Death Spiral (15 page)

That's when it all comes back to me with a gale that makes my knees weak—death reports, diseases, side effects, drug dealers, lies, bribery
.
I drop onto the nearest bench and surrender to the weight of worry.

Jesse sits down next to me and drapes an arm around my shoulder. “Reality's overrated. How about we ignore it a little longer and catch a movie?”

“That's the best idea I've heard all day.”

***

A half hour later we're at the eleven-plex theater on south Columbus. I have no idea what's playing, and I don't care. Sitting in the dark with Jesse and losing myself to Hollywood is all that matters. Jesse picks some action flick about terrorists and conspiracy and a bunch of guys who blow stuff up. We buy tickets and then stand in line for the mandatory popcorn, soda, and candy combo.

“They say never eat anything that comes in a bucket,” Jesse says as he hands me a tray holding a bucket of popcorn, an extra large soda, and a jumbo bag of candy.

I reach for the popcorn. “Words to live by.”

We exit the movie theater some three hours later and step outside into the early winter night, a different kind of night than any other season. The sky is darker, lonelier. I look up to find the stars, but the city lights mask their presence. The dark of the street blends into the dark of the sky like a big, black curtain has been draped over the heavens. I feel lost without the guidance of the stars, without their burning reminder that we're just a speck in time. Orion, Pegasus, Ursa Major and Minor. Names Mom taught me. Looking out the window some nights, good nights when she was straight, she'd teach me about the order of the universe, even when I was too little to understand. Everything that is born dies. The entire universe is made of the same atoms. Planets revolve around the sun. Unbreakable truths. In the chaos or our lives, she told me, the laws of nature always remain the same.

Here in the starless city night the buildings are their own stars, burning bright lights coaxing you in off the street, into that fake security that if you build enough walls and buy enough stuff you can insulate yourself from the natural order of things. But no matter how much you own, how many walls you put up—the laws of nature always win. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Everything that is born dies.

Or gets killed.

Fifteen

Anj is the first to call the next morning with the news. “What did'ya do, kill the guy?” she says when I pick up.

I wipe sleep from my eyes, wondering if it's possible I'm still dreaming. “Kill who?” I yawn.

“Dr. Carlisle, the medical examiner. I mean it's a good thing you talked to the guy yesterday. Now that he's dead and all.”

“What?” I blurt, awake now.

“Yeah, it's on the front page of the paper. I saw my dad reading about it and totally flipped. Hold on.” I hear her shouting something at Chrissy about nail polish and the dog. “ ‘Kay, I'm back. It says his car went off a bridge into the Schuylkill.”

Off a bridge? Into the Schuylkill? Dr. Carlisle dead? That can't be. People don't just drive off bridges. I hold the phone to my ear, a million thoughts racing through my mind, all of them trapped.

“Uh…hello,” Anj says. “You still there?”

“Still here,” I manage to get out.

“Gosh, sorry. I didn't mean to be the bearer of bad news. I just thought you'd want to know since you met the guy and everything. You were probably the last one to see him alive. From the way his car swerved, they think his brakes might've failed. Anyway, gotta run. My sister's trying to put nail polish on the dog's claws again. See you at school.”

I say good-bye and rush out of my room and into the kitchen, still wearing underwear and a tank. Aunt T's at the table, already dressed, drinking coffee with the newspaper spread in front of her. If I weren't in such a panic, I might stop and enjoy the smell of coffee. I might even sit at the table with Aunt T and feel the warmth of morning sun streaming in through the lace curtains. I am in a panic, though, and a clumsy one at that. I snatch the front page from the pile next to Aunt T and knock over her coffee mug in the process.

“Really, Faith,” she sputters. She jumps to her feet and mops up the spill with the funny page. “What's gotten in to you this morning?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I just have to see something.” I grip the greasy newsprint in my fingers and read the headlines:
Accident Leads To Medical Examiner's Death.
I try to read the rest of the article, but my hands are shaking so badly I can hardly hold the paper still. All I can make out are fragments.
Too early to state the cause of the accident…bystanders say he swerved to avoid a collision…happened sometime after five.…

My stomach is suddenly violently ill. I flee the kitchen and run to the bathroom where I drop to my knees and heave into the toilet. My stomach buckles, and I heave again. Three times in all, until all that's left to throw up is water. I'm covered in sweat. My face. My hands. Even the bottoms of my feet are clammy. I sit on the floor and draw my knees to my chest.

Aunt T taps on the door and calls my name.

“Just a minute!” I drag myself to the sink, stick my head under a blast of water, giving myself a brain freeze, then perch on the edge of the tub and shiver. It's not the temperature prickling my flesh. It's a deeper cold rising from the sickening feeling that Dr. Carlisle's death wasn't an accident. That it was connected to my mother, to the autopsy, to the secret he was keeping.

