Things Go Flying (5 page)

Too late, she heard John up and stumbling down the hall toward the bathroom. Which would take him right past Dylan's open door and Audrey herself, sitting on Dylan's bed with her cache of—

Why hadn't she closed the door?

Audrey froze, certain she was about to be caught in one of the more compromising positions of her life. But she needn't have worried. John barrelled past her, bent over, and then she heard his awful, wrenching vomiting.

If he missed, I'll kill him
, Audrey thought.

• • •

A
T LEAST JOHN
had no need to fake remorse; this was the real thing. He hung listlessly over the toilet, considering his situation.

He'd be grounded for sure, for who knew how long. He'd probably never be allowed to drive the car again—which would mean a significant loss of status, not to mention quality of life. It occurred to him that he might be made to pay for the damage by getting a part-time job. There went
everything.
A part-time job would mean a further significant loss of status, not to mention quality of life.

But then he was able to calm himself on that score. He didn't think his mother would let him get a job, even if his dad wanted him to. She'd be too worried about him keeping up his grades. He was a solid B student, which is what you were called when you got marginally more Bs than Cs, and his parents hadn't given up on their dream of his getting a degree, even if it wasn't from the University of Toronto, from which they had both graduated, and which he didn't have a hope in hell of getting into. Personally, he was hoping to go somewhere far from home, so he could have a really good time.

John dry-heaved once more into the toilet bowl and when that spasm was over, and feeling more miserable than he'd ever felt in his life, he was struck with another, paralyzing thought:
When Dylan got his G1, life wouldn't be worth living.

He was pondering this awful fact when his mother appeared from out of nowhere and stood looking at him from the bathroom doorway. He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth.

“We should talk,” she said.

“Now?” John groaned, hugging the toilet with both arms again.
Why did throwing up make your face sweat like this?
Even he couldn't stand his own smell—a mixture of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and vomit. And though he'd tucked the rubber-backed fluffy bath mat under his knees when the hard ceramic floor had become too uncomfortable, his knees still hurt like hell. But his mother ignored his implicit plea to be left alone.

“This is important,” Audrey said grimly.

“I told you everything last night. Honest,” John said plaintively, not looking up from the toilet bowl. And he
had
told them everything, about Roy and the bars, about everything but the pot. And that was for their own protection; he was pretty sure the mention of drugs would send them both right over the edge into overreaction mode.

“I know. Just—let me handle your father.” John lifted his face from the toilet bowl with an effort and looked at her. “Can you do that?” she said.

“Sure,” he gasped weakly. Really, he just wanted to lie down on the bathroom floor and die.

“
Sure
isn't good enough,” she said. “You'd better be on your very best behaviour from now on, or nothing I can do will be much help.”

John tried nodding, a shipwrecked boy in a lifeboat spotting salvation on the horizon.

“You could start by apologizing to him when he gets home, which, in case you haven't noticed, you haven't actually done yet.”

John kept nodding, even though it was making him dizzy. She was using her
I mean business
voice, but even in his present sorry state, John could tell her heart wasn't really in it; it seemed like her mind was already somewhere else.

“Clean the toilet bowl when you're finished. And then you can go to school.”

CHAPTER THREE

A
udrey was vacuuming the carpet and wondering what was wrong with Harold, wondering what was at the bottom of his lethargy, his apparent depression, and this latest worry—his panic attack. She supposed it could be a middle-age thing, a recognition of his own mortality. She'd seen the spreadsheet Harold had created on the computer tracking his various cholesterol levels over the last few years. Harold's father had died at forty-nine of a heart attack. And now Harold had to deal with Tom's equally sudden and premature death too, from the same cause. But although she felt sympathetic to Harold, she was a little annoyed with him too, because if that was it, if that's all it was, he really didn't have that much to worry about. The doctor had checked his heart, and it was fine. The doctor should know. Just because Harold's father had died young, and his one-time best friend had died young, it didn't mean that Harold was going to die anytime soon.

She, on the other hand, had real problems, and vacuuming helped her think.

She turned the machine off for a minute to rest and surveyed the living room. She had gradually, as they could afford it, made the house over. Harold, for example, had brought an old vinyl La-Z-Boy chair into the marriage, which had sat stubbornly in the corner of the living room in front of the window from the time they'd bought the house. It had taken years, but she'd finally won Harold over and replaced it with a new La-Z-Boy chair, an attractive model she could live with, in luxurious brown leather—you couldn't even tell it was a La-Z-Boy! She could remember her excitement as she'd pored over the brochure—her excitement at the prospect of finally throwing out something ugly that she'd had to look at for years. They'd saved up for the area rug. It had cost more than they could really afford, but would, with proper care, last forever.

She flicked the appliance back on. She knew exactly what was driving her to vacuum the expensive Persian rug in the living room over and over again. She'd cleaned the entire house yesterday, area rugs included; any more vacuuming and the thing would be shredded. Suddenly, she turned off the vacuum cleaner, dropped to her knees, and studied the pile of the carpet closely. Then she sat back on her heels and made a mental list—she didn't feel she could safely write these things down.

Dylan was on drugs.

Dylan was having sex.

Dylan was probably stealing from her.

Dylan was fifteen.

And, Dylan might be—probably was—Tom Grossman's biological son. Which was no doubt why she found it so easy to believe that he was doing drugs, having sex, and stealing money.

There. That was about it. Except that John was drinking under age, which, relatively speaking, didn't seem like such a big deal. And Harold was not himself. Otherwise, things were just hunky dory.

