Ferocity Summer

by Alissa Grosso

  Andrea rolled her eyes at me, and I giggled.

  “The story is that the kid was using performance enhancers and the coach was supplying him,” Bill offered. “Nobody wants to talk about it, but a lot of these coaches are really drug dealers.”

  “Drugs are for the pansies who aren’t tough enough to make the cut on their own,” Greg said.

  Okay, so the night wasn’t exactly ideal. At least it gave me and Andrea the chance to exchange exaggerated looks of boredom back and forth all night, and no matter what her orientation, even Andrea would have had to admit that an evening out with me would beat an evening out with Greg any night of the week.

  Greg drove, and on the way back to my house he took a wrong turn, so we wound up looping around the far side of the lake. In the back seat, I felt only vaguely nauseous as Bill nonchalantly let his hand graze my upper thigh, ever so slightly.

  “Scilla, doesn’t Willow live around here?” Andrea asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, eager to ignore Bill’s attempts at sensuality or whatever the hell it was supposed to be.

  “We should stop in and see her,” Andrea said. “It’s not that late.”

  As encouraged as I was to see that Andrea had regrets about ending this magical evening, I didn’t like the idea of visiting Willow. Willow wasn’t exactly a big fan of Andrea’s, and Willow, if she was in one of her moods, could be obnoxious and mean. The last thing I wanted was Andrea getting upset and distraught. Then there was also the chance that Randy would be home, making for an ugly situation that I didn’t even want to imagine.

  “Sometimes her parents go to bed early,” I lied.

  “This Willow Jenkins you’re talking about?” Greg asked. He spoke as if he was talking around a jock mouthguard, even though soccer players don’t even wear mouthguards.

  “Yeah,” Andrea said.

  “Hey, she’s cool,” Greg said.

  This pissed Andrea off. It’s a less than ideal situation when your date starts talking about the coolness of another female.

  “This is Randy’s sister?” Bill asked, suddenly moving away from my leg.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “It is kind of late,” Bill said. “Maybe we shouldn’t stop.”

  The decision, however, had been made, and Greg turned down Willow’s street and then into her driveway. I was hoping that all the lights would be off and we could just turn around, but the place was lit up like New Year’s Eve. Alarms started going off in my head. What the hell was going on? Every single second-story window glowed with light and the floodlights bathed the driveway, the side yard, and the front lawn in a veritable ocean of light. And then I looked at the front lawn again.

  Before our car had come to a complete stop, I flung open my door and raced around to the front yard, hurdling white plastic garden fencing along the way. Right behind me was Greg, whose rigorous training program had prepared him for just such an emergency.

  “What the fuck?” I shouted to the prone Willow, who was quite clearly lying in a pool of vomit.

  “Just a little too much partying,” Willow said, with a sick-sounding giggle for punctuation. She seemed unable or unwilling to lift herself from the grass.

  Andrea and Bill arrived on the scene and froze at the sight of Willow and the mess that she was lying in.

  “Eww gross,” Andrea said.

  Willow attempted to tell Andrea off, but all that came out was, “Fff u.”

  “She’s OD’d,” Bill said.

  It was then that I saw him, and Greg did too. A lone figure dashed across the lawn from the direction of the house, racing for the anonymity of the shadows, but for a brief moment he was illuminated by the glaring lights. Greg, who must have really wanted to be a football player at some point or other, sprinted toward the running figure and felled him with a leaping tackle. Two bodies smacked the ground with an impressive “Oof.”

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, you worm?” Greg asked. “What the fuck did you do to her, you little shit?”

  Willow still lay on the ground. She waved her hand in the general direction of Greg and the stranger, some yards away. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to be a dismissive motion.

  “Who’s that?” Andrea asked, and I wasn’t sure if the question was being put to Greg or to Willow.

  “It’s not his fault,” Willow said. “He didn’t do anything. I just wanted some companionship.”

