I wake up to a pounding head and oceans churning inside my stomach. Before the memories come of what I did last night, first there’s a wave of nausea to deal with. I hop out of bed, Gotami meowing in protest as I knock her to the floor and run to the bathroom, where I make it to the toilet just in time for last night’s drinks and whatever food I shoved in my face when I got home to come right back out again.
When I am done, I stay there for a while, the tile floor bruising my knees, my head lying on my arms crossed over the toilet seat. Thank god Daddy likes to keep the house so clean.
It’s not shame I feel, not exactly. More like disappointment. Isn’t rebellion supposed to be fun? Isn’t that supposed to be the reason people do things like stay out all night and get drunk and sleep with strangers?
I brush my teeth, drink some water, and go back to bed. I wake up again around noon to the sound of Papa and Daddy arguing in the kitchen. Their version of arguing, anyway. One that involves speaking calmly and using “I” statements.
I lie in bed listening to Papa say he heard me come in around three a.m., that he heard me throwing up at ten a.m., that this isn’t the daughter he knows. Daddy reminds him I’ve never broken a rule, not ever, that a little rebellion is healthy, that trusting me to make my own choices will help me grow into a responsible young woman.
They both do their jobs so well. The protecting and the nurturing. But as understanding as they are, I doubt even they would have a hard time saying what I did last night was healthy.
I hear Daddy laugh. “Honestly, I was starting to worry we’d raised her to be too sensible.”
I don’t come out until I know Daddy’s left for his Sunday meditation group. I find Papa sitting on the couch reading, Gotami asleep in his lap. He looks up at me and smiles, and I am nearly knocked down by the impulse to throw myself into his arms and fall apart. Daddy is the one I usually go to for comfort, but here is Papa, smiling at me with a kindness I don’t know I deserve.
“Good afternoon, sweetie,” he says, getting up, displacing Gotami. I have to hold my breath to keep from crying, which just makes my headache worse. Papa pulls a tray out of the oven. “I had this in there staying warm for when you woke up.” He dumps the pile of glistening, greasy, cheese-smothered tater tots onto a plate and sets it on the table. “Have a seat.”
He brings over a bottle of ketchup, a couple ibuprofen, and a glass of Daddy’s homemade kombucha, a fermented tea that’s supposed to have all kinds of nutrition in it but tastes like carbonated vinegar mixed with snot.
“Best hangover cure ever,” Papa says. “Perfected it in college.”
“Thank you.”
“I was ready to ground you for a month, but your dad talked some sense into me.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I just want you to be safe and making healthy decisions.” He waits to continue speaking until I look up and into his eyes. “Were you safe last night?”
“Yes,” I say quickly.
“Do you need any sort of . . . protection?”
“You mean like a gun?”
That makes us both crack up, but then I almost cry again. He should be making me feel worse, not better.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Really.” They bought me a pack of condoms when I was sixteen that is still unopened and dusty somewhere in the back of my closet. I don’t remember everything from last night, but at least I remember he had a condom. It scares me that I might have been drunk enough to not care.
But then I suddenly remember the ride home from the ferry, the car I could not afford, the grumpy old driver who mumbled the whole time about kids these days thinking they’re so special, kids these days getting away with murder, as we twisted around the dark corners of the island, as I opened the window in hopes that the cool breeze would keep me from barfing, the way the sky turned a shocking orange as we approached my road and I feared for a brief moment that the forest was on fire. But then I noticed the cars parked along Olympic Road far into the distance, I heard the bass of the music and the sound of drunken laughter, and I realized the light was coming from behind the wall of trees that were not on fire at all.
There was a party at Ivy Avila’s house last night, and I was not invited.
“I trust you, Fern,” Papa says now, and I cringe at the sound of my own name.
I heard you had fun after you left, Tami texts.
Worst hangover ever, I write back. She’s probably fine this morning. She’s always been able to drink everyone under the table and wake up perfect the next day. I wonder what exactly she knows. I wonder if she told Ash.
I wonder what happened at the condo after I left, if she woke up in Vaughn’s arms this morning, if his face is bruised from her punch, how he’s going to explain that to his wife.
When Daddy gets home, I help him weed in the garden. He doesn’t mention my coming home late or throwing up this morning. We work silently together in the late afternoon shade, the birds chattering around us, a soft breeze rustling the trees. My head is still cloudy and my stomach is not in prime condition, but I feel something like peace settle over me. After the madness of last night, this is the most opposite of places—all this order, all this wholesome life. I inhale a deep breath of pine needles and warm soil and a whiff of salt water, and I am starting to feel like myself again.
“Psst,” Daddy says, and I look up to see two identical does staring right at us. As many times as I’ve seen deer in our garden, I still catch my breath. There’s something about their big dark eyes that makes me feel seen in some brand-new way. They tilt their heads in tandem, considering us, then walk off as if having decided we’re not worth their time.
After dinner, I video-call Lily in Taiwan, where it’s mid-morning. I give her all the details about last night and then tune her out as she goes off on her tirade about “those people,” just like I expected. She’s like a voice in the back of my head, constantly giving her opinions about whatever I do. I know she does this because she cares. In some weird way, it comforts me.
“Don’t you get it?” she finally says. “You’re better than them. You’re better than all of them. You’re one of the few honest people I know.”
But that’s only because I’ve never had anything I’ve needed to lie about.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be back at work, fully recovered from my hangover. The sun will be shining, and it will still be the sweet spot of summer when it’s not too hot. I can find comfort in knowing last night was an anomaly. A onetime experience. My one wild summer night that I never have to do again. I’ll spend the rest of these weeks until college starts going to work, maybe drop by a couple parties where I’ll have one or two drinks, weekend outings with the family, a few trips into the city. My life back. My boring, safe, island life. This is what I know I should do.
I imagine going to work tomorrow and overhearing what the gossip has morphed into over twenty-four hours. A woman of indeterminate age with unfortunate plastic surgery will put a fake antique watering can on the counter. She will say with an interrogating tone, “I read online that Ivy Avila had a party.”
“That’s the rumor,” I will say, scanning the watering can’s barcode.
“I heard people came in by helicopter,” she will say. “Celebrities. Seattle socialites. People came by boat.”
“Is that so?” I’ll say, scanning the potted orchid that she will throw away as soon as it stops flowering.
“Were you invited?” she will say, eyes squinting, her Botoxed forehead unmoving.
When I tell her no, she will look me up and down, from my unremarkable face to my messy ponytail to my dirt-stained smock, and say, “Yes, well, I guess you wouldn’t be,” and then hand me her credit card.