Free The Smart One by Ellen Meister Page A

among—” he stopped and looked at the Goodwins and then at me. “I mean, I can’t complain. Not that I don’t want to, but there’s a clause in my contract. How are you? I heard you were in rehab.”
    Joey beamed. “I’m clean!” she said seriously.
    Silence hung for a palpable second and then everyone burst into laughter, which seemed to warm the room. It also had theeffect of severing Joey’s stranglehold on Kenny’s attention. He greeted Clare warmly and said hello to the Goodwins.
    Teddy raved about Joey’s singing, then he turned to her and asked if she had ever thought about trying to make a solo career for herself.
    She made a face and shook her head. “Not into it.”
    “Another band, then?” he asked.
    Joey stuck out her tongue to suggest the idea was sickening.
    “Well, if you change your mind,” he said, “I wrote this song I think would be perfect for you. If you ever want to hear it, let me know.”
    “Perfect for you,” his wife echoed. “You’ll fall in love with it.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind,” Joey said, and folded her arms, indicating that the subject was closed.
    I looked hard at Joey to try to determine if she was being truthful or not. She was always so driven I had assumed she wanted to get her singing career back on track. I chided myself for not having discussed this with her. She could have been dealing with some significant fears about exposing herself to drugs. I hoped she could get past that. I hated to think of her talents going to waste. But of course, she was with Tyrone when he OD’d and had watched him die. It drove her to rehab, and I supposed it could have also driven her to reevaluate what she wanted out of life.
    One thing I knew for sure—if she still wanted a career in rock and roll, she’d go after it.
    Once, as a kid, she announced her intention to go to church with some of her Catholic friends. She said she wanted to know if the God in their church was the same God who was at our temple. My parents didn’t buy Joey’s spiritual curiosity and forbade it. They fought and fought, Joey insisting she justwanted to know about God, my parents yelling that she just wanted to go church because she thought that’s where the cool kids went.
    “You don’t want to be Jewish anymore?” my mother asked, wringing her hands. Clearly she took Joey’s request as a personal affront.
    “I just want to know if God’s in St. Paul’s. ”
    My father interrupted, “And how will you know, eh? You think God is going to speak to you?”
    “I’ll just know.”
    “Bah! You want to impress your friends!” my father said, in one of the rare occasions when he raised his voice.
    My parents wouldn’t budge, and Joey stomped around the house, furious, for days. I didn’t get involved in the argument because I wasn’t sure who was right. Now I can see that they both were. Joey did indeed have an insatiable curiosity. She was the kind of kid who had to look under every stone (and in every tampon box) and try everything at least once. If she got a question in her head, she wouldn’t relent until she got an answer. On the other hand, the reason she had such a burning curiosity about St. Paul’s in particular was that her hard-edged friends went to Mass there. She probably wanted to see if they knew something she didn’t.
    Then, early Sunday morning, she climbed out her second-floor bedroom window and jumped to the ground, breaking her ankle. She got up and limped to St. Paul’s to attend Mass, the area above her shoe swelling to the size of a bowling ball. It had to have been agonizingly painful.
    I don’t know if Joey discovered anything about God in a Catholic church, but I know the rest of us learned that nothing would ever get in the way of Joey going after what she wants.
    I put my hand on her back and announced to the group thatI hated to break up the party, but my sisters and I needed to get back to my house to shower and change. She returned the gesture by putting