The Sweet Dead Life

by Joy Preble

  “But here’s the weird part,” Zeke finished. “Your dad never came back. I knocked on the door and the john was empty. Manny said he was probably steamed about his shirt or had to go back to work. I’d have never thought about it again until Bryce asked me. And then I was like, sure I remember the guy. He was the one who never came back from the toilet.” Zeke scooped a handful of chips and arranged them in the remaining puddle of chili gravy on his plate. “There’s a back door. Leads to the rear parking lot.”

  Amber pressed her lips together. I could see the wheels turning in her head. “What about your father’s car?”

  “Disappeared with him,” Casey said. “It was a blue Ford Focus. Never turned up anywhere. That’s what we kept hoping at first, that someone would find his car. Or that he’d use his credit cards or ATM card and there’d be a record. He never did. But there was no sign of foul play, and he’d left us a note. Eventually the cops decided he just wanted to drop off the grid.”

  I could tell that we were all thinking the same thing. Whatever happened to Dad had started here at Manny’s. Something or someone had stopped him from returning to his table. Had he left us the note before or after? Maybe it didn’t even matter.

  What mattered: Zeke was probably the last person who had seen him. But where had Dad gone after that?

  We convinced Zeke to leave his last enchilada and accompany us to the back door, to investigate possible escape routes. Hairy-Armed Waiter kept his eye on us as we passed by. (Possibly he needed other employment. If one table of mostly non-eaters threw him into such a funk, maybe he wasn’t cut out for the Tex-Mex life. Note to self: Find out if Dr. Chest Hair Renfroe has hairy relatives in the food service industry.)

  Standing outside Manny’s, I tried to imagine what had gone on. The john’s backdoor looked like a john’s backdoor. There was a dumpster. There was no secret passage to some other place other than the parking lot. Had Dad left to get a new shirt? Did someone force him to leave? Why? Mike Samuels was a sports reporter and food writer. If he hadn’t run off with someone or just gotten tired of being our dad, then what?

  We tromped back into the restaurant. Zeke asked if we were going to pay for his dinner. When Amber gave him the stink eye, he headed upstairs to finish his game.

  I started toward the front door.

  Casey stopped dead in his tracks, staring across the room like a hound dog who’d sighted a squirrel.

  There, at a table across the room, wearing jeans and a red sweater over a white shirt with sleeves rolled up above the wrists—her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail—sat Lanie Phelps. She was with two other girls that I recognized as Spring Creek cheerleaders, crunching on chips and perusing Manny’s menu. The other two had beers in front of them. Lanie was sipping what looked like a Coke. She lifted her eyes.

  Like in one of those sappy Hallmark movies, her gaze locked with my brother’s. She smiled and waved.

  “You better not have planned this,” Amber hissed.

  Casey shook his head. He couldn’t stop smiling back at Lanie.

  “We need to go,” Amber stated.

  Lanie hopped from her chair and dashed over. “Hey Casey—” She paused and flashed Amber an impressed once-over. “Love your shirt!”

  “My what?” Amber glanced down at my loaner tee, the pink material shining in the glow of Manny’s multi-colored beer bottle lights. She planted her hands on her hips. Only now did she probably realize that the shirt bore a “This Ain’t My First Rodeo” logo.

  “I’m going in March,” Lanie said without missing a beat. “My dad got us front row tickets for most of the shows. He’s on the board this year. I just mean that I love the rodeo.” She turned to include Casey and me in the conversation. “I do barrel racing. Not at the Houston Rodeo, of course. I’m not that good. Least not yet. But Montgomery County, I love it because …” Lanie trailed off. She giggled and covered her mouth, a repeat of what I’d seen before. Only it didn’t look like a performance. Her eyes grew serious. But for some reason, they fixed on me. “I’m so sorry. I’m just feeling a little weird. Jenna, your brother told me that you’ve been sick. I just wanted—”

  “I need to talk to you, Lanie,” Casey interrupted.

  He grabbed up Lanie’s hand and led her over by the inflatable snowman with the Santa hat. Lanie hooked her arms around my brother’s waist.

