Nanny in Seattle, part 18

I can't sleep.
I sit in my boxer and a tee, I nicked from Eddie, and stare into the night.

The contours of the furniture is outlined by the city lights. The only sound is a faint rush of nightly traffic. A cat lies beside me on the loveseat. I stroke it, deep in thoughts.

Why don't we talk?

I keep asking myself.

Why do we act as if we have no time to lose, which only makes us lose more time. Time together.

Go with Chad.

Chad.

Chad who quietly walks towards me. He holds out his hands.

"Baby, can't you sleep?" He asks with his warm loving voice.

I take his hands and get up.

"No. It is all so fucked up."

Chad sighs and then hugs me.

"Come to bed."

He folds back the duvet and I slide under it. The bed is warm and comfortable.

Chad gets in beside me and I curl up against him, my head on his broad shoulder.

Dear understanding Chad. I love him so much.

Behind me a soft whisper.

"Are you okay?"

She rolls over and strokes my hair.
Ivy.
How I love them both.

Go back to Chad, Eddie said with this tired voice. And then he slammed the door behind him. Out of my life again.

He should have said go back to Chad and Ivy.

But how would he know.

We never talk.

"Good morning my lovely wives." Chad says in a cheerful tone. "Breakfast is served in the kitchen."

Ivy throws a pillow at him.

"Don't you get any ideas." She laughs.

"You!" she points at me. "Get out of my bed. He might get used to this."

I laugh but then I pull a face.

"Talking about ideas." I say. "I have to see him. Talk to him. And her. I have to find her. Sort things out."

Chad and Ivy look at each other. I can tell they worry.

"Can't you just forget about him?" Ivy asks.

"I can't."

"Where will you go?"

"Back to Seattle. I'll skip classes. I'll make it into an art project. Finding Amy." I make the sign of exclamation marks.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Chad asks the following day.

"No thanks, love. I'm very grateful you asked your parents. Now I can stay in your old apartment up their garage! I'm taking my surfboard too. It will be like a vacation."

I throw my kitbag in the back of my car and after giving Ivy and Chad a bear hug I drive away.

At the gas station I fill my beauty up, a vintage Porsche given to me by one of my dad's colleagues, an old guy who now lives in retirement on Vancouver Island.
Before I drive away I honk twice and the slim young boy with sleek blond hair hanging in his eyes comes out of the shop and seats himself at the passengers side.

"Are you up to it?" I ask the pale beautiful junkie.

"Yo, girl, I've got the methadone. I'm gonna find her for you." He says with a firm voice.

After he shot himself up during the show a couple of nights back, Oliver was brought to a young adult addiction centre by the technician or security guy Eddie had with him when he found me at the court of that venue. The guy turned out to be a real buddy and Oliver decided to try to stop shooting heroin.

I went looking for him together with Ivy and it wasn't very difficult since in Vancouver almost all the junkies are registered. I wanted to ask him about habits and stuff addicts do in order to find Amy. After talking to him - he still recognized me - he proposed to come with me. His parents lived near Seattle and he would very much like to go back home.

We had made a plan together how to find Amy.

We drive up a small alley between two seemingly empty warehouses.

"This is it, Oliver?"

"Like the dude said. Creeps the hell out of me though."

I park my car and get out.

Oliver stays in the car. In his situation it is better not to be confronted with users.

I take a small rusty stair to get to the steel emergency exit. The door is already slightly ajar so I have no trouble entering.

"Hello?" My voice echoes and I feel silly calling in an empty warehouse staircase.

But upstairs I can hear a faint rumour and I see an orange light reflecting on the crumbled walls.

I climb the stairs and on the third floor I see an open door and a group of people gathered around a fire.

They hardly look up when I enter the room. Mattresses everywhere. Dirty sheets, vomit, empty beer cans and the sweet smell of dope. Traces of heroin usage, like spoons, needles and torn young people with blank faces.

I kneel next to a young woman who sits with her head in her hands.

"Hi there, can you help me? I'm looking for a girl named Amy. She is supposed to be here. I'm a friend."

She looks up and laughs with a raspy sound.

"Listen Mary, you'd better leave Amy be."

But she points to another room.

The door is hanging in its hinges, so I rap on the post to make myself known before I enter.

In the room a man and a woman are post-coital tangled on a dirty mattress. They seem far away. The woman, a once beautiful brunette of about thirty, looks up when I kneel beside her.

I feel awkward in her naked presence, but I am determined to successfully conclude my quest.

"Hey," I whisper as not to wake the handsome Latino man with the long black curls and the hard, scull like face. "Are you Amy?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Lotte."
"Do you have some shit?"

"No, sorry. But I brought you this." I show the little plastic bag with methadone I have in my pocket. "Can we talk?" I put it back.

"Are you the nanny?"

A shock goes through me.

She knows who I am?

Her face changes.

"Yeah, he told me 'bout you."

"Wait... Do...you still see him?" I ask with an unsettling feeling.

"Yeah. He comes around. Brings me things."

"Things?"

"You know..."

It feels like someone kicks me in my stomach.

"Is he...is he your dealer?"

"You really know him well, don't you?" She spits. Gives me a loathing, dirty look.