I AM DRUNK.
Drunk, drunk, drunk. Drunk as a skunk! I am a rhyming drunk. I am holding on to the wallpapered wall because otherwise I will…fall.
Another rhyme—go, me.
“Where is sexy Marco?” Vicks asks me from her sprawled position on the sofa. “You should find him.”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “I should. You stay here.”
“I think I’m going to stay here,” she says.
Good idea, I say. I think. I hold on to the wall and feel my way through the party. Are you Marco? Nope. You? Nope. He was here before. But now he’s gone. Gone, gone, gone. Gone as a…prawn?
“There you are,” I hear.
“Marco!” I cheer. I grab on to his arm. His hard arm. Hello, muscles. He’s so lying about being unathletic. I lean over to whisper a secret to him. “I need to talk to you in private.”
“Mel, you’re wobbling. You okay?”
“I have another secret,” I say, trying to enunciate. “Not about Pilates or moisturizer gloves,” I clarify in case he’s confused.
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“I have to show you,” I say. I am going to have sex with Marco. It’s perfect. He is sweet and adorable and we are going to do it.
Now. While I’m brave. And drunk.
He likes me. He must.
The wine coolers have made me much smarter, eh? They’ve made me more like Vicks. Less afraid.
Bye-bye to Scaredy-cat Mel. Hello to Brave Mel. I love Brave Mel!
“Are you okay?” he asks me again. He looks concerned. He looks sexy when he’s concerned.
“I’m wonderful.” I pull him into a room, but it’s a closet.
“I think you need to lie down,” he says.
He gets it! “Exactly! We need to lie down.”
He leads me out of the closet and into a brown bedroom. Brown walls, brown bedspread, brown brown brown. “Your eyes are brown,” I tell him. Then I throw my arms around his neck. “Let’s do it, sexy brown eyes!”
Brave Mel is invincible. She’s Super Mel. And nothing scares her. Not a bird, not a plane, not the brown-eyed boy. She deserves a cape.
He somehow untangles himself from my super human grip. “Mel, this isn’t a good idea.”
“It is!” I flop backward on the bed, and pull him down on top of me.
He smiles at me for what seems like forever, but then the smile gets a little sad. He looks sexy when he’s sad. He heaves himself back off the bed. “You need to rest, okay? I’m going to get you some water.”
I kick off my flip-flops. It’s not polite to wear shoes on Robbie’s bed. I sit back up. “I am not going to sleep! You said I could meet your parents!”
“Yes, but not tonight.” He gently pushes me back down. “Close your eyes. I’ll be right back.”
La, la, la. Robbie’s room might double as a disco. It’s starting to spin. “Do you like to dance?” I ask, but no one answers.
Nikki and I used to dance all the time when we were kids. We’d blast Britney and make up our own dance routines that we’d do over and over and get our dad to videotape. Until she got to high school and stopped wanting to hang out with me. Nope. I am not good enough for Nikki. Or Alex. Nope, nope, nope.
I bet I still remember those routines.
Arm up, arm down, spin, turn, kick…no, turn.
“Here you go,” Marco says. Oh, there he is. “Sit up and take a big gulp.”
I do as I’m told, or try to, but now there’s water on the brown sheets, turning them almost black. “Whoopsies,” I say, and then kiss him.
Or try to. I might have licked him by accident. I gulp down more water.
“Now I want you to take a nap,” he says.
“Are we not going to do it?”
He doesn’t answer.
Maybe he didn’t hear? “Are we not going to do it?” I ask again, raising my voice.
“Go to sleep, Mel. I’ll come check on you in a half hour.”
Oh. I am kind of sleepy.
He pulls the comforter over my arms and legs and then kisses me on the forehead. Damn! I wasn’t ready for that. I pucker my lips in case he tries again, but I think he’s already closed the door.
Robbie’s bed is quite comfortable. I wonder if he has a pillow-top mattress? That’s what I have. It’s very good.
“Can someone get my pillow?” I ask. “It’s in the car!” Maybe I should call Vicks. I take out my phone, and scroll through the measly five numbers I’ve accumulated since I got to Florida. Old Mel was Pa-the-tic. “Vicks?”
It’s not dialing. I don’t think I’m doing this properly. I wish the phone would stop moving. “Hello? Anyone?”
No one answers.
“Let her sleep!” a voice in my dream says.
“I want out of here.”
“What’s the problem? Let’s just sleep here.”
“I’m not sleeping in Robbie’s bed!”
“So sleep on the floor.”
“Fine. I will. But Mel sucks.”
I don’t suck, I want to tell my sister. When did she get a Florida accent?
“The only reason she got to come on this trip was because she promised to pay for a hotel.”
“I get points at the Marriott,” I say before rolling over and going back to sleep.