  It was now that I recognized the panic-stricken face so clearly illuminated by the floodlights. It was Willow’s neighbor. I thought the kid’s name was Brad, but I wasn’t positive. I knew he was only fourteen years old and that he used to be a Boy Scout, but I wasn’t really sure whether he still was. Why the hell was a Boy Scout running across Willow’s front lawn at eleven o’clock at night while Willow was lying in a pool of vomit?

  “Let him go,” Willow said. “He didn’t do anything.”

  She tried to get up, but her arm was unable to support her weight and she fell back down into the chunky puddle, vomit splattering in the air, on the grass. Andrea turned away in disgust. Bill looked green.

  It was up to me to take charge. I instructed Super Jock to release the suspect. The kid was surely not the cause of Willow’s drug-induced antics, as if Willow really needed an accomplice. Instead, I had Greg help me walk Willow back to the house, with Andrea and Bill tagging a safe distance behind.

  “Still think she’s cool?” I asked as we half-dragged Willow up the front steps.

  “Who the fuck’s responsible for this?” Greg asked.

  “I’ll give you a hint. She’s barely conscious, and there’s dried vomit on the side of her cheek.”

  If I needed any confirmation that Willow was indeed seriously fucked up, I had it. There was however, a mystery of sorts. Getting this wasted required money, something that Willow, when I’d last checked, didn’t have in her possession. Midge had said she wasn’t giving Willow any more money, she spent way too much of it as it was, but perhaps she’d broken down as she always did and given her daughter what she liked to call a loan, even though she never expected it to be paid back. How large of a loan was it? To get this trashed, nearly to the point of complete overdose, required more than Midge’s usual pittance.

  These were questions to put to a sane and sober Willow, so there was no point in asking her anything now. It would be luck if she even remembered her name.

  “I’ll take her to the bathroom and get her cleaned up,” I said.

  “I’ll help you,” Andrea said, and my heart began to beat just a little bit quicker. A cramped bathroom, me, Andrea, and a completely wasted girl who reeked of vomit. It was almost romantic.

  “Who asked you, you cunt,” Willow said in a barely intelligible voice.

  Yes, well, and there was that.

  We had no choice but to throw Willow into the shower, clothes and all. The water seemed to revive her like a wilted plant, and when she came out, she looked almost human. I helped peel her wet clothes from her skin. I wrapped a shivering and naked Willow in towels and patted her hair dry.

  “Let’s go to your room, find some clothes,” I said.

  “Okay,” Willow said, sounding very far away.

  The three of us made the short walk to Willow’s room, slowly. Once inside the room, Willow crashed on the bed and I began to rummage through the closet.

  “This is a nice room, Willow,” Andrea said, looking around at a room that had been one of Midge’s projects a few years ago. Midge had ordered the decor from some catalog, and it all matched. Bright lime green, orchid purple, orange, and brick red in various geometric shapes adorned the bedspread, the curtains, the throw rug, the wallpaper border, and a collection of accessories on Willow’s desk and dresser. The furniture was stylishly modern and angular. Even the posters on the wall were encased in neat matching plastic frames at Midge’s insistence. It may have been Willow’s bedroom, but Midge was decorator overlord.

  I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and turned a
round in time to see Willow take a swig from a bottle of vodka.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Helps take the jag off,” Willow said. “Here, want some?” She proffered the bottle to Andrea. “You need some.”

  Reluctantly, Andrea accepted the bottle and took a small sip, making a bitter face.

  “Wuss.” Willow grabbed the bottle back from her and handed it to me in exchange for her clothes.

  I contemplated the bottle for a minute, then raised it to my mouth and took a too-big swallow that left me sputtering and gasping for air. It tasted really awful and I was reminded of my mother’s attempt to feed me cough medicine as a child. I had been convinced that the red syrup was poison; nothing else could possibly taste that bad.

  I sat down beside Willow on the bed. Andrea too sat down, a little hesitantly. I handed the bottle back to Willow, who took a small sip before handing it to Andrea. Andrea took a bigger gulp this time and made a less-bitter face. My second swig went down much easier too.

