The Sweet Dead Life

  I shrugged and nodded.

  “I also called Bryce. I looked up Manny’s online and they’ve got this whole room with vintage pinball machines and video games. You know how Bryce loves all that shit. So I asked him what he knew about Manny’s Real Tex Mex. Turns out he knows a guy who’s hung out there since they opened. When I told him the whole story—well not the whole story—but when I told him about Dad, the guy Bryce knows says he remembers Dad. Bryce showed him the author photo from 60 Different Sauces. And another picture I let him borrow. So we’ve got someone to talk to at least.”

  I blinked. “Do you honestly believe that some geek friend of Bryce’s is gonna remember Dad being there five years ago?”

  Casey gave me the familiar (when alive and stoned) stop-asking-questions-like-an-idiot glare. “You have a better idea?”

  I shook my head.

  So there we were—sitting in the CVS parking lot in Mamaw Nell’s borrowed Mercury Marquis, our only real clues to Dad’s disappearance an expired fajita dinner gift certificate from Manny’s Real Tex Mex, diluted snake poison in my boots and whatever was now running around in Mom’s bloodstream. Basically, a whole lot of weirdness that added up to precisely squat.

  But I wasn’t in detention. I’d finished my Algebra homework in class, and my persuasive essay wasn’t due until next week. My brother the guardian A-word was more motivated than … well, he’d ever been motivated. Take that, Asshat Collins!

  Plus, if things started going south, Amber—guardian A-word of my guardian A-word—seemed to have our backs. What else did we need?

  Probably a whole lot. Because there was always “chaos theory,” after all. Amber had given herself an out. What a convenient excuse for things going south. The “seemed” in “seemed to have our backs” once again “seemed” a lot more like prettying up something that was Bryce-ugly.

  Jenna’s New Philosophy of Life

  Old Jenna: Go along. Live your life. Shit happens. Do the best you can.

  New Jenna: Realize that you probably haven’t been paying attention AT ALL to the things you should have been noticing. Whatever you think just happened, you better trade in for a better thinking cap. Do you really think you understand a plain old car accident? It’s just the tip of the iceberg. You haven’t been paying attention, remember? You better catch up quick or you’re going to be very sorry. Maybe it’s already too late.

  Note to self: Find out why most philosophies—except maybe for that of crazy cult leaders who get whatever they want because they’ve brainwashed folks—are extremely depressing. Mags would know.

  “WHOSE CAR IS that?” I asked as we rumbled up the driveway. There was an Audi sedan parked in front of our house.

  Whoever was driving had no doubt heard our arrival. The Merc needed a new muffler. Possibly an entire exhaust system. I hoped Mamaw Nell wasn’t going to blame it on us. She didn’t seem the type, but you never knew. Maybe she would wake up one morning and realize that she’d loaned her car to a guardian A-word who was still trying to kick his marijuana habit. Casey better eat those snickerdoodles before she caught on to his angel chicanery.

  “Never seen it before,” Casey said.

  We climbed out of the Merc. Both of us gawked at the Audi. Shiny black exterior, tan leather interior. No Soylent Green is People bumper sticker, like the Merc. Dave’s idea, but Mamaw Nell thought it was funny.

  Soylent Green was this Sci-Fi movie from the 70s. (Dave was a jerk, but he did have decent taste in quirky movies.) The plot: In the future, old folks like Mamaw Nell just disappear. Eventually the main character discovers that they’re being killed and turned into organic food pellets. So he runs around like an idiot shouting the quote on the bumper sticker. I guess the idea of people eating ground up oldsters tickled Mamaw Nell’s fancy.

  “Do you think Amber got rid of the Camaro?” My wiggly stomach knot had returned, and I wasn’t exactly sure why. It’s not like I had a phobia of expensive automobiles. But unless Amber had traded up, we had a mystery visitor on our hands.

  Casey didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Amber screeched down the street and motored up behind the Audi.

  “Casey Samuels,” she barked, swinging out of the Camaro and pounding up the driveway. “You pull any more stunts like that and you are out.”

  Casey turned noticeably pale. For a second, he almost looked the way he did before the accident. “It was just half a joint,” he said sheepishly. “I barely inhaled.”

