Death Spiral (18 page)

She gets out of the truck and goes into the house.

My phone rings and breaks the silence. I check to see who's calling: Jesse. I don't answer. I don't want to talk to him. I don't listen to any of his voicemails, or the ones from Anj either. I turn off the phone and climb out of the truck, too dejected even to wave at Mrs. Dunnings who's outside checking her mail.

I slog across patches of snow and grass and go into Aunt T's to serve out my self-imposed solitary confinement.

***

At school Friday morning, the story of my drug bust has already become legend, the tale having spread through the gossip mill of texts, tweets, and emails. Depending on the crowd, the story has either confirmed people's suspicions about me—a junkie mother with a druggie daughter—or else I'm being inducted into the stoner hall of fame. Either way there is no truth. Both sides hijack my story and tweak the details to validate whatever it is about me they want to believe.

I spend the morning ignoring the stares, the whispers, the high fives, good jobs and front-page news my life has temporarily become.
Ice Caps Melting! Unemployment Reaches Record High! Faith Flores Gets Busted For Dope!

Jesse tries to corner me at my locker, but I'm the star of my own reality show and my adoring fans seek my autograph, so I don't have to talk to him, thank god. I can't face him now. I can't face Anj. I don't want to explain anything. I don't want a lecture, or a sympathetic smile and a shoulder to cry on. I don't want to be asked how I am. I just want to be left alone, which turns out to be easy since afternoon classes are cancelled and the entire student body is called to the gym for a pep rally. The place is one big anonymous blob of bodies. Locating anyone would be impossible even if I wanted to.

I sit on the bleachers squished between two girls I've never seen before and listen to Mr. Jennings dazzle us with his thrilling reminder that the varsity boys' football team will be playing tonight for the right to compete in the state championships, and we should therefore all sacrifice an afternoon of learning in their honor. Who cares about chemistry? There's a football game! He's even hired some one-hit wonder band from the eighties to play their hit song for us, which is the worst part of the whole thing, since I love eighties music, and I can't even enjoy it.

There is one upshot to the event. My drug bust is already yesterday's news, forgotten in lieu of the big-hair wonders gyrating their stiff and aging hips on the stage. It's almost worth sticking around for, but without Jesse to sing along with, what's the point? I push through the bleachers and ditch the extravaganza right as the disco ball comes down.

I'm alone in the hall when I have a close call with human contact as Mrs. Lopez, who despite the state championship, apparently believes biology is more important than football, comes out of her classroom. I dodge into the library.

I'm hanging out in the H row, looking for more Hemingway, when I hear laughter, Jesse's laughter. I guess he bailed, too. I tiptoe to the end of the row and see him, back to me, sitting at a table with a well-dressed, well-toned woman with perfectly highlighted hair swept up in a clip. She's the kind of woman who doesn't sweat. Who lives on a diet of low fat lettuce and Diet Coke. Who drives a Jag and never loses her cool. Then I remember. The alumni interview. Today in the library. She's the Harvard lawyer.

This ought to cheer me up. I slip to the end of the aisle to hear what Mr. Cynical has to say to Moneybags. Without Doc there to keep him in check, I expect a discourse in sublime absurdity.

“So, what would you say is your favorite literary work?” Moneybags asks in the kind of put-on voice filled with practiced pretense.

Come on, Jesse, tell her
Harry Potter.
Or
Twilight.
Tell her you like vampires.

“I know it's not one of the more conventional choices,” Jesse says in a pompous voice to rival any ass-kissing Harvard wannabe. “But I'd have to say although Hemingway's always been my favorite author,
Slaughterhouse Five
by Vonnegut is my current favorite piece. I like the nonlinear narrative.”

Moneybags brushes a strand of streaky blond hair from her eye, showing off the big rock on her ring finger in the process. “Really? What an interesting choice. I never cared much for Vonnegut. I always found him somehow inaccessible. I prefer the romantics, Bronte, Keats.”

This is the part where Jesse nails Moneybags on her pompous
Wuthering Heights
bullshit and pseudointellectualism. I poke my head out from the bookshelves, so I can see her face when he drops the bomb on his real opinion of going to the Ivy League.

“I know the Harvard department of English offers a well rounded program of all the classics, so I'm sure if I'm accepted I'll broaden my perspective,” he says instead.

Somebody bring me a barf bag, please.

