Juniors

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  “I have been trying to call and text all night.” She looks past us as if we might be hiding something.

  Now my mom comes out. I can’t read the look she’s giving me, but it’s loaded with exhaustion, as if they’d been in some kind of emotional triathlon.

  “Sorry,” Will says. He shrugs, then laughs. Down on the beach, he moved like he owned the world; now he seems hesitant about every step. “Hi,” he says to his mom. “Here I am.”

  “Will I am,” I blurt, and he looks at me and quickly smiles, but in a way that tells me he doesn’t get the joke.

  “Your sister went to the hospital,” Melanie says.

  “What?” we both say at the same time. “Why?” Again at the same time.

  “Because someone”—and Melanie briefly glances at me—“someone drugged her. That boy. Your friend, Lea, who you’ve brought to our home.”

  “Melanie,” my mom says, “come on. We’ve—”

  “Danny?” I say.

  “Yes,” Melanie says.

  The thought is laughable. First that he would drug anyone, second that he would have the kind of drugs that could send someone to the hospital.

  My mom looks like she’s praying that everything implodes. She keeps biting her lip and jiggling her leg.

  “Is she there now?” Will asks. “At Queen’s?”

  “No, she’s here now,” Melanie says. “Asleep. It has been a terrible, terrible night.”

  I always feel that when people say something twice in a row, they’re weakening their own argument.

  “How do you know he drugged her?” Will asks. “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know—” my mom says.

  “Because I know—” Melanie says.

  “But what happened?” I ask. “What was it? How was she drugged?” Melanie looks at me as if I’d interrupted the president.

  “As I was saying”—she trains her eyes back on Will—“someone gave her a brownie drugged with marijuana—”

  Will laughs. “‘Someone’?”

  “Who, her hand?” I say while looking at Melanie, the grand house behind her, the dark sea behind me. I don’t look away, expecting an answer.

  “Lea,” my mom says, and I try to plead with my eyes, Let me speak. Let me talk back. I’m tired of being polite. “What?” I say. “I mean, come on.”

  “Your sister could have been killed,” Melanie says, “and I seriously doubt she would have volunteered herself to be in the state she was found in.”

  My mom looks away from me quickly. I swear I saw a flash of amusement. Now the face of impatience settles back in.

  “Mom,” Will says, as if she were a child, “it sounds like Whitney ate a pot brownie and tripped out. Did you send her to the hospital?”

  “Yes!” Melanie says, and oh God, I want to laugh.

  “So what happened?” Will says, his voice rising a bit with controlled hysteria. I accidentally let out a whimper of a laugh, and my mom won’t meet my eyes.

  “The hotel staff found her curled in a ball in a lounge chair by the pool,” Melanie says. “I guess they were watching a movie in the suite and wouldn’t change it, and the movie was scaring her so badly that she had to get away.”

  Will and I are both trembling a bit, and we keep looking over at each other, desperate for some release.

  “The woman who found her said she had a big scrape on her knee and might have hit her head or something. Clearly, clearly, she had been drugged. And you say it was a pot brownie, but who knows? There are kids everywhere dying of molly—”

  That’s it. I have to turn around. I can’t take it, and neither can Will. He has his hands on his knees, and he’s bending down trying to get it together. When he comes back up, he is actually wiping his eyes.

  “Mom,” Will says again, as if she were the one who’d been drugged and needs to be brought down, “I’m sure it wasn’t molly.”

  “Drugs don’t take themselves,” I say.

  “Lea,” my mom says again.

  Melanie’s shoulders fall, as if, deep down, she knows this to be true, but almost immediately, she reassumes her fighter’s stance.

  “All I know is you kids have been using the hotel for years, and not until your friend shows up does something like this happen. I could alert the school about this.”

  My hysteria dies. I want to shake her. Everyone gets fucked up at that party and Mike Matson is known for making brownies. Why Danny? There must be countless others Melanie doesn’t even know about. It’s not like there’s a guest book. It’s not like her kids are ever supervised. But I know no matter what I say, she will deflect it, sending it out into the surf. My mom’s look also tells me that she’s been through this all night, probably said—nicely, carefully—all the things I want to scream.

  I won’t scream. I’ll try to say this as politely as I can. “But you don’t know if Danny did anything, right?” I say. I glance at Will, expecting him to chime in. When he doesn’t, I prompt, “And, Will, you know that things like that happen every year. It just happened to Whitney this time.”

  I wait, and inside, I’m rooting for him to come on and resolve this.

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” he says.

  I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I wait for more. This can’t be all he has to say. “Danny wouldn’t bring pot brownies,” I say. I don’t say he’s against them in principle or anything, but I know he wouldn’t take the time to bake them. He’d rather slow-cook a pork loin all day and come up with some crazy marinade. He is such a cooking dork. He’d rather surf all day or listen to music with me, play the uke or hike. I wish he were here to take a stand.

  “Whitney told me it was Danny,” Melanie says. She looks like someone on the news, giving me a verified report with a composed face.

  My mom takes a deep breath with her eyes closed.

  “Well, then, she must be out of her mind,” I say, my heart beating fast, my hands in fists.

