Burnout (11 page)

He stopped walking suddenly at the mouth of a narrow alley between two brownstones. He looked quickly around, then hurried down the alley, turning around and grinning, whispering, “Come on!” Seemy grabbed my hand, pulled me in after her. At the end of the alley was a black iron gate, and beyond that there was a falling-apart tiny brick house surrounded by overgrown grass and mud. The house had huge black double doors that took up almost the whole front of it, and a couple little windows with white sills above.

We stood side by side, our fingers hooked in the iron gate, staring at it.

Seemy said, “It’s like a real house. A house that can take a deep breath.”

You don’t see a lot of freestanding houses in New York City. Even the fancy buildings share walls with their neighbors. But this place, this place actually had space, and Seemy was right, seeing it sitting there alone in the swampy yard made you want to take a deep breath.

“It’s a carriage house, used to be a horse hotel for rich people,” Toad said proudly. “They were going to renovate it and turn it into a house for some rich dude, but he ran out of money. My uncle was on the construction crew and told me about it. It’s totally empty. It’s like . . . ours.”

Seemy looked at him with such wonder that I got a tinge of jealousy. “Ours, Toad, really?” she asked. I bit my tongue, wanting to say,
No, actually, it’s not ours at all. Not even a little bit
. But they both looked so happy I didn’t say a thing.

Toad scaled the iron gate, long monkey limbs making it easy work. Seemy looked at me expectantly and I tried to smile while bending over so she could climb up on my back and get high enough for Toad to pull her over. Then they both started walking toward the carriage house, and Seemy called over her shoulder, “Nan, come on!”

And I was standing alone on the other side of the gate, so I did what she said.

The front lawn was soaked and spongy from the spring rains, and our feet got stuck and made loud slurping noises
as we pulled them free. Seemy sank almost to her knees right before we got to the rotting front steps, and Toad and I had to pull her out. We laughed so hard I thought we might die, and we feverishly shushed each other and started laughing all over again.

It took all three of us to pull open one side of the double doors.

“Oh my gosh, horse stalls!” Seemy squealed when we got inside. Toad took out a flashlight and shone it around. He had come prepared. There were three stalls on either side of the stone walkway that ran down the middle of the house.

“I love it.” Seemy sighed. “Even if it does smell like horse poop. Is there a hayloft?” she asked, clapping her hands as she ran to the back of the carriage house, where a wooden ladder reached into a dark hole in the ceiling.

“Yeah, but it’s treacherous.” Toad shone his flashlight at the holes in the ceiling. “There’s rats up there, too.”

“We can stay down here then,” Seemy said, pirouetting her way back to us and then grabbing us both in a hug. “This place is awesome.”

I
find Toad hunched under an awning on Saint Mark’s, hands cupped around a take-out cup of coffee. He looks the same. Same stupid pants. Maybe a little skinnier.

“Hey, Toad.”

He looks at me, startled, then turns away. “What do you want?” He asks, his back toward me.

I hate that he makes me nervous. I step under the awning. “Been a long time.”

He snorts, making a big show of turning to face me. “Has it?”

“How are you?”

He ignores my question. “Go to hell, Nanja.”

He throws his half-drunk coffee into the gutter and starts walking, pulling his head down, like a turtle, into his collar. I walk after him. “Will you wait up, please? Toad, just hold on!”

He spins around so quickly that I run into him, and he pops his chest forward, knocking me back a little. I catch my balance. “What?” he snaps, rain falling down his face.

“Nothing . . . ,” I falter. “So . . . have you seen Seemy?”

He sneers at me, laughs a wide-mouthed laugh that sends rain in a stream off his top lip. “Seemy? Why do you care? I thought you rehabbed us right out of your life.”

“Come on . . .”

“Come on what?” His voice cracks. “Step thirteen, cut the loser dead weight from your life even if it’s your best friend, you can’t give a shit about them anymore no matter what happens to them.” He sniffs loudly, wipes angrily at his eyes, and I realize it’s not just rain, he’s actually crying. “Damn it!” He starts walking quickly away.