Moneybags goes on to ask Jesse about his interests, and he recites perfectly from his brag sheet. Music, of course, being interest number one, but not in the punk-rock-wailing-guitar-freak kind of way, more like the rock-critic-with-an-up-and-coming-career-at-Rolling-Stone-magazine kind of way.

They laugh so easily. The two of them. All this drivel about postmodernism and the global influence on American music and collective consciousness. He's doing a splendid job of playing the part of eager high school senior trying to make an impression, so good, in fact, I'm not sure he's playing a part.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you,” Moneybags says, reaching out to shake his hand. “I'll be sure to put in an excellent recommendation for you when the time comes.”

I'm out of there before I can hear Jesse's response.

With mostly everyone in the gym, the halls are deserted and the school feels like a ghost town. It's just the fliers taped to walls and posted on classroom doors that hint at an actual student body: Join the yearbook. Tickets on sale for Romeo and Juliet. Help the homeless. Glee club. Spanish club. Fencing team. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender student alliance. If you like to mow grass there's probably a club for it.

In all this fitting in and belonging, I've never felt so alone.

Eighteen

Anj and Jesse call and text me a total of eleven times before noon on Saturday. I listen to and read each message and then delete them all. Dr. Carlisle's death made one thing clear: If I don't want my friends ending up in body bags, they need to keep away from me because I'm not giving up. My mind doesn't idle. It revs.

Saturday morning Aunt T uses Sam's truck (her car now being ditch free and safely in the shop where it belongs) to drive him to the airport for a weekend visit to his family in Miami. The second she leaves, I wrap myself in a blanket, grab a jumbo-size box of Captain Crunch, and get on the computer for some research.

I start with genetic IPF to confirm that the disease is real and Dr. Monroe's telling the truth. I discover that the disease, though rare, does exist. I move on to the Rat Catcher, hoping to find out something about him. I Google the words “rat catcher” and then “pest control,” but unless I want termites exterminated, or I have a roach problem I'm out of luck. I Google “Philly's most wanted,” “Philly drug dealers,” “rat control services,” “vermin,” “the plague”—all a dead end. What am I supposed to look up next, thugs for hire?

I sit on the couch with the laptop, rotting my teeth with Captain Crunch, reruns of
Friends
playing in the background, and move on from the Rat Catcher to Dr. Wydner, then to Dr. Monroe. The information I get on them is what I already know, so I Google Dr. Glass. The name alone gets about a million hits, but when I cross-reference his name with PluraGen I hit the jackpot.

On the PluraGen homepage is a tab that says researchers. I click the tab and there, nestled between Dr. Girard and Dr. Gupta, is the name I'm looking for: Dr. Steven Glass. I click and read his bio.
Johns Hopkins…Harvard…board certified pulmonologist…board certified clinical geneticist…specialist in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

The handful of Captain Crunch I'd been about to stuff in my mouth slips through my fingers. I stare at the words
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
and it's not until I feel Goldie at my feet, vacuuming up the Scooby snack, that I let out a breath.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF.
The man running the RNA 120 clinical trial is a specialist in the disease that killed my mother. What does that mean? Is it just a coincidence, like Dr. Monroe saying Mom and Melinda had the same symptoms? I don't believe that for a second. Mom and Melinda's symptoms weren't a coincidence, and neither is this. I don't know what it means, but I think of Officer Asshole again, then Mom and her smile, telling me she'd be okay, and I pledge to find out.

***

Sunday at eleven, I'm camped out in bed, depressed and exhausted from my dead-end search into the Glass/IPF/RNA 120 connection, when I'm startled by a knock on my door. Aunt T and I have hardly spoken since Thursday, so I have no idea why she'd be knocking now.

I roll over to face the wall, hoping if I ignore her she'll go away. She knocks again and this time calls my name. The least I can do is not be a total a-hole. I sit up and tell her to come in.

She pushes open the door and holds out a box. “I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

I reach for the box, pull off the lid, and stare at a pair of shiny new running shoes glinting up at me like bad dream.

“I got us each a pair,” she says. “Get up. A little exercise will do us both some good.”

I groan and pull the blanket over my head. “Please tell me you're kidding.”

Aunt T doesn't say anything. I peel back my covers and peek out. She's in my room now, standing by the door in a neon-blue windbreaker, black Spandex tights, and white running shoes to match mine.

