Body and Bone (17 page)

“Those fuckers come around here again,” Allen said, “that's it. I'm gonna blow a hole in them.”

He sat back down with the shotgun across his lap.

“Mom, would you look out front?”

The old lady appeared in the doorway with a matching shotgun. “Can't see anything,” she said.

So it was a family business.

“Look again!”

“Hey,” Nessa said.

All three of them turned their paranoid gazes to her.

“Are you the guys who sell sunflower?”

They looked at each other.

She reached for her phone and they pointed their guns at her.

“Just getting my phone,” she said, digging in her pocket with her right while holding her left aloft. She thought she might faint. With shaking hands, she scrolled to the photo of the glassine bag.

“This?” she said. She held it in front of Allen's face, then Smearface's.

“Yeah,” Allen said.

But Smearface said, “Let me see that.”

Nessa froze, couldn't make herself hand it over.

He snapped his fingers and she gave it to him. He pinched the screen outward, enlarging the image.

“Did you sell to a guy named John?”

They looked at each other.

“John,” Smearface said.

“I know lots of Johns,” the other said.

“Wouldn't have been one of your regulars. He's more of a rock man. He's about five-­ten, dark brown hair and blue eyes.”

“Yeah, we had a guy—­remember the guy like five days ago, maybe a week? Came in here acting all squirrely?”

“Beard?” Smearface asked her.

Well, he hadn't had one when she'd thrown him out but he'd have no reason to shave now.

“Can I show you a picture of him?” She held out her hand. Smearface handed her the phone, and she scrolled through the photos until she found one of John and Daltrey, then held it in front of their bloodshot eyes.

“Is that the squirrelly guy?”

Smearface held up a thumb over the lower half of John's face. “Could be him, I guess.”

Allen nodded, losing interest.

“What did you mean by ‘acting squirrelly'?” she asked.

The guys looked at each other, suspicious, the default setting of most dope dealers.

“You know, squirrely,” Allen said. “You say he was more of a rock man, and I can see that. He was really jumpy, you know. Didn't look like someone who would be interested in sunflower, unless he's a Belushi.”

She wasn't about to explain that he hadn't been buying it for himself. “So you remember him. And this was about a week ago?”

They both nodded enthusiastically.

She put the phone back in her pocket, and finished off her beer. “Well, thanks,” she said, turning to go. Mom blocked the doorway out of the kitchen.

“You're not going to make a purchase?”

Nessa stammered. “No. I just wanted to find out if John had been here. I'm trying to find him.”

“You drank one of our beers.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.” Nessa tried to get around Mom, but she stuck out a bony arm and caught Nessa by the elbow.

“That's not how we do things around here.”

All the blood in Nessa's body drained to her feet, making her feel like she might just lift off of the ground.

“What do you mean?” her voice came out as a squeak.

“You come in here, don't make a purchase, we might think you're an informant or something like that,” Mom said. “Might be wearing a wire.”

She grabbed the front of Nessa's tank and pulled. Nessa grabbed her wrists, but the old lady was shockingly strong and managed to use both hands to rip Nessa's tank right in two.

“No wire,” Mom said, turning her toward the men. Nessa tried to cover herself with her arms, but Mom held her fast.

“Might be somewhere else,” Allen said with a gleam in his eye.

“Maybe you ought to look,” Mom said. “Put your wallet on the table. Keys, phone, everything you got. Need to make sure you don't have pepper spray or some damn thing.”

“Please,” Nessa said. “Don't.”

“On the table,” Mom repeated.

Nessa emptied her pockets, and Smearface grabbed up the wallet while Allen rose from his chair, licking his lips and fingering his belt buckle.

Oh, shit.

While Mom kept Nessa's elbows pinned together behind her back, Allen got on his knees in front of Nessa and started to unbuckle her belt. She wanted to knee him in the face, but there were two shotguns in the room, and who knew how many other weapons were within arm's reach.

“What have we got here,” Smearface said, opening Nessa's wallet. “Sixty-­seven bucks cash.”

Allen looked up into her face as he slowly unbuttoned her Levi's.

Nessa began hyperventilating.

“Platinum Amex,” Smearface said. “Wow. How many junkies you know got that?”

Allen slid her jeans off her hips.

“Please,” she said. She turned her head and tried to catch the old woman's eye but she was having none of that.

“Kansas state driver's license. ‘Donati, Nessa.' Business card . . .”

Allen rubbed his palms together before reaching inside her pant legs to feel her calves and then slowly travel up to her thighs and in between her legs. His other hand snaked up to peel her panties off.

“Altair Satellite Radio?” Smearface said, reading the card. “You're—­holy shit. You're Nessa of
Unknown Legends
!”