  My words are being deflected, zinged to a coconut tree.

  “Sweetheart,” Melanie says, and looks at me like I’ve said something endearing. She walks closer, a smile on her face, but behind it, I can see she’s organizing a circus act. She blinks rapidly, and she has those lash extensions that everyone her age seems to get. They make her look like a camel.

  “I’m going to let you and your mom get some rest.” She places her hand on my shoulder, and I try to stay still. “Will and I need to talk a little more. And so do you and your mother.”

  “Let’s go,” my mom says, and Melanie takes her hand off of me.

  “I think Whitney was a bit upset,” Melanie says. “Which may have caused the bad reaction? I’m not sure how these drug things work, but . . . I didn’t realize you’d had a falling-out.”

  So now it’s my fault that she tripped out on a brownie? She could have possibly died of molly because of me?

  My mom takes my hand, and her grip feels both odd and necessary at this moment.

  “We’ll let you have your own talk, but, Lea?” Melanie says.

  My mom squeezes my hand.

  “Yes?” The wind moves my hair to the side, cooling my neck.

  “Maybe give Whitney some space,” she says kindly and with the lilt of a question. She laughs and makes the laugh infuse the rest of her speech. “Maybe Will too.”

  She walks over to him, as if to retrieve him, and pats him on the back. He looks down.

  “Lissa is like a daughter to us. I’m sure Will would like to be your friend, but not if it’s going to confuse you. Ah, puppy love,” she says to my mom.

  My mom’s grip is unrelenting. I want to run away. Will won’t look at me. He’s not telling his mother she’s crazy. He’s not telling her that he’s been puppy loving me right back. He should be the one taking my hand right now. He should say something, anything, rig
ht now.

  “Will?” I say, but he doesn’t respond.

  I can’t look at him then—I’m pissed, wounded, and plain appalled. How weak he is.

  “Will,” I say, taking a step toward him, shaking my mom’s hand off, wanting so badly for him to redeem himself, to show his mother he’s not like her. “Mike Matson was there,” I say. “Tell your mom he brought the brownies.”

  “Sweetie, Mikey would never hurt Whitney,” Melanie says.

  “Will?” I say. My mom takes my hand again and pulls me back.

  “I’m staying out of it,” he says. He meets my eyes then, but they’re glazed over, distant and decided.

  I look at their house, wanting to throw a rock at the glass, but they’d just get new glass. I want them to be faced with something they can’t replace so easily. I shake my head, not quite believing how cowardly he’s being and how he’ll probably always be this way. He’ll end up marrying Lissa, or some family friend whose name is also on all the buildings. They’ll go to fund-raisers and the Outrigger and sip cocktails and spike one another’s volleyballs.

  “Unfortunately your actions led to a lot of drama tonight,” Melanie says, still with that touch of forced cheer. “We’re just glad Whitney’s safe.” She places her hands in front of her as if smoothing a tablecloth. “It will all work out. Will, come on inside.”

  They walk toward the house.

  “My actions?” I say, to their backs. “Is she crazy?”

  “Just walk,” my mom says, pushing my back, leading me toward the edge of the house where the garbage cans are kept. “I got you,” she says. “Walk away.”

  I think about that truth walk across the gym floor, how different it would be now, even though it’s only one month later. I’ve hurt people, been hurt, felt ashamed, have regrets, done something illegal, check, check, check.

  We cross the lawn, then reach the cottage, and my legs burn walking up the steps. I just want to sit down and cry. I don’t want to talk about Will with my mother. I’m so tired of being in trouble.

  She holds the door open for me and then does something that surprises me. She closes the door, tells me to have a seat on the couch, and when I’m settled, asks, “Are you okay?”

  The question hurts more than an insult would. Her concern is sincere, intense. She’s got love for me written all over her face.

  My shoulders shake, and I give in and cry, weak yet relieved with this relenting.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says.

  I’m not sure what she’s apologizing for, but I apply it like an ointment to everything—to my embarrassment, to Will, to my broken friendship with Whitney and her betrayal, to my father and his rejection of us, to my ignorance, to Danny being blamed, to my fear about what’s going to happen next, and to this seismic shift that seems to be happening with my mom and me—her seeing things about me I don’t want her to see, and me seeing things about her, and all of this happening in a goddamn beautiful place.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” She sits up straight, looking serious, ready to work.

  I want to cling to her as if she were a buoy and I a castaway, starved and wrecked. I try to get it together. It’s not that hard. It’s like the tears are a passing squall.

  “Which part?” I hold the arm of the couch, pressing my fingers into the fabric.

  “At the hotel,” my mom says, “could Danny have—”

  “No! Mike Matson brought them. Whitney even told me he was bringing them.”

  “Oh, great. His mom’s another friend of Melanie’s.” My mom shakes her head, annoyed.

  “And I wasn’t even there,” I say. “How can I be responsible?” I wipe the skin under my eyes, checking my hands for mascara marks.

  “So you were here with Will this whole time?” my mom asks.

  This is so humiliating. I can’t look at her. Nothing’s mine anymore. Before, these problems—Will, Whitney, my lack of a father—these topics were mine to ruminate over, to let burn holes into my chest. They were my loose teeth that I couldn’t help but bother. Now I’m open. I’m like a cut apple—the bright, clean fruit browning from exposure.