“Toad, what are you talking about?” I splash after him and he swings around.

“I’m talking about the fact that I haven’t seen Seemy in weeks! And I don’t know where she is, and her parents won’t talk to me! Do you know the things that could have happened to her? Do you know the kind of people she started hanging out with when you left?”

“You mean like you?” I yell back at him.

He looks like he wants to laugh, but instead he yells, “Me? You think I’m a problem? You have
no idea
!
NO IDEA!
”

And then he says, “Where did you go? Just now? You just, like, went blank, right in front of me.” He steps closer to me, grabs my chin, and looks into my eyes. When he lets go, he yells, “I don’t freaking believe you! You’re using! You ditch us because we’re stupid losers, and then you go and . . .” He makes a sound that I think is supposed to be laughter. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m worried about her, Toad. I feel like . . .” My stomach heaves and I have to stop, take a deep breath before I continue. “I feel like something bad happened to her.”

Toad huffs, shakes his head. He looks suddenly exhausted. “Well, welcome to my world. I’ve been worried about her for weeks. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Do you know where to find her?”

“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” he snaps. “I
can’t
find her!”

“But . . . maybe there’s someplace you guys used to hang out—”

“Oh, what? Like the carriage house? You don’t think I’ve checked there?” He looks like he wants to rip my head off. “Why’d you have to stop hanging out with her, Nan?
Why would you do that? Was your stupid Nanapocalypse really that bad that you would ditch your best friend?”

“I had to.”

“You left her alone!” he yells.

“I didn’t leave her alone!” I scream at him. “I left her with you!”

“Well,” he says, raising his hands and dropping them again, “I wasn’t enough to keep her.” He sneers at me. “Go screw yourself, Nan. She never loved either of us. You were just smart enough to stop trying to change her mind.”

T
he night of the Nanapocalypse, I wasn’t even supposed to go out, which was fine with me.

I was all set to stay home with the Tick and watch movies, but the gallery opening Mom was going to got canceled, so she ended up coming home early and she plopped down on the couch to watch movies with us, and even though I was all snuggled up under a blanket on the big chair with the Tick, I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her.

In the past week she’d accused me of stealing a ten-dollar bill from her wallet (which I did), yanked the lock out of my bedroom door because I went into my bedroom
without letting her smell my breath after being out with Seemy, and told me if I put one more hole in my face she was putting me under house arrest.

There was no way I could breathe the same air as her for a whole Saturday night.

So I bailed, and even though she told me I couldn’t, I just walked right out. It was either let me walk out or get in my way, and I knew she didn’t want to have that kind of fight in front of the Tick.

I got into the elevator and I was shaking, and I started crying because things were so bad with my mom and I didn’t know how they had gotten that way but I knew it was my fault.

The thing was, I didn’t really want to meet up with Seemy. I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. She and Toad were coming out of the alley that led to the carriage house when I turned the corner, and Seemy squealed so loud my heart leaped and she came running and jumped into my arms and I knew that was right where I was supposed to be.

She jumped off of me and clapped her hands like a little kid. “I’m so glad you came, Nanja! I thought you had to babysit!”

I glanced uneasily at Toad. He sighed, cracked his knuckles. “Let’s walk,” he said. He was always worried one of the neighbors would notice us coming and going
from the carriage house. He walked ahead of us and after a dozen yards called over his shoulder, “So, what are we doing? I’m bored.”

Seemy ran to catch up with him, reaching back to pull me along. “Me too! Let’s do something! What are we going to do?”

Her energy was usually infectious, it was usually enough to make me excited for a night of aimless wandering and pointed drinking, but that night the thought made me weary. I pushed the feeling down until it was just a black seed in my stomach.

“Let’s party,” Toad said, looking right at me.

“Well,
duh
!” Seemy laughed. “Of course we’re going to party! Right, Nan?”

