Lucy had just settled down to catch up on some episodes of her favorite TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, and was secretly glad when her housemates had all gone to their rooms for the night so she had the entire couch to herself. Just as she was getting comfortable the doorbell rang.
Lucy visibly slumped with shock when she opened the door. A wave of cinnamon-scented air wafted past her nose. Nicotine chewing gum. The scent took Lucy right back to those first weeks at rehab, going cold turkey, getting rid of all the stimulants on which her body had come to rely. Lucy froze. Her old rehab buddy from Claremont, Ariana, was leaning in to hug her.
“Dear Lord, thank goodness I found you home! I’ve been fretting that you’d be out with your friends.”
Before Lucy could move away, the skinny redhead had wrapped her arms around her shoulders and was squeezing tight, rocking slightly. “Sure—I should have called. But some creeper stole my cell when I was asleep on the bus. I need a bed for the night. You gonna help me out, Lucy?”
Lucy counted to ten and then gently disentangled herself from Ariana. She stood back to get a good look, or maybe to check that the sinking feeling in her chest wasn’t the result of some stupid dream. In front of her stood a petite white girl, slim and with dyed-red hair that reached her shoulders, dressed in tight white jeggings, a yellow sleeveless T-shirt, and a faded denim jacket. On her feet she wore a pair of scuffed red Keds. Gold bangles, hoop earrings, and a silver belt jazzed up the outfit, but made her look several years older than her almost nineteen years, like a woman in her late twenties trying too hard.
“Hope you don’t mind me showin’ up out of the blue? You don’t look too happy! Lucy Long, I sure have missed your moody self.”
In a daze, Lucy showed Ariana into the house and took the shoulder bag from her as Ariana wheeled in a carry-on suitcase. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief that no other housemate was downstairs to witness Ariana’s arrival. Lucy’s mind was already rifling through possible ways to get rid of Ariana.
Ariana looked slightly sweaty, hair mussed, disheveled from the bus journey. Lucy watched her old friend drop onto the gray three-seater sofa. Ariana scowled, then pulled a discarded copy of Variety out from beneath her. Lucy went and got a glass of ice water for Ariana, who sipped at it gratefully.
Stumbling for an easy conversation opener, Lucy said, “You came on the Pomona bus?”
“Two changes after Union Station,” confirmed Ariana, fanning herself with the magazine. She already looked irritated, as though Lucy’s questions were some silly barrier against which she had to battle constantly. “It wasn’t easy to show up here unannounced. But I figured, you know, I had to do it. I couldn’t stay in Claremont another day. I needed my best girl, Lucy. If you’d said no, that you were busy or something, I wouldn’t have gotten onto the bus. That’s it. I’d still be in Claremont now, already thinking about getting some blow.”
Lucy froze. She fixed Ariana with a stony glare, and then exhaled slowly, unable to speak for several seconds. “Cocaine? That’s what you’re into now? Ari, jeez!”
Ariana’s reply was wheedling, pitiful. “At least it isn’t crystal, right? Or H?”
Dismissively, Lucy said, “I’m no angel. I admit it—I’ve started smoking weed again, too.” Her voice rose, suddenly imploring. “But Ari. You gotta stay off the hard drugs! Is that what you’re spending all your money on? Is that why you can’t afford a taxi or a place to stay?”
Ariana’s face became serious. “You always could see through me. I’ll be straight with you, Lucy. I’ve racked up a little debt again. Not too much,” she said quickly, raising both hands as Lucy’s expression of forced compassion turned into a frown. “But I needed to get out of there quick, break the habit, go somewhere totally different, be around someone I know can help me.”
“So you came to me,” Lucy said, struggling to keep the sourness out of her tone.
A beam spread across Ariana’s face. “You never once let me down, hon.”
Then she was hugging Lucy again. Over the girl’s shoulder, Lucy gritted her teeth. There had to be some non-mean way out of this. As annoying as Ariana could be, she’d been a solid friend through the worst months of Lucy’s life, and shown her nothing but steadfast devotion since.
Lucy cleared her throat as she pulled away as gently as possible. “How long you, ah, thinking of staying here?”
Ariana’s seraphic smile reappeared. “Could I? It’d just be a couple of nights.”
“Really?”
“A week at most.”
Lucy plucked at her lower lip. “We don’t have any spare beds.”
Ariana glanced around the living room and tipped a finger in the direction of the green futon. “Isn’t that one of those sofa beds?”
