The Sweet Dead Life (2 page)

Note to self: Spray laptop with Lysol before using
.

"Here." Casey shoved the garbage can at my head. "Can you sit up?"

"Only if your pants are zipped."

"Ha ha. Did you ever hear of knocking?"

"I have three days of after-school detention," I said, because honestly this was why I came in here, wasn't it?

I managed to ease myself off the floor. Casey kneeled next to me holding the garbage can like he was offering me a prize. His hair was sticking up at funny angles. His breath smelled like corn nuts. His eyes looked red. He reached up and picked what turned out to be a half-chewed corn nut off my cheek. Then he smoothed my hair back and held it while I vomited into the can.

7

We peered at the puke when I was done. If I had to color it in a picture, I'd

use the forest green crayon.

"What have you been eating?" Casey asked. He stared at the puke some more and then at me. I wiped a stray dot of vomit off my Ariats. I had recently cleaned them with the leather conditioner that Jesus had talked me into along with the boots.

"Nothing. Nauseous all day. Oh wait--I had an apple slice during nutrition."

Nutrition was what Ima Hogg called our fifteen-minute break. I guess because we were too old for them to call it recess.

"Oh."

"Yeah," I said. "Take your hand off my head. I know where it's been."

Then I passed out.

When I came to, we both agreed that maybe I was dying.

8

9

Casey Samuels Progress Report

Calculus: 52

Honors US History: 12

AP English: 67

Teen Leadership: 33

AP Chemistry: 70

European History: 0

We dealt with my (maybe--possibly? yes ... it might be the truth) dying condition the way we dealt with everything these days: we hoped it would go away. This isn't exactly an action-filled activity. I told Casey I would be all right--or at least no worse than I already was--and that he needed to get back in the semi-wrecked Prius and drive on an angle to work. I thought about telling him to keep his hands out of his pants while he was on the road, but I figured he had 10 learned his lesson by having his sister faint dead away in his room after catching him in the act.

Okay, we both knew that wasn't why I passed out. But if it could put a stop to my brother's self-love, I was all for it.

"I'll bring you back something," he said as he helped me to my room. "I'll take care of Mom, too," he added. "You just rest. Or do your homework or something."

The fainting and the puking had suddenly made me hungry. Or at least now the slightly nauseous feeling I'd had all day was gone and I was aware that maybe I should eat.

"Brisket sandwich," I said. "And French fries. But only if Jorge is working the fryer." Jorge Garcia was a genius at making French fries. He was about five foot four and from Guatemala and the best line cook at BJ's BBQ, where my brother waited tables four nights a week. Casey'd gotten the job through Dave before Dave was fired for toking up in the back.

True story: Casey's name tag at BJ's doesn't say Casey. It says Dick. When I noticed this and asked him about it here's what he said:
"This way I can say
to customers, 'Welcome to BJ's. I'm Dick.' "

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the boy who shares my gene pool.

As he left my room, a piece of paper fluttered out of the back pocket of his jeans and landed on the floor. I started to yell after him, then saw the words Spring Creek High School and shut my mouth.

I waited until he pounded downstairs, then plucked his progress report off the floor, and climbed into bed. I loved my bed. It was a queen-size my parents had bought me right before our family situation went screwy. Luckily they'd popped for a goose-down duvet and brown and white cover 11

that I also loved. Not too warm. Not too light. Perfect. Unlike the rest of my life.

I stared at my brother's pathetic grades. My heart started throbbing like it had before I passed out, but not because I was about to faint again. I blinked a few times. If Mr. Collins saw me right now, I know what he'd say.
"Jenna
Samuels. What's up with the crying? Your brother was the best running back
Ima Hogg ever had. But he's a quitter. I put my rear on the line for that boy,
talked him up to all the Spring Creek coaches. And what does the little
pissant do? Up and quits the football team sophomore year. So think twice
about wanting to follow in his footsteps, young lady."

I know this because it's exactly what he said to me while waving my less-than-completed homework in my face. Somehow my lack of desire to slog through five pages of algebra problems made me a slacker. That I already had an A in Algebra--and that Mr. Collins was a shitty teacher who preferred worksheets to actual teaching--didn't seem to weigh into his thought process. Instead, he simultaneously called me out and dissed my brother.

Calling him an asshat was a logical response.

But somehow I was the one with three days of ASD. Go figure.

Here's the conversation we didn't have:

"Hey Asshat Collins, you know what? Casey quit football because he's
working two jobs. Casey's working two jobs because we have no health
insurance and the five doctors who haven't been able to figure out what's
wrong with me still want to be paid. Mom hasn't had a paycheck in over a
year. Her savings account--which turns out had been sizeable from sources
unknown--is currently down to $875.53, a sum that is less than our mortgage
payment. Which hasn't 12 been paid in five months. Oh: And on the nights
that Casey isn't at BJ's serving brisket and ribs and recommending the
blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream, which by the way I used to love
before everything began to taste more or less like sawdust, he delivers
Chinese food for Beijing Bistro. Our Prius reeks of egg rolls and sweet and
sour pork in addition to the weed odor and the grease from Dave's taco
habit. So if you and the wife and three little Collins rugrats feel like moo shu
this weekend, you know who to call. Don't forget to tip."

