Maddy froze. She could feel the blood draining from her face. Brian stumbled into her.
“Wha—” Then he looked up and went totally rigid.
All around her, the party was still going on. No one else had noticed her parents yet. Morgan stumbled out of the kitchen, a bottle of vodka in her hand. “Maddy!” she yelled. “Are there more glasses—oh, sh—Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclaire,” she said, quickly regaining her composure. “Happy Fourth of July. Isn’t patriotism just the best part of being American?”
Neither of Maddy’s parents had moved from the doorway. Her father’s face was beet red and his eyes widened to cover about half of his face. As his body tensed, his head looked like it was sinking into the collar of his shirt. Her mother’s face was completely white. “Morgan,” she said in a strangled voice, “please turn off the music.”
“Right. Right away!” Morgan bounded over to the stereo and cut Beyoncé off mid-cry. Everyone stopped dancing and looked around.
Quickly sizing up the situation, Chad cupped his hands around his mouth. “Busted!” he bellowed. “Everybody run!”
Pandemonium broke loose as people shoved out the back door, yelling, “Get out!” No one had the nerve to go past Maddy’s parents, still standing in the living room doorway. Maddy’s mouth was dry and the walls were spinning. Through her fog, she felt Morgan and Kirsten squeeze her hands as they ran toward the back door.
“Call me,” Morgan managed to whisper.
And all of a sudden, everyone was gone. Only Maddy and Brian still stood together in the middle of the floor.
“Arrhmmm!” Bob Sinclaire cleared his throat pointedly.
Maddy winced. “You’d better go,” she muttered to Brian. “I’ll text you.”
“Um, bye, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclaire,” he tried weakly, giving Maddy a sympathetic glance. He awkwardly squeezed through the doorway.
Once the three of them were alone, Maddy’s mother slowly walked into the room and sat down on the leather sofa. With a cry, she jumped back up, soaked from the pool of beer on the cushion. Her father’s face was purple. Her mother gingerly perched on a sofa arm. Not looking at Maddy, she muttered, “We forgot the Vineyard Association paperwork.”
Ah. Maddy righted an upturned chair and slowly sat down. She buried her face in her hands. She wasn’t quite sure which was worse—the guilt she felt looking at her mother’s face, or the regret that she was probably in the biggest trouble of her entire life. Her parents were silent, obviously waiting for an explanation—but really, what could she say? She should at least try to dig herself out of this, though. “Guys,” she began, “I’m really sorry—”
“Sorry!” her father exploded. “What are you talking about? We leave this house for five hours, after spending a month going over the summer rules. All we want is to get a box of files and what do we find? A hundred drunken teenagers trashing our house!”
“Daddy—”
“And who is responsible for this? Who? Our daughter, who assured us that she would take care of everything this summer! ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ you said. ‘I’ll be just fine.’ Well, this doesn’t look like ‘just fine’ to me, Madeline!”
Maddy took a deep breath. “Look, Dad, just let me explain.”
“Explain what, Maddy?” Mom said. Maddy’s stomach sank all the way to her ballet flats. “This situation seems perfectly clear to me. We trusted you. You broke that trust.”
Maddy had a horrible feeling she knew what was next. She desperately tried to head it off with a pitiful stream of babbling.
“I’m so sorry, guys! I promise, promise, promise it will never happen again—ever! It was going to be my only party, I swear, just a little reward after school, before senior year, to celebrate summer. I—I—” She searched around for something, anything, to appease them. “I won’t even stay here this summer! I’ll go live with Morgan—Mrs. Gainsley is incredibly strict.”
“No,” her dad said firmly. “You are going to spend the rest of the evening cleaning up this house, and then in the morning, you’re going to Napa with us. So get started.” The calmness in his voice sounded terrifyingly final.
Maddy let out her breath. “Okay, Dad,” she said in a barely controlled voice. “I understand that I screwed up and that I should go to Napa for a while to help you guys out as my punishment. But how long are we talking about? A week?” She had to stop to control the tremor in her voice. “Two weeks? I’ll help you clean and mow or whatever….” She broke off. Both of her parents were staring at her.
“Maddy,” Mom said.
“What?”
“Your father isn’t talking about a short visit. You’ll be helping out at the vineyard for the rest of the summer.”
Clunk. As silence fell over the room like a dead weight, Maddy’s visions of the beach, Brian, and freedom floated out into the now-foggy San Francisco night. “The entire summer…?” she croaked.
Her dad skewered her with a stare. He spoke as if Maddy were someone of severely limited intelligence. “Do…you…truly…think…you’re…staying…here…after…all…this?” Maddy swallowed.
Debbie Sinclaire got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. “This discussion is finished,” she shot over her shoulder. There was a pause. Then an eruption. “Madeline Sinclaire! Can you please explain why the hell there is bean dip all over this ceiling?”
Maddy watched her dad stiffly walk onto the deck. He stood illuminated by tiki torches with his hands on his hips, staring at a lawn chair floating upside down in the pool. As Maddy stood to walk to the kitchen, she saw her father’s shoulders slump as he slid his head into his hands. And she felt the best summer ever slip right through her fingers.