The Sweet Dead Life (6 page)

"I am." She gestured to a group of kids over by the flower beds. "Señora Flanagan is having us list the Spanish words for everything we see."

Maggie's eyes widened. "What happened to you?" As Maggie stared at me, I stared back. She wore knee-high black Converse, fish nets, a black cotton short skirt, a sparkly navy tank top, and a magenta hoodie that covered not only her out-of-dress-code sleeveless shoulders but also the against-Ima-Hogg-policy henna tattoo she'd recently gotten above her left boob. Maggie was a fashion original.

Maybe that's why we're best friends: we don't look or dress at all alike.

Maggie is short but mighty--exactly 5' 2 ½" tall, with chin-length blonde hair, currently dyed brick red with a black streak down one side. I am taller--about 5' 7" with the option of a final growth spurt still open. My features are more forgettable: no tats, no dye, shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. I'm on the thin side, but I've got really strong legs. Or at least I used to before I started dying of whatever it is I'm dying of.

I began to update Maggie on the insanity of the accident and its aftermath, until I noticed that she was only sort of listening. Mostly what she was doing was gaping at my brother as he hopped out of the car.

"Hey, Mags." Casey mustered a grin. He cocked his head. "Nice tattoo."

His hair was particularly wavy, which I chalked up to Houston December humidity. But his eyes were still bright and sparkly, like yesterday. Again, I came to the logical conclusion: Amber must have hooked him up with better quality pot. One that was lighter on the side effects. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light, which somehow seemed brighter around my brother. Dave's eyes, on the other hand, were

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soggy and puffy and red. Maybe Dave hadn't even smoked yet. Or he'd smoked too much already. "Oh, you like the ink, Casey?" Maggie giggled.

Let me note here that Maggie is not the giggling type. Maggie is all about the belly laugh or the sarcastic snort.

My eyes followed Mags's eyes to the chest area under my brother's unwrinkled polo. When had he acquired what looked like sort of six-packy abs instead of his normally blobby, too-many-Jack-in-the-Box-tacos middle?

Right, I already knew: I just hadn't noticed, given that I was dying and he always wore loose-fitting clothes. Carrying those trays of barbeque at BJ's must be more of a workout than I thought. I squinted at him in the sunlight.

This I wasn't imagining: he'd groomed his eyebrows. No. That had to be from the hospital. Maybe Nurse Ed had plucked a few strands while he was scrubbing the blood off Casey's face. You just never knew with those Crocs folks.

I yanked on his sleeve. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Casey ignored me. "What?" he said genially, stil smiling at Mags.

I decided to look up brain injuries at lunch. Most likely the hospital had missed something. There was no other way to explain Casey's freakish change in behavior, or his sudden improvement in the posture and hygiene department.

"Maggie is off limits," I hissed, loud enough for her to hear too. "Leave the felonies to Dave, okay?"

"Hey," Dave said. He'd moved up to the driver's seat. "Highly uncalled for.

Besides, you could take a few lessons from her in the outfit department." He eyeballed my boobs, then opened the little tin and popped one of Casey's snickerdoodles into his mouth.

That was Dave. For all I knew, he'd smashed our car into

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that Jack in the Box menu because that's what Dave did when someone was nice to him. Dave was screwed up like that. Which made the whole Mercury loan thing even weirder.

That strange look crossed Casey's face again. "Go to class, Jenna. You're already way late. I'll pick you up at five, okay. Just like we planned. If you feel bad, just go to the nurse and tell her to call my cell. I'll come for you.

Don't worry."

He reached up and pressed his hand to my cheek.

His palm was warm. I brushed his hand away. My brother was not the touchy-feely type. Neither was I. But even as I thought about calling him on the fact that he was trying something shifty--while, I might add, trying to make me ignore that, yes, he'd been hitting on my best friend--I felt the wiggly knot in my stomach ease.

Dumbfounded, I stared until he and Dave and the Merc disappeared in a cloud of exhaust.

"What's with your brother?" Maggie asked.

I shrugged, unable to answer. The wiggly knot started forming again. It wasn't just that Casey was not himself in more ways than I could name. It was what I felt when he rested his hand on my face. The closest I could come to remembering what it felt like was eating birthday cake, back before Dad ran off. It wasn't just warm on my insides. It was warm
inside
the insides. This weird peaceful feeling that started in my toes and migrated straight to the top of my head.

I was not a peaceful person. Maybe I had been once in the days of Dad. But that was so long ago, I didn't really remember. What I did know is this: Casey's hand on my face also felt like Christmas morning, acing a math test, and having my mother brush my hair until it was shiny (also, needless to say, something I barely recalled) all rolled up in one.

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"I wish I knew," I finally told Maggie. And I realized right then and there that I had to get to the bottom of Casey's bizarre change, and I had to do it soon.

Something was coming or something was behind it. But like any optical illusion, I just hadn't looked at it the right way.

4) What happened in Algebra:

"You're tardy."

This is what Mr. Collins told me as I tried to sneak in at 9:25, exactly five minutes before the end of class. He did not ask me why. He did not ask me about my swollen eye or my general pale and hanging-on-by-a-thread appearance. He did not even comment that at least my boots looked good, which he should have since I had shined them up and removed the blood spots.

"I
should
mark you absent," he finished.

I resisted the temptation to point out that Corey Chambers was asleep and drooling on his desk. Corey roused himself as I walked toward my seat and gave me a halfhearted wave. Like my brother, Corey scored his weed from Dave. (Or like my brother used to, before he met Amber Velasco.) This seemed to make him feel that we had stoner solidarity. I wished it hadn't.