Allen froze, his index finger hooked over the elastic band of Nessa's underwear, and turned his head toward his buddy. “Are you shitting me?” Then he looked up at her. “Is that you?”

She couldn't decide which would be worse for her. Maybe they hated the show. Maybe they thought she was a pompous blowhard or a know-­nothing. Maybe they were Beatles fans.

But she said, “Yes. That's me.”

Allen rocked back on his heels and slapped his thighs. “This is unreal. We listen to your show every week.”

Mom loosened her grip on Nessa, who pitched forward onto her knees, painfully. Then she pulled up her underwear.

“I am so sorry,” Allen said, hoisting her from the floor and yanking her pants up, which hurt. Mom let go of her. She buttoned her jeans, buckled her belt, and swallowed back the vomit that was crawling up her throat.

“Mom, get her a shirt, will you?” Allen said. “And make sure it's clean.”

Mom left the room, and Nessa pulled the remnants of her tank together.

“I can't believe it,” Smearface said. “It's really you.”

“It's really me,” she said, blood finally pumping through her body. She had been convinced just moments ago that it never would again.

Mom appeared in the doorway with an oversized T-­shirt that looked like it was from the eighties.

“Not that one, Mom,” Allen said.

She handed it wordlessly to Nessa, who held it up and looked at it.
Harley's Best, Fuck the Rest
, it said. She pulled the shirt on over her head.

“Let us make it up to you,” Smearface said. “We can give you a dose for free, but you gotta shoot it here.”

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

She pictured Daltrey's face.

“No, thanks,” she said. “Can you give me a ride to the McDonald's? I left my car over there.”

Allen drove her and talked the whole way about his favorite band. The Beatles. She couldn't tell if he was being ironic or not, but thought he probably didn't have the brain power to pull it off. When he pulled up to the McDonald's, he said, “Hey, that guy you're looking for—­your husband or whatever? Does he have, like, weird eyes? Different eyes?”

“When he's on crack, he definitely has weird eyes,” Nessa said, remembering the way his eyelids seemed to disappear when he was high. The bloodshot sclera had shone all the way around the iris, giving him a demented appearance.

“Yup. That was him.” Allen scratched his head.

“If John gets in touch with you again, could you call me during my radio show?”

“Sure,” he said, looking her up and down. “You want to go out sometime?”

“Still married,” she said, trying to keep her face from contorting with disgust. “But thanks.”

Nessa walked away from the car. She now had the locksmith and the dealer on the lookout for her. Not a bad night's work.

Then she found a bush and threw up her dinner. She'd been sober six years, six months, and six days. The PBR wasn't quite as smooth coming back up as it was going down.

 

Chapter Twenty

W
HEN
N
ESSA PARKED
her car in the garage at one-­fifteen, Isabeau came charging out of the back door and stood with her arms crossed over her chest until Nessa closed up the garage.

“Where the hell have you been?” Isabeau said.

“Well, I—­”

“I've been worried sick! I tried to call you, text you, everything but Pony Express! Where were you?”

Nessa held her hands up in front of her. She felt terrible for upsetting her nanny. “Take it easy, Isabeau.”

“
You
take it easy! Where. The hell. Were you?”

She looked into Isabeau's sweet face, this face that was filled with pain and anxiety—­that Nessa had caused. And not just by worrying her. By keeping her at arm's length.

Isabeau didn't want anything from her. She truly cared about Nessa.

Nessa felt a surge of protectiveness and affection.

“It's a long story. Let's go inside.”

Once they got into the living room, into the light, Isabeau's jaw went slack.

“What happened to your face?”

Nessa's hands flew up to her cheeks and she remembered her druggie stage makeup. “I needed to make myself look like a junkie.”

“What?” Isabeau was incredulous.

“Sit down,” Nessa said.

Isabeau sat rigid on the couch, her expression demanding an explanation. Nessa told her all about her evening, leaving nothing out, including the visit from Child Protective Ser­vices the day before, which Isabeau had missed.

“Wow!” Isabeau said. “I can't believe you did that. I would have gone with you. It would have been safer.”

“Well, it's done now, and I have confirmation that it was John who bought the heroin.”

Isabeau pressed a finger to her lips and shook her head, staring off at nothing. Then she looked over at Nessa. “Hey,” she said. “I just realized that you're not wearing long sleeves. You always wear long sleeves.”

Nessa looked into Isabeau's honest eyes and thought of everything Isabeau had done for her. Loved Daltrey like family. Saved Nessa from the rapist. Helped set up the security system. Did absolutely anything Nessa asked. Held nothing back, ever.

Isabeau was the real thing. A friend. What might it be like to open up to another human being? What would it be like to have a real friend? But what if Isabeau betrayed her somehow? Nessa could never know for sure that she wouldn't. That was the chance you had to take. With trepidation, Nessa held her breath, braced herself, and jumped off the cliff.

