Perky

by Julia Kent

  5

  “He did it again!” Mom screams from the kitchen, the smart-home device picking up the sound and spreading it through every speaker in the house.

  Mom doesn't shriek like that. Ever.

  I leap out of bed and collapse, legs unable to support me.

  Because my body is still nothing but pure alcohol.

  The back of my skull feels like a shot glass slammed into a polished wood bar after being slobbered all over by sorority girls doing Bailey's blow jobs. Only the side of my mattress holds me up.

  My phone buzzes like a vibrator in the women's room stalls at a Magic Mike live revue.

  “Uhhhhh.” That's all I can manage. The room is spinning. My phone says it's 10:21 a.m., which means Mom has been up for exactly fifty-one minutes because she gets up at 9:30 a.m. like clockwork.

  And I've been asleep for about three hundred thirty. Metabolism doesn't work fast enough to clear the volume of liquor I consumed after Parker left in only three hundred thirty minutes.

  Maybe one hundred thirty hours.

  “PERSEPHONE!” Mom gasps, live and in my room now. I’m sitting on the floor, slumped against the bed. “What is–oh, whew! Hoo! You smell like a distillery!” Her hand goes to her throat, fingering the lapis lazuli and crystal charm necklace she got from some shamanic healer in Taos, New Mexico on one of her 'meaning journeys.'

  “I should. I drank one last night.” My face rubs against the duvet on my bed. Wait a minute. I'm in my old bedroom. In the main house. How did I end up here? This isn't my cottage by the pool. The room is bronze and teal and denim, a color combination that seemed so very edgy in high school, but now it just makes me think of the bargain rack at the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop.

  Narrowed eyes, bare and naked without a stitch of makeup, meet mine. “Why? Wasn't Mallory's rehearsal dinner last night?”

  “Rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal dinner.” I actually hiccup, like we're on a movie set and I'm playing the part of Drunk Teenager.

  “Why are you saying the word 'rehearsal' three times?”

  “It's like Taco Taco Taco, Mom.” Invoking the name of my favorite Mexican restaurant in town, the one we locals just call Taco Cubed, makes my stomach lurch like there’s a Mariachi band in it, with two tequila worms in a dance-off.

  “That makes no sense. Why would you get drunk like this? You're not a drinker–wait. Wait a minute.” One eyebrow arches like the Nike swoosh. “Did a man choke at the restaurant you were at last night?” Mom fingers a strand of her long black hair.

  “Yes.”

  She gasps. The sound of air ripping down her windpipe is like nails on a chalkboard.

  “Parker was there!” she says, her voice climbing so high, she might as well be sucking helium.

  “I know.”

  “You know? How do you know?”

  “Because, uh, I was there.” Am I the only drunk person in this conversation? Maybe not.

  “Did he approach you?”

  “Will invited him to be a groomsman.”

  “WHAT?”

  “It's a long story.”

  “It is 10:23 in the morning, Persephone. I have all the time in the world.”

  “I thought this was your 'be present' time.”

  “I am being present with you.”

  “But my liver is five hours behind, Mom. It needs to crawl out of the past.” Or maybe it's in Paris, eating a pain au chocolat and some raspberries while watching the ziplines off the Eiffel Tower.

  “Why would you get so drunk?” she demands.

  I give her the best cold look I can muster.

  “Are you having a stroke?” Her palm goes flat against my forehead, as if that would make a difference.

  “What? No. That's a glare.”

  “One side of your face is slack.”

  That's my version of a stinkeye. I let my mouth set with a grimace. “Why do you think I got shitfaced?”

  “Because you saw Parker for the first time in five years?”

  All I can do is touch my nose and point to her. “Bingo!” I finally whisper.

  “Oh, Persephone. Going to your best friend's pre-wedding party to discover that dog turd found a way to get into your life is–”

  “Congressional dog turd, Mom. Use his honorific.”

  She snorts. It feels like a herd of elephants was released in my head.

  “How do you feel?”

  I give her a thumbs down.