  “So who are those two losers you guys came with?” Willow asked.

  “Greg is a little weird, isn’t he?” Andrea said as she took another swig. “All that stuff about soccer and his practicing is really boring.”

  I took my turn at the bottle, downing way too much and dribbling a bit on my shirt.

  In one breath I said, “Bill-is-building-a-bomb-in-his-basement-he’s-going-to-overthrow-the-government.” This was followed by an uncontrollable giggle fit, which Willow and Andrea joined.

  Soon we were so drunk that it didn’t matter what we said. It was all hysterically funny. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so happy, the last time I’d felt so free. I dared to imagine that it could always be like this, that the three of us could become inseparable best friends, always happy and laughing together with or without the consumption of controlled substances. An hour passed, or maybe more, before we finally emerged from the room, stumbling over our own feet and laughing hysterically. We came down the stairs into the living room, where Bill and Greg sat watching a movie on television with the volume turned down low.

  “You’re fucking drunk,” Greg said.

  I can’t remember anyone else saying anything until Greg dropped me off at my house and Bill told me he would call me. I’m not sure, but I think he might have attempted to kiss me goodnight. It was all very awkward.

  I let myself into my house through the dark kitchen. I was about to head up the stairs when the light turned on in the living room. My mother was sitting on the couch waiting for me. My mother had never waited up for me in my entire existence.

  “I want to know what the hell is going on,” she said.

  I decided not to say, ‘So do I.’ Instead, I stood in the doorway between kitchen and living room, where dark met light.

  “There was a man here looking for you today,” she continued. “A man in sleazy-looking clothes. He must have been in his late thirties. He wouldn’t leave his name.”

  My mother got off the couch and approached me, and I instinctively backed up a step, into the darkness.

  “Who the hell was he? Are you sleeping with him? Because if you are, there are laws against these things, and I will see that that motherfucker spends the rest of his life in jail, if—” My mother suddenly stopped and began looking at me with an entirely new, and equally terrifying, stare. This could not be good.

  “Jesus Christ! You’re completely drunk!”

  Of course, I’d spilled vodka all over my shirt. It was probably oozing out my pores as well. I stank.

  “Mom, I … ” But I didn’t even know what to say.

  “Go to your room. You’re grounded!”

  I didn’t need to be told twice, and in fact welcomed the relief of escaping my mother’s wrath, if only temporarily.

  “For a long time!” she shouted after me.

  July

  I couldn’t remember whether I was alive or dead, but I figured I must still be alive because death could not feel this bad. My mouth tasted like stiff, starched cotton, like an obsessive-compulsive housewife had been laundering and ironing my tongue. The rest of me didn’t feel much better. I tried to recall the events of the previous evening. I couldn’t really remember anyone using me as a punching bag, but I was almost certain that’s what happened. How else could I feel so bad? My head felt ready to explode, and I knew if I opened my eyes I would feel the unstoppable urge to vomit. It didn’t matter, though. My stomach had no interest in being still.

  I dashed out of the bed and ran, stooped over, to the bathroom, wasted two seconds to close and lock the door, and just about dove headfirst into the toilet. Everything I had ingested in the past twenty-four hours climbed up my throat and spewed forth into the toilet. Staring at the vomit, I recalled finding Willow on the front lawn, and the events of the night came back to me in all-too-vivid clarity.

  Long after it was all over, I sat there on the cool tiled floor in front of the toilet, now purged of my nastiness. Everything hurt, and I was much too exhausted to move. I could hear the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, and then the knock on the door.

  “And how are we feeling this morning?” my mother said in a sickeningly sweet voice. It was definitely too early for sarcasm.

  I waved a middle finger at the closed bathroom door. It didn’t make the beastie on the other side go away.

  “When you finish puking up your guts, I want to talk to you. I’ll be in the kitchen making breakfast. How does scrambled eggs and home fries sound?”

