A World Away

by Nancy Grossman

  I joined in the counting now as Jill pulled a three and Steve a nine, watching excitedly, waiting until it would be my turn again and all eyes would be back on me and I could taste that sweet sourness again. When it was Carly’s turn, she pulled an ace, and everyone shouted at once, “One or eleven?”

  “Eleven!” Carly cried out, and there was a burst of cheering before the counting started.

  When it was finally my turn again, my card was a queen. I looked around, uncertain of what number went with the card. I felt a wave of excitement around me as Greg explained, “For face cards you get to pick your own number, anything between one and eleven.” I looked at all the expectant faces and I knew what they were waiting for.

  “Eleven!” I shouted, and the resulting cheers made me feel rich inside. I raised the cup and began to gulp the red liquid as everyone counted. The drink tasted a bit less harsh than on my first turn. The counting seemed slower this time, and the ice swam against my upper lip as I raised the cup higher and tried to breathe and swallow at the same time. When the counting ended, I lowered my glass and turned to Josh with a grin. “Take it easy,” he said. “You need to pace yourself.” His voice had a smile in it, but also a little note of concern. I peered into my cup and saw that it was almost empty. I shrugged and looked up to see who would be drinking next. I was anxious for it to be my turn again, to feel the attention of these new friends, to taste that sweet fluid on my tongue. I reveled in a new sensation of easiness, of settling in. I was one of them now, receiving the same attention as everyone else. There was a looseness in my limbs that felt like liquid running through me. The cushions on the couch were swallowing me, and I was drenched in a sense of deep comfort.

  The turns were coming faster now, the counting louder. I held up my empty cup, as I had seen others do. “Are you sure?” asked Josh. His words sounded slushy.

  “Yes,” I said. But it came out more like “Yesh.” A cold, full cup found its way back to my hand. Michael turned up an ace, and I shouted with everyone else, “One or eleven?” and cheered when he yelled, “Eleven!” My turn again. An eight. The last drop slid down my throat. Another full drink found its way into my hand.

  More turns, more counting. It was getting hard to keep track of whose turn it was. Some people were lying down now, sitting up only when it was time for them to reach for a card. My turn again.

  A five. Too short of a turn. I took bigger gulps to make the most of it. A softness surrounded me, a gentleness. I wanted more of this feeling, so I took another sip even though it wasn’t my turn. No one noticed, so I took another. The ice bumped against my teeth. I held up my cup, but no one took it, so I got up to mix the drink myself. The room was tilting, and I felt myself swaying with it. Josh was next to me, his arm tight around my waist. “I’m cutting you off,” he said, taking the cup from my hand. His voice was gentle and he guided me back to the couch in a tender way. I felt myself tumbling into him, and even after he was lying on the couch and I was stretched out on top of him, my head on his chest, it still felt like I was falling.

  “Whose turn is it?” I asked.

  I felt Josh’s shrug against my cheek. “I don’t think we’re playing anymore,” he said. “I think everyone’s just drinking without the game.”

  I was disappointed. “But I love counting,” I said. It was a funny thing to say, and I laughed. Josh laughed too, and that made me laugh more. Then I couldn’t stop laughing, and I had to gulp to get air. I liked being funny.

  Then I noticed that no one else was laughing or talking. Some couples had gone off to the far reaches of the room, and were curled up together. My blue dress felt damp and it was bunching up in places. Josh’s hands roamed over my back, and somehow his fingertips were on my skin without the dress between us. I wanted to shift around to straighten out the dress, but his hands felt warm and his touch was light. I knew I should feel immodest, but it was dark in the room and no one was there except for us. Or maybe they were there but I couldn’t see them, and it didn’t matter anyhow. The red drink in the blue cup had made everything soft and cottony. I was drifting now, and the couch we were on rocked ever so slightly. I thought of Rachel warning me to keep my head on my shoulders, and I wanted to laugh again because I knew that wherever my head had gone, it wasn’t on my shoulders.

