Have you ever taken a scalding hot shower while drunk? It’s a strange sensation. I think it actually kind of enhanced my buzz? Or maybe that’s just the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I walk down the hill to mingle with a house full of strangers.
I didn’t think to pack any decent clothes when we spontaneously fled Bayonne, so I’m rolling up to this shindig in khaki jogger pants and an old Nike quarter-zip. I look like an errand-running soccer dad, but whatever. Who has time for things like self-consciousness and social anxiety? Not me! I’m a runaway fugitive.
I shove my thumb against the glowing doorbell.
“Hiiii!” I’m greeted at the big oak door by Kayak Girl from earlier. She’s wearing ripped jean shorts and a white crop top, looking like a young Blake Lively. “Joey, right? I’m Shayla. Marco just texted and told me you were coming.” She lowers her voice so that I can barely hear it over the EDM humming from the nearby living room. “Thank God you showed up today. I was worried he’d be all up in our business this week.”
“He says hi.” I peer past her and see a young couple hunched over the kitchen counter smoking pot out of one of those little glass pipe-y things people use. “He thinks you’re having a Scrabble tournament.”
“Shut up! That’s hilarious. I love Marco. He’s adorable.” Shayla sees me staring at the smokers and giggles. “Want some?”
“Nah.” The smell of it wafts toward me and triggers an unpleasant memory. I deliberately shift my glance to the stainless steel refrigerator. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Oh — come inside!” She grabs my arm and drags me into the dimly lit kitchen. “Do you want a bev? What are you drinking?”
“I’ve been having wine, but —”
“Wine?” She covers her mouth and stifles a laugh. “Who are you?”
“I’m Italia —”
“He’s the chef from Ratatouille!” One of the stoners interjects from his perch at the counter. He pokes his girlfriend. “Right, babe? That’s totally who this dude looks like.”
“Which chef?” I ask, unsure if he’s making fun of me with his random-ass Pixar reference or if I truly bear resemblance to one of the characters from Rata-fucking-touille. I haven’t seen that movie since I was nine years old. “Because if memory serves, the primary chef from Ratatouille was a literal rat. So.” I shift my weight uncomfortably against the dishwasher, and it instantly makes a series of high-pitched beeps. And then it clicks shut and the whoosh of the motor kicks in. Oh, my God. I’ve activated the dishwasher with my ass. I flinch and step away from the appliance. Yep. Definitely drunk! “Sorry.”
Smokey Magoo just looks at me and bursts into spontaneous laughter. “This guy’s hilarious!” he says to Shayla. “Where’d you find him?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Shayla pats my arm and rolls her eyes. “Derek is a total dweeb. Don’t listen to him.” She grabs a red Solo cup, fills it with ice, and pours me a concoction of half Tito’s vodka, half La Croix seltzer. “Pamplemousse,” she explains. “You will love.”
I take a generous sip — as if I need it — and take a look around. The space is open-concept with various wooden accents, a giant lake window, and a few strategically placed fur rugs. Your standard lumberjack chic scenario.
But then I notice an enormous contraption hanging from the high vaulted ceiling above the living room. What the fuck is that thing? I tilt my head and squint as hard as I can to un-blur my vision. It’s… a wagon. Like, out of a horse-drawn carriage type of situation. (The Little Women moments are piling up out here, truly.) It’s got these giant wooden wheels and seating for at least four (human-sized) passengers. And it’s just dangling up there! Maybe about two feet from everyone’s heads, connected only by four rusty chain links secured to the ceiling. I thought I’d seen some weird rich-people décor on HGTV before, but this is some next-level shit.
I take a sip from my red Solo cup and continue to take it all in. I do a quickie headcount and estimate there are maybe twelve people here in total. There’s a group of six coeds huddled over a phone in the corner by a stone fireplace. A few couples on couches. Not exactly a “wild rager,” but still… it may be the biggest party I’ve ever been to.
“This tastes like grapefruit,” I tell Shayla. She looks at me blankly, like, duh. The vodka instantly upgrades my buzz, so I decide to put feelers out on my future husband. “So that guy you were kayaking with earlier today…”
“Robbie. He’s straight.” Shayla smiles. “And mine. Sorry. I totally saw you checking him out by the dock.”
“What? Me? No.” I down the rest of my drink and help myself to a refill. Is that rude? Whatever. “I wasn’t checking him out. That’s absurd!”
“It’s totally fine. All the gay boys love my Robbie.” She pauses. “You are gay, right?”
“I mean, yeah. But.” You know what? I need to leave. If it’s a no-go with Kayak Guy, then what am I even doing here? I could be drinking wine and stalking Twitter coverage of the fire from the comfort of that super-inviting loft above Marco’s living room. “I just remembered, I can’t stay. I have —”
“You must stay! I have another boy for you.” She looks me up and down. “You’re so his type.” She slams her drink down on the counter, tops us both off with vodka, and scans the area. “I don’t know where he went, though.”