  “In your heart.”

  My thumb goes lower.

  “Your pancreas?”

  My thumb reaches the Earth's core.

  “Do we really need to do organ inventory?”

  “You know the healer says it's a vital way to manage emotions that are stored in the body.”

  I give her the middle finger. “Ask the healer what's stored in this body part.”

  “You know that joke is never funny.”

  “Mom, it's always funny.” I giggle, then burp. “It's especially funny now.”

  “Your entire face just turned the strangest shade of green.”

  “That's because I need to puke.” Somehow I stand and do my drunk version of sprinting, making it to the bathroom just in time.

  “It's all over the morning news!” Mom yammers in the background as I empty myself of too many blood orange martinis and pale ale. I mixed beer and liquor, didn't I? Amateur. “Parker Campbell saved another life. That man has a very suspicious propensity for saving people in dire, mortal danger. Do you think he stages these events?”

  Stages?

  “It wouldn't be hard. Now that we have money, I know exactly what you can get away with to make the world look like whatever you want.”

  “You think Parker asked a guy to choke on a piece of steak so he could look good?” My cheek is drawn like a magnet to the side of the toilet bowl. So cool, so smooth, like the gentle touch of a mother's hand when you're sick.

  My toilet is more maternal than my mother, who is doing her best imitation of a prosecutor.

  “I wouldn't put anything past that man. Honestly! Did he harass you?”

  Does that hot kiss count? I wonder.

  “No,” I say carefully. “I punched him.”

  “What? Why? Because he harassed you?”

  “Because he kissed me,” I blurt out, hating myself for revealing the truth.

  “That is assault!”

  “Assault with a deadly tongue?”

  “PERSEPHONE!”

  “What? He kissed me. I punched him. We're even.” I don't mention the orgasm he gave me. On that, we are so not even.

  “Good. That man needs to learn boundaries!”

  “Pretty sure I committed a felony by punching a member of Congress.”

  “No jury of your peers would convict you.” She pauses. “And besides, what good is the money if we can't spend it on lawyers to get you off?” Mom whispers the words “the money” like we're in Harry Potter Land and she's saying Voldemort's name.

  Nine years ago, my mom went to a convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes, a King Size Reese's Cup snack, and a lottery ticket. Just one. Like clockwork, she dutifully bought a ticket twice a week, letting the computer decide her fate.

  Fate chose her one day.

  $177 million dollars later, our lives were upended. Numbers, ordered in a certain sequence, made everything we knew obsolete. Money changes everything, sure, but you don't realize how important your everything is–even the crappy parts–until you can't have it anymore.

  And everyone wants to be you.

  Hissing “the money” is Mom's way of distancing herself from it, as if she's not responsible. As if she doesn't want to unleash some unacknowledged entity attached to it, like there's a demon ready to pounce if she says the words too loud. Conjuring good luck was too easy, I think.

  She's terrified of a universe that seeks balance.

  Always.

  But that doesn't mean she won't spend it.

  “Moooomm,” I groan.
“Can you get me some ginger ale?”

  “Ahead of you, honey,” she says, handing me something in a mug that smells like chicken and ginger with cumin and the squeezed-out sweat of a hockey player's game jersey. “Here's a tonic for you. Much better than–”

  The smell makes me retch again.

  By the time I'm done and can stand on shaky legs, I realize Mom has switched on my tv and is watching some kind of video. A quick face wash with cool water and a toothbrushing session with more excavation than a spelunker, and I'm fifty percent sure I can walk to the bed of my own accord.

  I open the door.

  To find Parker Campbell standing on my wall.

  Not literally, but the ninety-inch television makes it easy to think he's there.

  “Look at that man.” The acid tone Mom uses makes the same words I'm thinking come out in a very different manner.

  Look at that man.

  I sure am. And I hate myself for it.

  That kiss. That hot moment in the coat closet. The way he looked at me. How he pursued me.

  How he made me come.

  How I let him.

  No–how I welcomed it.