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

The throwing up and the almost crying had made me dehydrated. Slowly, I eased out of bed. When I was sure I wasn't going to crash to the floor, I shuffled downstairs to the kitchen. Even in my condition I was not about to drink bathroom water.

At the sink, I chugged two glasses--so thirsty!--then found a container of orange juice in the fridge with a semi-respectable expiration date. I gulped from the carton, and emptied the rest into my glass. We might be broke, but I was still a manners girl.

I exited the kitchen with my juice at the same exact moment Mom stepped out of her room. As usual, she was wearing an ancient pair of red sweats from Victoria's Secret that were way too big and a pink Cockrell Butterfly Exhibit T-shirt I'd gotten at the Science and History Museum when I was nine, about a month before Dad decided that he wanted to be elsewhere. I'd put it in a bag of clothes to give away but somehow it had ended up in her wardrobe. Possibly because it fit her. Her hair was greasy and pulled back into a ponytail, but she'd swiped on some blush and eye shadow and lip gloss like she was trying to make an effort, which was definitely not something she'd been doing lately.

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I stared at her.

She stared back.

"Did you take your vitamin today?" I asked her.

I was so tired I couldn't remember if I'd handed her one this morning, which I usually did. Her old boss, Dr. Stuart Renfroe, had given us a bunch of free sample bottles, for which I was grateful. (Mom used to be a speech therapist at Oak View Convalescent before she became a convalescent herself and stopped leaving the house.) Some days, it was the only sure nutrition that crossed her lips. Usually she was willing to swallow one every day. Unlike when Casey had recently suggested that maybe she should ask her boss for her old job back.

"Dr. Renfroe cares about you," Casey had told her. "He'd give you a few hours. I know he would." But Mom had just gotten teary and stiff-looking.

"Casey's gonna bring you something to eat later," I said, thinking it a better conversation starter than:
Hey, I'm puking green now
. "Maybe that salad.

You know, the one with the chopped meat and eggs and stuff?"

She nodded. Her eyes looked watery. She had managed the eye shadow but not mascara and her eyelashes looked almost non-existent.

"I was thirsty," I added when she didn't respond. "You want something to drink?" I gestured with my shoulder to the kitchen in case she needed a context clue.

"I'm fine," my mother said.

I rocked on the heels of my Ariats, took a long drink of my remaining juice, and told myself to stay calm. I hate being lied to about as much as I hate being judged by people like Mr. Col ins who think they know al there is to know about me because of my brother. (Although Casey had tidied 14

himself up and changed out of his Mountain Dew shirt into his much dressier
Chicks Dig Nerds
shirt before he left for work.)
Note to self: Casey and I
need to have a conversation about the very clear--to me--connection
between his fashion sense and his lack of female attention
.

My mother was absolutely not fine. The Samuels family was absolutely not fine. "Really, Mom?"

She was silent. I didn't want her to be. Then she opened her mouth. "Your father ..." she began.

I blinked at her, hard. "What about him?"

"I've been calling around," she said. "I've been online. Maybe I think I saw something about him there ...?"

I nearly dropped the glass. "Maybe?"
What the
--Calling around? Online?

Was she serious? She hadn't mentioned Dad in months, and now, all of a sudden she's searching for him again? "What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"Jenna," Mom said, fingers knotting around the monarch butterfly in the middle of her T-shirt like she was trying to squash it. "There's stuff you don't know."

"What stuff? Dad stuff? Other stuff?"

I think she started to answer. Her mouth was moving again and I think she was forming words.

"Mom," I said. "Mom." The glass dropped from my hand, shattering on the hardwood floor. Sticky juice splattered my ankles. I could see but not hear that my mother was screaming. I started to shake. I was so cold.

Unbelievably freezing. What the hell was wrong with me?

"Mommy," I whispered. My knees buckled. Even my boots weren't enough to stop it this time. Everything went black.

15

The way my brother tells it, he had just served a family-sized platter of peach cobbler with Blue Bell French Vanilla ice cream when Bryce, BJ's assistant manager, hurried over from the front register.

In case anyone is interested, Bryce isn't exactly in the running for World's Most Desirable Bachelor. He's about thirty (although it's hard to tell), maybe 250 pounds (again hard to tell), lives in a doublewide trailer on his parents'

property in the back of Château Hills--a subdivision that absolutely does not contain French mansions--and collects comic books. Bryce is the kind of guy stores like Spencer's are made for. If you ever walked by Spencer's at the mall and wondered, hey, who spends eighty bucks on a six-foot beer pong table or twenty bucks on The Fartinator, Bryce is your answer. Well, so is Casey, actually. But that's not the point here.

The point is that Bryce skid to a lumbering stop in front of the vat of cobbler, gave it a brief but longing glance, and then told Casey that his mother was on the phone. As Casey

16

tells it, Bryce insisted that Casey leave immediately, and that Bryce would cover for him, but only just this once.

I guess my having some sort of potentially fatal seizure just as my mother was about to impart the secret of the century (not that Bryce or Casey knew this) was only good enough for a one-night reprieve from BJ's. Which is handy to know if I make it to sixteen and am in need of part-time employment.