“‘Rapper’s Delight,’” he says. I smile and imagine him doing the same.
“Okay, I’ll talk to you later, then,” I say. Let’s just be like we’ve always been.
“Bye, Lei Lei,” he says, and a warmth rises in me. He hasn’t called me that since we were little.
• • •
I search for the song on Sonos. There it is. “Rapper’s Delight.” Sugarhill Gang. The name itself already makes things better, and when I play it, the beat and funny lyrics automatically cure what ails me. Forget Mari’s house and the hotel and the fact that I’m alone. Forget waiting for Will. Though I do wish Danny were here, because he’d be doing what I’m doing—rapping and dancing like an idiot. I wouldn’t have to hold anything back.
26
I WAKE UP TO THE SOUND OF MY MOM MAKING breakfast. I had fallen asleep on the couch. I sit up. My mom’s back is to me. On the low coffee table in front of me is my empty cup with the telltale redness of wine lining the bottom. Well, I guess the more telltale sign would be the empty bottle itself, which is on the counter, to the left of my mom.
Holy majorly busted.
Has any teenager in history been so stupid besides the ones whose parents allow them to be? What do I do? Tiptoe out like a cartoon character? Make a joke? Weep at her ankles?
She turns her head. I raise my hand, say, “Hi.”
“What the hell is going on?” she asks and slams the spatula down on the counter.
I look around, as if for someone to blame . . . The Sonos made me do it.
“Should I be worried?” She faces me with her arms crossed.
“No,” I say. My head is pounding like surf. I put my fingers to my temples, then think better of it. She knows, though. She knows everything; every move I make she is adding to the roster. I decide to be honest.
“I was bored,” I say. “Everyone was at a party I wasn’t invited to. I was just trying to . . . make my own fun.”
She scoffs, but right before she does, I see a glimmer of recognition. I, too, can tally up the moves.
“There are other ways to have fun,” she says. “Go . . .” She falters. Score for me. “Go play!”
Oh my God, triple points.
“Go play?” I say.
She turns back to the stove to save herself. “I mean, if this is what you do when you’re not invited to parties, then we have a problem. A big one.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because that would be a lot of bottles.” Oh my God, I’m killing it.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “I don’t drink every time I don’t get invited somewhere.”
“You have wine every night,” I say. Her shoulders lift then lower as she lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Because I like wine, not because I’m trying to escape!” This still doesn’t sound very good. She clenches the spatula, her hand shaking a bit. “And stop. Just stop. You cannot drink. You are grounded. Again, or still.”
“Okay,” I say, indifferent, since I have nothing better to do. Besides, she’s never home at night. To ground me is to ground herself. “Are you going out tonight?”
“Yes!” she says, and now I think she might cry. “I have to. Something for autism. The show is donating us”—and she breaks—“you know, ’cause that will really help autism! A dinner with us! Or a golf package at Koele!” She weeps, and I get scared. I don’t know what to do. Her shoulders tremble, and she lets out little high-pitched bleats.
I get up and turn off the stove, where the scrambled eggs have become a solid patty.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I touch her shoulder. “Mom, are you okay? Honestly, you don’t have to worry. I got carried away. I was dancing—” I look around the room. “And playing ukulele, evidently. There are worse things.”
She sniffles and laughs. “It’s not funny, and, yes, I’m fine. I’m just tired. Tired of smiling.” She smiles.
We stand side by side, leaning against the counter.
“I’m sorry you were lonely last night,” she says. “This seems to be a pattern.”
“No,” I say. “Last time I was with Whitney.”
“I meant the pattern of you drinking, me yelling, then me feeling guilty that this is somehow all my fault.”
“I can go with that,” I say.
She elbows me, and we stand in silence for a little while, which clues me in to the sounds of mynah birds squawking outside. I wonder what she was like when she was my age. I think she was much wilder.