I groan again. “You aren't kidding.”

Aunt T smiles. “Nope. I'm not kidding. Coming?”

The shoes and the offer are a form of peace making, so despite the fact I've never jogged a day in my life, I say yes. We've hardly spoken since the car accident/drug bust. I figure if we're sucking air we won't have to make small talk. Suffering in each other's presence will be bonding enough.

I pull out a pair of gray sweats and a matching West Philly High Girls' Soccer sweatshirt from my dresser. Having never once in sixteen years kicked a ball on purpose, I have no reason for owning these clothes, except for the fact I found them in the school's lost and found last January on the coldest day of the year. I was so grateful for something warm to wear around the apartment when the heat got turned off that I never tried to find the real owner.

As I get dressed I remember all Aunt T's attempts to get mom into fitness, as if exercise would do what methadone couldn't and cure her of her heroin habit. One time she actually got Mom to go to a step aerobics class. Mom suited up in a sweatband and Spandex, and the two of them set out for Nicolla's Body Sculpting Fitness Center across town in a strip mall. I'd seen the ads on TV, Nicolla being a Botox blond with a boob job and a voice like she'd been huffing helium.

Four hours later, Aunt T brought Mom home from the emergency room, her ankle in a splint. The three of us sat around that night hysterically laughing each time Mom recounted the way she'd toppled off the step platform, taking out Nicolla in the process.

Aunt T and I make it around the neighborhood three times before collapsing on the front porch in near cardiac arrest. It's not until she leans back against the top step, folds her arms behind her head, and tells me there's something we have to talk about, I realize there's a second part to this mission, an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with good health habits and getting into shape.

“Great. I'm free tomorrow,” I say jumping to my feet and taking the stairs two at a time. We've been doing fine with surface banter. Why ruin a good thing with serious conversation?

“It's about your mother's ashes,” I hear her say as I reach the door. “You said you wanted to spread them. Maybe it's time.”

I picture the blue urn in the armoire outside the kitchen, the residue of Mom's being—her skin and bone burned into a box of ash, and my throat tightens. I can't let her go. Not yet. Not like this when I still don't know what happened.

“Faith,” Aunt T begins again.

“No,” I say. “Please. I'm sorry. I'm not ready.”

I go inside without waiting for her response.

***

Monday morning, I drag my sorry ass to school. Literally drag. After my brief encounter with exercise, not only can I hardly walk, but the muscles in my butt—muscles I never knew existed—are so tight I can hardly sit either.

I'm at my locker getting books for first period when Jesse approaches me.

“Hello works,” he says to my back when I don't greet him.

“Hey,” I say into my locker.

He stands there, I guess waiting for me to say more. “I'm fine thanks,” he says when I don't. “How are you?”

I don't answer.

I feel his eyes on me, but I don't turn. I bend down and dig through the detritus that's collected on the floor of my locker, thinking if I act busy enough, Jesse will get bored and leave me alone.

As if.

Jesse plops down next to me, leans against the currently unoccupied neighboring locker, and shoves his phone in my face. “This is called a phone,” he tells me. “The first one was invented in the 1870's by Alexander Graham Bell. It's quite easy to use. Would you like me to show you how? Because I left you eight messages this weekend, so I'm assuming you forgot.”

“Jesse, please,” I say, but I stop speaking before I can finish my thought. Please what? Please go away? Please don't go away? I feel pressure building behind my eyes. Tears. No way. Not now. I stand up and slam my locker without even taking out any books. I'm about to march off when Anj shows up.

“I've been calling you all weekend,” she says, extending her hand to Jesse and yanking him to his feet.

From there her words flow like blood from an open wound. Before I can even figure out the blood type or the source of the wound, Jesse joins in the hemorrhage.

Work to do…What happened…Don't return my call…What's going on…
Etc., etc. They form a flawless duet. Their accusing voices harmonize in perfect unison.

Anj breaks from the choir for a solo. “And we need to meet today in the library after school. I have to talk to you. Can you do that?”

At that moment there's an announcement over the intercom followed by a burst of cheering from some classroom. In the commotion, Anj loses her train of thought and nods as if I've agreed to meet her. I don't bother making the correction.

I sit through the rest of my classes, but it's just my body the teachers have. My mind is busy alternating between being depressed about Jesse and Anj and worrying about Dr. Monroe. She said three days. That means today she should have the results from Mom's DNA. I wait all day for her call, but it's not until school ends that she sends a text:
I have the results
.
Come see me.

