“You make this cake?” Jimmy asked Izzy.
“Beanie did,” Izzy said. “She brought it over today.”
“Beanie Jones?” Mrs. Cone’s brow knit into folds. She suddenly looked ten years older. “Is she that new woman who moved in down the street?”
“Yes,” I said. “She dropped it off. I tried to keep her out of the house, but she barged right in.”
“Beanie?” Jimmy said. “We met Beanie.”
“Oh yeah, Beanie,” Sheba said.
“When did you meet Beanie?” Dr. Cone looked unhappy again.
“We were dropping Mary Jane off one night and Beanie popped her head in the window. Nosy little thing,” Jimmy said. “But pretty as a picture.”
“Hush!” Sheba said. “Stop looking!”
“She’s not as pretty as you,” I whispered to Sheba, but I didn’t think she heard me.
“Christ, I hope she doesn’t start spreading the word,” Dr. Cone said. “It’s hard enough as it is.”
“Exactly what happened today?” Sheba asked.
Jimmy had a huge hunk of cake in his mouth. He spoke around it. “I relapsed.”
“What do you mean you relapsed?” Sheba turned in her chair so she was facing Jimmy.
“I used.”
“What do you mean you used? How did you use?”
“I got some junk.”
“WHAT THE FUCK, JIMMY!” Sheba slapped Jimmy’s upper arm with the back of her hand. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” She slapped him again. Harder.
I knew I should pick up Izzy and take her upstairs for her bath, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away from this scene. Also, I was just as angry as Sheba. It felt like Jimmy had betrayed me by relapsing.
Mrs. Cone pushed her half-eaten cake away, and watched Jimmy and Sheba.
“Don has a friend who has a friend who has a friend.” Jimmy shrugged.
Dr. Cone said, “He met someone in the back alley when we were taking a break, got a bag of heroin, and snorted it.”
“Didn’t have a needle,” Jimmy said.
“What the fuck, Jimmy?!” Sheba’s eyes were flooded, though no tears fell. “I thought we were isolated! I thought you didn’t know a soul in Baltimore! How can you do this?! After all everyone’s done! Richard canceling all his other patients for the summer! Mary Jane making fucking dinner every night! Fucking chicken à l’orange, you ungrateful fuck!”
I looked at my lap and replayed Sheba’s words in my head. This was more yelling than even Dr. and Mrs. Cone had ever done. And Sheba had used the term chicken à l’orange, when all night long we’d been calling it orange chicken, as was written on my mother’s recipe card. Also, she called Jimmy a fuck. I couldn’t imagine ever calling another human, or even a dog, a fuck. I didn’t even know the word could be used that way. Yet it seemed effective. Jimmy appeared to be shrinking into his skin. He was too small for his casing, like a Ping-Pong ball in a bowling ball bag.
“Are you in trouble?” Izzy asked Jimmy.
Jimmy smiled at Izzy. It was a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m in trouble.”
Everyone was silent. Sheba dropped her head into her hands. Her back bumped up and down and I wasn’t sure if she was breathing heavily or silently crying. Mrs. Cone pulled her plate back toward herself and finished the half slice she had abandoned only a few minutes ago. Dr. Cone had that scowl again. And Izzy stared at me with giant circular eyes.
“Let’s clear,” I said.
Izzy clambered out of her chair and helped me clear the table as the adults sat in silence. Jimmy stared at Sheba like he was waiting for her to look up at him, but her head remained in her hands.
Izzy and I moved most of the dishes into the kitchen and stacked them on the counter. Then I picked her up and headed upstairs. That was when the shouting started. Sheba mostly, with Jimmy shouting back in short barking sentences of two or three words. Izzy pushed her head into my neck and clung to me like I might drop her.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m worried about Jimmy.”
“Jimmy will be okay.”
“But Sheba’s so mad.”
“Yeah, but your dad’s taking care of him. He’ll be okay again.”
“Was he doing his addict?”
“Yes. He was doing his addict.”
The shouting continued as I put Izzy in her pajamas. Dr. Cone’s voice appeared like parenthetical words inserted between Sheba’s and Jimmy’s bursts of yelling. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice carried up in a steady, stern grumbling. Mrs. Cone was either remaining silent or had left the dining room. After Izzy peed, when she was brushing her teeth, we heard the sound of something crashing: the thick clunking sound of ceramic breaking, rather than the tinkling shrill of glass.