  Yes, he was wrong. Yes, he owned up to it. Yes, he did the right thing by leaving after he did the wrong thing by semi-lying to Will.

  But all those yeses are just my mind making busy work to cover up the pain in my heart.

  The pain of still wanting him. The pain of knowing he still, after all these years and all my rejections, wants me right back.

  If I give in–and that's what it would be, a giving in–then who I am changes. It would be cheap and easy to lie to myself about how he betrayed me. Life wouldn't be so hard if I accepted his open arms, his invitation to bed, his beguiling offer to be back in his life. I would be loved and admired, sexed up and sated. I would be the partner of a powerful man who has loved me all along.

  But has he?

  Does true love involve leaking an intimate picture, awkward and hilarious in private but scathingly horrifying when sent out on the internet to become a meme people mock? Is that love?

  I know it's not.

  So if it's not love, and if Parker won't admit he did it and beg forgiveness, then what is this relentless come-on? Is he playing some mind game that gets him off? Am I a toy, a plaything, a vehicle for his amusement? Does he get his jollies coming in and out of my life, kissing me?

  God, my head hurts.

  And it's not just the hangover.

  “Here.” Mom thrusts the stinky witch's brew at me. I turn away and she sets it down. The overly polished words of the young newscaster telling the story of last night's choking incident are the backdrop of our conversation.

  Parker is, of course, the hero of this story, with Will his second.

  “Look! There you are!” Mom points. I see myself in the background, chugging my drink. I hold the empty out to someone I don't recognize and walk off. Replaying the next few minutes makes my liver wave a small white flag.

  Because three minutes after that video, I came away from the bar double fisted, and that wasn’t my last round. My goal: to get drunk enough to forget Parker.

  Turns out there's not enough alcohol in the world for that.

  Believe me. I tried to find the dosage.

  Bzzz.

  My phone is plugged in on a side table next to a round chair that faces the television. I ignore it. It buzzes again, then again in rapid-fire succession.

  “Aren't you going to get that?”

  “I'm not Pavlov's dog.”

  “I thought your entire generation was Pavlov's dog when it comes to your smartphones.”

  “Now you're going to dump on millennials? Come on, Mom, that's too easy.”

  Her laughter makes me smile.

  “There's my girl,” Mom whispers, coming in for the kill. “Just a sip.”

  “NO!”

  “Hirsenia made it just for you.” Mom's chef, Hirsenia, came to the United States twenty years ago from Macedonia. She's about eighty years old and makes some of the best dumplings you've ever tasted, but uses her cooking skills to create Old World “cures” that Mom is convinced are better than modern medicine. I half expect a heated castor oil and mustard pack to be delivered shortly.

  For my tongue.

  “Hirsenia made that god-awful balm that gave me hives all over my legs for weeks,” I argue.

  “Who knew you had a skin sensitivity to gluten?”

  “Mom, I have celiac disease. Anyone with a brain knows that.”

  “She used non-GMO heirloom wheat!”

  “I'm not drinking that.” I eye my aloe vera plant. Maybe I could pour it in there, but that would be vegetation abuse, right?

  “It's better than the shit you put in your body last night. You'll drink alcohol but not a soothing, nutrient-rich–”

  “–so proud of my son.”

  My head jerks up at the new voice from the television, a cultured voice that makes my innards freeze in terror and revulsion. Mom looks, too, eyes narrowing.

  There stands Jennifer Tanager Campbell, her name in big letters moving under the video as she speaks.

  Parker's mom.

  “She was there?” my own mother squeaks out just as someone taps on the door. We both twist to find my dad standing there in a robe.

  “No,” I croak through my paralysis and fury. “Look at the background. She's being interviewed at the statehouse in Boston.”

  “What's going on?” Dad asks.

  “Shhh!” Mom points at the television. “Dolores Umbridge is on!”

  “This isn't Harry Potter,” Dad says, confused.

  “Close enough,” Mom mutters, pointing to Jennifer, whose pinched smile and bright eyes are a pretty good imitation.