I know Anj will be waiting for me in the library, but I slip out the back door. Whatever she wants will have to wait.

I don't want to risk a kink in the current jogging-induced peace with Aunt T, and if I truck off to the university without telling her, she'll freak. I call her at work and ask if she minds if I go into Philly for some research. I tell her Mrs. Lopez put me in touch with a genetics professor who's offered to speak to me for a biology assignment. Aunt T doesn't mind, and not only that, she's picking up Sam this evening at the airport and she'll be out anyway, so she can give me a ride home. I give her directions, and we agree to meet at six.

Before I set out to catch the downtown bus, I consider going for the incognito movie star thing and wrapping my hair in a scarf and wearing Aunt T's fashion sunglasses, but I decide against it. Something tells me that if the Rat Catcher is following me, he'll see through the disguise; that if he wants to find me, he will. The best defense I have is vigilance and crowds. No back streets. No short cuts. Vigilance, however, slows me down. It's hard to move quickly when you're checking out every person as if they might be some al-Qaeda sleeper and it's not until almost five thirty that I finally make it to the genetics department.

I hurry up the steps to Dr. Monroe's office and knock. No answer. Finally, after a third knock, she opens the door.

“Sorry, I didn't hear you,” she says. “Have you been standing out here for long?”

I'm too shocked to answer.

If I'd thought Jesse's clothes looked slept in the morning we went to Denny's, they were no match for Dr. Monroe's. She's wearing the same khaki pants and turtleneck I saw her in four days ago. Her eyes are bloodshot, and her hair hangs limp and greasy around her shoulders.

“Um…are you okay?” I ask, standing by the door and wondering if I should come back later.

“Fine. Just busy. The genetics conference is in a few days. I have another grant due, one of my top students was accused of plagiarism, and well…” Her voice trails off. “Anyway,” she says, shaking her head, as if shaking herself from a dream. “I'm glad you came. Come in.”

I follow her through her lab and into her office. Books, papers, and journals litter the counters and tables. A fresh round of fast food take out boxes clutter her desk and the windowsill. The atmospheric turmoil escalates my nervous turmoil, and suddenly I'm unsure if I'm ready to hear what she found out about my mom.

“Did you know Dr. Glass studies idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?” I ask, putting off the question of Mom's mutation and the possible implication for my own life.

“Of course,” Dr. Monroe answers as she picks up a pile of books and stands on her tiptoes to put them on a shelf.

“Don't you think it's a little strange that the person running the clinical trial also happens to be an expert on the disease that killed my mother?” Dr. Monroe doesn't answer. I don't know if I should take the silence as agreement or not, but I feel my boldness slipping and my voice faltering as I add, “Maybe he has something to do with this.”

“To do with what?” she asks, turning from the shelf and looking at me. There's something in her eyes that makes me take a small step back.

“With my mother's death. Maybe he knew about the side effects and—”

“Stop right there, Faith! You can't just go around accusing people of what, hiding results? Tampering with data?” She runs her hand over her face then presses a thumb and finger to her closed eyes. “The university licensed RNA 120 to PluraGen, and PluraGen put Dr. Glass in charge of the clinical trial because he's a respected scientist. He's been in the field for a long time. Whatever conspiracy you're imagining, you're wrong. There are no side effects.”

“How do you know?” I ask, taking another step back. This one leaves me pinned to the wall like a dartboard. I wait for Dr. Monroe to shoot the first dart.

Her eyes flutter open. “Because the drug doesn't cause the disease. Your mother had the mutation. She had genetic IPF. I'm sorry.”

Bull's-eye! The words shoot straight into my heart. The best I can do is nod. Finally I have the answer about Mom I've been waiting for, the real cause of her death, and it comes with a possible price tag of my life.

“Your mother was sick for a long time,” Dr. Monroe continues in a tone like a funeral director might use when asking what kind of casket you prefer. “There wasn't anything you or anyone could've done to help her. People with genetic IPF are born with it. They first get sick in their twenties. It's when their skin first starts to peel and blister. As you get older, the condition gets worse and you start to deteriorate. It gets harder to breathe, to climb stairs, things like that.”

“But she didn't have any problems with her skin when I was a kid,” I say, finding my voice and peeling myself off of the wall.