  “Who are you, Bill Clinton? It’s not just the pot. It’s the secret phone calls to your ex. I vouched for your character. I’ve never done that before.” She paused. “If you want to piss off the AIC, you might want to think about what could happen. Let’s just say a certain guy hasn’t been real happy since the AIC got pissed at him. Oh, he talks a good game—all that ‘better to reign in you-know-where than serve in Heaven …”

  All at once, she ran out of steam. Her shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes.

  Casey and I glanced at each other.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What are you trying to tell us?”

  “It’s all a lie,” she said.

  I swallowed. My heart kicked into overdrive again.

  “What is?” Casey spat.

  “There is no AIC,” she admitted. Her eyes remained hidden under her bangs. “It’s just me. Stuck here in Houston until I get Casey to do the right thing. I thought it would be easier if I let you think there was a whole committee. But that’s not how it works. Well not exactly. Shit,” she said again. “I—you’re my first angel to supervise. I’m flying blind here. So to speak.”

  Casey let out a bitter bark of a laugh. “You lied to me?” he snapped, three times in a row. He slapped his hands against his chest for emphasis of different words, like he was doing a Robert De Niro impression. (You lied to me? You lied to me? You lied to me?)

  “Yes. I lied.” Amber took a deep breath, regaining her composure, and looked up. Her blue eyes glowed and flickered. “Now I told you the truth. We really don’t need to discuss it further. We have questions to answer.” She sounded like a typical grown-up asshat, like Mr. Collins, telling me that I still had detention without bothering to explain why. She jerked her head at the Audi. “Whose car is that?”

  Casey sneered. He was too miffed to speak. I couldn’t blame him.

  “We don’t know,” I muttered. “Listen, Amber, I’m madder than my brother right now, if you can believe it. I don’t trust you. You know that. Enough with the lies and the secrets and the BS. Tell us both something that you haven’t told either of us yet.”

  Her jaw tightened. “Fair enough. For one: There really are rules. They just don’t kick in until you’re acclimated, which for you is taking awhile. And don’t get all beside yourself again, Casey. You know it’s true. So here’s the deal: You can guard Jenna. You’re more or less invulnerable. You can sense stuff. But your wings? Those are a one-time deal. You spread them all the way and fly? Well that’s it. You’re done. You’ve used your option, and you leave this world forever—” She broke off, as if she was going to add one more thought.

  Casey and I glanced at each other again. Neither of us spoke. What the hell could we have possibly said to that? I will say this, though: For the first time since I’d gotten to know Amber Velasco, I had almost no doubt she was telling the truth. She looked as if she were about to cry, in fact.

  “Can we go inside now?” she demanded.

  With a small nod, Casey fumbled for his keys and opened the door. He yanked the worn Manny’s gift certificate out of his back pocket. “We’re gonna talk about this, though.”

  Mom was sitting on the couch in the living room. She actually looked halfway presentable. She’d put on clean sweats and one of my old Razorbacks T-shirts. Dr. Chest Hair Renfroe sat next to her. His gaze swung from me to Casey to Amber. He set a mug on our ancient coffee table and smiled. His gaze stayed fixed on Amber. It occurred to me that he must have thought it really odd that she was with us. Again.
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  “Friend of the family now,” she said lightly. “These Samuels folks just can’t stop showing their gratitude.”

  Casey laughed nervously. So did I.

  Renfroe nodded, his smile wavering. He didn’t look convinced. I didn’t blame him. All at once, I panicked. Was there more wrong with me? Had he come to tell us that the Cipro wasn’t really going to do enough? That he’d found something wacky mixed with the snake venom and that was why I still felt a mite pukey? Or worse, that the blood Amber had surreptitiously drawn had come back from the lab and that Mom was dying? Maybe that’s why Amber had come screeching up in the first place! Besides, Renfroe might have no idea about Amber’s little move. He wasn’t her “friend at the lab.” Maybe he and Mom were sitting there reviewing my funeral plans. Then why did she look so happy?

  “Y’all are home early,” she remarked breezily. “Look who’s here.” She turned to the doc. “Stuart, you have been such an angel to me, visiting all the time.”

