That was how it always started, that slow decline from tapering off to function and then slowly falling back into not functioning. Junkies were always, always going to find the solution to any problem at the tip of a needle.
Phil would take care of Binx. She wouldn’t read books to him, but she would keep him brushed and educate him about birds and maybe even give him some advice on his tax situation since she’d spent a lot of time reading up on sovereign citizenship. Callie reached into her pocket. The bright green goggles she had bought at the tanning salon clicked against her fingers. She had thought the cat would want to see them. He knew nothing of indoor tanning.
Callie wiped tears out of her eyes as she trudged the last few yards toward her mother’s house. The pile of shit across the street had been smeared by an unfortunate shoe. Her gaze moved upward to the boarded-up house. There was no flicker of light or motion from the front. She saw that the piece of plywood that had disgorged the camera-strangling man had closed its mouth. The brambles and weeds were trampled where he’d run across the yard, robbing Callie of her fleeting hope that the entire thing had been a product of her methadone-addled imagination.
She turned, then kept going in a complete three-sixty.
No white dude. No nice car, unless you counted Leigh’s Audi cooling in the driveway behind Phil’s redneck Chevy truck.
That was definitely not a good sign. Leigh wouldn’t panic over Callie’s lack of a text or phone call because Callie had long ago burnished her reputation as an unreliable correspondent. Her sister would only panic if something bad had happened, and she would not be inside Phil’s house for the first time since she’d left for Chicago unless something really, really horrific had brought her there.
Callie knew that she should go inside but, instead, she tilted her head back, watching the sun wink its way through the leaves on the treetops. Dusk was coming fast. In a few minutes, the streetlights would wake up. The temperature would drop. Eventually, the rain she could taste in the air would start to fall.
There was an alternate Callie who could walk away from this. She had disappeared before. If it weren’t for Leigh, Callie would’ve been riding with Binx on a bus right now—it was foolish to think she could leave him at Phil’s—and they would’ve been discussing the fine selection of cheap motels, deciding which one was seedy enough to have dealers but not so seedy that Callie would get raped and killed.
If she was going to die, it was going to be by her own hands.
Callie knew she could dawdle outside the house sorting through fantasies for only so long. She walked up the creaky stairs to her mother’s front porch. She was met at the door by the sight of Binx dragging around his plastic lei, which meant he was having feelings. She longed for her own crutch, but that could come later. Callie knelt to stroke the cat along his back a few times before she let the invisible wire of tension pull her deeper into the house.
Everything was out of whack. Roger and Brock were alert on the couch rather than rolled up in a dognap. The gurgle of aquariums was muted by the seldom-closed door. Even the birds in the dining room were keeping their chirps on the downlow.
She found Leigh and Phil sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. Phil’s goth was showing signs of wear. The heavy black eyeliner had turned full-on Marilyn Manson. Leigh had put on her own armor. She’d changed into jeans, a leather jacket, and biker boots. They were both tensed like scorpions waiting for the opportunity to strike.
Callie said, “Another beautiful family moment.”
Phil snorted. “What shit did you drop yourself into now, smart ass?”
Leigh said nothing. She looked up at Callie, eyes kaleidoscoping in agony, regret, fear, anger, trepidation, relief.
Callie looked away. “I’ve been thinking about the Spice Girls. Why is Ginger the only one named after a spice?”
Phil said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Posh isn’t a spice,” Callie said. “Why aren’t they named Saffron, or Cardamon, or even Anise?”
Leigh cleared her throat. She said, “Maybe they ran out of thyme.”
They smiled at each other.
“Both of you can go fuck yourselves.” Phil understood enough to know that she was being left out. She pushed herself up from the table. “Don’t eat any of my fucking food. I know what’s in there.”
Leigh nodded toward the back door. She had to get out of this house.
Callie’s neck was killing her from lugging around the backpack, but she didn’t want her mother stealing anything so she carried it with her as she followed Leigh outside.