Lucy tried to smile. “It’s just that, you know, the house is already kind of crowded. Six of us sharing two bathrooms. It gets kind of crazy on school mornings.”
“Then I guess it’s good that school is almost out. Look, let me help. I’ll cook y’all some breakfast, and I won’t shower until y’all are gone. I can take care of you a little, hon. Let me do that? C’mon, all this living on your own, you gotta be missing your family just a teeny bit, right?”
Shaking her head firmly, Lucy said, “Not even. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“But you’re using again?” Ariana said with a little pout that Lucy could tell was entirely fake.
“Alcohol, tobacco, a little weed on special occasions. It’s no biggie, Ari. I’m like a regular person now; I don’t go crazy.”
“But you’re not a regular person, are you, honey?” Ariana said very gently. “You’re an addict. Just like me. There’s no middle ground for people like us.”
Lucy didn’t reply, but felt anger burn through her eyes. Ariana was right. An addict is an addict. But the illusion of being a normal teenager with a chemical hobby was way better.
“Listen, I’m three days clean, Lucy. But it’s not easy. I knew if I stayed in Claremont, I’d fall right back off over the weekend. God knows I’ve tried enough times. So okay, I admit it, I didn’t think about it too much, I just packed a bag and headed for the bus. Please don’t let me down. If I can just get through the next week with a good friend by my side . . .”
Slowly, Lucy blinked. She could feel her resolve cracking. The other housemates were going to kill her.
“Okay. I guess. Just a few days, and you be sure to keep your stuff all neat. This is a pretty chill place, but things get nasty when people don’t clean up.”
Ariana shook her head fervently. “Oh, that’s me all the way, Lucy. You remember our room in rehab, right? Didn’t I keep it nice?”
“Yeah, true. Between the two of us, I was the slob,” Lucy said as a reluctant grin spread to her lips.
Memories of their time in rehab returned. It hadn’t all been bad. The environment had been pretty relaxing: ashram vibes, dreamy music, and the odor of lemongrass everywhere. They’d donned white, waffled-cotton robes and slippers every morning before heading to the sun-drizzled breakfast room in which a dozen bleary-eyed, rich junkies would enjoy mint verbena tea with wheat toast and apricot jam made from fruit grown in the center’s own orchard.
Even more impressive for someone of such modest means as Ariana, although from what Lucy understood, her people were recently impoverished. They still rattled around in some dilapidated old house in the Louisiana swamp, at the center of what had long ago been a small sugar plantation.
Lucy had often wondered where the money had come from to pay for Ariana’s stay at the rather exclusive rehab center. She’d guessed that the girl had a rich aunt or something; someone who might occasionally be leaned on for a favor, but who wouldn’t go as far as regular support.
“You were a slob, messing up a nice place like that,” Ariana chided. “But I didn’t let you get away with it, did I?”
“Guess you didn’t,” said Lucy, trying to smile despite the vague sense of unease she felt at letting Ariana stay. She should really ask the others first. Still, Ariana was a rehab buddy. That was a tight relationship. You didn’t even really need to like your rehab buddy, but if it came to a matter of support over the addiction, you had to have each other’s back.
Ariana patted the space beside her on the sofa. “C’mon, girl, sit awhile. We need to get caught up. What’s it been since we really talked—five, six weeks? What’s going on with you and that tennis player, Mr. Disney Channel? Anything ever happen there?”
“Paolo? You could say that.”
Ariana smiled wickedly. “Ah, it’s like that, is it? You lose your cherry yet?”
Lucy sat beside Ariana, and slapped her sharply on the arm, hard enough to make her yelp with surprise. “Ugh, please. Like I would ever go for him.”
Ariana laughed, rubbing her arm. “Ooh—I touched a nerve.”
Lucy shrugged. “Maybe. Truth is, we almost hooked up. But I changed my mind.”
“Did he get mad?”
“No, actually he was kind of a gentleman about it.”
“That surprise you?”
Lucy shook her head. “Not really. But maybe he’s angrier than I thought. We were gonna talk yesterday and he avoided me the whole day. Today, too.”
Ariana wrapped both arms around Lucy, slow and deliberate. Lucy kept still, but the gesture wasn’t welcome. “Ari’s here now, honey,” she murmured, her breath warm on Lucy’s neck. “We can be there for each other. Just like old times.”
Lucy began to count down in her head. She’d forgotten how clingy Ariana could be. Having her around was going to be sheer claustrophobia.