  Fortunately, I had already emptied the entire contents of my stomach. I could hear the sound of laughter as my mother walked away. I promised myself that if I ever grew up and had kids, I would never be so cruel and callous.

  I would have to go out there eventually. I would have to face her. She thought I was sleeping with Christian. That might have been funny. In fact, I could have laughed about it for a real long time if my life wasn’t so completely screwed up. Instead, I had to figure out what to tell her. The truth was an obvious choice, but a bit problematic. No, Mom, I’m not sleeping with him. He’s an FBI agent. Yeah, he just wants to talk to me because the guy I am sleeping with is this big drug dealer. Yeah, that should go over real well. Perhaps I would go from being grounded for a very long time to being grounded forever. No, clearly I had to come up with a completely plausible, nonthreatening story to tell my mother about Christian. My head, however, was hurting too much for me to come up with a convincing lie.

  The phone rang, shattering my feeble attempt at concentration. It would be him, Christian, I thought, and no matter what he said to my mother it would be the wrong thing. Perhaps I should just try climbing out the bathroom window. It was only the second story. I could probably jump without breaking any bones.

  “It’s for you!” bellowed my mother from downstairs, as if I didn’t already know that.

  I pulled myself up by grabbing the countertop and made my way out of the bathroom, back to my bedroom. As I crawled into bed, I reached for the phone on the table next to me.

  “Hello,” I said. My throat felt like I had hiked across the Sahara Desert and run out of water halfway. I waited to hear the click of my mother hanging up the other phone. It didn’t come. So it was going to be like that. “I can’t talk now,” I said.

  “How come?” I was surprised by the voice. It was only Bill.

  “Oh, it’s you,” I said.

  “Who did you expect?”

  “Let’s not go there. You might have waited until a decent hour to call me. I’m not feeling so hot this morning.”

  “I don’t think most people would be if they drank as much as you guys did last night. What were you thinking?”

  “It wasn’t really a conscious decision.”

  “Right. Well, I was just wondering if we could meet somewhere to talk. Alone.” To talk? I recalled his pathetic little attempts to touch my leg in the back seat of the car. To talk. Guys were so pathetically easy to read.

  “I don’t t
hink I’m gonna be able to make it,” I said. “I’ve been grounded indefinitely.”

  “Oh,” Bill said. “Bummer. It was just that I may have some new information about J. R. for you to consider.”

  J. R.? What the hell was J. R.? I knew it was early in the morning and I was a little out of it, but I didn’t know anyone named J. R.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Use your head. Think backwards. You have to take precautions, you know. Your line is probably bugged. Hell, mine’s probably bugged as well, but not by the same people.”

  J. R. … R. J. Randy Jenkins. I didn’t even want to think about Randy. It made me as sick to my stomach as the thought of food. I didn’t want to think about the FBI or bugged phone lines, either. These things could hardly be counted as reality.

  July

  Willow and I sat on her dock with our feet dangling in the water. The sun beat down on us and the air was thick with humidity. The water felt cool on our feet, but it was hardly enough. Childhood games of Marco Polo, played in the cove behind Willow’s house, came back to me.

  I remembered a little girl named Lydia who used to live next door to Willow. I remembered she always used to peek when it was her turn to be Marco. I hated that. I always hated cheaters. One day, I threw her sandals way out into the middle of the water. They sank, never to be seen again. I got in trouble, of course, but I didn’t really care. I knew in my heart that Lydia had deserved it. It didn’t matter. In the end she won. Her mother bought her a brand new pair of sandals.

  “So, are you and Randy still … ” Willow began deliberately, not finishing her sentence.

  “Um, I don’t know. He’s been busy. Willow, do you know—”

  “I’m just so fucking sick of it,” Willow said, cutting me off. I didn’t know what she meant. I waited, but she didn’t say anything else.

  “Sick of what?” I finally asked.

  I heard our distant voices crying “Polo!” across the vast reaches of time. When did we outgrow Marco Polo? It seemed like a million years ago. I couldn’t even remember what it was like to be a kid.