Love at 11

Chapter Thirteen



The clock had struck three a.m. long before I inserted my key into the lock of my front door. I couldn’t be more exhausted if I’d run a marathon. In a way I had, I guess—a mental marathon, anyway. My heart literally ached from the rapid beating it had been forced to drum during our desert adventure. And my scraped knee throbbed its annoyance at the horrid mistreatment it had suffered under my watch.

It was funny. James Bond never came home sore and exhausted. He’d go on high adventures—espionage, chase scenes, gun fights—much more strenuous than mine and still have plenty of energy to pleasure a Bond girl the same night.

He must have had better gym habits than I did.

I tiptoed into the living room, assuming Lulu would be sound asleep on the couch. At least I hadn’t come home to another wild party; tonight I wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to deal with San Diego’s pierced and tattooed.

But Lulu wasn’t lying on the couch. Nor, as further examination confirmed, had she passed out in my bed. I began to worry. Was she out partying again? The girl was going to flunk out of school. I’d already gone through the roof when she sheepishly presented me the note from her principal the night before. I had no idea she’d been skipping. The devious little bitch had been waking up at six a.m. and leaving the apartment on time to catch the bus; how was I supposed to know she’d detoured somewhere along the way? And to lie to the administrators? Tell them our parents had died and I’d contracted SARS?

Seriously, if I ever managed to get married, I was so not having children.

I noticed the answering machine’s blinking light and pressed the “play” button. Maybe Lulu had called. Maybe she’d decided to sleep over a friend’s or went back to our parents’ house.

“Um, hi, Maddy? Can you, like, come down to the police station when you get home? I’ve been, um, arrested.”

Or maybe she was in worse trouble than I’d even imagined.

Damn it all to hell! All I wanted to do was curl up in my warm, inviting bed and sleep for a year. Was that so much to ask for at three a.m. on a work night? And now I had to go down to the police station to bail out my little sister for God knew what reason? Seriously, whatever I’d done in another life to deserve such karma must have been pretty darn bad. Like Attila-the-Hun bad.

I thought about calling my father. Letting him know the consequences of his neglect. Lecturing him on how he should be sorting out his old family before starting in on his new one. Force him to parent—to deal with Lulu’s juvenile delinquency. But luckily for dear old dad, at this moment I didn’t have the mental energy to deal with his disappointment in me for not looking after Lulu the way I should have. As if it had been my job all along.

No, I’d go and bring my sister home myself. But he’d be sure to hear about the incident first thing in the morning. I should have gone to him to begin with, before things got so out of control.

I headed to my bedroom to grab money out of my underwear drawer. I had stashed it there before going to Mexico—didn’t want to bring a ton of cash to a foreign country. Of course, if I’d known the funds would be called upon to bail my crazy sister out of jail, I might have handed them out willy-nilly to the far more deserving Mexican beggar children. Or at least bought that purse.

I reached into the drawer and fished around under my collection of lacy thongs (hardly used) and granny pants (somewhat threadbare) for the cash.

I didn’t feel it.

Puzzled, I started pulling out the underwear and tossing it on top of the dresser. It had to be there.

Nothing.

Three hundred dollars had just disappeared.

Lulu. The thought hit me like a ten-ton truck. It had to be Lulu. Oh. My. God. She was soooo dead.

Seriously, I should let her freaking rot in jail. I wondered how long they’d leave someone there if no one came to bail them out. If we were lucky they’d incarcerate her until her thirtieth birthday.

What a fool I’d been. She was a drug addict. That stuff on the mirror? That hadn’t been no stinkin’ Ritalin. That’d been meth. Or cocaine. Oh, why hadn’t I trusted my first impulse? Called my father? He could have gotten her into rehab. Now she’d stolen from me and gotten arrested. How was she supposed to get into college with a criminal record?

