Free Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia Page B

Her students were less impressed because she made their lives hell as she experimented with teaching by the Socratic Method. She’d been the new, improved, impermeable Livia for a week before Kyle cornered her in her bedroom.
    “Your phone’s always off. You sleep like a dead person. You keep those goddamn sunglasses on all the time. What the hell’s going on with you?” Kyle tossed her red hair in indignation.
    Livia just shook her head. As her foggy thoughts tried to form themselves into a response, Kyle ran out of patience.
    Crack! She whacked Livia’s sunglasses across the room. Livia was too stunned to slap her back.
    When Kyle saw Livia’s bloodshot eyes, ringed in black circles, she gasped. “Oh, Livia, you’re so sad. Tell me what happened. Please tell me this isn’t over Chris the giant pussy?”
    Livia managed a smile.
    “Is it that skanktastic Hannah? I have some photos from a party that would ruin her if we let them loose.” Kyle pushed Livia down on her bed.
    Livia shook her head and with a huge sigh, unloaded her story. She began with defending Blake at the train station and ended two months later with the brown bag of uneaten breakfast.
    Livia’s voice wavered with unshed tears at the end of her tale. “I think his problems might be too big. I can’t even find him.” Livia waited for Kyle’s anger to flare, remembering her reaction to Chris.
    “Liv, do you think you love him?” Kyle looked like she already knew the answer.
    Taken off guard by Kyle’s lack of vengeance, Livia was surprised to hear her soul talking after a week of sulking in silence. “I feel like I’ve always loved him, and now I just got lucky enough to find him.”
    This revelation lit a fire in Kyle. She leaped off the bed, pointing at her sister with gusto. “Well, Livia, McHugh women aren’t quitters. And we definitely don’t quit on love. You better bury all this sorry-ass self-pity and man up. If finding him will bring you back to normal, that’s what we’re going to do.”
    After all the times Livia had advised and encouraged Kyle, she now just shook her head, laughing. “You’re pretty smart for a bratty little sister.”
    “I’m only a year and a half younger. It’s not like it even counts anymore,” Kyle retorted. “We’re going to find your hobo. We’re going to work hard—work nights. Liv, we’re going to put our balls into it.” She hugged her tightly.
    “When did we get balls?” Livia asked, returning her ridiculous sister’s hug.
    “Just now. So where to first? Pimps R Us or wrathful priest man?” Kyle walked over to Livia’s vanity and selected a few choice items from the makeup she found there.
    “Pimps, I guess,” Livia said, ignoring the thievery. “It is night. What do we wear to a drug den anyway?” Livia opened her closet and looked through her clothes for some prospects.
    Kyle smacked her lips after applying gloss. “Definitely no opened-toed shoes.”
    “What?” Livia said.
    “I figure there’ll be needles or something. Dress like we’re headed to the county fair. Cow poop or syringes full of disease, same difference.”
    Livia felt the warmth of hope light her from within. If Kyle was on board, maybe this was worth pursuing. He was worth pursuing.

7
    Pimps R Us
    L IVIA F OLLOWED A S K YLE demonstrated how to pick their way out of the house without being detected by their father. Livia gave her sister as many disapproving facial expressions as she could muster, but she obeyed.
    Kyle palmed the keys to her chili pepper red convertible so they wouldn’t jingle as the two slipped out the front door. She kept them silent as she unlocked the car.
    “Don’t shut the car door all the way,” she advised as they fastened their seatbelts.
    “Shouldn’t we put the top on?” Livia asked.
    Kyle dismissed her with the briefest of head shakes. The convertible’s hardtop had her cursing a blue streak whenever she put it on. She started the car and backed out of the driveway