A couple of hours later it was dark out and it’d gotten cold, but it was all right because I couldn’t feel my skin. We’d smoked some, drunk some, and we were running down the street, I’m not sure to where. My feet felt springy, like rubber, like I was bouncing as I ran. Felt wonderful.

I would have been good stopping, going someplace to ride it out, but Seemy and Toad wanted to keep going, so we did.

After that it’s a little fuzzy. We drank at the carriage house for a while. And then I think we were at McDonald’s.
And then maybe the movies. And Toad kept cheering me on, being really cool to me, wrapping his arm around me, helping me drink more when I couldn’t lift the bottle.

And then I was looking at our apartment building, except it was on its side, and it was melting away in the rain. Someone was yelling at me. They were being really, really mean. I was throwing up, and it was getting all over me. Chuck was there. He was upside down, looking at me, and then he was picking me up, and then he was right side up and so was our apartment building.

When they redid the building, the owners put one of those flat, backless modern couches in the lobby. Chuck laid me down on it, and I watched the room spin as he called up to our apartment. Then my mom was there. And Chuck wanted to carry me upstairs, but she did it herself. And I felt so small in her arms, like a little baby, and then I threw up again.

Mom sat with me all night, helping me throw up, keeping me on my stomach, waking me up every five minutes to make sure I didn’t pass out and die. She said she kept the phone next to her because she thought she’d have to dial 911.

By morning I was in Mom’s bed, because at some point in the night I threw up and peed myself at the same time. She’d helped me into the shower, got herself soaked
reaching in to wash my hair. I had to sit down, was still too dizzy to stand. The Tick was supposed to be asleep, but I don’t see how he could have slept through the commotion. He appeared in the bathroom doorway, rubbing his eyes, blinking at the light, asking Mom if I was okay. Her voice was high pitched, overly reassuring. “Just go back to bed, I’ll come tuck you in in a minute. Nan has a tummy ache.”

She wrapped me in a towel, brought me to her room, and laid a sheet down on top of her covers, thin protection in case I got sick again. Over me she pulled the blanket we use when we’re watching movies on the couch. She sat next to me, watching while I slept.

I woke up when I heard the front door click shut. It was sunny. Morning time. There was a note by the bed:
JUST DOWNSTAIRS GIVING THE TICK TO HIS DAD, BACK IN A MINUTE
. I had to pee, so I swung my legs over the side of the bed and then sat there for a minute, feeling like I was going to puke again. Then I slid off the bed, not bothering with the towel because I could tell I was
definitely
going to puke again. But I didn’t just puke. I had really superbad diarrhea. So I sat on the toilet and hugged the trash can between my knees and wished not that I were dead, but that it were days and weeks and months and years away from this moment.

I decided to shower again, reached over in our tiny
bathroom and turned on the water, waited till it was hot and then got in. But I was still shaky, and the floor in the shower was slick, and I slipped almost immediately and fell forward and cracked my head against a broken piece of tile. When Mom came and found me and saw the blood all over me and swirling down the drain, she thought I had slit my own throat or something.

A couple of days after that, when I was home from the hospital for just long enough to pack a bag, I sneaked into the closet and called Seemy for the first time.

“They’re sending you to
rehab
?” She screeched into the phone.

“It’s not really rehab,” I told her, “it’s like some sort of—”

“Oh my God, you’re, like, practically the sober one out of all of us!” I heard her lower the phone and say, “Toad! Nanja’s going to rehab!” Then she said to me, “That’s too funny, girl, I can’t believe it. How long are you going for? When do you come back? Can we come visit? Oh my God, it’d be really funny to visit you in rehab. We’ll make ourselves T-shirts, ‘Nan went to rehab and all I got was this—’”

I hung up on her.

I
don’t know where else to go. I don’t know how to find Seemy. I don’t know what to do.

So I go home.

It’s past four when I get back to my apartment building, and between the clouds and the rain it’s starting to get dark already.

“Seta get back?” I ask Chuck. He nods and pulls a spare set of keys to our apartment from his top drawer.

“You don’t look well, Nan,” he says.