No longer tired, adrenaline kept me pumped as I ran to my car and burned rubber to the police station. When had my sixteen-year-old sister become a drug addict? And why hadn’t I noticed the signs? This was all my fault. Mine or my parents’. How dare they be so selfish—go on living their own lives as if they’d never had children tying them down?

If I ever got married, I would get my tubes tied before the ceremony. Just in case the birth control pill, diaphragm, and double condom somehow failed.

A half hour and a hundred and fifty dollars later (thank goodness for ATMs), a pale, withdrawn, stony-faced Lulu walked through the police station door. I rose from my seat, half delirious with exhaustion and ran over to hug her. She shrugged me off.

“I’m tired. I want to go home.”

I wanted to yell at her. Shake some sense into her. Beat her to a pulp for being so stupid even. But the officer on duty suggested I wait until morning. Until she’d slept it off. At the moment she was coming down from the drugs and would most likely be combative, unremorseful.

She’d evidently been picked up buying meth from an undercover cop at a nightclub. It was pretty common, the cop said. Meth was huge among San Diego teens. Cheap and available and highly addictive.

As he explained this, I wanted to cry. To tell him that the officer must have made some mistake and arrested the wrong girl. That my baby sister would never do hardcore drugs. Meth was for white trash desert rats, not middle-class all-American girls from normal nurturing families.

But then reality smacked me upside the head and I stayed silent, bearing the cop’s judgmental look as he spoke to me. How could you let her get so out of control? he seemed to ask. You’re her sister. Why couldn’t you stop her?

The sun had peeked over the horizon when we finally arrived back at my apartment. I tucked a listless Lulu, who refused to speak, into my bed and took my place on the sofa. As exhausted as I was at that point, I couldn’t sleep. I think I was secretly worried she’d try to sneak past me and out of the house. Just in case, I got up and strategically stacked a few soda cans in front of the door. At least then if she tried to open it, I’d wake up.

By that time it was late enough to reasonably call in sick at work. I phoned and left a message on Laura’s voice mail, coughing a little for effect. It sucked to call in because I wanted nothing more than to work on my Mexican drug piece. The one time in my life I actually wanted to go to work. But Lulu’s problems couldn’t be put off any longer. I had to go to my dad.

I finally fell into a restless sleep. When I awakened, it was past noon. The soda cans still stood like sentries guarding the front door. I rose from the couch and peeked into the bedroom. Lulu lay there, sleeping like the dead.

I called my dad. “Maddy!”

He sounded overjoyed to hear my voice. Well, he damn well should be. If it weren’t for Lulu, he’d still be getting the silent treatment. Unfortunately I couldn’t sign her into rehab without parental consent. And since last I heard by e-mail, Mom was climbing to Everest base camp, that left the family terminator—aka Dad—to sort out the mess.

“We’ve got to talk.”

“I’m so glad you called,” he gushed, ignoring my tone of voice. “You know, when you said you never wanted to talk to me again, that was the hardest day of my life.”

I almost felt guilty. Almost.

“Can you come over? It’s about Lulu.”

He paused. “Well, actually, today’s kind of bad….”

I gritted my teeth. Why did I bother? Then I reminded myself he didn’t know the seriousness of the situation.

“This is important, Dad.”

“I’m sure it is. It’s just—well, I promised Cindi I’d go shopping for cribs with her today.”

That was his excuse? His daughter was on the fast track to self-destruction and death and he had to go freaking shopping for an unborn baby who wouldn’t even need a crib for another six months?

“Fine. Whatever. Forget I called.” I’d figure out some other way to get her in treatment. Forge his signature, whatever it took.

“No, wait! Don’t hang up.”

I stayed on the line. “What?”

“I’ll come by,” he said quickly. “I’ll just tell Cindi I’ll meet her afterward.”

“Fine.” I hung up the phone and slumped back over to the couch to await his arrival.

To his credit, he showed up ten minutes later, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt. Divorce evidently agreed with him—he looked refreshed, tanned. It made me even more annoyed.