  “Feliz Navidad, y’all,” the inflatable snowman shouted.

  Amber made a sound that I can only describe as a growl. She began to stomp after them. Part of me wanted to let her. This was, after all, Lanie Phelps. Instead, I found myself grabbing Amber’s arm.

  “Let me go, Jenna,” she warned.

  “Give him a sec,” I murmured. “Please.”

  I had not ever expected to say please to Amber Velasco. Or find myself wanting Casey to get back with the very girl who had dumped him without a second thought. But here I was. Because someday I wanted a boy to look at me like Casey was looking at Lanie. I wanted a boy who would graze his knuckles over my skin and make my breath catch. A nice boy, not a boy like Dave who ogled my boobs every chance he got and never quite looked me in the face.

  Amber scowled. She shook free and kept walking. One step. Two. At three, she stopped and turned.

  “It can’t work out,” she said quietly. “You know that, right? Because in case you’ve forgotten—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Please.” Did she really think she had to spell it out for me?

  Amber’s perfect lips twitched. She tugged at her bangs. “It’s good that you love him. He needs that, even now. But you have to be realistic, Jenna. Otherwise it’s going to hurt even more. For both of you. And for this girl. Trust me. I know.”

  I raised a finger over my lips, choosing to ignore that last part. Had Amber Velasco loved and lost? Was that part of what she was hiding from us? But it didn’t matter. In this moment, right here and now, all I cared about was that she let my brother be. He deserved a split-second of happiness. He deserved a lot more.

  Before Amber could consider interfering again, Casey bounded back to us.

  “We’re going out first Saturday of Christmas vacation,” Casey said breathlessly.

  Amber and I watched as Lanie returned to the cheer squad, now on their second round of beers. She was the designated driver, Casey added. He’d checked.

  “She’s changed, Jenna,” he whispered.

  Amber sighed again, but made no comment. Neither did I. Because really, what could I tell him that he didn’t already know deep down? Some things you have to come to on your own. Even Casey knew that.

  BACK IN THE Merc on the way home, Casey was chatty and full of energy. Not a big surprise, though it perked up my stomach knot.

  “Let’s say Mom is right. Dad’s contacting her and he’s scared. And let’s say I’m right, too. Jenna was poisoned because someone wants him to resurface, because they know he’d do anything to save his daughter. But that someone also doesn’t want Mom to interfere. That’s why they’re giving her the drugs to make her crazy. If Dad does resurface, they want him in the weakest possible condition. They want him totally vulnerable. Amber, you said the drugs were probably from the same source, right?”

  “Probably,” Amber said in a faraway voice.

  I kept quiet. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. That Casey was “projecting.” That his theory was based on something very simple and sad: Casey still wanted Dad to be the kind of guy he was. The kind of guy who would do anything to save someone he loved. I leaned back. Then scooted forward again. Something was poking me in the ass. I swiveled and dug my hand cautiously into the funky smelling seat cushions.

  Another envelope of pictures. Mamaw Nell sure liked to document her casino trips. At least they were a distraction.

  I lay full out on the seat and squinted at the collection. With the Christmas lights threaded on the trees along Westheimer, I was able to see enough.

  There was Mamaw Nell and her friends clinking their margarita
glasses together. Another one of them in front of the Merc. Mamaw Nell was holding a cigarette between her fingers. The rest of the photos were all taken at the casino. Nell and her friends, putting coins in the slots. Posed in line at the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet pointing at the King Crab legs. Nell at the craps table, standing next to some lady toting an oxygen tank. I had never been, but it looked like the casinos at Lake Charles were like nursing homes with gambling.

  I flipped through the rest. They were pretty much the same. In the last picture, Mamaw Nell was standing by a Double Cherry slot machine, smiling and pointing. Looked like she’d won a jackpot that day. Everyone was looking at her; even the people on the far right walking out of the poker room. Everybody seemed happy for her. Well, almost everybody. One skinny guy in the back, younger and swarthy, was pulling at his hair. His mouth was open in mid-shriek. He was the only one not looking at Mamaw Nell. Instead he was staring at the camera.

