“Roam and Sniff, they’re street names. Shirleen is their foster carer. They were runaways,” Indy explained.
Something about this hit me somewhere deep. I tried to entertain the idea of my father seeing the error of his ways, giving up the drug world, going to work for a private investigator and taking in runaways like Shirleen.
It almost made me want to laugh. I did not, of course, laugh.
Instead, my eyes went glacial like she’d imparted information on me which I found highly uninteresting and I said, “Oh.” Then I turned to Ralphie and announced, “I’m going to The Market, getting us coffees.”
Ralphie’s eyes were startled when he looked at me and I could tell he was shocked at how rude I was being.
He glanced around the girls and then said hesitantly, “Okay, sweet ‘ums.”
Without a backward glance, I left.
When I returned with the coffees, the Rock Chicks were gone and Ralphie gave me the third degree. I deflected the third degree until that evening when Ralphie enlisted Buddy and they ganged up on me. They did this with the addition of lemon drops which we drank sitting on stools around their kitchen island (they had a fabulous kitchen, all chrome and gleaming black cabinets and granite countertops, it was Buddy’s domain, he cooked like a dream).
I held out, for awhile.
But lemon drops always did me in, eventually.
After around lemon drop three, I told them about my Dad. A few sips into lemon drop four, I told them about my Mom. Sucking back lemon drop five, I told them about Hector and added on what I knew about the Rock Chicks, the Nightingale Men and the cherry on top was my history with Daisy. During lemon drop six, I shared what happened when Ricky Balducci broke into my apartment. We were all crying by this time, me uncontrollably, so it was uncertain how much they understood because I didn’t figure I was making much sense.
Ralphie slept with me in my bed that night holding me close all the night through and the next three days he didn’t leave my side.
It was somewhere at the end of day three when I was sitting in between them on the couch and Ralphie had pulled up my feet and was massaging them and Buddy had pulled my head onto his shoulder and I was super comfy that I realized I had my first, genuine friends.
They liked me, me, Sadie – whoever she was, but whoever they thought she was, they liked her.
They didn’t take; they just gave and expected nothing back.
That night they’d introduced me to plucky, cute, smart-mouthed Veronica Mars.
Veronica was in the middle of some elaborate scheme involving a wunderkind schoolmate who knew everything about computers and they were going to blow the lid off some big mystery involving mostly high school students when I whispered, “Thank you guys.”
Neither Buddy nor Ralphie responded but Ralphie gave my feet a long squeeze and Buddy sighed.
The next day Indy, Ally and Roxie came back without the rest of the Rock Chicks and they brought coffee. They told me the coffees at The Market were nothing compared to what Indy’s barista, the guy who worked the espresso machine at her bookstore (they referred to him as “Tex”) could make. They told me Ralphie and I could come to the bookstore anytime and Tex would make us the special on the house.
This time they didn’t chat or buy three hundred dollar purple paintings. They just left the coffees for me and Ralphie, smiled and left.
“I think –” Ralphie started, eyes still on the door after they left.
“Don’t start,” I interrupted him.
Ralphie snapped his mouth shut, looked peeved, took a sip of his coffee and then his eyes bugged out.
“My God. This is fab-you-las,” he exclaimed, staring at his white paper cup.
I took a sip of mine and my eyes bugged out too.
He was absolutely right.
*
Several days later, Marcus Sloan walked into Art.
Ralphie was installing a painting at someone’s house so I was, for the first time since The Ricky Incident, alone.
This stunk. I didn’t want to be alone and Ralphie really didn’t want me to be alone but I had to get on with my life eventually so I encouraged him to go.
I was doing okay until Marcus came in.
Being alone was one thing but I didn’t want to be alone with Marcus Sloan.
*
I knew that I couldn’t lean on Buddy and Ralphie forever. Eventually I had to pick up the threads of my life, find my own place and learn to take care of myself again.
I’d heard nothing from Ricky or any of his crazy brothers. I didn’t press charges because I was my father’s daughter. When you were down and you found an advantage, you didn’t squander it. You waited and used it when the time was right.