On the second day of the trip, Aubrey woke up alone in a lounge chair by the pool, in terrible pain from a sunburn. She had no sense of what time it was but the sun hung low enough in the sky that she suspected late afternoon. She sat up stiffly, every move agony. How had she let that happen, when she knew her pale skin blistered in the sun? She couldn’t remember a thing. The drugs and drinking last night had left her mind a blank.
Desperate for some aloe vera gel and needing to pee, she stood up on shaky legs and forced herself to go into the house. Her eyes burned and her stomach felt funky. Aubrey found a bathroom, then wandered the empty rooms of the first floor for what seemed like a long time, looking for her friends, who’d vanished into thin air. At least it was cool in here. The floors of the large rooms were made of white tile, and the heavy shutters were drawn against the sun. But the silence unnerved her. She felt like she’d stumbled into some vast, ghostly mansion, like she might walk here forever without encountering another soul.
When finally she heard a murmur of voices, she followed the sound to the kitchen. The housekeeper, Ethelene, was gabbing away in incomprehensible patois with the young girl who had cleaned up dinner last night. They looked up suspiciously as Aubrey poked her head in.
“Look at you now,” Ethelene said, clucking her tongue as she took in Aubrey’s lobster-red skin.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any aloe vera gel by any chance?” Aubrey asked timidly.
“We don’t got no drugstore fancies. I can give you a banana peel.”
“A—what?”
“Banana peel. Rub it on your skin, it take the pain away.”
The young maid giggled, which made Aubrey think Ethelene was making fun of her. Still, a banana peel was better than nothing.
“Okay, sure. Thank you. And I’d like a banana to eat, too, if that’s okay.”
“That’s just fine.”
Aubrey took what Ethelene handed her, and backed out of the kitchen.
On the second floor, endless bedrooms opened off a wide hallway. Kate had told them yesterday to take their pick, and Aubrey chose the poky one at the end of the hall. Servants’ quarters, Kate called it. But the others were much too grand, if a bit musty and neglected. She’d worry she might break something and have to pay for it if she slept in one of those. Kate had taken the same room she’d used when she was a girl. It was large and airy, with a four-poster bed and tall windows that looked to the sea. Plus it had an air conditioner, which, Aubrey discovered too late, hers didn’t. Who cared anyway? She hadn’t slept in her room last night, and if her plans worked out, she wouldn’t sleep there tonight either. But where was everyone?
Aubrey went to the closed door of Kate’s bedroom, raised her knuckles to knock, and stopped short. Wild cries filtered out into the quiet of the afternoon, startling her. Who was in bed with Kate? Her eyes welled up at the thought that it might be Griff. Last night, something had happened between Aubrey and Griff, who’d long been the object of Aubrey’s all-consuming crush. Admittedly, they’d both been high out of their minds, but still, Aubrey hoped with all her heart that it meant something. That it at least meant he liked her, a little. But was Griff in bed with Kate now? Kate and Griff were so alike. The sun-streaked hair, the fine profile, the glossy skin. They’d traveled the whole wide world, and knew the same people and places. With Kate in her way, Aubrey had no shot with a guy like Griff, and having a shot with him mattered very much to her. Kate already had everything a person could want, where Aubrey had nothing. If there was a chance with Griff, she would throw herself at his head with no regrets. But if there was no chance, she really shouldn’t humiliate herself. She should try not to, anyway.
Aubrey reached for the doorknob. She had to know who was in bed with Kate. She opened the door slowly, taking care not to let it creak, and breathed out in silent relief. It was Lucas on top of Kate, thrusting, gleaming with sweat, his naked butt white against his tan. (Why did everybody tan except her?) Neither of them noticed her, and she shut the door softly and retreated to her room, mollified.
Last night, after Jenny and her date went off to an early bed in separate rooms, Aubrey and Griff and Kate and Lucas had stayed by the pool and smoked the most powerful weed Aubrey had ever encountered in her life. After that, when they were already floating, Kate convinced them all to drop half a tab each of—what was it? Ecstasy? Something else? Aubrey liked drugs. She liked how they made her forget the difficult things—her dead mother, her dim prospects, the deficits in her personal appearance. And she loved how they brought her closer to Kate. But she needed to learn her limits. Last night got out of hand. They were straight-up tripping. Aubrey lay paralyzed on the lounger and watched constellations expand and contract, unable to speak or even move her arms, for a very long time. After that she remembered standing on the cliff’s edge, watching the waves crash below in the moonlight, holding hands with Griff and talking about whether if they jumped from there they would land in the water. In the light of day she knew how crazy that was, how close they’d come. The beach was a hundred feet below; they would have died. But they didn’t. Later, when the sky was pink with cool dawn, she and Griff were alone by the pool. He sat on a lounger. She knelt on the hard concrete deck, doing what she’d seen Kate do to him in the snowy park, the night she found out her mother was sick. She could still feel his hands, stroking her hair. She looked up at him and saw the tears on his face, and thought, He’s so sad. Aubrey couldn’t stand it if that was their only encounter and he cried during it. She reached for her backpack and took out a hairbrush and a tube of lip gloss. She would go find Griff, and make him feel better.