Aunt T opens the door and peeks in. “You okay, hon?”

“Greasy pizza,” I stammer. “I ate too much last night with Jesse. Must've turned my stomach.”

Aunt T studies my face. I can tell she doesn't believe me. I'd go for the too-much-beer barf-fest-hangover excuse, but Aunt T knows I don't party. She comes into the bathroom and leans against the wall. “Do you want to talk?”

Yes
,
I think. “No,” I say.

“Faith, it's better if you—”

“Talk,” I interrupt. “I know. But I have to go. I'll be late for school. I feel better now.” I sound lame, even to myself. But what choice do I have? Aunt T warned me:
Your mother died of a heroin overdose. Don't go looking for problems when there aren't any.

I make a halfhearted attempt at a smile and leave the bathroom before Aunt T can say anything else. The second I'm in my room, I check my phone. Two texts from Jesse. I'm about to respond when I get a call. This time it's Dr. Monroe.

“There's something I need to talk to you about,” she says in place of hello. “It's important. Can you meet me today?”

Hearing Dr. Monroe's voice, Jesse's words stampede into my mind and crush every other thought in their path:
For all we know she's the one paying off the medical examiner. Maybe she knew her drug caused the disease and figured nobody would find out.

What if he's right? I think with a rising feeling of dread. What if Dr. Monroe
is
behind this, and she had something to do with Dr. Carlisle's death? What if the meeting is a set up? Then again, what if Jesse's wrong? What if she knows something about my mom or has information about her drug?

“Faith? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, still here…sorry.…” The television goes on in Aunt T's room. Through the thin walls I hear an advertisement for winter boots. That's it. Shoes. We'll meet someplace public, someplace safe. The mall. “Okay. How about Footlocker? Springfield Mall at noon?”

Dr. Monroe agrees. Just as I say good-bye and hang up, I hear the front door open and the sound of Sam's voice. The TV goes off, and a minute later, Aunt T comes to my room.

“Sam's here,” she says. “He's taking me to work. My car's vibrating again, but the garage can't work on it until tomorrow. We're supposed to go to some dealers this evening—car dealers,” she says quickly in case I thought she meant she was going out for a score. “I don't have to go. I could call in sick. Are you sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine,” I insist. “See?” I burst into a spontaneous set of jumping jacks, but the expression on Aunt T's face tells me the jumping jacks aren't enhancing my claim of miraculous recovery. They're just making me look like some kind of deranged athletic hopeful. “Seriously,” I say, working up a smile now. “I'm okay. I'm leaving in a few minutes.”

“O-ka-y.” She hesitates and searches my face with her worried eyes. “But call me if you need anything.
Anything
,” she emphasizes, and after one more worried glance in my direction, turns and leaves me alone.

The second she's gone I race to the kitchen and root around the drawers for her spare car key. If I drive I won't have to miss any classes. I can take the car to school, drive to the mall at lunch for the meeting, and get back for sixth period. It's only Thursday and I already have two half-days and one full-day unexcused absences this week. A fourth and Mrs. Stratberry, the school attendance officer who believes “thou shalt not miss school” is one of the original ten commandments, will be dragging my butt to the principal and putting in a call to Aunt T.

I don't care how badly the car vibrates, or that I don't have a license. I know how to drive—at least reasonably so. I'll have the car back before Aunt T's home. She'll never know I took it. I go outside and climb into the driver's seat, concentrating not on my meeting this afternoon with Dr. Monroe or on Dr. Carlisle's “accident” but on making the thing go without killing anyone.

I'm on Mill, blocks from school, when a car pulls into the next lane and starts cruising along beside me—probably some loser with a rude comment about what I'm doing later on tonight. My usual defense in situations like this is to ignore Homo erectus until he drives off to find some other fresh meat to drag into his cave. I'm in no mood today to be sexually harassed by a jerk with a hard-on who thinks he's hot shit. I glance at the driver, prepared to throw him the finger, but something about the way he rolls along beside me puts me on edge. I take a second look. This time the window rolls down, and the driver turns his head in my direction. The Rat Catcher's lips spread into a dark, crooked smile, and with a nod of the head, he gives me a look that says, “I'm watching.”

I'm so busy worrying over what the Rat Catcher and his druggie mob want with me, that I blow through the four-way stop without thinking, forcing some girl in a Beemer to slam on her brakes to avoid a collision.

She rolls down her window and hollers, “Watch where you're going, bitch!”

