Authors: Fabio Bueno
I shake my head
and knock on Mum’s door. She tells me to come in.
She’s in bed. T
he reading glasses she wouldn’t b
e caught dead wearing in public
sit
on the bridge of her nose.
Cards litter her bed
. Mum gestures to them, explaining, “Well-wisher
s
. Friends a
nd fans.” With a hint of pride i
n her voice, she adds, “Not to mention the postings on my web site, the tweets, and
Spacebook
messages.”
I giggle
,
but I don’t correct her.
“
S
ince when do you tweet?”
“Of course I don’t. It’s all
Mimi
, bless her soul.”
Mimi
is Mum’s publicist. In the last few days I learned that Mum’s illness triggered a frenetic time for her publicist and agent, and even for her personal trainer and stylist. I have no idea how she pays
this
whole staff
, but once Mum told
me
it was “the cost of doing business.” They all came to visit her, but the conversations usually moved quickly from “How are you?” to “What’s the message?” Apparently, releasing news about her is a balancing act: she must appear sick enough to get sympathies, but not
so
sick
that
produce
r
s would be concerned and insurance would skyrocket.
“It’s a science,”
Mimi
told me.
With a straight face.
Mum swipes all th
e cards to one side of the bed
and taps the opened area of the mattress
,
inviting me
to sit next to her. I do, and she hugs me affecti
onately. “So, how is Seattle?” she asks, after she lets go of me.
I think about it. “It’s not London,”
I say.
She chuckles, but
quickly becomes
serious. “Don’t let the mean kids get to you.” She puts her index finger on my nose, a gesture from my childhood.
I take a deep breath
and explain in detail what happened in the locker room, making it very clear it wasn’t only a practical joke.
Her eyes widen, and she says, “Oh, darling! I had no idea.” She hugs me
again
, saying, “I’m sorry. I was so callous on the phone.”
She gets it. That’s all I wanted to hear. All my hard feelings are gone for good now.
“
Do you still want to go
back
there
?
” she
asks
.
I break our embrace
and say, “Well,
the Mothers made it clear I must. And
it’s not all bad. I’ve made friends, actually.”
It gets her attention
.
I never had many friends. “
Boy
friends?”
It’s my turn to chuckle. “One boy and one girl. She’s
a bit
kooky but very cool. She’s been texting me asking how you are, and she doesn’t even know you’re… you.” I say that because I guess it’ll make Priscilla a great friend in Mum’s eyes
. When Mum nods her approval, I know
I’m right.
Besides, Priscilla and Mum
both love to date
. They could compare notes.
“And the
lad
?”
I shrug
and look away. “He’s sweet. He
came
to visit me when I had the locker room
…
incident.”
She cocks her head, examining me. “You two are together.” It’s not a question.
“No,” I say, but she sees right through my protest. I feel the pressure and
confess
, “Well, we
snogged
.”
Uh-oh, only two days back here and I’m
British
-
ing
up again
.
She nods, absorbing the information. “What about
Connor
?”
“Golden
boy
Connor
didn’t care I was humiliated,” I say. Goddess, I hate how whiny
it makes me sound
.
“Maybe he ma
de the same mistake I did, Skye,
”
she says, brushing the hair off my face.
Mum, like the other
Sisters
, think
s
Connor
can do no wrong. They all would love him as a son-in-law. Of course, they can’t understand
how I had him and let him slip away
, as Judi put it
.
They don’t know the whole story.
The silence makes Mum uncomfortable, and she says, “What are you going to do with the boy you
snogged
?”
“Drake?
” I tell her about the tree falling on him, and taking him to the hospital, but I don’t mention the ritual I performed to save him. I’m not supposed to have done it; I’m not
experienced enough, and it
could ha
ve backfired. But I tell her parts of our day together.
“It seems you shared more than a kiss,” she says.
I throw my arms in the air. “But when I left,
I ended things with him
. N
ot that there was actually a thing to end.”
“But if you’re coming back…”
Her voice trails
off
.
“I haven’t thought about it much. I need to know where
Connor
and I stand before I do anything.”
Mum looks at me in a strange way.
“What?” I ask.
“Sometimes you have more
sense
than
I do
,” she says, shaking her head.
After hooking up with Jane, I have to reevaluate some things. First one:
that
is what being hit by a truck feels like.
I wake up the next day in my freezing Volvo, alone. The road is deserted but for my car and
a minefield of empty
cans littering the stretch until Priscilla’s house. Oh, yeah, the party.
