Page 20 of Vespertine
“Are they wanting you to go back to L.A.?” She was trying tosound nonchalant, but Nicky could read the tension in her shoulders saying whata bad idea she thought going back to L.A. would be.
“Yeah. They want us to start on the next album as soon aspossible.” Nicky sorted through the vitamins and medications again. Eightbottles and one box of patches.
“Are you going to go?”
Had itsoundedlike he was goingto go? But he didn’t say that. “No. We don’t even have any songs. Usually wewrite more on the road while touring the prior album, but this time…” Heshrugged. This time they’d all been too deep into their favorite powders andpills to accomplish anything more than the show itself and then maybe someintense, self-destructive, recreational fucking.
Miriam put the plate of pancakes into the oven to keep themwarm for his father. “Do you want bacon or eggs? Or both?”
“Just eggs.” Bacon reminded him of breakfast on the road. He’deaten it every day, groggy and hungover, already jonesing for more dope. Hesighed as he uncapped his antidepressant and shook the white pill into hishand. He realized with a pang that he might never want to eat bacon again. Itwas even possible that eating it would make him want to use.
“Fucking sucks,” he breathed, reaching for the bottle ofVitamin C.
“What fucking sucks, sweetie?”
Nicky smirked at her. “You’re going to give me hives sayingthat word, Mom.”
“We’ll have hives together then,” she said, as she grabbedthe orange juice from the fridge and placed it on the counter by the stove. “Thefamily that curses together stays together. We can convince your father to joinus. We’ll curse up a storm all over town and people will say, ‘Those Blumfeldsare the parents of a rock star, you know. They have to curse. It’s in the rockstar rules.”
“Okay, okay, you’re not that funny.” But he grinned at her,because she kind of was. Why had she annoyed him so much when he was younger?She was charming, really. “I’ll put a hold on the f-bombs.”
“But you never answered my question about what sucks.”
Nicky lined up his pills by color, and Miriam anticipatedhis next need by bringing him a tall glass of cool water from the pitcher. “It’spretty self-explanatory,” he said, motioning at his lineup. “Being a junkie.Needing all this stuff. Though, really, it’s just this—” he touched theantidepressant and then the flat package containing his maintenance patch, “—andthis that I really need, I guess. The rest is just supposed to make me feellike I’m getting healthy.”
“What do they do?”
“The antidepressant is possibly temporary while I cope witheverything.” He didn’t tell her it wasn’t just about that, though. “It’s not aserotonin reuptake inhibitor. It directly affects dopamine, which gives me alittle more drive than other antidepressants might.” And it offset thepotential sexual side effects of his other prescription.
“My maintenance medication.” He touched the package with hisdaily patches and pulled a fresh one out. “It’s a new, experimental drugdelivered in patch form, and it’s a junkie’s best friend. There was apredecessor by a similar name that worked best as a pill, but the patch is anew delivery system. It’s supposed to make it all more stable. They’re evenlooking into a subdermal possibility for the future. I wouldn’t be opposed toit. So far, I’m lucky I don’t seem to have any of the negative side effects.”
“A maintenance drug?”
“Yeah. It, uh, keeps me from craving street drugs.” As much.There were definitely psychological triggers that made him go weak with needfor a needle and spoon. But the underlying physical craving was masked by theprescription drug. “And if I did give in and shoot up—”
Miriam bit her lower lip and her eyes went glossy withtears, but he tried to go on as if he wasn’t saying anything he should beashamed of. He wasn’t going to lie about what he’d done and he wasn’t going tolet it hold him back from getting well. Not this time.
“If I did shoot up, there’s a secondary agent built intothis medication that would make me violently ill.” He waggled his eyebrows. “So,yippee. No heroin high for me.”
He scraped the prior day’s patch off his left arm and foldedit carefully so that the side with medication on it didn’t touch the table. Hefumbled the fresh packet and dropped it. It slid across the wood floor andstopped by the patio door’s shoe trunk. He pushed his chair back to go retrieveit, but Miriam darted around the counter with a soapy, wet hand towel in onehand. “Here, sweetie, let me.”
She grabbed the packet and knelt down beside him. Sheignored his outstretched hand, using the towel to clean the area on his armwhere the old patch had been, and then dried his skin with a still-dry corner.She peeled the slick paper back from the edges of the patch.
“Don’t get any on your hands,” Nicky murmured, turning togive her his right arm. He was supposed to switch arms every day. “It doesn’tget me high at all. It just makes me feel normal. But you’d be higher than you’veever been before.”
“How do you know? I had my wild days when I was young.”
“Mom,” Nicky said seriously.
“I know, sweetie,” she whispered, all joking gone as shepressed the patch against his skin and rubbed the back of it until she was sureit would stick. Then she stood, kissed his forehead, and said, “Eggs comingright up. We’ll go ahead and eat them even if your father is still trying toturn himself into a human prune. Nothing’s worse than rubbery eggs.”
Nicky positioned the guitar again and began picking thestrings, the old Jann Arden song coming to him easily. He hummed the vocalmelody under his breath. He didn’t have a great voice, which was why Sez waseven in the band, but it was serviceable, and he closed his eyes, mergingemotion and melody. The sound came through clearly, though he didn’t give anythought to the lyrics.
“I’ve always loved this song,” Miriam said.
He opened his eyes again and continued on, watching as shecracked a few eggs into a clean bowl. But when he reached the chorus, stillwordlessly humming, she stopped and turned to face him. “Thank you,” shemurmured, eyes glistening, and then she went back to scrambling the yolks andwhites with determination.
Nicky puzzled for a moment over just what she was thankinghim for. Then a lump rose in his throat as he finished out the last notes of “GoodMother.”
