ON THE WALK BACK HOME FROM WHITNEY’S TONIGHT, I trip on a sprinkler, fall, and laugh hard under the moon. I immediately want to tell Whitney, then think how nice it is to have someone to tell things to. We ended up having a really fun night, and I have the sensation of finally clicking into something. While it’s been a little unplanned—like I’m a doctor on call—it’s still satisfying. How was I ever hesitant? What about Kailua was I homesick for? It doesn’t miss me.
I continue across the grass, the cool night blowing through my clothes, a smile on my face from imagining Will driving through the gates, seeing me in the moonlight like an innocent heroine in the fields or the moors. Lea in the Lawns by Leahi Landscaping. He has come back for me. He couldn’t wait to leave the dinner. I play the loop of our encounter, both the real one on the daybed and the imagined one, until I get to my front door.
At home, I watch a cooking show on TV and eat a huge piece of the cake Melanie got for us. I may have drunk too much. Drunk? Drank? I stand up to test my skills, balancing on one foot, then the other. I laugh, keep balancing, then lean forward, arms out like Superman, one leg extended behind me, and of course, that’s when my mom walks in.
“What are you doing?” she says. “It’s eleven thirty and a school night.”
“Then I should probably stop doing my yoga routine,” I say, articulating each word, which is kind of hard.
I sit back down on the couch, little stars blinking around my head.
She puts her keys on the counter. “Did you have a good time?”
I watch the television. I can tell she’s looking me over.
“I wouldn’t call it a good time,” I say, because I want her to think that I’ve sacrificed something.
“What would you call it, then?”
“Call what?” I should have escaped and gone to bed earlier.
My mom stands across the room by the kitchen, then slowly walks toward me. She looks so composed and beautiful, it scares me.
“I asked if you had a good time,” she says. “You said you wouldn’t call it that, and so I—”
“Just a time,” I say. “I had a time. We ate, that’s all. Devoured your meal like savages. And the cake.” I shove my hand toward the cake. I am the savage. I had a little delicate piece with Whitney, then a much larger one alone. “Whitney said to bring it back here. Her mom got it at Diamond Head Market—”
“Yes, I know,” she says. “As a way to say thank you for the dinner I made, and for all I’ve done.” There’s a strong note of tiredness in the way she says this, as if she’s repeating something that’s been said to her over and over again.
She gets a fork from the kitchen and walks over to the table. She looks at me curiously, then sits down and takes a bite from the cake without cutting a slice.
“Did you have fun?” I ask. “Doing whatever you were doing?”
“I was at the club,” she says. “Dining.”
“Dining at the club,” I say in a posh voice that doesn’t quite deliver. “Didn’t you go there last night too?”
“No,” she says. “We were going to, but then we went to some food and wine festival. Tonight was just a casual dinner with some of their friends.”
“Sounds lovely,” I say and put my feet up on the coffee table, which makes one of the magazines fall. “Ouch,” I say, and don’t know why.
“It was lovely,” she says. “It’s so pretty down there. And good to meet people outside of work.”
She’s like a new girl at school, finally making friends, and I don’t know why I can’t be happier for her. She’s feeling the same way I am, experiencing that same satisfying click.
“Gloria’s great, and this one girl, Pi’i?” She laughs to herself. “She’s hilarious. You should meet her. She’s just so witty and out there. She says these outrageous things—”
“Like what?”
My mom puts the fork down, still smiling over the memory, still sailing on the buzz created by connecting to someone. “I can’t think of anything on the spot. Just everything. I guess—”
“I had to be there.”
I’ve brought her down from her flight. “Yeah,” she says. “I talked all about you. Mostly everyone there has kids who go to Punahou. You probably know a lot of their daughters. Whitney’s friends . . .” She looks up at me, and I can see something awful: pity. “A woman named Vicky said she met you. She has a place on the Big Island she said we could use.”
“Vicky Sand?” I say, much too loudly.
“Yes, on the Kohala coast. I guess it’s this super-private—”
“God, she’s horrible! She’s like Boobzilla. She wants to be on that Real Housewives show. They’re filming it here, you know. That’s why they’re nice to you in the first place. They want you to help them get on the show or have you introduce them to Bradley Cooper or some crap.”
My mom gets up and takes the cake into the kitchen. I look ahead, but can hear her doing dishes, putting things away. It all seems to take forever. I should have stormed out, but I feel glued to the sofa. I can see out of the corner of my eye that she’s walking my way, and then she sits down next to me, making the sofa dip.
“Breathe,” she says.
“I am.”
She puts her face right up to mine. “Breathe in my face. Blow out air.”
