“I know where you’re going,” she said. “I won’t go in. And if you drive me home, I’ll just take off. Let me crash at your place tonight.”
It wasn’t a good idea. At the same time, I wasn’t about to let a teenage girl who’d had too much to drink wander off on her own. So I didn’t continue on to the hospital, and I didn’t ask Patty for directions to her mother’s house. Instead, I took her back to my place.
I parked and came around to Patty’s side. She had the door open and was getting out, but between the drinking and the banged-up knee, she was unsteady on her feet. She slipped an arm up over my shoulder and I led her across the drive and up the path to the front door.
I heard a car coming down the street. It slowed as it approached my house, as though the driver was intending to turn into my drive. It was a silver Ford Focus, and I was guessing that Kate Wood was behind the wheel.
She slowed long enough to get a good look at me half-carrying a young girl into my house. Then she hit the gas and kept going on up the street.
“Oh Christ,” I said.
“What?” asked Patty.
“Never mind. I’ll deal with it later.”
I took her upstairs to the bathroom Syd used and instructed her to kick off her shoes and sit on the edge of the tub with her feet inside. “Can you sit there without falling over?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said tiredly. “I can really hold my liquor.” There was a hint of pride there.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
She was still perched on the edge of the tub when I came back, but she looked even younger than her seventeen years. In her bare feet, head hanging low, streaky, multicolored hair dangling in her eyes, with her knee scraped and bloodied, she looked like a little girl who’d fallen off her bike in the rain.
She looked up at me, her eyes moist.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I think about Sydney all the time,” she said.
“Me too.”
“All the time,” she said. Then, “What happened to your face?”
“I had a bad test drive with somebody,” I said.
“Wow. The car hit a tree or something?”
“Not exactly. Let’s worry right now about getting you patched up.”
Running some lukewarm water from the tap, I got down on my knees and managed to get Patty’s knee cleaned. Using some fresh white towels from under the counter, I gently blotted the wound. The towels quickly became stained with blood.
Next I applied some disinfectant, then some bandages.
“You’re good at this,” Patty said, leaning into me just slightly.
“I haven’t done a skinned knee in a long time,” I said. “The last time was when Syd was little and she had Rollerblades.”
Patty was quiet for a moment, sitting there, feet in the tub. I felt the weight of her body leaning into mine. When I was done with her wound, I lacked the energy to get up, so I sat on the floor, my body held up by the vanity.
“You’ve always been really decent to me,” Patty said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I said.
“Because I’m not like Sydney,” she said. “I’m not a good girl.”
“Patty.”
“I’m a bad girl. I do all the bad things.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You do bad things. But it doesn’t make you a bad kid.”
“We’re back to the bad-choices thing,” she said, mockingly.
“If you’re trying to convince me not to like you, it’s not going to work,” I said. “I think you’re a special person, Patty. You’re an original. But you haven’t got a lot longer to get your act together. You keep getting into shit like whatever that was tonight, and you’re going to run yourself off the rails permanently.”
She thought about that. “I know you look down on me.” I started to say something, but she held up a wobbly hand. “But you don’t do it in a way that makes me feel like I’m worthless.”
“You’re not worthless, Patty.”
“I feel that way sometimes.” Without looking at me, she said, “What if Sydney doesn’t come back?”
“I can’t let myself think about that, Patty,” I said. “Starting tomorrow, I’m going to spend all my time trying to find her.”
“What about your job?” she asked.
“I can always sell cars. I don’t know how much time I have to find Syd.”
Patty reached down to the floor for one of the damp, bloody towels, and used it to dry her feet before she swung them out of the tub.
“You need to call your mom and let her know where you are, that you’re okay,” I said.
A small smile crossed Patty’s face. “You think everybody’s family is like yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think all families care.”