I peel into the school parking lot and run to the back door where a group of girls dressed in matching school sweats and white tees stand clumped in a gossipy huddle. I feel my hair, which I hadn't brushed in the first place, sticking to my cheeks, my face hot and sweaty. My boots are heavy as tractors as I clump up each step. A girl I recognize from the school musical
Grease
, where she played Sandy, innocent virgin turned bad, whispers as I pass. The whisper is loud, meant for me to hear:
Check her out. She looks like a druggie. Did you hear the rumor about her mom?

I think of marching back down those steps and taking a swing at the girl's pretty porcelain face. It wouldn't be the first time. I've been the cause of numerous bloody noses in my mom's defense, but I don't have time. I have to get inside and find Jesse.

The bell rings before I have a chance. I rush to my locker and grab the first books I see, which turn out to be entirely the wrong ones, and I show up in English class with my history textbook and lab manual. When Laz sees the lab manual on my desk he jokes that perhaps I'd rather dissect a cow's eye than read Steinbeck. A few people laugh. I don't care. I search the room for Jesse.

“You okay?” he mouths when our eyes meet.

I shake my head. I'm not okay. Not at all. I scribble a note and drop it on his desk on my way out on a bathroom pass:
Meet me out back after third period.

Anj finds me in the hall after English. Her hair is wrapped in a colorful tie-dyed African turban, and she's wearing a matching sarong and shirt. Africa awareness day she tells me. “The cafeteria refused to go vegan, and we decided we didn't like the Happy Cows slogan, so we moved on from factory farming to world hunger. I'm supposed to look like I'm from Africa, but I think I look more like I'm from Macy's.” She sighs. “Oh well. I try.” She stops talking about her plight and focuses her attention on me. “How are you doing? That's so awful about Dr. Carlisle. You must be totally freaking out. What happened at your meeting yesterday?”

I start to tell her about the autopsy report and what I learned, but I don't get past the opening line. Tara and Sylvie Jackson, another member of the socially conscious gang-of-five, come rushing down the hall toward us. Tara races over to Anj and grabs her arm.

“Emergency,” she pants. “Somebody stole the money we made this morning at the bake sale.” She glares at Sylvie who's suddenly become busy studying the floor. “
Someone
was supposed to keep watch over the booth and not take off with their boyfriend and leave it unattended. Come on, we have to go talk to the principal.” She whisks Anj away to Mr. Jennings' office before I can say anything else. Anj looks back over her shoulder as Tara pulls her down the hall and shouts, “Call me later!”

“Okay,” I call after her, but suddenly I know I won't.

As I watch Anj walk away with her friends, something becomes clear to me: I can't drag Anj into this mess. Anj, who shops at Macy's and spends hundreds of dollars to dress up like she's from Africa, so she can raise awareness about famine and drought and all the horrible things happening in some other part of the world. She's not like me. I don't have to dress up.

What if by being my friend, something bad happens to Anj? What if she tries to help me and she gets hurt or worse? If someone really did kill Dr. Carlisle, what else are they willing to do to keep their secret safe? The best way to keep Anj out of this, to protect her from whatever danger I've gotten myself into, is to keep her away from me.

It's all I can do to make it through history and moron math. I check the clock every few minutes, as Mrs. Kempt, who has about the sense of humor of a dead fish, drones on about how changing the order of the addends doesn't change the sum.

Finally math agony ends, and I rush outside to meet Jesse.

“Dr. Carlisle's dead, Jesse,” I say the second I see him. “Maybe whoever I overheard him talking to on the phone killed him because they wanted more money to lie to me.” Fear pulses through my blood, causing words to tumble out before they can be screened for logic. “And I saw the Rat Catcher on the way to school this morning. Why the hell is he following me? Does he think I can pay off my mom's debt, or that I can trace the heroin back to him?”

I stop talking and wait for Jesse to offer his own theory. Instead, he takes me in his arms.

“I don't want you to get hurt,” he murmurs.

His voice is a whisper in my ear as he pulls me hard against his body. I melt into his embrace. His lips find mine. I feel the tip of his tongue in my mouth and dissolve into the softness of the kiss. The world slips away as his hand slides up and over the curve of my hip. Before his hand can go any further, I jerk away.

“I care about you, Faith,” Jesse says, pulling me back for another kiss.

This time I turn my head and his nose slams into my cheek.

Jesse doesn't belong in this mess any more than Anj does. I don't care that he's the first boy I've ever really liked, that Anj is the first friend I've ever really had. This isn't about Tia or about being real or about standing up to Doc. This is about getting killed. Murdered. Driven off a bridge.

If I want to protect my friends from whoever's willing to kill to keep their secret safe, I have no choice: From this moment on, Jesse and Anj get the Faith Flores friendship ax.

I try to run, but Jesse's got my arm.

“I don't care about you,” I lie. “Not in this way.”

I tear free from his grip and run away.