Joe

Hannah gapes at me, her eyes wide, a gigantic coffee hovering in the air in front of her face.

“Okay, where did you get that?”

I glance down at my brocade pantsuit in swirling ocean hues.

“Oh, this old thing?” I reply breezily. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Shit, you look hot!” Desi announces as she strides through the loading dock in a bright red sarong.

“Wow, so do you! Red is your color.”

“I know, right?” she answers, shaking her head and glancing down at her outfit.

“Martha says it’s too much for the gallery, though, so this may be the last time you see it.”

“Oh, she said that?”

I wonder for a moment if my outfit will be similarly edited. I do sort of look like a walking water lily.

“Yeah, she’s just mad,” Hannah shrugs, tapping sullenly on her laptop. “Didi missed two deliveries while you were gone. It’s a good thing you did so well at the opening or you would be hearing about it, I promise.”

“Oh yeah, congrats on that,” Desi chimes in. “We heard all about it. I’m glad you’re back, though. We’ve been swamped.”

I slide a box cutter over the packing tape of a large parcel, carefully opening the box and removing the paper-wrapped canvases inside.

“You’re swamped? What are you talking about? What did Didi miss?”

Desi shoots Hannah a warning look.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” she says quickly. “What have you got there? Are those more still-lifes? They better be Uglows or Martha is going to have a cow.”

“Nobody says have a cow anymore,” Hannah giggles.

Desi walks over with her hands out to poke at the parcel and I wave her off.

“Yes, they are Uglows,” I sniff. “I saw the emails come through when I was in Florida. Now, what are we talking about? Are we missing shipments?”

Desi and Hannah stare at each other and I see Desi shake her head, almost imperceptibly.

“Okay, where is Didi?” I ask, frustrated. “I’ll just ask her myself. Is she in her office?”

“Not likely,” Hannah scoffs. “It’s only eleven.”

“That’s not like her,” I say, mostly to myself.

“It is now,” Desi shrugs.

Scowling, I reach for my cell phone and text her. Our last message was days ago, but I was so busy traveling back and forth I just haven’t had time.

Where are you?

I stare at the screen for a couple minutes.

“Shit, she’s not even reading my text. Did one of you guys text her?”

“Joe, can you take a look at this?” comes Martha’s voice from the gallery door.

For a second, my name sounds strange to me. I must have gotten used to people calling me JoJo or Joanna for the last couple of weeks.

Joanna. It’s probably going to be a long time before anyone calls me that again.

“Hi Martha,” I smile as I walk over. Her eyes narrow as she looks over my outfit.

“That is an amazing outfit. Who did you?”

My mouth opens. “Um, well… It’s vintage. Just one of those things.”

Her raven-black eyebrows arch imperiously. “You don’t say? I’m envious.”

She’s envious? I marvel. Did that just happen?

“In any case,” she continues, snapping back to business, “I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work in Willowdale. Holly couldn’t have been more impressed. I’m really moved by your dedication, Joe. It didn’t even seem like you wanted to go.”

“Oh, of course,” I breathe. “Whatever it takes, Martha. You know that.”

She presses her lips into a tight vermilion smile.

“That’s all right,” she finishes. “Send Didi to me, would you?”

“Happy to,” I gulp.

Martha turns on her heel and stalks away as I stumble back toward the receiving table.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Desi sneers. “Are you loopy? We just told you Didi isn’t here.”

“Nobody says loopy anymore either,” Hannah announces.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I answer sincerely. “She caught me by surprise and…”

“And you’re just used to picking up after Didi? Is that what this is? No matter which ball gets dropped, you go chasing after it?”

I flinch, startled at Desi’s sudden shift into attack mode. I’m not sure what to say, so I just begin unwrapping the paintings in front of me and sulk.

I don’t fetch balls, I tell myself. I’m not a Labrador.

And yet, I think that stings because there is a little bit of truth in it. Covering for Didi is second nature to me. I’ve been doing it since grade school. Probably since before grade school.

The truth is that Didi needs someone to fetch her. Something about her does kind of remind me of one of those red balls we used to use in gym class. The kind that seemed to bounce erratically, way higher and way farther than you would have predicted. One small nudge could send her veering completely out of bounds.