“It's to cover up my lasered-­off tattoos,” Nessa said.

“It looks like you had a full sleeve on here,” Isabeau said.

“I did,” Nessa said.

“I'm sorry, but I'm a little drunk.” Isabeau looked at Nessa guiltily. “It must be hard to be around ­people who drink, huh?”

“No,” Nessa said, melting back into the couch, weariness overtaking her. “Booze was never my real problem.”

“What do you mean?”

Nessa hadn't even told Marlon about this. But a weird thing had happened tonight. She'd tracked down John's dealers and lived through it. She'd done something courageous, though stupid, and it made her feel brave.

“I mean it was just a gateway drug for me,” Nessa said. “I could kind of take it or leave it—­no addiction there. It just led to other things.”

“So—­wait. You're not an addict?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Crack?” Isabeau said.

“Oh, hells no,” Nessa said. She gulped. If she let this out now, there was no taking it back. But she was so exhausted from trying to hold up this wall, this wall that threatened to flatten her, that had nearly stolen her humanity.

“It was heroin.”

Isabeau looked shocked, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Nessa,” she said.

“That's why I got these tattoos here.” Nessa pointed to where the blue stars of the constellation Phoenix used to be tattooed. “To cover my tracks.”

“That's intense,” Isabeau said. “How long ago was that?”

“A lifetime ago,” Nessa said, imagining the girl she used to be, the one who took any drug anyone handed her, who would never get married, let alone have children. The one who busted headlong into any and all situations like a blind girl crashing into a plate-­glass window with zero regard for who got hurt.

Nowadays, she saw women writing letters online to their younger selves to dispense imaginary advice.

Dear me
, she would write.
Don't drink and drive. Don't try to grow up so fast. Don't believe you're invincible, because you're not. Don't confuse careless with cool.

Don't go to that party.

Isabeau scooted closer and looked at Nessa's left arm, tracing the remnants with her finger. Nessa held still, allowing her to puzzle out the faint markings, their secrets, their codes, the story of Nessa's life in ink.

“Okay,” she said. “You have to tell me what all the tattoos were, because knowing you, there's a story behind every one.”

Knowing you.
This phrase struck Nessa because Isabeau was the first person since John who could honestly say that, at least to a limited extent. Nessa realized the fact that Isabeau had been drinking was the only reason she was emboldened enough to ask such personal questions.

“You can still see parts of them,” Nessa said. She pointed to the top of her shoulder, where the light green pigments of a flower stem were still visible. “That was a rose, my favorite flower,” she said.

“This one here,” Nessa said, pointing at the faded yellow markings below the rose, “was two cave women sitting on thrones holding stone scepters.”

“Why?” Isabeau said. “What did it mean?”

“It was the name of my favorite band in high school.”

Isabeau thought. “Hanson?” she said, and had a little giggle fit.

“How could that possibly mean Hanson?” Nessa said, laughing.

“I don't know. I'm not the music person you are.”

“It's Queens of the Stone Age,” she said.

Isabeau pointed to Nessa's arm again. “This one looks like it was graffiti.”

“Right,” Nessa said. “That was under a bridge I used to live near.”

“What did it say?”

“Who knows? It was just gobbledygook, like other taggers. It was just to remind me . . .”

“Remind you of what?”

“Of how far I've come, and how I'm never going back.”

“Is that why you tried to have the other ones removed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Because you're not that girl anymore.”

Wow. That was more insightful than Isabeau could ever know.

Nessa took a deep breath, then held her left arm out so that Isabeau could see the tattoos she'd kept. In purple script,
Candy
with two dates side by side.

“What does this mean? Who's Candy?”

Nessa couldn't speak as Isabeau's gaze traveled from the tattoo to Nessa's eyes, which were filling with tears. “Are those dates?” Isabeau said. “Like a tombstone?”

Nessa laid her head back on the couch cushion and closed her eyes. Exactly like a tombstone. If Candy could have known that Nessa would be carrying this sack full of guilt with her wherever she went, she would've lightly slapped Nessa, like she always had whenever Nessa was acting stupid. Somehow, Nessa hadn't been able to stop Candy from doing it, hadn't been able to help laughing. She'd loved and hated it.

“Oh,” Isabeau said. “She was your best friend, wasn't she? The one you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Nessa said.

“She died seven years ago,” Isabeau said, looking at the date. “I'm so sorry.”

“Things happen to you,” Nessa said, opening her eyes and looking at Isabeau. “And there's nothing you can do about it. You can't go back. You can't change it.”

Isabeau hugged her, and Nessa let her. “I'm sorry,” she said again.

