On my blue wal is a large magnetic white board with a list of everything I need to do before Quito on one side and everything for Berkeley on the other. Most of each list is checked off. My life is so utterly structured and planned out.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah.”
“Um, may I ask how this took place?”
Recal ing the hungry look he wore as he leaned closer triggers unwelcome tremors of longing. “Wel , he was feeling real y proud of himself after fixing some shelves he’d messed up earlier in the day…” If that isn’t the strangest excuse ever given for kissing someone, I don’t know what is.
“Okay, wait. Has Habitat instituted some new sort of rewards program? Because kissing seems excessive, even for truly outstanding shelf construction.” My laugh dwindles and fades to a moan. “What should I do? I told Roberta I’d be there through Tuesday. That’s four more days of him, smug and arrogant every time he looks at me.”
“And this differs from his usual demeanor how, exactly?”
“Good point.” The chirp of an alarm sounds on her end.
“Oh, Deb—I’m sorry for waking you up.”
“Meh.” She yawns again. “It was almost time to get up anyway.”
I picture her cramped but comfortable efficiency apartment and its tiny, south-facing balcony, planters of al sorts and sizes lining the railing and hanging from the roofline. The eight by ten foot space is overrun with greenery and flowers, and from the parking lot her patio looks like a miniature rainforest on the top floor, contrasting with neighboring porches of bicycles, plastic furniture, and bored dogs. “When do you have to be at the hospital?”
“Wel , I’m already here, actual y. The hospital has a lovely, windowless room of foul-smel ing lockers and uncomfortable bunks for the doctors to crash, especial y the interns, since we basical y live here.” Great, now I feel even worse. “So,” she says in her ful y alert, logical, down-to-business voice. “Work separately if you can. If you have to work together, make sure the two of you are never alone.
And pretend that kiss never happened. Do that for four days, and that wil be the end of the unprofound Reid Alexander.”
I fight the urge to defend Reid’s unprofoundness in at least one realm: kissing. If anyone ever kisses me better than that, it could alter the time/space continuum. Yet here I am, getting advice on how to make sure it never happens again.
“Thanks, Deb.”
“You’re welcome, baby girl. Any time.”
Chapter 25
REID
Mom is passed out on my bed and drooling onto the silk duvet when I get home. She seldom comes into my side of the house anymore. I can’t even remember the last time I came home and found her in my room.
Courtesy of our live-in domestic help, there aren’t any remnants of today’s bender—no bottles or glasses to tel me what she ingested to find oblivion this time. Not that her poison of choice matters. The house stays clean thanks to our housekeeper, Maya. She and Immaculada have disappeared into staff quarters, but there are always meals in the fridge if I’m hungry. I imagine for a moment what it might be like to have an alcoholic mother at less than our level of opulence. I’d come home to a filthy house, bottles strewn end to end, nothing to eat. She’d be passed out on the sofa, on the floor, in the yard.
Finding the positive in this situation feels pointless, but I do it.
If I hadn’t come home early tonight, I might not have caught her here at al . It’s only eleven. Dad must not be home yet, or she’d be in their room or one of the guest rooms. She’s not dressed for bed, either, though her mismatched outfit, unkempt hair and makeup-less face tel me she hasn’t left the house today. This is an unspoken agreement between my parents—Mom doesn’t go out in public when she’s been drinking. A quiet, depressive drunk, she’s always al owed herself to be coaxed into compliance with this edict. She never drives, either—the car service is on permanent cal , so no chance for a DUI. Each member of the staff has Dad on speed-dial. My family has enabling down to an art.
An hour ago I was at a party with John, staring at the familiar crowd of fashionably-clad undulating bodies and the smoke curling towards the ceiling, trying and failing to ignore my boredom as the typical laughter rose occasional y over the typical music. While the socialite sitting next to me droned on about her last trip to Amsterdam and the mind-altering experiences she had there, I found myself thinking about shelves.
“…and then I felt so, you know, at peace with everything and everybody, like I was part of the universe, you know?” she said, and I nodded, contemplating the studfinder, which is a clever-as-hel device. I’d attached those brackets with three-inch screws, driving them into the frame, daring them to ever come loose. If the house was demolished by an act of God, those damned brackets would probably remain affixed to the planks of wood inside the wal . When Dori pul ed on the shelves to test them, they hadn’t moved a mil imeter.
My thoughts shifted ful y to Dori. Was her kiss a reward for doing something right? And if so, what was I wil ing to do to earn it again? Not be hungover tomorrow?
The girl next to me paused in the middle of relaying her substance-triggered existential experiences. “Wanna find a room?” she asked, mistaking my silence for interest, I guess.
I focused on her for the first time since she’d begun talking. She was exceptional y hot, despite her buzzed, slow-blinking expression. Smiling, she took my hand. Her fingers were dainty, linked with mine—even her hand was pretty, her nails perfectly manicured, French tips folding over the top of my hand. She stood and headed towards a hal way. I stood and started to fol ow. And then I pul ed her to a stop and she turned back, confused.