Against my will, he immediately grabbed me in a huge bear hug. The type he used to give me after coming home from a business trip when I was little. He’d ring the doorbell three times in a row, so I’d know it was him. I’d come rushing to the front hall and throw myself into his arms. He’d spin me around the house until my mother forced him to stop, lest I throw up on her carpet.

Who would have thought Super Dad would end up Super A*shole?

“I’ve missed you, Maddy,” he murmured into my ear. “So much.”

I could feel my defenses melting, but forced myself to stay strong. This man may have donated a sperm to me, but he’d also betrayed our family. He’d left his youngest daughter to fend for herself way before she was ready.

I pulled away from the embrace. “We need to talk about Lulu.”

He glanced around the room. “Is she here? When is she coming home, do you think? I miss having her around.”

I stared at him. “Why did you even let her come here in the first place? She’s not old enough to live on her own.”

He sighed as he made his way over to the couch and sat down. “I tried. She won’t talk to me.”

“You didn’t try hard enough,” I rebuked him. “Now she’s almost flunked out of school. She stays out all night partying.”

His eyes widened. “What? Why are you letting her do that? You’re her big sister. You should be—”

“Be what? Standing over her every second of the day?” I snorted. “Be realistic, Dad. There’s only so much I can do. And besides, technically none of this is my job. You and Mom are the parents, not me. And neither of you seem to give a shit that your youngest daughter is going off like a suicide bomber in Baghdad.”

I didn’t realize how angry I was until I started bitching him out. It felt good, actually. Relieved some of the pressure that had built up inside me.

Dad stared at his hands. At least he had the decency to look remorseful. “Your mother and I are going through what the psychiatrists call a selfish stage,” he explained. “We spent the last twenty-seven years as parents. It’s time for us to spend some time making ourselves happy as well.”

What?! Oh, puh-leeze. He thought I was going to just bend over and take that load of bull?

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble of selfish joy, Dad, but we have a problem.” I took a deep breath. “Lulu got arrested last night.”

“What?” Instantly Dad popped back into parent mode. “What for?” he demanded.

“Drugs.”

He stared at me. “Dr-drugs?” he asked, his voice trembling. “You mean, like pot, right?”

“No, Dad, I mean like f*cking crystal meth. I mean like one of the most addictive drugs on the planet. And this wasn’t her first time, either. The girl is a major druggie.”

“Oh, God.” He leaned back against the couch and shut his eyes. “I had no idea. My little baby girl. My Lulu. A drug addict?” He opened his eyes. “Are you sure they didn’t make a mistake?”

“I’m sure.”

He moaned, staring at the ceiling. “This is my fault. I should have been there for her.”

It was hard to watch. Growing up, my dad had always been in perfect control of every situation, never displaying any emotion. He was a rock, my dad. But to see him now, looking so guilty, so defeated, I felt myself soften.

“It’s no one’s fault,” I told him. “She hid it well. But now that we know, we need to help her.” What a surreal feeling, to be reassuring one’s parent. Before now, it’d always been the other way around.

He nodded. I could almost see his brain working, formulating an in-control Dad plan. “We’ll get her into rehab. Twenty-eight days. I’ll call some places right now.” He rose from the couch. “Where’s your phone book?”

I sighed in relief and went to retrieve my Yellow Pages. It was so nice to have Dad back in control. To have the responsibility and stress lifted from my shoulders. I should have gone to him in the first place.

I handed him the phone book and he put a hand on my shoulder, pulling me into a warm hug. This time I didn’t resist and buried my face in his chest. “I’m so sorry you felt you had to deal with this by yourself, Maddy,” he said. “I wish you had come to me in the first place.” He squeezed me tighter. “I love you. And nothing can change that. Not Cindi. Not a new baby. You and Lulu are still my girls and I love you both to death.”

I leaned closer into the hug, feeling warm and safe for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Daddy was back. Now everything would be okay. I hoped.