I can’t tell if I should be flattered or offended. On the one hand, I’m intrigued by the prospect of a replacement for Kayak Guy as my lake-boyfriend. On the other hand, it’s a little presumptuous on Shayla’s part to assume I’d automatically be interested in talking to whatever gay guy happens to be in attendance at her little spring break retreat. (The fact that her assumption is totally correct is beside the point.)
She grabs my hand and drags me into the living room.
We are now standing directly beneath the wagon. I reach up as high as I can and tap the bottom of one of the wheels with the tip of my finger, for some goddamn reason. The wheel does a halfhearted attempt at spinning while the rest of the vessel makes an ominous creak. Okay! So these chains are rickety as a bitch. The phrase death trap might be a little overdramatic, but… there is no way I will be caught dead standing under this thing for longer than the fifteen seconds that I already have.
“My dad has an Oregon Trail fetish,” Shayla explains as I take several messy steps to the left, comfortably outside of the zone that would be impacted if the wagon were to spontaneously fall and crush the humans/furniture it so menacingly hovers above. “Don’t ask.”
It’s funny she says that, because I definitely want to ask.
But before I can, the group that’s huddled over a phone in the corner erupts into a mix of shouting and laughter. And then they disperse. I must have missed something while I was wagon-gawking. Within seconds, Kayak Guy appears and wraps his big man-hands around Shayla’s tight little waist. I have no choice but to take yet another giant swig of my beverage in response. Because fuck. He’s so hot. She’s so lucky. I’m so wasted. Shayla’s mouth morphs into a totally-loving-this-attention-from-my-boyfriend smile. I know that smile all too well. I used to wear it every weekend with Luke.
“Babe,” she says to him and then points at me. “This is Joey. A… friend?… of Marco’s.”
“Hey, man.” Robbie flashes that same handsome smile that tricked me into thinking he was gay before. Frankly, it’s rude. “You were down at the dock earlier, right?”
I give him an emotionless head nod and reply directly to Shayla. “Marco is my mom’s ex,” I explain. “They —”
“Wait a sec,” Shayla sloppily blurts. It occurs to me that I’m not the only one who’s drunk right now — so is she. Along with probably this entire household. “That was your mom? With you at the dock today?”
“It was.”
Robbie laughs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, man. But she’s freakin’ hot.”
Shayla slaps his arm in disapproval.
“Gross.” I really hate it when guys my age call Mom hot. Luke used to do it all the time, but I gave him a pass because he was gay. I never told him that it reminded me of my middle school bullies. If they weren’t calling me a cocksucker they were probably calling her a slut. As if their moms were all… what? Virgins? “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”
“She seems so young!” Shayla hiccups. “Am I being rude? Sorry. I’m just saying. My mom is like fifty.”
“We get that a lot,” I say. “She’s thirty-four.” I try to look directly at Shayla and not at Robbie’s bicep, which happens to be peeking out of his fitted black T-shirt like an overstuffed meatball hero. There’s evidence of a tattoo I can’t quite make out, which isn’t helping. “I’m eighteen.”
Shayla doesn’t respond right away, probably because she’s doing the mental calculation everyone does when they hear about the age difference between Mom and me. Filling in the gaps of our story with whatever pop culture references of teenage motherhood they have on hand. Usually MTV’s Teen Mom is involved.
Shayla smirks at me. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” I ask and then realize she just caught me checking Robbie out. “No! I’m not.” My face burns with embarrassment and my heart thumps with the need to change the subject ASAP before she says it out loud and I’m completely humiliated. “Weren’t you looking for someone?”
“Oh, my God, right.” She slaps Robbie right on his tattoo. “Do you know where Will is?”
“Where do you think?” Robbie says as I once again undress him with my eyes. I can’t help it! You know what? Alcohol should be illegal. “He’s probably in the bear bedroom, reading one of his little history books.”
Did he just say bear bedroom? Also, is he low-key reciprocating my eye-fucking right now? Oh, my God. He totally is! No, he’s not. Yes! He is. Okay — I need to snap out of this. This man’s girlfriend is literally right in front of me, and I’m not a homewrecker. I’m the one who gets homewrecked.
“Come!” Shayla drags me into a hallway lined with old-timey wagon pictures and various wagon-related artifacts. Random dismembered spokes, a wire basket, half a seat. It’s basically a Cracker Barrel up in this bitch.
“What do your parents do for a living?” I ask her in an attempt to figure out exactly what kind of New York City rich people have such tacky taste.
“My dad’s a surgeon and my mom doesn’t work.” She skips ahead of me and waits at the end of the hallway until I catch up. “Here!” She opens the door to her left, grabs my arm — aggressively! — and thrusts me through it with all her might. Half my drink cascades onto the hardwood floor in the process. She twirls back out into the hallway before I can even regain my balance and absorb my new surroundings. “You boys have fun.”
“Wait,” I start. “Shayla!”
She slams the door shut behind her.