  When I closed my eyes, I was spinning the way I had with Margaret and James when we were little, turning in circles and feeling the sun on our faces.

  I couldn’t imagine a better feeling.

  I couldn’t imagine a worse feeling. The room was circling around me and I wasn’t spinning in the spring sun. My body was pressed against Josh’s. My legs were cold and bare, and whatever I was wearing was hiked up in a way that I was sure was improper. Small sounds invaded the silence. Loud breathing, whispering. Who else was here? From far away another sound. Someone retching. I swallowed back a sudden nausea and opened my eyes.

  The room came jarringly into view, the windowless living room below Valerie’s house where we had all come in our finery. It didn’t seem like it could be the same night. Josh and I were still on the couch, where we had plummeted together into a dizzying sleep. He was still asleep, his breathing raspy, his breath sour. I was stretched out on top of him. I carefully disentangled myself, straightened my dress, and sat forward at the edge of the couch. Josh didn’t move. I sat for a while, breathing deeply and letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. A sickly feeling had settled in my chest.

  The table was littered with the blue cups that had been the source of delicious laughter a few hours ago. Around the room, couples were sprawled out together the way Josh and I had been, some on furniture, others on the floor. I went to the table that earlier had been used as a bar and poured some Coke into a blue cup. It tasted warm and sweet.

  My head was pounding. I wanted to be back in my room at Rachel’s house, in a clean nightgown and a soft bed. I wanted to shower away the dirty feeling and drink gallons of warm Coke.

  From across the room I heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open. I looked over to see Oscar, his face pale, his steps unsteady. I tiptoed across the room, stepping around the sleeping bodies, and slipped into the bathroom. Before I fully realized what I was doing, I knelt before the toilet, my arms encircling the seat. A long flow of pink vomit gushed into the toilet, and I took in a ragged breath. The tile pressed into my bare knees. I flushed the toilet and then vomited again, this time my stomach seizing and my breaths gulping. At the sink I rinsed my mouth and splashed water on my face. Someone was knocking on the door. I opened it and Carly rushed past me and leaned over the toilet. Closing the door behind me, I tried to think of what to do next.

  I went back to the couch and sat beside Josh, who was still stretched out in the same position I had left him in. I reached for his left hand to see his watch. It was a little before four o’clock. I leaned forward and whispered, “I want to go home.” He stirred but didn’t wake up. I shook his shoulder and leaned closer. “Josh, I want to go home.”

  He opened his eyes, looking at me in a foggy way, and I watched him wake up. His usual grin started to slide up his face. “What’s up?” he asked, but it sounded more like “Tsup.”

  I said it again, more firmly now. “I want to go home.”

  He looked confused. “Back to the Amish?” he asked. It would have been funny if I hadn’t felt so miserable.

  “No,” I said. “Back to Rachel’s house. I don’t feel well.”

  Josh’s eyes slid closed again. “Okay,” he said. “In a little while.”

  I went back to the corner of the room and searched through the piles of belongings to find my overnight bag. I unzipped it and reached for my sneakers. Inside the bag my pajamas were neatly folded, awaiting a different kind of night. A night where girls sat around and replayed the events of the evening and watched movies about boys and girls who discover that they love each other, even though all the girls sitting together in their pajamas knew it already. I longed for the comfort of that night.
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  I stepped into my sneakers, feeling the rubbery sensation against my bare feet, grabbed the sleeping bag and overnight bag and returned to the couch. Now I shook Josh impatiently. “Please take me home,” I said when Josh’s eyes slid open.

  “Now?” he asked. He sat up slowly, shaking his head. “But we were all going to have breakfast in the morning.”

  My stomach turned at the thought. I shook my head. “I need to leave now,” I said, and finally he seemed to understand. Too slowly, he got up and searched around the bags for his belongings and shoes. In the morning there would be a great mess to clean up, and everyone would wonder where Josh and I had gone, but I didn’t care about any of that. Finally, we were making our way up the stairs, through Valerie’s quiet house, and out the front door.