  Dad snorts, walks closer, and does a double take at me.

  “–from the bill my son has put forth in Congress to reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase green energy initiatives while helping oil companies with transitional tax breaks, his support for fair-trade coffee, his push for tax relief for small businesses, to his quick action in saving lives in emergency situations, as a mother, I could not be more proud.”

  “Proud! Proud of that slimy little beast,” Mom rants. She looks at Dad and says, “Bart, I think we need to call Sally again.”

  I groan. Sally is the family therapist. She makes house calls. Until a month ago, she actually lived here, in a guest cottage (not mine–yes, we have more than one...) behind the main house. Sally got married and is currently three months pregnant, so she decided to leave her position as full-time Palace Therapist and become an on-call emotional Band-Aid for the Tsongas family.

  Bzzzz.

  That better be Mallory or Fiona, because I need a rescue text.

  To escape my parents.

  “Sally's in training this week. Remember? Something about tapping.”

  “Tapping?” I can't help myself. “Is she becoming a sex therapist now?”

  “PERSEPHONE!” they both thunder.

  “It's a technique for processing trauma,” Mom says in a tight voice I don't understand.

  Dad eyes the television as the screen clicks over from Jennifer and moves on to a gas explosion in Stoughton. “Huh. She's well preserved.”

  “Condescension is a more powerful biologic than Botox,” Mom sniffs, making Dad laugh and pull her in for a hug. He kisses her temple.

  They look at me.

  I grab my phone.

  It's Fiona.

  Did you remember to drink sixteen ounces of water with lime in it and take three ibuprofen before going to bed? she asks.

  I didn't even take my shoes off, I reply.

  You are impossible. She adds a middle finger emoji.

  I've heard that before somewhere. Oh, yeah. From everyone I know. I add a derp smile.

  “MOOOOMMMM!” The screech from down the hallway tells me Ditie is up. My nineteen-year-old sister comes running in, holding her hand over one eyebrow like it's about to fall off. “The microbl
ading hurts!”

  We're becoming the Kardashians here. I'm hung over, my ex is an eligible bachelor with an eye on the White House getting tabloid attention, and my sister tattoos her face in beauty regimens designed for Instagram. Her goal in life is to have a successful YouTube channel where spilling the tea means something different than you think.

  Mom's phone buzzes. She ignores Ditie, who turns to Dad as a sounding board.

  “Our communications people tell us Parker is trying to text you again. They caught five texts going to your phone,” Mom says, her head whipping up from whatever she's reading to catch my eye.

  “He's blocked, Mom.”

  “I know that. They said so. I cannot believe the gall of that young man!”

  “He's thirty-one. When do you drop the 'young' part?”

  “Anyone younger than me is 'young,' Persephone.”

  “Perky.”

  “I hate that nickname. That's one thing Parker and I have in common. But only one. He always called you by your proper name, even when he was relentlessly texting and sending notes and emails and stalking you.”

  “Calls. He did it last night.”

  Our conversation manages to pique the interest of my sister, whose real name should be Gossip instead of Aphrodite. “You saw Parker? In real life?” Ditie is working hard to become an Instagram influencer. Knowing I was in the orbit of one of Congress's Most Eligible Bachelors must make her flip through twenty-three different filters in her mind and try on hashtags like shoes.

  “No, Ditie, I carry a foldable cardboard cutout of him and pretend it's him. It's great for being able to drive in the high-occupancy lane in the city.”

  “Shut UP!” she hisses, but doesn't look away. “Are you taking that sleazeball back?”

  “How did you get from 'saw him' to 'taking him back'?” Dad marvels.

  “Because Perky saw him, Daddy.” The words come out like the world's most obvious duh.

  “I did more than see him,” I whisper, my filter obliterated by alcohol and family.

  “What?” Mom, Dad, and Ditie all ask the same question.

  “He kissed me.” I’m absolutely not mentioning the coat-closet climax.

  “What did you do?” Dad demands.