I groan, and the sound
is amplified inside my skull. As a result, I groan again, and it hurts my head even more
, until I have the good sense of
stay
ing
quiet to starve the cycle of torture. I
’ve
never had a hangover, but I recognize the signs.
A few sips of
beer can do that? I had half a
bottle
before, and my
tongue didn’t taste like
papier-mâché
the next day,
n
or were
all muscles of my body stiff
. The world didn’t
spin
around me
,
either.
My cell is on the floor, showing 11:30 a
.
m. If I’m no
t mistaken, I blacked out for twelve
hours.
Jane was wrong. T
hat beer is not “the good stuff
.
”
Jane! Where is she? My fingers
instinctively
touch my
mouth
. I recall
the
kissing.
My lips are
even
a bit swollen. Some grinding, too.
Was there more?
I lower my eyes. My pants
are on. I search for my wallet
and find my condoms just like they’ve been for the last couple of years: untouched. In a way, I’m glad: I’d like to be, you know, conscious for my first time.
I sit on the passenger side. The door is ajar and my feet are outside. I
,
very
slowly
,
put my head
between
my hands,
pressing slightly
and t
rying to make the migraine go away.
But Jane! Why did she make out with me? We had never talked
before. Maybe she was bored. What did she say? That
she
and Skye’s boyfriend were together. She might be trying to retrace Skye’s footsteps, romantic-wise. Or is Jane trying to get back at Skye?
No, that doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t know about Skye and me. And Skye’s gone.
What about Jane? Even with her toug
h-girl attitude, she
was
so
…
feminine
last night. So vulnerable, so li
k
able. I have no idea what’s going on.
I call Boulder. No answer. I call Sean. After a few rings, he picks up.
“Drake!” h
e says, but not in a friendly or concerned way. “You bolted, man! You were supposed to take us home.
Not cool
!
” The call ends.
Well, I guess they got home okay
—
somehow. W
ait: w
hy am I
worried
about
them? They left me here, passed out. Okay, maybe they didn’t know. Other people must have seen me in my car, but nobody cared, apparently. It doesn’t surprise me.
Which brings me back to Jane
once
again. Did she leave me? What happened?
I raise my head and see Priscilla’s house. I walk there. I don’t even care the road is spinning.
I
ring the doorbell. After a few minutes,
Priscilla answers t
he door. She sports puffy eyes and
a murderous look.
“Drake?” She somehow
becomes
more pissed off after
she recognizes me. “Did you forget
something?”
“Twelve hours,” I say, leaning
against
the door frame.
She cocks her head,
studying
my sorry face. T
hen she yells, “ARE YOU HU
NG OVER?”
I slide down the floor i
n a heap, my hands pressing my ears, my head exploding. “Why did you do that?” I whisper.
Priscilla says, “Come in. We’ve got to talk.” She goes inside, leaving the door open.
***
She makes us c
offee without a word. I
lean
against
the kitchen counter, trying to stay awake, failing
epically
in tuning the kitchen sounds out. She waits until I drink the whole cup
of hot goodness.
“I saw you and Jane,” she says.
Okay. At least it wasn’t a dream. I was thinking I might have hallucinated
the whole thing
.
“Oh,” I say.
“You guys went inside that ugly car,” she continues.
Maybe she knows what happened. I try to get more information from her. “And?”
“Oh, it’s not my business; is that what you’re saying? It’s all good for you, right?”
It takes me a while to realize what she’s thinking. “No, that’s not what I mean. Going into the Volvo is the last thing I remember. I thought you could tell me what happened
after
that.”
She doesn’t answer promptly. “I came back to the party,” she says simply. “You don’t really remember? Were you drunk?”
I shrug.
“What were you thinking?”
s
he says, shaking her head.
“I wasn’t
!
”
It’s true.
“What about Skye
?
I thought you had a crush on her.”
“I did. I do.” But that’s pointless
now, I want to add.
“Then what are you doing making out with Jane of all people?”
It’s like
the
Twilight
Zone. The Predat
or is lecturing me
about
restraint
.
Priscilla alone is responsible for a spike in contraceptive sales in our city.
“Priscilla, seriously?
You
are questioning my choices?
You?
”
“You’re not me, Drake.”
I shake my head, but I quickly
stop, because it hurts. Incredibly, it’s worse than the concussion.
It’s not a good sign that
I suddenly became
an expert in headaches.
Priscilla
looks fine, though
. “Aren’t you hung over?”
I ask.