  I gulped in the coolness of the early-morning air. It was still dark outside, but the sky was losing its blackness. Josh turned to me.

  “So what happened? Did you get sick?” I nodded, embarrassed. “Okay,” he said, his voice gentler. “Let’s get you home.”

  We threw our bags into the back of the car, and I climbed in the front seat. Josh took a long look at me before he turned the key. “Let me know if you need me to pull over,” he said. “Remember, this is my dad’s car.” He reached over me and pressed a switch on the armrest. The window came down with a humming sound, and I leaned toward the fresh air. He was still looking at me, and I felt suddenly unattractive with my messy hair and makeup smudges and wrinkled dress. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have taken better care of you.”

  I swallowed back a tightness in my throat, feeling shaky all of a sudden, as fragile as a piece of glass. I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. As the car started moving, I thought about the photographs that froze me in time as a pretty girl going to a dance. The girl in the picture was nothing like the girl sitting in the car right now.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Josh said. “It’s worse when they’re closed.”

  I obeyed, wondering how he knew so much about it. The motion of the car made the nausea worse, and I leaned my head closer to the open window. “We’re almost there,” Josh said. “Can you keep it together?”

  “Just get me home,” I said, hoping I would make it to Rachel’s house before getting sick again.

  “It’s another two blocks,” he said. I was glad that he was driving so fast. It would get me there sooner, and this would all be over, this sickness and ugliness that had come over me.

  “Tell me if you need to stop,” he said, his voice urgent. He was looking at me, and I thought he should be looking at the street in front of the car. That sick feeling was sweeping through me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the sweet-and-sour taste of that red drink.

  “We’re here, Liza, hang on,” he said. I felt the car turn sharply with a screeching sound, and then there was a crash and a jolt, but all I wanted was to get out of the car. Josh was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear him. I flung open the car door and I was outside on the lawn, the grass cool and rough against my knees and the palms of my hands. This time I didn’t throw up, but my stomach lurched like it wanted to. I lay down in the grass, and it felt so good to be out of that basement and out of that car. Now Josh was leaning over me, saying something about how I had to get up and how he was in trouble. Then the front door opened and Sam and Rachel were there. Sam was wearing a bathrobe and Rachel had a jacket over her pajamas, and I laughed because it was funny that they were outside in their pajamas in the middle of the night. But then I knew that it wasn’t funny at all, and it felt like nothing was ever going to be funny again, but still I was laughing.

  I sat up and tried to feel alert, swallowing back the last of my laughter, because it felt like something important was happening. Rachel was talking to Josh, who was standing over me, but looking toward the car in the driveway. “Is she all right?” Rachel asked.

  “She’s okay,” he said. “She had a drink at the party and she’s not feeling well. That’s why I took her home.”

  “She doesn’t look okay,” Rachel said, in the voice that she used when the children were on her very last nerve. “Really, Josh. How did you let this happen?”

  “I’m sorry,” Josh was saying. He and Rachel and Sam were standing over me in the grass. “How bad is it?” Josh asked. At first I thought he was talking about me, but then I realized he was talking to Sam about something that happened to the car.

  “It’s not great,” said Sam.

  I looked up from my place in the grass, and Rachel looked down at me. “I’ll get her inside.” She sounded weary, like she was at the end of a long day. “Josh, Sam’s going to drive you home, and then walk back. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  I felt Josh and Rachel on either side of me, lifting me to my feet. I was reluctant to leave the coolness of the grass, but they seemed to know what they were doing. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” Josh said. He sounded like a little boy in trouble, and it made me feel bad for him even though I knew that he wasn’t the only one who had done something wrong. For a second I felt Josh’s hand nestle into mine, and then he was gone and Rachel was leading me into the house and up the stairs, her arm across my back. In my room, she opened and closed the dresser drawers until she found a nightgown and set it next to me on the bed. “Do you need help changing?” she asked.