In her stash of photos, I’ve seen her posing with friends in low-riding bikinis, the boys in tight short shorts. In some she holds a cigarette. In one she is joyfully yelling on the Hanalei pier and raising a can of Budweiser. In another she’s asleep, her head on a guy’s lap (again with the short shorts) while he plays guitar.
“I tried to tell Melanie,” she says, “about the first time.” Her eyes are zoned out, not focusing on anything. “I told her you girls were drinking, and she just interrupted me. She said that she buys those drinks for Whitney—they’re kombucha spirits,” my mom says, imitating Melanie’s pushy voice, “which are very healthy, but have a little alcohol in them. Healthy alcohols.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, disbelieving, amused, and envious all at once. What would it be like to have such a dumb mother?
“I don’t know if she’s oblivious or if her kids just run all over her,” my mom says.
“I’m a good girl,” I say. “Despite it all.”
Her eyes come back into focus, and she looks me up and down. “I can’t believe you were in me.”
She always does this, reminisces about me as a baby and being in her womb. She’ll tell me the same stories sometimes—my first laugh, my belly button falling off, having to use Pez to bribe me to leave the park—and I’ll laugh every time, as if hearing it for the first time, fascinated by myself, by this life I don’t remember.
She hands me a fork, and we eat out of the pan.
“Look,” she says. “You can do something during the days, but at night I want you here.”
I don’t answer.
“I don’t want to do this on your spring break, but I can’t just let it go.”
“Okay.” I leave it there, not adding anything, afraid I’ll say the wrong thing or she’ll figure out how lenient she’s being. I can’t help but feel like I’m getting away with something. It’s weird to be trusted. I’ve always been trusted, but I’ve also always obeyed until now.
27
AFTER MY BIG BUST, I GO OVER TO WHITNEY’S TO SEE IF she wants to jump off Waimea rock.
I knock on her door, but she doesn’t answer, so I go around back. Will is there with his dad, reading the paper and eating breakfast. He looks up at me, then back down, shifting in his chair. Eddie doesn’t seem to recognize me.
“Hi, Lea,” Will says.
“Lea,” Eddie says, looking at me as if with fresh eyes.
“Hi, Mr. West.”
“Your mom with you?” He takes a sip of what looks like a Bloody Mary.
“No, just me here.”
“We used to date, you know,” he says.
I laugh, uncomfortable, and Will immediately says, “Dad. Can I have Sports?” I think as a way to change topics.
“It’s really nice having her around,” Eddie says.
“Dad,” Will says. “Sports.”
“Sports,” he says. I wonder how many Bloody Marys he’s had.
“Is Whitney around?” I ask.
“Kitchen,” Will says, looking down at the paper.
“Thinking of going to the North Shore,” I say. “If you want to go.”
“Golf,” Will says.
I stand there, insulted by something intangible.
“Another big day,” Eddie says. “My boy.”
Will looks like whatever he’s reading about
is paining him. I want to run away before Eddie says anything else. I don’t want to think about his sickness and weirdness with my mom. I want to flee and get in the ocean.
Will looks up and finally flashes me a small, private grin. I want to sit on his lap, tell him he’s hot, mysterious, cool, and charming—and hot, did I mention that? I want to be seen with him and not seen with him as we hook up on the daybed, or in the ocean at sunset. That would be nice. I glance at the daybed, then back at Will.
“Lei!” Whitney says. She walks out in another long T-shirt. “What’s up?”
“Want to go to the North Shore?” I ask. “We can jump off the rock?”
“Totally,” she says. “Let me get my act together.”
Will jostles his newspaper, holding it in front of his face, concluding something that never quite began. I feel so bad for him, taking care of a father who sometimes seems like a child. That same tension is on his face that he had the other day after being up all night, caring for him. And yet, his compassion keeps him going.
“You girls need some cash?” Eddie says.
“Sure, Daddy,” Whitney says.