Audrey got up and went outside onto the front porch and looked impatiently up and down the street for Ellen.

Buying this house—a two-storey, red brick semi with a shared drive on a prime Riverdale street shaded with old maples, near the park—had been the best decision she and Harold had ever made; the property had tripled in value. Now it was almost paid off. It was small, but they'd finished the basement to get more living space as the boys had grown, and they'd remodelled the kitchen. Now, standing on the wooden porch, admiring the attractive, well-maintained houses, front porches, and gardens of her neighbours, Audrey remembered how she'd cried when the city had come and chopped down the century-old maple tree on their front lawn. First, a man had come and nailed a metal tag on it to show that it was condemned. Two weeks later, she'd come home from a day of shopping and all that was left was a fresh stump, pale and bleeding sawdust. Harold stood the boys on it and took their picture. A few days later the chipper had come along and ground up the stump, and eventually the city had replaced it with a tall, thin sapling—free of charge—which Audrey had derisively called their “hockey stick tree.” But that had been several years ago, and at least it no longer looked like a hockey stick. She glanced at her wristwatch. Ellen would be here. She always ran late. And there she was, slowly nosing down the street in her SUV, looking for parking.

Audrey stood on the porch and watched as Ellen parked and then came up the sidewalk toward her. Ellen was well put together by anyone's standards. She used a clothing consultant—which, she argued, saved her time on shopping and really didn't cost that much more—while Audrey tended to wear the same sort of things—jeans and attractive but unremarkable tops—year in and year out. Today Ellen was wearing smart black trousers, pointy-toed boots, and a flattering cashmere sweater in a cranberry shade—evidently with a first-rate bra underneath. Audrey and Ellen were both in their mid forties, but Ellen still went to the gym three times a week, tinted her brown hair with a brighter colour, and was generally better preserved, especially around the eyes. This didn't bother Audrey too much, because Ellen had been divorced; things had a way of evening out. Ellen had three children, two boys and a girl in the middle, and she'd suffered her share of setbacks. Audrey knew she could trust her.

Audrey had forgiven Ellen for that time when Ellen, in the profound dislocation of her divorce, had had too much to drink and had inexplicably thrown herself at Harold. He'd turned her down flat, and Audrey was certain she'd never done it again.

“So, what's the emergency,” Ellen asked, following Audrey into the kitchen where Audrey turned on the faucet to fill the coffee pot. From her tone of voice, Audrey could tell Ellen wasn't expecting anything serious.

“Harold's having a breakdown, for starters.”

Ellen raised her eyebrows, surprised. “You're kidding,” Ellen said.

Audrey shook her head. “Well, you know he's seemed kind of depressed lately. Now the doctor says he's having anxiety attacks.” Audrey was prone to exaggeration, and she exaggerated a little now, for, as far as she knew, there had only been one anxiety attack. She recounted a little melodramatically how he'd passed out at the funeral, but left out the bit about the chest compressions. “And,” she continued, while Ellen was digesting this, “I think Dylan is stealing.”

This got Ellen's attention. She'd had similar problems with her eldest. “What's he stealing?” Ellen asked. This was an area in which she had some experience.

“Money.”

“Oh,” said Ellen, uneasily. They both knew that Ellen's son Terry had only stolen a bike and a skateboard; stealing money seemed more serious somehow.

“We had over a thousand dollars in our joint account two days ago. Now it's empty. Dylan is the only one besides me who knew the pin number. I asked him to get some money out for me last week.”

“That's bad,” said Ellen.

“It gets worse,” Audrey said. “I searched his room today” (she could tell Ellen this, but not Harold; Ellen didn't even flinch) “and you won't
believe
what I found.”

“What?” Ellen was leaning forward, concern gathering in the centre of her face, which had the effect of showing her age.

“Condoms, for one thing.”

Ellen nodded. “That's inevitable, you know.”

“He's
fifteen
.”

Ellen leaned in closer, as if for emphasis. “They're going to have sex. Be glad he's using condoms.”

Audrey frowned. “And
drugs
.”

“Oh no.”

Audrey nodded. “What should I do? I can't tell Harold—he's not supposed to have any stress.”

“You have to tell him.”

“No I don't. Not right now, anyway. What if he
did
have a heart attack?” She gripped her smiley-face mug miserably. Could he still have a heart attack if the doctor said his heart was in good shape? “Do you think I should confront Dylan? About the pills?”

“What kind of pills are they?”

“How the hell should I know?” Audrey thought for a minute and added, “They're white, with the letter E stamped on them.”

“Ecstasy!” Ellen said triumphantly, sounding like a contestant on a quiz show.

“What's that?”

“Umm—I don't know
exactly,
but I don't think it's that bad. Not like crack or heroin. It's more like a party drug, that kind of thing.”

The two women sat, not speaking for a minute.

“Got any cookies?” asked Ellen.

“Sure.” Audrey got up and grabbed a bag of Oreos off the counter. “And now his latest thing is he wants to be an
actor
.” She snorted. “He wants our consent to get an agent.”

“You can't let him! All those child actors are messed up on drugs.”

“Of course I'm not going to let him! He's smart enough to be a doctor! He just doesn't apply himself.”

They sipped their coffees, munched cookies.

“Maybe he's stealing money to pay for drugs,” Ellen said.

Strangely, this had not yet occurred to Audrey, who was still stuck on the electronics thing. This possibility, which made such sense, raised her stress level visibly.