I WAKE UP TO THE SOUND OF MY MOM MAKING breakfast. I had fallen asleep on the couch. I sit up. My mom’s back is to me. On the low coffee table in front of me is my empty cup with the telltale redness of wine lining the bottom. Well, I guess the more telltale sign would be the empty bottle itself, which is on the counter, to the left of my mom.
Holy majorly busted.
Has any teenager in history been so stupid besides the ones whose parents allow them to be? What do I do? Tiptoe out like a cartoon character? Make a joke? Weep at her ankles?
She turns her head. I raise my hand, say, “Hi.”
“What the hell is going on?” she asks and slams the spatula down on the counter.
I look around, as if for someone to blame . . . The Sonos made me do it.
“Should I be worried?” She faces me with her arms crossed.
“No,” I say. My head is pounding like surf. I put my fingers to my temples, then think better of it. She knows, though. She knows everything; every move I make she is adding to the roster. I decide to be honest.
“I was bored,” I say. “Everyone was at a party I wasn’t invited to. I was just trying to . . . make my own fun.”
She scoffs, but right before she does, I see a glimmer of recognition. I, too, can tally up the moves.
“There are other ways to have fun,” she says. “Go . . .” She falters. Score for me. “Go play!”
Oh my God, triple points.
“Go play?” I say.
She turns back to the stove to save herself. “I mean, if this is what you do when you’re not invited to parties, then we have a problem. A big one.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because that would be a lot of bottles.” Oh my God, I’m killing it.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “I don’t drink every time I don’t get invited somewhere.”
“You have wine every night,” I say. Her shoulders lift then lower as she lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Because I like wine, not because I’m trying to escape!” This still doesn’t sound very good. She clenches the spatula, her hand shaking a bit. “And stop. Just stop. You cannot drink. You are grounded. Again, or still.”
“Okay,” I say, indifferent, since I have nothing better to do. Besides, she’s never home at night. To ground me is to ground herself. “Are you going out tonight?”
“Yes!” she says, and now I think she might cry. “I have to. Something for autism. The show is donating us”—and she breaks—“you know, ’cause that will really help autism! A dinner with us! Or a golf package at Koele!” She weeps, and I get scared. I don’t know what to do. Her shoulders tremble, and she lets out little high-pitched bleats.
I get up and turn off the stove, where the scrambled eggs have become a solid patty.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I touch her shoulder. “Mom, are you okay? Honestly, you don’t have to worry. I got carried away. I was dancing—” I look around the room. “And playing ukulele, evidently. There are worse things.”
She sniffles and laughs. “It’s not funny, and, yes, I’m fine. I’m just tired. Tired of smiling.” She smiles.
We stand side by side, leaning against the counter.
“I’m sorry you were lonely last night,” she says. “This seems to be a pattern.”
“No,” I say. “Last time I was with Whitney.”
“I meant the pattern of you drinking, me yelling, then me feeling guilty that this is somehow all my fault.”
“I can go with that,” I say.
She elbows me, and we stand in silence for a little while, which clues me in to the sounds of mynah birds squawking outside. I wonder what she was like when she was my age. I think she was much wilder.
In her stash of photos, I’ve seen her posing with friends in low-riding bikinis, the boys in tight short shorts. In some she holds a cigarette. In one she is joyfully yelling on the Hanalei pier and raising a can of Budweiser. In another she’s asleep, her head on a guy’s lap (again with the short shorts) while he plays guitar.
“I tried to tell Melanie,” she says, “about the first time.” Her eyes are zoned out, not focusing on anything. “I told her you girls were drinking, and she just interrupted me. She said that she buys those drinks for Whitney—they’re kombucha spirits,” my mom says, imitating Melanie’s pushy voice, “which are very healthy, but have a little alcohol in them. Healthy alcohols.”
“Are you serious?” I ask, disbelieving, amused, and envious all at once. What would it be like to have such a dumb mother?
“I don’t know if she’s oblivious or if her kids just run all over her,” my mom says.
“I’m a good girl,” I say. “Despite it all.”
Her eyes come back into focus, and she looks me up and down. “I can’t believe you were in me.”
She always does this, reminisces about me as a baby and being in her womb. She’ll tell me the same stories sometimes—my first laugh, my belly button falling off, having to use Pez to bribe me to leave the park—and I’ll laugh every time, as if hearing it for the first time, fascinated by myself, by this life I don’t remember.
She hands me a fork, and we eat out of the pan.
“Look,” she says. “You can do something during the days, but at night I want you here.”
I don’t answer.
“I don’t want to do this on your spring break, but I can’t just let it go.”
“Okay.” I leave it there, not adding anything, afraid I’ll say the wrong thing or she’ll figure out how lenient she’s being. I can’t help but feel like I’m getting away with something. It’s weird to be trusted. I’ve always been trusted, but I’ve also always obeyed until now.