Blood Sugar(10)
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.
By midnight Sharon and her guy took off to go have sex somewhere. Amy was dancing with Silva and not about to leave, and Hannah and Erika were taking turns puking behind the pool house. I also felt sick, from too much candy, and it seemed a good time to end the night. Hannah and Erika agreed.
By the time I got them to the car, they were puked out and nearly passed out. I piled them both in the back seat, easier that way with all the wings and feathers and drunken flailing. As I drove over MacArthur Causeway back to Hannah’s house, I saw red and blue lights flashing behind me. I was sober, I had a valid license, I was going the speed limit, I hadn’t done anything wrong. But my heart leapt into my throat. My palms got sweaty. Because deep inside, I knew I’d killed a boy. And even though I didn’t feel guilty about it, it was technically a crime. And there is no statute of limitations on murder. And cops were trained to sniff out illegal activity and committers of felonies. Right? So would this cop somehow know my secret the moment he looked into my eyes?
I pulled over. I turned the car off. I turned the radio low. I rolled the window down. And I put my wings on the steering wheel at ten and two. I tried to breathe steadily. In and out. Silently begging an unknown entity, Please don’t haul me off to prison. I’m a good person.
Hannah and Erika were giggling because they were drunk. And nervous because they were drunk and underage and a policeman was striding toward us. And the more they tried to suppress the giggles, the more they erupted. The cop walked up and shone his flashlight into the car, assessing the situation. I couldn’t see his face well since the light was all on mine.
“License and registration,” he said evenly.
I grabbed my license from my tiny pink bag, and opened the glove box to find Hannah’s dad’s registration.
“This is not my car. It’s her dad’s car,” I explained, and motioned to the back seat. He looked at both girls, and I narrowed it down for him. “The goth flamingo.” I found the registration and handed everything over to the cop. He glanced at it and walked back to his car. My mind raced with scenarios. Erika burped. Which made Hannah gag. And we waited.
The cop came back. It took about two minutes, but it felt like twenty. He informed me, “I ran the plates, that’s why I pulled you over. This car is registered to a Richard Vale.” I nodded—that was Hannah’s father. The cop continued, “He has an outstanding warrant for not appearing in court for a DUI.” Hannah didn’t seem that shocked to hear this news. She mumbled, “Asshole.” Then glanced up at the policeman. “Not you. My dad.” The policeman understood.
He handed me back my license. “You have a clean record, Ruby Simon, and you are clearly sober, driving your drunk friends around.” At that Hannah and Erika waved to him and giggled again. He continued, and with every word my heart thumped, waiting for the bad news that was sure to come. “You are being a conscientious citizen, and an especially responsible teenager. For that you deserve to be rewarded. So I’m not going to impound this car tonight. I want you all to get home safe. But give your friend’s father this ticket. Let him know he has a warrant out. It’s important.” The cop then handed me a court summons for Richard Vale. His flashlight was no longer in my face, so I could see his eyes. He looked into mine. “You are a real angel. Keep up the good work.” And with that he walked away, back to his lit-up car.
I breathed. Relief. The police did not have special skills to bore into my brain and uncover the truth. I was even better than innocent. I was an angel! But in a computer system somewhere, deep in the Miami-Dade County police database, my name would forever be connected to Richard Vale’s on the night of October 31. At the time, as I rolled back onto the causeway and turned the radio back up, I didn’t think this would be an enormous problem in my future.
Of course, as I perched on my thin, uninviting chair in the small beige room with cinder block walls, I knew there was no way for Detective Jackson to read my mind as these Halloween memories passed through. Just as there was no way for the traffic cop to see into the crystal ball of my past. Detective Jackson was just looking to rattle me. To show me photos of dead people to push me into confessing to something. I knew that what he really wanted to hear was that I killed my husband. The rest was trimming. But I continued to sit quietly.
CHAPTER 8
SYLLABI
Although colleges eat up application essays about overachievements and overcoming hardships, I didn’t think writing about being a murderer and feeling absolutely no guilt about it was in my best interest, so I wrote my personal essay about my drug use. Debating the difference between a physical and emotional addiction, delving into the pros and cons of the twelve-step program adages “Once an addict, always an addict” and “One is too many, a thousand never enough.” I concluded I used cocaine to fill the void Ellie had left when she left. I also concluded I was able to stop cold turkey because I never developed a deep physical addiction. Rather, I used drugs as an escape.