Alice went into the closet. Most of the contents had been piled on the bed, pockets picked through, shoe boxes vetted. She crawled to the back and used a ruler to pry out the tight corner of the carpet. Underneath, stuck into a groove in the plywood, was a green felt bag. Alice pulled it out.
“And bingo,” Alice said. “She told me she threw this out, but I knew she was full of shit.” Alice pulled a phone out of the bag and handed it to me. “This is her secret drug phone, compliments of Hector.” She slid the phone into her bag and pushed down the carpet corner. I imagined Izzy sitting in her white desk chair using the ruler to make a school project or do a math assignment. I wanted to get out of her sad, sad room.
Alice grabbed Izzy’s stuffed pig—her version of Flopper—and a notebook and some toiletries from the bathroom. We eased into the slow crawl toward the hospital.
“You can’t bring those things in,” a snotty receptionist said, snatching the plastic bag full of toiletries.
“Why not?” Alice said. “It’s just perfume and mouthwash and stuff.” She held up the list Izzy had dictated.
The snotty receptionist made an Are you an idiot? face and said, “Because our patients drink perfume and mouthwash to get high.”
Alice looked at me and shook her head.
When we walked into the family waiting room, we found Izzy’s mom asleep on the grubby loveseat. She opened her eyes and smiled up at us.
“Hi, girls.” She looked years older than the day she had greeted us at their house. She wasn’t wearing makeup on her pale, blotchy face, and deep silver roots sprouted from the top of her head.
She stood and embraced Alice. “She’s so mean to me. She’s cursing and telling me I ruined her life.” Her whole body trembled and she bent down to rest her head on Alice’s shoulder. She sobbed and sobbed; her muffled cries rang out like strange bird sounds.
Izzy’s mom apologized for “falling apart like that” and went on and on about how Izzy was a good kid and where did she go wrong as a mother?
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Alice said. After, as Alice and I walked through security toward Izzy’s room, Alice whispered, “She did a lot of things wrong. But nobody deserves this shit.”
Izzy sat with her feet tucked under her on a scratchy-looking lounge chair facing a pretty, dark-haired, fair-skinned girl.
“Pooch and Sadie, this is Lexie. She’s my new bud,” Izzy said.
“Hi,” Lexie said meekly. “I’ll see you soon, Iz.” She walked down the hall toward the patient rooms.
Izzy’s hair was pulled back. Her face was white as rice and her eyeballs were almost orange. “Lex has issues, but she’s really sweet. She got in trouble for stealing from the elderly to buy shoes, and people were so cruel to her. They have no idea what this girl has been through. Everybody sucks.”
I glanced at Alice, who mouthed Holy shit as Izzy clutched her stuffed pig and stood up to move her chair over.
She’s the Hamptons Hoodlum, I mouthed back.
The conversation quickly shifted to Izzy’s mother.
“She’s an overreacting bitch. I can’t look at her ugly face. I can honestly say I don’t even feel like using, but she’s forcing me to stay here.” Izzy shifted in her seat. “Do you know that woman is telling the doctors I’m suicidal?”
“Why?” I asked.
“They’ll let me out of here if I’m not a danger to myself or others, so my mother is telling them I’ve sworn I’ll kill myself. Which I will. Because I’m in this hellhole.” She stopped. “Actually, you know what? I’d rather be here with these freaks than with her. I hate that bitch. She’s the biggest psycho of all.”
I nodded and let her continue with her mom-hating diatribe while Alice sat there playing with her nose ring. She didn’t look at Izzy. Not once.
“Where’s Hector?” Alice finally said.
Izzy acted like she didn’t know what Alice was talking about. She made a face. “What? I don’t know. I thought we were talking about my mother.”
“C’mon. You know where he is. You know they busted the shrink’s house. Where the hell is Hector?”
“Why do you care where Hector is? You’re obsessed with him. I think you’re just pissed that I was hooking up with him and blowing you off.”
Alice’s pasty complexion flushed pink. She balled her fists and glared at Izzy. “I fucking stood there and watched Hector stick that needle into your groin. Remember? When the blood sprayed all over me? He just keeps coming back to stick needles into you and you keep letting him do it, Izzy. He has ruined your life, your parents’ lives”—Alice pointed toward the waiting room—“and Tanner. That kid worships you.”
Izzy stood up and padded away in her rubber-bottomed blue socks and mint-green bathrobe. She didn’t turn back.
I linked my arm through Alice’s and we walked out to the waiting room. Izzy’s mom’s expression was hopeful, as if the homegrown heroes would somehow infuse her daughter with sunny, sober thoughts.
“She looks good,” Alice said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
As we passed our bench yet again, Alice took Izzy’s drug phone out of her bag and held it up. “Well, I guess you’ll have to tell us where Hector is,” she said. Then she looked at me with a weird smile. “Are you ready for the next errand?”
TWENTY
ALICE TOOK ME to the animal shelter where she worked and introduced me to a kennel full of rowdy dogs, clamoring in their cages to give us kisses. She showed me the most recent batch of photos she’d taken of the big, broad, brindled pit bull wearing the pink bandanna around her neck. Alice had a gift for photographing unwanted dogs and making them wanted by forever families.
After I helped her with her kennel chores, she wiped her hands on her jean shorts, took a sip from her water bottle, and hesitated.
“Tonight’s the night we bury the poppet. He’s waiting patiently in my bag.”
“We?”
“Will you go with me? I can’t go to a cemetery alone.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you. How does it work again?”
“We need to bury the poppet in the cemetery with nine pennies and a bottle of rum, except I have no idea where I’m going to get rum. My parents drink wine and Scotch.” We walked away from the cacophony of barking and howling sounds.
“My parents drink tea and beer,” I said. “Does it have to be rum?”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Yes, Sadie. These spells are very specific. And I know you think it’s friggin’ idiotic, but it has to work.”
I still didn’t think getting rid of Hector was the answer to all of Izzy’s problems. But I knew Alice wouldn’t quit until she finished the Hector poppet spell.
“The only place we ever get served in my town is the Japanese restaurant,” Alice said. “And they’re not going to give me a bottle of rum. Sake maybe.”
“I think I know where we can get some rum,” I said.
We went back to my house for dinner with Mom, the grandmas, and Dad, who pulled up late after a long day serving happy memories on cones. After dessert, Alice and I pulled out our weak supply of camping gear from the garage.
“I have to say, I don’t know if I’m up for this camping trip tomorrow,” Alice said, shaking out my butterfly sleeping bag. “I hate camping. It’s disgusting.”