentally, flummoxed was my second favorite word from last week’s vocabulary list. It means very confused. Your interest in my mother has me flummoxed, Amber Velasco.)

  Amber pursed her lips at the both of us. “Just trying to get all the details.”

  Question: Why would an EMT-slash-bartender need details? Answer: she wouldn’t unless she was a narc. Maybe Dr. Renfroe had noticed something and was on to her. He was a smart guy. He would not fall for her fake EMT chicanery. Or maybe her weirdness was some kind of attempt at trying to move up in the medical world. Maybe she just wanted all the glory for figuring out what was wrong with me and figured if she wormed her way into our good graces by helping Mom, then she could hang around some more until she found a way to take credit for my hopefully miraculous recovery. That’s the way some people were. They might look like they were helping you but actually they were in it for themselves.

  “See you at your house, okay?” Amber said.

  “Okay,” Casey said. He hurried me towards the Merc.

  Amber waved. Her ponytail bounced in the breeze. The space around her seemed … brighter than the rest of the parking lot, even though she wasn’t standing under one of those horrible fluorescent lights. I was going to have to get my eyes checked. Maybe Dr. Renfroe knew a good ophthalmologist.

  “I don’t like her,” I hissed at Casey as I hoisted myself into the front passenger seat. “I don’t see why you keep letting her hang around. We know what’s wrong with me. We don’t need her.”