Isabeau looked closely at the remnants of the script tattoo below that one. “The Glimmer Twins,” she read aloud.

“Candy and I got matching tattoos, same place, same size,” Nessa said, wiping her eyes.

“And what's this date here?”

“My anniversary.”

“I thought you and John were only married five years ago.”

“We were. It's my sober anniversary.” In spite of everything, Nessa was proud of this one. She'd made her way out. Stayed sober, no matter how much stress she was under.

Isabeau stared. “Hey. That's the same date that Candy died.”

“I went cold turkey,” Nessa said, shivering in remembrance. “The absolute worst. Worse than childbirth, but you get a prize at the end of both.”

“Oh,” Isabeau said, but didn't ask any more about it.

They sat in companionable silence for a bit, then Isabeau said, “That heroin confession was a pretty big one, so I'm going to tell you my big secret.”

“You don't have to do that,” Nessa said, not sure she wanted to hear it. Being entrusted with other ­people's secrets carried a heavy price, one she wasn't sure she was ready to pay.

“But that's what friends do,” Isabeau said. “Right?”

Nessa was humbled by this. She nodded.

“When I was in high school,” she said, “I had an affair with my dad's best friend.”

“That's awful,” Nessa said.

“I know,” Isabeau said. “I've never been able to forgive myself for it.”

Nessa was horrified at that misinterpretation of her comment. “Not awful of you. Awful
for
you. You were a kid. It's the guy who should be shot. It's called statutory rape.”

“His name was Dusty Matthiasen. I wrote about him in my diary, and looking back, I really think I wanted my mom to find it and read it. I think I wanted her to stop it. I so wish she would have.”

“I had just the opposite problem,” Nessa said.

“What do you mean?”

“My mom snooped through everything of mine, from the time I was little. No privacy at all. But really, that wasn't the worst of it. It was the reason she did it.”

“What do you mean?” Isabeau said again.

Nessa thought for a moment. She'd never actually put this into words, and it was a revelation. “I wrote about everything in my diary—­sex, drugs, shoplifting—­all kinds of stuff. But that wasn't what bothered her. No. She wasn't snooping to find out what I was up to. She was snooping to see what I was saying about her. What I thought about her.”

“That is bizarre.”

“Isn't it?”

“I even wrote about a suicide attempt,” Nessa said. “Another thing Marlon and I have in common.”

“Marlon tried to commit suicide? I thought he loved himself too much!”

Nessa covered her mouth with her hand. Oh, this was bad. She had just broken the cardinal twelve-­step rule. What's said in confidence stays in confidence, and she'd just tossed out this information as if she were disclosing his favorite ice cream flavor.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I assumed you knew. I don't know why I assumed that. I'm sorry I dumped that on you.”

Isabeau made a locking motion in front of her mouth and pantomimed throwing away the key. “I'd never hurt him. He's been such a great mentor to me.”

“Me too,” Nessa said.

A low moan sounded, making her jump. “What was that?” Her heart was racing again. She realized it was the wind outside.

Isabeau looked up at the ceiling. “Ghosts,” she said, raising her eyebrows up and down.

“Or is it skeletons in the closet?” Nessa said.

The wind suddenly whipped up and lightning flashed outside the windows. “Storm's a-­comin',” Isabeau said as the thunder boomed. “Supposed to get, like, two inches of rain and heavy winds.” She stretched. “So how did you and Marlon meet?”

“Through AA, of course,” Nessa said.

Isabeau grimaced.

“You didn't know that either,” Nessa said.

Isabeau shook her head.

“Oh, shit. I have such a big mouth.”

And this was why she shouldn't have friends—­getting close to ­people produced pain. But then again, she'd experienced pain in her loneliness. Sitting here with Isabeau, sharing stories, the pain of the last few weeks seemed to lessen a little.

“No, you don't,” Isabeau said. “This is the most I've ever heard out of you.” They sat in silence for a moment. “So how does a girl get hooked on heroin anyway?”

“It's a long story.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Nessa looked at her.
This is what friends do.
So she told Isabeau all about it.

“So you thought you were doing coke,” Isabeau said.

“Yeah,” Nessa said. “And H was so great, I just had to turn my best friend on to it too.” She gestured to her constellation tattoo and said, “Obviously we started shooting it. Stupid. Really stupid. And yes. I started turning tricks to support my habit.”

The judgment, the disengagement, the revulsion she feared seeing on Isabeau's face failed to materialize. The tightness in Nessa's chest loosened further.

Isabeau leaned her head back against the couch and gave Nessa a sorrowful smile. “I'm sorry you had to go through all that.”

“I'm sorry your dad's best friend was a rapey douchebag.”

“I'm sorry your best friend died. That's never happened to me. I can't even imagine.”

She probably couldn't imagine causing a friend's death either.