  My heart started to thump.

  This guy wasn’t just some random sucker who’d lost everything at a casino. I sat up. Reached for the dusty dome light. My stomach knot wiggled like a fish on a line.

  “Holy shit.” I said, “Stop the car! Pull over.”

  As we had recently been in a traumatic vehicular situation, my brother complied without question. He screeched into an angled space at the Valero station on the corner. He said a few words that I won’t repeat. Amber said a few, too.

  I shoved the picture into the gap between the front seats. “Look! The guy in the back on the right.” I leaned over so I could see their reactions.

  They looked.

  Amber sucked in a breath. “Sonofabitch.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Casey concurred.

  “Exactly,” I said. “This is the same guy who says he’s not a gambler.”

  We sat in the Valero parking lot staring at the guy in the picture. The one walking out of the poker room at Isle of Capri Casino in Lake Charles, who looked like he’d lost his last dime. The one who was so upset that he couldn’t even fake a happy look for Mamaw Nell’s nickel-slot jackpot. The one with the familiar tuft of manly chest hair poking out of his collared shirt. The one who had been in our world a lot lately.

  Dr. Stuart Renfroe.

  Thank you, Mags, I thought. I’d been looking for the universe to provide a giant pigeon turd, and here it was.

  “Amber,” I said. “What do you think about coincidences?”

  “A lot of them are just that,” she said. “Coincidences. But some things definitely happen for a reason.”

  She held the picture to the light, studying it some more.

  “Look at him. That is not a happy camper.”

  I had not pegged Amber as a woman who used the phrase ‘happy camper.’ But we had more important things to worry about right now. “The point is, he lied,” I said. “He said he wasn’t a gambler. What the hell is he doing at a casino, then?”

  Casey shook his head. “This is bad.”

  “I am really glad I didn’t give him your mother’s sample,” Amber said, so quietly I could barely hear her.

  Here is what we pondered as we sat in the Merc under the harsh glow of the Valero station, staring at a slightly bent photo that had poked me in the ass: Dr. Stuart Renfroe looked like a man in trouble. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. But one thing we knew for sure: he was a liar.

  What we were really pondering: Who else would have been able to poison both Mom and me? Aside from Casey, he was the only other human being who had been in our house on a semi-regular basis.

  Casey shoved the Merc in gear. “We need to go home,” he said. “We need to check on Mom.” We tore out of the parking lot, bouncing as we hit the road. The Merc’s shocks were non-existent.

  “He drops by a lot, right?” Amber asked.

  “Since she stopped going to work, definitely,” Casey said.

  I thought harder. “Before that, too, right, Casey? When she started getting so depressed about Dad being gone. He came by a few times. Brought us pizza once. Some sandwiches.”

  No. It couldn’t be. But maybe it was. The chips I’d eaten began to wrangle in my stomach. Why hadn’t I ever thought about it before? On the other hand, why would I? Mom had stopped functioning. People gave us the pity stare every time we used the food stamp card. Dr. Renfroe’s contribution had seemed like luck to me. Especially the vitamins—

  “Crap,” I said out loud. “Stupid idiot.”

  “What?” Casey kept his gaze on the road, but Amber turned to look at me.

  “Those free samples,” I said. “It’s got to be. Damn it, Casey. Those vitamins I give Mom every day? The ones we can’t afford? Care of Dr. Renfroe? It’s the only thing she puts in her body that you and I don’t.”

  It was like lifting a curtain, only to realize that what was on the other side was the worst thing you could possibly imagine, too.

  “Drive faster,” I urged my brother. “Hurry.”

  Was I really as healthy as I’d felt these past couple of days? If Renfroe wasn’t who he claimed to be, and also basically my only doctor, then there were no guarantees. Everything he’d told me replayed in my brain on fast-forward. I could be dying again. Granted, we were all basing this wild hypothesis on a random photo we’d found in the back of Mamaw Nell’s Merc. He could have been volunteering at the casino to make sure that none of the old fogeys keeled over and died. But, no: Something about him was off. Somehow, for whatever reason, we’d been given a glimpse of the real Dr. Renfroe. Just like I’d glimpsed his chest hair when I woke up in the ER.