Her mother wasn’t very good at chasing after her. She had a hard enough time keeping track of herself. I’m not sure what happened to her father, but he wasn’t around. Maybe ran off. Maybe chased off. Maybe he never knew about her in the first place. The subject definitely had a skull and crossbones warning sign over it that never was to be spoken aloud.

Nobody assigned me this job to protect my friend, but I have always been happy to do it. I was happy to check her homework. I was happy to slip her a copy of mine when necessary. I was happy to sneak her home after curfew when she drank too much.

I was really happy when she agreed to get on that bus with me to come to New York. I could see where she was going in Willowdale if she stayed there. Her life was going to be one crazy bounce after another in gradually tighter circles until she fell between the cracks, like a pinball in a losing game. At least in New York, the rules are different.

The alley door closes with a bang and we all look up. Didi pulls a dramatic grimace as she hobbles through the door on crutches, her leg safely held off the ground, still in a cast. I don’t know what I was expecting, but after spending the last week fixing things she had broken, I guess I forgot her leg didn’t magically heal itself too.

“Oh, hey!” she calls out, grinning madly. “You’re back! How was your trip to Hooterville?”

I rush toward her, hugging her hello. She sways on her crutches and smiles up at me, blinking with bloodshot eyes and grinning happily.

“I heard you just slayed them, JoJo,” she sighs, her voice slow and kind of sticky like molasses.

“Yeah. I guess it all worked out.”

“Oh, don’t be so modest! You killed it. It’s dead. You are the boss of this level.”

“Didi, are you okay? You seem a little…”

“Pshhhht,” she scoffs, leaning to one side and waving the other crutch in the air clumsily. “I am just fine. I am more than fine. You saved my ass!”

“I guess I tried…” I answer, squinting at her. “Martha says she wants to see you… Hey, Didi?”

Didi stops waving at Hannah and looks back up at me.

“Hi, JoJo,” she smiles.

“Don’t call me JoJo, okay?” I ask her in a low voice. “Didi… Are you drunk?”

“Drunk?” she repeats, her voice rising. “JoJo, it’s like noon in the morning. I am not drunk!”

She may not be drunk, but she is definitely something. She doesn’t smell like alcohol, though she’s acting really strange. Her eyeliner is clumpy and uneven, and she’s breathing through her mouth.

“Are you high? I mean… Didi, I’m just trying to look out for you.”

She twists her mouth to the side, giving me an insincere wink.

“I know, Joe Mama,” she sneers. “Get it? Joe Mama? Man. I wonder why I never thought of that one before?”

“Didi…”

“I gotta go talk to Martha,” she announces, hobbling past me so close that I have to dodge one of her crutches. She makes it to the gallery door, swinging her cast back and forth.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Hannah pulling a face.

“Is she always like that?” I ask when she’s gone.

Hannah looks away quickly, concealing her expression. Desi purses her lips and glares at me, her fist on her hip.

“Oh, you notice something different about her?” she asks me sarcastically.

“I don’t understand… Are you telling me there’s something different, or something not different?”

“Desi, don’t,” Hannah pleads.

Desi raises one finger to shush her. “No… I’m tired of this.” She turns back to me. “I just think it’s strange that you guys have been best friends since the womb, but you don’t know your best friend is an alcoholic. How is that possible, Joe?”

I shake my head. “She’s not an alcoholic. She didn’t even drink today. Go smell her… You’ll see.”

Desi runs her tongue over her upper teeth.

“She didn’t even drink today,” she repeats acridly. “Because she still has painkillers from her leg. As soon as those are gone, she should be right back at it. I guarantee.”

Defensiveness boils up in me from a dark well.

“You don’t know what you talking about,” I hiss. “Didi has been through a lot. She’s not an alcoholic. I would know.”

Desi raises her eyebrows accusingly. “Yeah, you should know,” she snaps. “Maybe you should think about it, okay? Maybe you do know, but you don’t want to say. Maybe you don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

“You guys, let’s just stop,” Hannah suggests unhelpfully.

“Yeah, I’m totally ready to stop,” I announce, snatching the packages off the table.

“Maybe you should start paying attention!” Desi yells after me as I head back into the gallery, fuming.

Pay attention? I marvel silently. Is she kidding me? I’ve spent most of my life paying attention to Didi.