One Saturday, long before a divining scepter struck their lives, the line at Ryan’s had been busy for more than an hour. Lia gave up trying to telephone and walked the four blocks over to her house. She had not anticipated a scene. The Green house, never a standard of immaculate housekeeping, was in complete disarray. Records were scattered across the living room floor: The Clash, Black Flag, Peter Tosh, X, along with empty soda cans and ashtrays full of cigarette butts.
Lia had only smelled m*******a once before: the first and last time she babysat for a very high-strung woman living in a dubious row of flats in the more modest part of town. The woman had openly declared her need to get wasted that night and had begun by locking herself in the bathroom for ten minutes before the arrival
