She hunched over the sink, frantically tapping a vial onto the counter. A few tiny wisps of white powder came out. Not enough to snort. She ran her finger around the rim of the vial and over the area of the counter she’d tapped on, and then pushed her finger into her gums, rubbing above her yellow, nicotine-stained teeth, trying to absorb whatever was left of the magic.
Is this what happens to a person who does too much cocaine? Do the good times run out, like the posters say? Does it have to get too expensive to keep up the habit so you end up frantically licking wisps? Does it destroy your looks and your insides and your future? Is it really a slow death by what seems at first like a fun, fast ride? The woman felt me staring at her and she looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot. And ashamed.
She said, “Ruby?”
And it took me a moment. But then I knew who she was. It was Duncan Reese’s mother.
CHAPTER 6
ANGEL
Mere seconds after Duncan’s body was deemed dead on arrival by the medics who had reached the beach, Duncan’s mother had started screaming at his father. Blaming him. “Why weren’t you watching him?! You should have been watching him!” And the father blamed the mother. “This is on you! You’re the one who wanted to work on your goddamn tan and go to the beach! This is your fucking fault!”
No one blamed me.
After that day I only saw Duncan’s mom a couple of times. And the last time was years ago, at the bank on Forty-First Street. I was inside on line with my parents when she stumbled in drunk. People whispered as she went to the ATM and clumsily took out cash. She then stumbled back to her car and drove off. I don’t know if anyone thought to call the police and report her drinking and driving. Probably not, since she was the sad lady whose son tragically drowned long before. I knew through general eavesdropping that she had gotten a divorce two years after Duncan’s death. I also knew her husband sold his cigar business and moved to Tampa. He remarried and had a new son with his new wife. He named him David.
Duncan’s mother never remarried, never had more kids, and never moved. Why she stayed in Miami Beach, I can’t imagine. Maybe she wanted to be haunted by the life she once had. Maybe for her it felt good to look out onto that spot in the Atlantic, like it somehow feels good to push on a bruise.
I wanted to hate her. To hate the woman who was such a horrible mother that she created and raised a monster like Duncan. A monster I was then tasked with slaying. But as I looked at her in the bathroom, I felt repulsion and pity swirl into one ugly color. I didn’t feel hate. She was so broken there was no point in hatred.
“Hi, Mrs. Reese,” I said back. I didn’t know what else to call her.
And then I had my moment of clarity. I didn’t want to be anything like her. Never ever. I wanted to have nothing in common with this damaged lonely woman wilting in the classic-rock-floor bathroom, desperate for relief from her regrets. Without hesitation I handed her my vial of coke. I noticed it was nearly one-quarter full. She looked at it, unsure, wondering if there were strings attached. Wondering if accepting it would dig her deeper into her already stifling hole.
I said, “Take it. It’s all yours. Really.”
Tears welled on her exhausted face. “Thank you, Ruby. You’re an angel.”
I walked out of the bathroom without looking back. I would wait in line on one of the other floors. I could hear a loud snort from the bathroom before the door even had a chance to swing closed behind me. I never did cocaine again.
If I had continued, would I have overdosed by senior year? Or ended up murdered in a drug deal gone bad? Or run away to live on the streets? Maybe me killing Duncan, his mother spinning out, and me then seeing her a decade later in that bathroom kept me safe from a lifetime of drugs. Maybe it was all some sort of cosmic plan. Or maybe not. My brain told me it was just a series of events that I was collating and then giving meaning. But it was hard for the cause and effect of the pieces of my life not to play on my spirit at the time.
CHAPTER 7
FLAMINGO
Noticing my nearly empty cup, the detective asked me if I would like some more water. Or maybe some coffee? I politely said, “No, thanks,” understanding he hoped to keep me there for a while. But I wasn’t under arrest. Yet. I could walk out at any time. But I felt I was going to get more information out of him than he was going to get out of me. So I stayed. Curious to continue as a contestant on his game show.
Detective Jackson turned over the second photograph. I had been sitting there long enough to notice that his nails were trim and nicely buffed. He took pride in his appearance, too-short pants notwithstanding. He placed his thick pointer finger in the middle of the photo. This one was a blown-up mugshot of a middle-aged man whose nose bent to the left, like it had been broken and never set correctly. He had long, dark eyelashes, which would have nicely complemented his light brown eyes had they not been bloodshot and puffy and menacing. I recognized this man immediately. Looking at his ugly bloated face made me queasy and instantly brought me back to my high school days.
After that bathroom interaction with Mrs. Reese, I went straight-edge. No drugs or alcohol of any kind. I was clean and sober, and therefore, once I turned sixteen and had my license, I was the perfect designated driver. So I became even more popular with my friends, and their parents, since I could be counted on to always get everyone home safely. For a few years I was like a teenage soccer mom, shuttling friends from pillar to post and party to party. Leading me to another unforeseeable fateful night.
When Halloween rolled around, it was assumed that I would drive all the girls to Star Island for our friend’s legendary gala. Silva’s father was a famous race car driver from Brazil, and the party theme was always Carnival. Dancers were hired, ice sculptures arranged, European DJs flown in, and five different bar stations and candy stations were set up.
In early October, Sharon, Hannah, Erika, Amy, and I descended on the arts and crafts store on Lincoln Road to start creating our matching costumes. We agreed on being flamingos. Hannah was a goth flamingo with black feathers woven into the pink ones. Sharon was a slutty flamingo. Erika and Amy were pretty flamingos, and I went for as realistic a flamingo as a human could, wearing a pink leotard, fastening pink feathers to giant wire wings, and standing on one leg as much as possible while in public.
As I sipped on cranberry juice and balanced, Hannah and Erika were getting trashed on Jell-O shots and J?gerbombs. I knew puking was in their future, and I was happy we had taken Hannah’s dad’s car that night instead of my father’s. I didn’t want puke smell trapped in our back seat until the end of time. And Hannah’s parents were such lushes they probably wouldn’t even notice the smell anyway.
We didn’t exactly have permission to take the Mazda on Halloween, but Hannah was like, whatever, and she grabbed the spare keys with the oversized metal sandcastle keychain charm off the little hook in the kitchen closet.
Sharon and her new boyfriend excitedly called me over to their area of the party. They had found the mother lode of the best Halloween candy! We were all too old to go trick-or-treating, but not too old to be euphoric about baskets and baskets of every kind of choice candy. I ripped open a mini packet of peanut M&M’s first. My favorite. Then moved on to mini Snickers. And Tootsie Rolls. And Skittles. And for good measure I threw an extra packet of peanut M&M’s into the little pink satin purse I’d rigged up to match my wings.