  “Be careful,” Amber said to Casey.

  She didn’t tell him to slow down.

  We debated how to dispose of the vitamins. First, we tucked some in a baggie so Amber could let her lab friend analyze them. Then we searched the house for vitamin bottles. Mom had one on her nightstand. I found another under her sink where she’d stored all those hair color products. A couple more sat on the top shelf of our mostly empty pantry.

  “Flush ’em,” my brother said.

  “You can’t,” Amber told him. “You want whatever’s in them to filter into the water supply?”

  “Does everything you flush filter into the water supply?” Casey asked.

  It was a reasonable question, but we had no time. “Just throw them all away,” I said. I peeled off the latex gloves I’d worn while we searched. Amber had given us each a pair from her EMT bag just in case. “There’s all sorts of stuff in landfills. If we wrap the bottles, it’ll be like a century before it seeps out, right?”

  Note to self: I needed to work on my ecological concerns. Not that I’d ever call Al Gore about the ins-and-outs of letting evil vitamins into the environment. But this was Texas. We used to be our own country. We could handle it.

  Talking to Mom would have to wait. She’d slept through our vitamin scavenger hunt, even through a haphazard sort of physical. (Amber had given her a quick once-over—or as best she could without removing the ever-present sweatpants and T-shirt—making sure Mom’s condition hadn’t deteriorated while we were gone.) By then it was two in the morning.

  “You need to get some sleep,” Casey said to me.

  Instead, I flopped down on the floor outside Mom’s bedroom. Casey sighed and joined me, leaning against the closed door. Amber sat cross-legged next to him.

  “Not tired,” I said, yawning. My eyes drooped closed.

  WHEN I CAME to, Casey was still sitting with his back against Mom’s door. He appeared to be sleeping. From what I could see through the family room windows it was still dark outside, but getting lighter. Amber was gone.

  I watched my brother sleep. He did look different. Not just the stuff I could see on the surface. Even passed out against the door, his expression hinted at something I couldn’t quite place. Peace? A little. But there was a hint of something sad, too, which made him seem older. But most of all he looked strong. Especially his hands. They weren’t lined or wrinkled or anything, but underneath that new bronzy sheen, they s
eemed sturdier. Like they could lift you right up.

  Casey’s eyes snapped open.

  I flinched. It was like he’d been watching me with his eyes closed. “Um, morning,” I said.

  “You need to get ready for school. I’m gonna wake up Mom in a minute. Figure out what to tell her and ask her about Dr. Renfroe.”

  “You don’t sleep anymore, do you?” I asked.

  “Not really.” He laughed and shook his head. “I can make myself doze off. But it’s not the same. It’s not, um, involuntary?” His voice rose in a question like even he wasn’t quite sure—not that he didn’t have to sleep, but how it all worked.

  “Did you sit here all night watching me?”

  “Well, sort of. And thinking about stuff, you know.”

  At first I figured he meant Renfroe and all that was going on. But he blushed, just a little, and I guessed at what had really been on his mind.

  “Lanie, huh?” It was the first time I’d ever said her name in the past year without wanting to scream or cackle or puke.

  The blush deepened. He jumped to his feet, avoiding my eyes in the pre-dawn glow trickling through our filthy windows. “We’ll see. It’s weird, I know. But I—I liked her so much, Jenna. I really did. I guess I never stopped. And I know you never did, but she’s different now. Honestly, when I told her how sick you were—”

  “How much did you tell her?” I interrupted.

  “Nothing specific. Just that you and Mom had been sick. But the thing is, she never asked about either of y’all before. It’s not just about me, is what I’m saying. So she wants to go on a date. She wants to make up for things. Does that make any sense?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said after a long minute. “I’m only in the eighth grade.”