  Casey stiffened.

  Be careful how you toss that A-word around, Mom.

  Right. Dr. Renfroe had to leave. Now. As much as I appreciated his genius and kindness with the vitamins for Mom and all, this was not the time. And it wasn’t like we could just announce: “Hey. There’s something nasty going on in Mom’s bloodstream and it may be connected to Dad’s disappearance and the reason I was going downhill faster than a toddler on a runaway tricycle. You need to leave now so Amber the EMT angel can explain what the tests showed. Which, even if she wasn’t a supernatural being, would still be off the record since she took the blood on her own time.”

  “Sweet ride out there,” my brother said to Dr. Renfroe. “That Audi belong to you?”

  The doc nodded. “Had it a couple weeks now. But I kept my truck. That way I can still haul stuff.” He looked ill at ease. Maybe he felt bad showing off the wealth around us. After all, he would have fired Mom if she hadn’t quit first. He stood and turned to me. “How are you feeling, Jenna?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You look good. Here. Stick out your tongue.” He checked over my throat and my eyes, nodding as he poked and prodded. “How are your feet?”

  I shrugged. “I miss my boots. But they feel better.”

  “Did you change shifts?” Amber asked the doc. “I thought you worked the ER tonight.”

  “Who are you again?” Mom asked, staring at Amber blankly.

  “Amber, Mom—remember?” Casey said. “She’s the paramedic who took care of Jenna after our car accident.”

  “What? Accident?” Mom’s hand fluttered to her mouth. I could see the veins pulsing blue under her skin. “I—I do remember now. Why did I forget? I’ve been forgetting a lot of things these days, haven’t I?” Her eyes started to water, of course, like they always did when she forgot something vitally important, such as to take care of her children. “I think maybe I need to lie down now.”

  In an instant, she slumped, boneless-seeming, against the couch pillows. She looked less like a human and more like a jellyfish. Again, for the zillionth time, I willed myself not to cry, too. Casey stepped around the coffee table and sat himself on the other side of Mom. He was still clutching the Manny’s gift certificate, but set it on the coffee table next to Renfroe’s keys. Then he took both of Mom’s hands in his.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  Dr. Renfroe nodded, still seeming troubled. “You rest now, Holly,” he said. “I need to be going now anyway. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.” He turned to me. “And of course I’ll keep an eye on Jenna here.” He bent to grab the keys on the coffee table, pausing over the expired Manny’s certificate. I felt my face flush. My neck, too. What if Renfroe thought we were so poor and desperate that we were trying to use expired certificates to get cheap food?

  “Cleaning up around here,” I said. “We need to throw that away. You ever been there, Doc? Manny serves up some pretty good enchiladas.”

  Dr. Renfroe tried to smile. He looked almost as queasy as I felt. Maybe he preferred tamales.

  “Stuart,” my mother said in a quavering voice. She tightened her grasp on my brother’s hands. “Mike might be in Mexico. Did you know that?”

  “What?” He swallowed audibly. I wondered how crazy he thought Mom was. Jabbering about the husband who abandoned her five years after the fact, apropos of nothing. Of course, if I told him the rest of it, he’d drag us all to the loony bin.

  Mom started crying. A little bit of color returned to Dr. Renfroe’s cheeks. Now it just looked like he felt sorry for her again. Poor guy. It had to be especially tough for him to see her like this. When she worked for him at Oak View, Mom had been the speech therapist for the neurological cases: folks with Alzheimer’s and people recovering from meningitis or encephalitis or anything that might have screwed with their short- or long-term memories. She taught them how to talk again, how to swallow. Dad always used to say he never understood how it didn’t just depress the hell out of her to work with people who couldn’t remember who they were some days. But it never did.

  And then she became one.

  (Incidentally, “irony” was never nearly as favorite a vocabulary word as “flummox” or “chicanery.”)

  Dr. Renfroe moved to the door. “Jenna, I want to see you again next week. Call Houston Northside and ask for my office there. The nurse will set you up with an appointment. No need for the ER again unless you take a turn for the worse.”

  I wasn’t fond of how that sounded, but I guess that’s how doctors talked.