  It seemed like a silly question, but all at once I knew that I did need help. So she unzipped my dress and lifted it over my head and then pulled on the nightgown and helped me find the armholes. It was embarrassing to be undressed and dressed like I was a little girl, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to make everything work myself, so I had to let Rachel do it for me.

  Rachel told me she’d be right back, and when she returned she put a big bowl on my nightstand. “This is in case you need to throw up again,” she said. I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t need it. Then she put two white pills on the nightstand. “You’re going to have a headache tomorrow,” she said. I took some gulps of water from the glass she handed me, and then climbed into bed. Rachel pulled the covers up to my chin. I nodded my thanks, feeling a heaviness pulling at me.

  Rachel rested her hand on my shoulder for just a minute before whispering, “Sleep it off.”

  And I did.

  It was a cluttered sleep. Sometimes I felt like I was actually awake and repeating the events of the night. I was on the dance floor and in Valerie’s basement and on Rachel’s lawn, but this time I knew what would happen in the end, so I tried to make things turn out differently. A couple of times I woke up and took a few sips of water before dropping back into sleep. As the room got lighter I could hear Ben’s and Janie’s voices, and then Rachel telling them to be quiet because I wasn’t feeling well. I was grateful to her but also uneasy, and I knew, even in my sleep, that there were things to take care of when I woke up.

  Finally, I pulled myself out of bed, dreading the day in front of me. My head throbbed and a bitter taste filled mouth. White pills in hand, I made my way to the bathroom, my head pounding with each step. I swallowed the pills, gulping the water greedily. Then I washed my face, scrubbing at the remains of the makeup, and brushed my teeth three times until the acrid taste left my mouth. I stepped into the shower and stood gratefully in the hot steam, soaping every inch of myself as if I could wash away all that had happened. Back in my room, I pulled on my blue jeans and a sweatshirt, my wet ponytail dampening the hood. My new blue dress was draped over the chair, and I lifted it tentatively. It was a mass of wrinkles and stains. I thought about how much money I had paid for it, and how excitedly I had slipped it on the night before. Then I heard a light tap on my door, and opened it to see Rachel standing in the hallway.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. I tried to remember if I had seen her last night. Then it came rushing back: Rachel leading me from the front lawn to my room, helping me change. Shame filled me.

  “I’ve been better,” I said. Then, in a small voice, I added, “I guess I didn’t keep my head on my sho
ulders.”

  Rachel nodded, wearing a serious expression. “Sam’s out with the kids,” she said. “Can we talk?” I stepped back into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She sat beside me.

  “We have some things to figure out about last night,” she said. “I’ve been on the phone with Josh’s parents.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t know there was going to be drinking at the party. But, still, I should have said no.”

  Rachel sighed. “Your parents trusted me, and I let them down. We both let them down.”

  My chest tightened. I hadn’t thought about my parents. I looked at Rachel. “Can we please not tell them about this? They’d be so disappointed in me.” I didn’t say what I was really afraid of, that they would make me come home.

  “I need to think,” said Rachel, her voice cautious. “I don’t see how I can keep this from them.”

  “Can we check with Aunt Beth,” I pleaded, “and see what she says?”

  “Maybe, but first we have to deal with everything else.”

  “Everything else?” I asked.

  “The car,” Rachel said. She sounded impatient. “Josh’s parents are pretty angry. They’re bringing it in tomorrow to see how much it’ll cost to fix.”

  “What happened to the car?” I asked.

  Rachel looked at me with surprise. “When Josh pulled into the driveway, he crashed the car into our garage door. You don’t remember?”

  Then it flooded back. Josh driving too fast, a banging noise, the feeling of being jerked. “Oh, no,” I said. It came out like a moan. “Oh, we really messed up.” Rachel was quiet. She didn’t disagree. “Did we damage the garage door?”

  “There’s a dent,” she said. “Sam had to do some work to get it to open. I’m going to call someone tomorrow to find out what it’ll take to fix it.”

  Then I knew what I needed to do. “I’d like to pay for the garage door. You can take it out of my wages.”