Mr. Collins wrinkled his forehead, considering what he should do with a juvenile offender like me. Or maybe that constipated expression owed to something not on my radar: he'd had a fight with the wife, or the principal had informed him that Sansabelt slacks were on sale at Penney's and he was trying to figure out how to work in a trip to the mall during his off period.

With teachers you just never know.

Or people in general.

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"I do believe," said Mr. Collins, tapping his stubby fingers on his desk as the clock ticked audibly toward the half hour, "that you, Miss Samuels, are going to owe me another afternoon of detention."

I bit my lip, forcing myself not to call him an asshat. Better to pretend that he didn't exist. The next four minutes crawled with excruciating slowness until the bell rang. Everyone scattered like buckshot.

"Asshat," I said under my breath.

"What?" asked Mr. Collins over the commotion.

"I was in a car accident," I said. "We were at the hospital until like two this morning. Our Prius was totaled."

Mr. Collins popped a couple Tic Tacs into his mouth. Straightened a pile of papers on his desk. "Was your brother driving?"

I didn't answer. I sank deeper into my desk chair. Suddenly, we were alone in the classroom.

"Jenna." Mr. Collins sighed. "What's going on at home? Are y'all okay?"

I was absolutely not going to cry in front of the maybe not so much of an asshat.

"We're fine," I lied to him. "Totally fine. Casey's working at BJ's now, you know."

Mr. Collins considered this. His second period class began filing in. I needed to get to English. I needed to talk to Maggie some more. I needed a lot of things, really. I stood and hurried up the aisle past him.

"I like the boots," Mr. Collins remarked. "They're looking really sharp."

"Thanks."

"You still need to do those two days of detention, by the way."

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I paused at the door.

"School policy, Jenna. You cannot call your teacher an asshat. We frown on that here at Ima Hogg."

For a second I thought he was going to hug me. Fortunately, he did not.

"Casey okay?" he asked instead.

I nodded. Casey was remarkably okay. My gut was telling me that this was not really possible. But I wasn't sure how to form that into a response. Or if I even should.

"Take care of that swollen eye," Mr. Collins said as I turned to head upstream against the horde of algebra-knowledge seekers. "I'm here if you want to talk," he added.

"Better block out a lot of time," I told him.

He frowned, but did not otherwise pursue.

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W
hat Happened Yesterday and Why I Never Made it to My Detention:
After my five quality minutes with Mr. Collins, I proceeded to English and Maggie--who seemed kind of embarrassed that she'd acted so addle-brained and flirty. We discussed my brother in a series of scribbled notes.

This, while we were supposed to be doing grammar worksheets.

(Worksheets are big at Ima Hogg. So are Projects. Especially Group Projects. Ima Hogg believed in collaborative learning--which never failed to piss me off every time I got stuck doing work for the Collaborative Slackers.) In the spirit of Ima Hogg educational policy, I labeled our notes like this:
Jenna and Maggie's Collaborative Attempt to

Analyze Casey's Weirdness

Me: Does Casey seem different to you?

Mags: Different how? Taller?

Me: Yes! And nicer maybe?

50 Mags: Idk. Cuter? Seriously. What did he do to his hair?

Me: Idk! Gag. Do you really think he's cute?

Mags: Um. Oddly. Yes. Too weird, right? I mean it's Casey
.

Me: Yes! Too Weird. Going to pretend I didn't read that. Do you think it's
a brain injury? Maybe he hit his head during the accident and now he's
acting all strange?

Mags: Maybe. But how does this explain the hair? And did he whiten
his teeth or something?

We would have gone on, but our teacher Mrs. Weiss caught us. She also informed us that our knowledge of the parts of speech was more crucial than my "personal crisis." Her words. Thanks for that, Mrs. Weiss. Asshat is a noun, by the way. In case you were wondering.

Then the bell rang.

"I don't know what got into me," Maggie said as we slogged through the crowded halls to science class. "He just looked nicer or something. Not like himself." She blushed a little and tugged her hoodie over the henna tattoo.

"No offense to your brother or anything. Plus even if I was older, Casey's not the kind of guy I'd go out with. Unless that's what the universe wants for me. I guess then I'd have to embrace it."

I decided there was a lot of momentary insanity going on. "No worries." I said.

"What did your mom say about the car?"

I frowned. "If you had to take a guess?"

Maggie nodded, her face softening. She knew the deal with mom. But she was hopeful enough to keep asking. She truly believed that at some point the universe would take pity on the Samuels family and cough up an explanation.

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"So what are y'all going to do?" she asked. "Borrow Dave's grandma's car forever? You and Casey can't just go on taking care of everything by yourselves. You had a car accident for God's sake."

I shrugged. What could I do? Mom was Mom. Other than that brief moment yesterday, the last time she had acted like an actual parent had been when Casey quit football. She'd stopped going to work about six months earlier, but she hadn't yet removed herself from our lives. Six months ago, she still occasionally cooked a meal or did laundry or asked us about school. So she knew that our bank account was draining faster than our household income, even if she either wouldn't or couldn't explain how there had been such a sizeable amount of money in there in the first place. Dad had been gone a long time.

"Tell your coaches," Mom had begged Casey when he let it slip that he'd given up football and started waiting tables. "Maybe they'll let you work something out."

Casey refused. It wasn't like he was the star of the team, he'd told Mom.

What went on in our house was none of their damn business.

But people knew we were in trouble. Like Mr. Collins, asking if we were okay. Or Dr. Renfroe stopping by to say hi every few weeks or so. For a while he encouraged Mom to get a checkup, to see if the doctors could figure out why she was slowly melting away from planet Earth. I think he knew she wouldn't go, though. He extended Mom's health insurance--which also covered Casey and me--as long as he could, but eventually, she stopped going to work altogether. There was nothing he could do.

Maybe I needed to adopt Maggie's universe philosophy after all. It might make things easier when my family