The Goldfinch

“I thought you went back.”

“Eh?”

“Because—well. I never heard from you.”

“Ah.” Boris rubbed his nose sheepishly. “It was a messed up time. Remember your house—that last night?”

“Of course.”

“Well. I’d never seen so much drugs in my life. Like half an ounce of coka and didn’t sell one stitch of it, not even one quarter gram. Gave a lot away, sure—was very popular at school, ha! Everyone loved me! But most of it—right up my nose. Then—the baggies we found—tablets of all assortments—remember? Those little greens? Some very serious cancer-patient-end-of-life pills—your dad must have been crazy addicted if he was taking that stuff.”

“Yeah, I wound up with some of those too.”

“Well then, you know! They don’t even make those good green oxys any more! Now they have the junkie-defeat so you can’t shoot them or snort! But your dad? Like—to go from drinking to that? Better a drunk in the street, any old day. First one I did—passed out before I hit my second line, if Kotku hadn’t been there—” he drew a finger across his throat—“pfft.”

“Yep,” I said, remembering my own stupid bliss, keeling face-down on my desk upstairs at Hobie’s.

“Anyway—” Boris downed his vodka in a gulp and poured us both another—“Xandra was selling it. Not that. That was your dad’s. For his own personal. But the other, she was dealing from where she worked. That couple Stewart and Lisa? Those like super straight real-estate looking people? They were bankrolling her.”

I put down my fork. “How do you know that?”

“Because she told me! And I guess they got ugly when she came up short, too. Like Mr. Lawyer Face and Miss Daisy Tote Bag all nice and kind at your house… petting her on the head… ‘what can we do’… ‘Poor Xandra…’ ‘we’re so sorry for you’… then their drugs are gone—phew. Different story! I felt really bad when she told me, for what we’d done! Big trouble for her! But, by then—” flicking his nose—“was all up here. Kaput.”

“Wait—Xandra told you this?”

“Yes. After you left. When I was living over there with her.”

“You need to back up a little bit.”

Boris sighed. “Well, okay. Is long story. But we have not seen each other in long while, right?”

“You lived with Xandra?”

“You know—in and out. Four-five months maybe. Before she moved back to Reno. I lost touch with her after that. My dad had gone back to Australia, see, and also Kotku and I were on the rocks—”

“That must have been really weird.”

“Well—sort of,” he said restlessly. “See—” leaning back, signalling to the waiter again—“I was in pretty bad shape. I’d been up for days. You know how it is when you crash hard off cocaine—terrible. I was alone and really frightened. You know that sickness in your soul—fast breaths, lots of fear, like Death will reach a hand out and take you? Thin—dirty—scared shivering. Like a little half-dead cat! And Christmas too—everyone away! Called a bunch of people, no one picking up—went by this guy Lee’s where I stayed in the pool house sometime but he was gone, door locked. Walking and walking—staggering almost. Cold and frightened! Nobody home! So I went by to Xandra’s. Kotku was not talking to me by then.”

“Man, you had some kind of serious balls. I wouldn’t have gone back there for a million dollars.”

“I know, it took some onions, but was so lonely and ill. Mouth all gittering. Like—where you want to lie still and to look at a clock and count your heartbeats? except no place to lie still? and you don’t have a clock? Almost in tears! Didn’t know what to do! Didn’t even know was she still there. But lights were on—only lights on the street—came around by the glass door and there she was, in her same Dolphins shirt, in the kitchen making margaritas.”

“What’d she do?”

“Ha! Wouldn’t let me in, at first! Stood in the door and yelled a long while—cursed me, called me every name! But then I started crying. And when I asked could I stay with her?”—he shrugged—“she said yes.”

“What?” I said, reaching for the shot he’d poured me. “You mean like stay stay—?”

“I was scared! She let me sleep in her room! With TV turned to Christmas movies!”

“Hmn.” I could see he wanted me to press for details, only from his gleeful expression I was not so sure I believed him about the sleeping-in-her-room business, either. “Well, glad that worked out for you, I guess. She say anything about me?”

“Well, yes a little.” He chortled. “A lot actually! Because, I mean, don’t be mad, but I blamed some things on you.”

“Glad I could help.”

“Yes, of course!” He clinked my glass jubilantly. “Many thanks! You’d do the same, I wouldn’t mind. Honest, though, poor Xandra, I think she was glad to see me. To see anyone. I mean—” throwing his shot back—“it was crazy… those bad friends… she was all alone out there. Drinking a lot, afraid to go to work. Something could have happened to her, easy—no neighbors, really creepy. Because Bobo Silver—well, Bobo was actually not so bad guy. ‘The Mensch’? They don’t call him that for nothing! Xandra was scared to death of him but he didn’t go after her for your dad’s debt, not serious anyway. Not at all. And your dad was in for a lot. Probably he realized she was broke—your dad had fucked her over good and proper, too. Might as well be decent about it. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. But those other people, those friends of hers so called, were mean like bankers. You know? ‘You owe me,’ really hard, fucking co

“Help how?”

“By giving her back the moneys I took.”

“You’d kept it?”

“Well, no,” he said reasonably. “Had spent it. But—had something else going, see. Because right after the coke ran out? I had taken the money to Jimmy at the gun shop and bought more. See, I was buying it for me and Amber—just the two of us. Very very beautiful girl, very i