  “Amber can watch out for you, too, I suppose,” he added slowly. He seemed to be her sizing up again, almost as if he didn’t recognize her. Well, why would he? She was a random EMT chick. Did he sense something about her now? Like, that she was a total imposter? This whole angel thing was making me a jittery mess. I’d always been good at keeping secrets, but we’d moved to a whole different level. I was beginning to wonder about Maggie’s philosophy. Maybe the universe should have just let a pigeon crap on my head.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them,” Amber said. “Thanks, Doctor.”

  He nodded. “Y’all take care now.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief when Casey finally closed the front door behind him.

  Mom flashed a weak smile. “Stuart says I can come back to work when I’m feeling better. I keep trying to make myself go, you know. But then the day goes by and here I am.”

  Amber flashed a grin: odd, considering the circumstances. Besides, cheery smiles, in my experience, are generally phony. “So who’s hungry?” she asked us. “How about I whip up something in the kitchen for an early dinner?”

  I hoped this was code for: Let’s go to the kitchen so I can tell you about the blood work and not freak out your mother. If it wasn’t, and she actually thought offering her personal chef skills was the best use of her angel powers, she and I would need to talk.

  Casey helped Mom to her bedroom.

  I trailed behind Amber. Just for show—I hoped—she peered into our fridge. It was pretty bleak in there. I tried to assess the look on her face. The last thing I needed right now was my brother’s angel boss feeling sorry for us. I may have trusted Amber Velasco a little more than I had before, but I still didn’t want her nosing around. In case she was wondering, our freezer contained a half empty ice-cube tray, two hot dogs with freezer burn, the remaining frozen Canadian bacon pizza from the stash Casey had bought when Kroger put them on sale for 50 cents each, and a bag of frozen blueberries that had seen better days.

  I cut to the chase. “You really planning on cooking us a meal?”

  “You hungry?”

  Casey reappeared. Amber slammed the fridge shut and straightened.

  “Your mother’s got some kind of strange drug in her system,” she said without any preliminaries. “Terry at the lab hasn’t been able to fully identify it. Just like no one’s figured out yet what substance was mixed with the snake venom in your poisoned boots. Truth? Terry and I think we’re dealing with
the same source even if the two drugs are different.” She paused, staring at me with what almost looked like concern.

  “Go on,” Casey demanded.

  “Whatever was in your system, Jenna, was meant to make you sick or kill you. But the drug we’ve identified in your mom isn’t nearly as lethal. It’s more psychotropic, but not exactly. So far, all Terry’s been able to isolate is that it has some herbal properties, like the ginkgo biloba you buy over the counter to boost memory. But like I say, that’s not it. He says he needs another day or so.”

  Neither Casey nor I responded. My legs felt wobbly. Amber would have made a good doctor. She spoke about horrible shit with total clinical detachment.

  “Trust me, this guy’s a genius,” she added. “He’ll figure it out.”

  Or maybe not. Now she sounded like an idiot. “Is he an angel, too?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not yet, anyway.” A wistful grin flitted across her lips. Okay, creepy. Did she want this guy to die so they could be angel boyfriend and girlfriend? Better to let that sleeping dog lie. Who the hell knew what Amber really wanted? That was still a big question smack in the middle of this mess.

  Casey scowled. “What do we do? How’s it getting into her system? Should we check her shoes? Her clothes? Her sheets? It’s not like she goes a lot of places. Damn it, Amber. I figured someone was getting at Jenna’s boots at school, like when she was in PE or something. But Mom hasn’t left our property for a year except the other night to the hospital. Are you saying that she and my sister were—are—being drugged right here in this house?”

  I swallowed. My brother might be failing classes, but he wasn’t stupid and I didn’t think it was the marijuana, either. The look on his face said it all: He wanted to keep us safe, and he was failing at it. I thought back to those first weeks when Dad had disappeared. I’d walked into Casey’s room one night and found him kneeling at his bed, his elbows resting on the mattress, hands clasped together. “Please let me find him,” he’d repeated over and over as I stood silent in the doorway. “Please. I’ll do anything you ask. Please.” It was the last time I’d heard my brother pray.