I inhale and blow, moving my lips so the breath goes to the side.
“You’ve been drinking,” she says.
“So have you.” I try to scoot away from her without her knowing.
“I’m allowed to drink,” she says. “Put your feet down.”
“Why?” I say.
“Because it’s bad manners, that’s why.”
“No one’s here.”
“Lea!” she says—the hard emphasis on the e like she always does when she’s angry, which isn’t often.
“What?” I say. I put my feet down.
“Where were you drinking?” She looks both angry and worried.
“At your friend’s house,” I say, emphasizing right back. “Where you put me.”
“That is totally unacceptable.”
“Yes, I know,” I say. We are locked in angry stares, and I can tell she’s out of her element. She doesn’t know what to do with me, having never been in this situation before. Tears are beginning to glaze her eyes, and her weakness makes me bolder, meaner.
“I only drank because Whitney offered it to me,” I say. “Just trying to have good manners.”
“Cut the sass,” she says. I scoff, and she looks tempted to smack me. Her hands are in fists, and I imagine her heart is racing. Mine is.
“You cannot drink here,” she says. “Or anywhere. If Whitney does it, or offers it, it doesn’t mean you have to take it. If she jumps off a bridge, you don’t have to jump off a bridge too.” Even she looks disappointed with this statement.
“But I would,” I say. “If it was into deep, clean water. That’s my favorite! And you do whatever Melanie does.”
She closes her eyes and takes a long breath, and I take one too, in imitation, but then I get tired. Tired of my own behavior, tired of this fight. I know I will cry when I get to my room.
“Help Whitney out, okay?”
My anger comes racing back. “What do you mean, help her out? What is that? One of your job requirements? Cooking, socializing, and outsourcing me?”
She looks toward the television. “I don’t want . . . tension. These people are being very nice to us, and—”
“What does that have to do with anything? So I owe them something too? Is this part of the deal?”
“There is no deal,” she says. “Stop saying that. There’s no obligation. We don’t have any obligations. I want you to have friends. I’m happy you’re getting along so well, but now I’m in an awkward position. I’m going to have to tell Melanie.”
Now I wonder what’s made her angrier: that I was drinking or that she’ll have to tell Melanie, putting an end to both my playdates and hers. I shake my head and smirk when she looks at me.
“So tell Melanie,” I say. “Maybe she’ll replace you with someone better.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my mom says in calm way, which makes me feel just that, like I don’t know anything.
“And I will tell Melanie,” she says, challenging me right back. “I don’t want to, but I will. We talk, and . . . I know Whitney is a bit distracted in school. She’s going through things. Her dad—”
“Whitney’s probably going through things because her parents just leave her home alone all the time and her dad’s losing it. You’re the one who’s put me in this environment.”
“Don’t speak that way about Eddie,” she says. “It’s horrible what he’s going through.”
“Sorry,” I say, ashamed. How hard it must be. “I know.”
“I realize I’ve been out a lot. I . . .” She stops, and I look at her. “I don’t think Melanie accepts the severity of it all.”
Before I can ask her to explain, she continues, “And the kids are having a hard time with it too. It’s a big weight. I think Melanie was looking forward to having someone sensible around. Someone with her head on her shoulders.”
“I’m not the nanny,” I say. “And who says I have my head on my shoulders?” I want to go wild. Drink and drink, never come home, have guys touch my body of work. I’m tempted to start now—strut right out of here, find Will, and tell him to get all Jenkins on my ass. Though I wouldn’t know where to go. And I’d be afraid an alarm would go off at the gate. And he’s with Lissa, who I thought he was tired of! He’s supposed to go forth and bring back frickin’ knowledge!
“I think you should get to bed,” my mom says. She looks so tired. “We’ll talk tomorrow. We both need to get up early.”
I think of Spitzer and his assignment.
My job is to help my mom look good. It’s to be her junior, her daughter, to be the daughter of someone who will always be bigger than me. My job is to be a good houseguest, a good recipient.
But right now I want nothing more than to be an owner, a giver, a person who has her own fabulous life, wearing heels on a Tuesday night. I want nothing more than to quit my job.
“Maybe I’m having a hard time too,” I say. “Maybe not having a dad is a big weight for me. Ever think of that? That I have my own issues?”
“I think of that all the time,” my mom says. “You’ve always said you don’t, but I’ve wanted you to admit that you do. You care. You feel things.”
I’m stunned that she threw this back on me, almost like a trap.
“I love you,” she says. “I’m proud of you.”
Don’t say that. That’s what makes the tears come, and I’m glad I’m facing the other direction.