I turned it over in my hand and thought about her plans to get into that club in Denver. It was her dream, her big chance. Cole’s words came back to me: “She’d hate us if we gave it up.”

If I closed my eyes, I could hear Kori onstage, squeezing out songs with that same fierceness that she lived her life.

“You had so much fun pretending to be me. Now’s your chance.”

I closed my hand around the plastic ID. My palms started sweating at the thought. It was silly really. I couldn’t sing.

“I’m gonna be infamous, Ser.”

“Don’t you mean famous?”

“Hell, no! I’m much more suited for infamy. Doncha think? Famous people are forgotten. Infamous people live on forever.”

“No, they don’t,” I muttered aloud. I let the fake ID flutter from my fingers to my bed.

I didn’t want to cry over lost dreams. I didn’t want to push myself past my fears. I just wanted to get high, to float out of my body, up, up and away, and be with her again.

I brushed back the tears with the crook of my arm as if they were merely sweat from a lengthy workout, and resumed searching the hidey-hole. Farther into the stuffed body, my fingers found what I was looking for and pried out Kori’s plastic bag, complete with rolling papers and matches. Without further thought, I shoved it into the front pocket of my jeans.

Just as I set Maru on my bed, I glanced back and was shocked to see Mrs. Patterson standing in my doorway. My heart lurched.

She looked pissed.

“Start talking!”

She sounded pissed.

She assumed the you’ve-got-some-explaining-to-do stance.

“Um … I … um,” I stammered à la Poor Josh. The fake ID stared up at me. My fingers fidgeted at hiding the telltale bag hanging out of my front pocket as I formulated my it-just-fell-there-and-I’m-holding-it-for-a-friend story.

“The jig is up, missy.”

“Okay.”

“Your mom told me.”

I sat on top of the fake ID; Mom knew nothing. Certainly not about Kori’s illegal habits. What could the old bat be irate about if it wasn’t that? Damn old biddies always snooping around.

I flicked a glance at her, pausing to read today’s T-shirt. I MAY HAVE ALZHEIMER’S BUT AT LEAST I DON’T HAVE ALZHEIMER’S. I really hope Tarantino keeps that when he directs the movie of my life, though the way Mrs. Patterson’s fingernails dug into the wood handle of her cane, I doubted I would live long enough to see it.

“Mom told you …” I lifted the last word, letting it hang in the air, implying my question.

She wagged a bony finger at me. “Yeah, so you can give up your little miss goody-goody act.”

Huh? Of course, she probably did have Alzheimer’s, so maybe this was just the beginning of its manifestation.