She take a few bites from his plate, and I get a surge of sadness, thinking of how their family will cope. I’m watching Whitney, but can feel Eddie looking at me as he hands her a stack of cash. I quickly look at him and smile, and have the sensation that he’s gazing proudly at something that belongs to him.
28
I FEEL LIKE WE’RE ON A DIFFERENT ISLAND, ON VACATION somewhere far from home. I drive down the country road, flanked by rows of sugarcane, getting closer and closer to the dark blue sheet of ocean. It’s like we’re marching down the aisle to a vast, liquid altar. We listen to Johnny Cash for a while, then switch to A Tribe Called Quest, which makes me feel older, wiser, above the teenagers we know.
The sky before us is cloudless; to the left along the mountain range, the clouds hover, seeming still as wallflowers.
We’ve driven in silence for most of the ride, but now I tell her about last night, how I drank, got caught, and am grounded.
“That sucks,” she says, and then, “What were you thinking?”
I laugh. “I don’t know. I wasn’t, clearly. How was Mari’s?” I try to measure my voice, but it gives something away.
“Oh God,” she says. “She wasn’t even supposed to have a party. People just invaded. You should have come.”
How does one say I would have if I’d known about it without sounding defensive? One doesn’t. I go with sarcasm. “I was busy,” I say, “dancing with myself.”
“So gangster,” she says.
And since I went there, admitted my loserness yet infused it with a bit of nonchalant badassed-ness, I continue on and ask the questions I want answered.
“Danny says he’s going to your hotel sometime this week? You guys having a honeymoon?”
“I wish,” she says, and tries to evaluate my reaction. I smirk, look ahead. “I don’t know how you’ve been friends so long,” she says. “You’ve never hooked up?”
“No,” I say, keeping the times we kissed each other to myself—that was more like playing house than hooking up.
We are driving through Haleiwa now, and I go slow to participate somehow in the scene around us. Shirtless surfers with low-riding trunks, lowriders and trucks pumping music, tourists eating their shave ice on the bench in front of Matsumoto’s. Everyone looking at everyone else.
“So you don’t like him, right?” she asks.
“Me?” I say. “No, he’s like a brother. He’s . . . Danny.” And yet my voice is funny, like I’m trying to convince her or myself.
“Have you guys hooked up?” I ask. My jaw tightens, and I hold the steering wheel with one hand, assuming a relaxed pose, which also betrays me to myself. I don’t know why I feel threatened.
“No,” she says teasingly, as if not telling the whole truth. “I wouldn’t mind, though. Last night . . .” She smiles to herself.
“Yes?” I say.
“Last night was cool,” she says, again with the secret smile. “I like him, but . . . it’s cool you guys are such good friends. Jealous.”
This feels both nice to hear and yet, lately, untrue.
“It’s not just the two of us at the hotel,” Whitney says. “I’ve been meaning to see if you’re free. Friday—just one night.”
“I’m super busy,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Anyway, it’s fun. We have the suite. Everyone just crashes wherever. Mike makes brownies. Hopefully you won’t be grounded by then.”
The knots in me finally untie. I don’t know what upset me more—not being invited or the thought of her and Danny doing something without me.
We drive across the bridge, its structure like a double rainbow that signifies something different to everyone. To me, it’s a kind of crossing into the wild, into anonymity.
“Does Will go to the hotel?” I ask.
“He might,” Whitney says. “He doesn’t stay at night, though. You like him, don’t you.” She’s stating this, versus asking, and something in her voice sounds annoyed.
“I mean I like him, but . . .”
“It’s a little weird,” she says in an assertive way. Her face is calm yet strong, set. “Since you’re my friend.”
“Right,” I say.
“And he’s dating Lissa.”
I look out at the road, but feel her watching me.
“But he’s not,” I say and glance over.