  “Yes, I was with Will,” I say.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I think she’s holding her breath, not wanting me to talk about this but knowing we need to.

  “Did he take advantage of you?” she asks, her face tense like she’s ready to pounce.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know. What do you mean?” God, this is so awkward.

  “Did he try to have sex with you?”

  “Oh my God, no, I don’t know,” I say, my voice rising, even though I’m trying to control it.

  “I am so angry right now!” she says.

  “Mom,” I say, “no . . . it’s just . . . he didn’t do anything I didn’t want him to do,” I say quietly and look at my lap.

  “What?” she says.

  “It’s not like he forced me to like him. He wanted to do . . . some things, and I went with it. Just kissing, though—”

  “He’s dating Lissa,” my mom says. She moves closer to me. “They were at the event the other night together. Her mom is always talking about Will. They’re going to Stanford together and everything, honey,” she says and looks at me with so much sympathy.

  “Okay,” I say. “Stop. It doesn’t matter.” It matters more than she’ll ever know. I was so willing to be lied to, and it was so easy for him to lie because I had been so willing. I remember thinking of Sabrina when we first moved here. I was thinking of it in the voyeur sense, poor me gazing across at the fabulousness. I wasn’t thinking of the brothers—and in my movie, there is no nice brother and no love at the end.

  Why did Will even bother with me? Because he could, because I was there and so convenient? Because I was new.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I had no idea you liked him.” She looks stricken and guilty.

  “He told me they were done,” I say. “I’m not a bad person.” My voice quivers at the sound of this, half statement, half fear. I wonder what I would have done if we had gone up to his room. I imagine Mike and Whitney. That would have been me.

  “He reminds me of your dad,” she says. “I didn’t want to see anything else when I was with him. I didn’t have a lot of respect for myself.”

  She hesitates—maybe she worries that she’s revealing too much.

  I think of my grandmother, loving her when I was little—baking cookies, playing Hanafuda, making Rorschach’s inkblots while listening to my grandpa play guitar. She was never an actual person, though. She was Grandma—there and existing for me.

  After she died, I learned that she had gone through a period of depression.

  She went to some kind of rehab facility in California. She also smoked cigarettes and was engaged to two men before my grandpa—one, a descendant of Thoreau who now owns a cattle ranch in Wyoming that sells the sperm of black Angus, and the other, an East Coast banker she met while backpacking in France.

  Whoa there, Tutu! I thought when I first heard all of this. It’s something you don’t tell the grandchildren, of course, and yet it was wonderful to have her colored in. I wish I could have known those things about her when she was alive, when I was her granddaughter. To see that version of her. I guess things don’t happen that way, and maybe they can’t. It’s like time zones, people existing at different hours. When someone else is thriving and living, you’re fast asleep.

  “Maybe we don’t need them anymore,” I say. “The Wests.”

  “We just need to get through this,” my mom says. “Melanie has this party planned for the premiere—”

  “So what?” I say.

  She looks like she has an answer, but is holding back. I want to say, You think I was duped by Will? What about you? Melanie’s using you, and Eddie’s basically buying your companionship
. But I think my mom knows all this—it doesn’t need to be said.

  “If she’s going to blame Danny and me for what Whitney did to herself, then how could we possibly stay here? What if she tells the school about Danny?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she says.

  “I wanted to punch her when she brought Danny into this,” I say. “Like, something came over me.”

  She laughs at me popping my fist into the air. “Of course,” she says. “You love him, sweetie. You guys would do anything for each other.” She places her hand over my fist. I close my eyes. We will be so small when it goes back to just the two of us, which it will. This has to come to an end.

  34

  I WAKE TO A BRIGHT, HIGH SUN, THE SMELL OF GARLIC, and the noise of a blender. I walk out while the blender’s going and am startled by the sight of my mom and Danny working in the kitchen. He’s using the blender, his back to me. My mom has a light step as she moves around the kitchen, as if everything were normal.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask when the blender has stopped.

  He turns his head, scans me in my pajama shorts and T-shirt. “I don’t know.”

  “What are you making?” I put my hair up in a high ponytail.

  He turns again, this time fully facing me. “I don’t know.”

  “You know,” my mom says, elbowing him. “Snap out of it.”

  “I forgot,” he says. His eyes are vacant, as well as his voice. He also looks paler than usual. I don’t want Melanie to see him. She’ll think he’s on drugs. I wonder what’s in store for Whitney today, if she’ll be grounded or totally exonerated, the blame thrown over the Ko’olaus to the boy from Waimanalo.

  “Sichuan,” my mom says.

  “Sichuan eggplant,” Danny says. “For the roasted ono.”

  “Our roasted ono,” she says. “Danny is staying for dinner.”

  “Dinner’s kind of a long ways away,” I say.

  In his eyes there’s a little anger, like I’ve betrayed him. It’s a wrong thing for him to be feeling. Ever since I brought him here that first day and he bonded with Whitney, he’s been cold toward me, and I think I handled it well. I let him go.