She holds my gaze for a moment. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” she says, then turns toward the mountains, clearly not wanting to talk about her brother. It’s all I want to talk about, and I want to confess, but I don’t want to leave her with the feeling I have when I think about her and Danny, the knowledge that something will be changed. And I don’t want to be like Lissa—close to her to get to him.
Even though we’ve gone through the main strip and are back on the country road, the air still smells of barbecue and wood chips. We’re a world away from everything. I turn the music up and try to get our rhythm back again.
Soon, Waimea Bay glistens below us, the stretch of white sand like a tiny desert, the ocean moving slowly up and down as if it were taking deep breaths. We watch guys jumping off the rock, arching their backs, then tucking before landing. One does a goofy, yet ultimately graceful backflip. My heart beats with the thought of us not just jumping, but being watched, being surrounded by the guys down there who look so at home. Why do guys get to be so free and stupid? Why do we giggle, as if we’d unexpectedly landed onstage? We pretend we’re afraid when we’re not. We pretend we’re unafraid when we are.
“Let’s just do this,” I say, and she seems to know what I mean.
• • •
The sand is hot on my feet and burns between my toes. It’s deeper here, thick, harder to walk through, which makes my hamstring muscles flex. It feels like we’re crossing the desert. We put our towels down near the rock, but up far enough to be safe if the tide gets higher or the waves bigger. We strip down to our suits and load up on sunscreen.
“What about our phones?” she asks. I was thinking the same thing, not about them getting stolen, but about how we’d take pictures. The event doesn’t exist without the pictures.
“Forget the phones,” she says. “If I see another post of my friends posing in their bikinis, I’ll die.” She imitates them posing, shots I see all the time on Instagram—the bikini shot, hair falling over their eyes so you can see just their mouths, smiling as if shy. Whitney does this perfectly.
“Oh, and then this one,” she says, and turns, arching her back a bit so her butt sticks out, her head slightly turned, gazing at the beautiful world.
“Oh my God, so artsy,” I say.
“So artsy,” she says.
We leave our phones and walk toward the water, and
then we hear the shrieking noises I recognize as the sound of a girl seeing a girl she knows.
“Whit!”
Down the beach, walking languidly, are her friends Mari, Sobey, and Brooke. Whitney, I notice, doesn’t seem as thrilled to see them as they are to see her.
“What are you doing here?” Sobey asks, giving Whitney a hug. She looks at me, wide-eyed, with a huge grin, and yet her eyes dart from my head to my toes, then back up again. I hate that question: What are you doing here? as if you’re in a place you’re not supposed to be and it’s a replacement for a simple hello.
“Sweet, are you showing Lea around?” Mari says. I feel like saying it was my idea to come here and that, like them, we are friends going to the beach. I’m not a visiting cousin or something.
“We’re just chilling,” Whitney says.
They say hello to me with small, closed-mouth grins. They all are wearing the thick-banded bikini bottoms, the ones I told Whitney were unflattering. When we happen to look at each other, I believe we’re communicating our understanding of this—both the memory of me saying it and my rightness. Not that these girls don’t look good. Sobey, especially, with her long, strong flank of tan torso, her heavy-looking boobs and high, perfectly rounded butt—pick your fruit, then double it. The other two keep adjusting their suits, and though they’re not at all fat, their tummies sort of spill over the band, and when they face the water to look at the jumpers, their asses look like they’re somewhere they shouldn’t be—like dough in a cardboard tube, oozing out after the first twist.
“Oh my God,” Mari says. “Was that not insane last night?”
Brooke laughs. “I have, like, a bruise on my leg—I have no idea why.”
“Probably from jumping into the pool,” Mari says. “Like a loon.”
“I swan dove!” Brooke says. “Or dived.” They laugh at whatever was not insane. I twist my foot into the sand and look down as if something there is fascinating.
I am not a part of this conversation, and so I won’t pretend to be, and oddly for a moment, I’m comforted by the thought of Danny, of having him by my side, looking at them in the exact same way.
Juniors Page 18
