Everything in my brain screeches to a halt. It’s horrible, and it’s definitely scarring me for life, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the strangers on the bed. No, I correct myself. Not strangers. My mother, on the bed, acting like she’s having sex.
Because she is having sex.
My mother is having sex. With someone who is not Pop.
I finally manage to unfreeze myself and back away. They haven’t seen me. From their angle they can’t see the door to the adjoining room. They don’t know I’m here.
I creep slowly, carefully, to the door leading out. I open it with such excruciating slowness that it feels like it takes five full minutes. Then I’m outside on the long outdoor walkway, and everything feels like a different world out there. Blue sky stretches overhead, not a cloud in it. People stroll around in bathing suits and saris and wrapped in fluffy white towels. Birds sing in the trees. Kids laugh and race each other and parents yell, “Slow down!”
The door shuts behind me with the tiniest, softest click.
I stand there like I’ve been turned to stone.
Everything that I was most afraid of—the worst thing that I could possibly imagine—is happening. It has happened. It’s over, I think, although I don’t know what the it is that I’m referring to.
Mom and Pop.
My childhood, perhaps.
Happiness in general.
Someone comes out of the room next door. It’s not Mom—she’s still busy, I imagine, but the sudden noise and movement jolts me into action. I can’t stay here. I can’t be here. I have to go.
So I start running.
I don’t know where I’m going. I run to the end of the hall, and when I get there I run down a set of stairs, and down and down, floor after floor, until I think I hit the ground floor, but I actually go one lower. There’s a laundry room down there, and a series of vending machines and the lockers where you can get a towel for the pool. I run past them, push out onto a set of steps that leads into the sun again, run and almost fall into a big sparkling pool I’ve never seen before. Beyond the pool is a row of white plastic reclining deck chairs, and a paved path that leads away from the building.
I sprint down the path. My brain isn’t working yet; it’s just recycling a few crucial words and focusing on getting air into my lungs: my mother, gasp, my mother, gasp, my mother having sex, a kind of rhythm that takes me farther and farther away from the room, away from the Ocean Tower, away, away, from my mother and whoever it is, past a long string of pools connected by slides and stairs, past a wedding chapel, over a series of little bridges, past sunbathers and toddlers splashing and squealing, past a restaurant with people eating at outdoor tables and an aquarium where they apparently keep dolphins. Past another large pool and a waterfall and . . .
And then I have to stop. I’ve reached the end of the resort. I’ve run from Ocean to Lagoon. There’s nowhere else to go.
Normally that kind of running would kill me, or at the very least lame me for a significant amount of time, but I don’t even feel winded. My heart is pumping so hard I can feel my pulse throbbing in my neck. My legs feel like they aren’t even connected to my body; they’re simultaneously numb and tingling, light as feathers and heavy as sacks of rocks. My head swims with the image of my mother in the white robe, and then settles into a kind of woozy blankness that I welcome.
I turn around and go back along the path, willing my breath to slow, trying to cool down. Clear my thoughts. Understand what it means. And what it means is this:
My mother is having an affair.
I immediately think of Pop. Pop’s gentle voice. Pop’s funny laugh. Pop.
I need to be calm. But . . . Pop.
It’s over, I think again. It hurts to swallow. I stop walking and press my hand to the space just below my ribs. Pain stabs at my side. I’m suddenly dizzy. I become aware that a lady with a stroller is trying to pass me on the path, but I’m blocking her somehow and can’t get my body to respond correctly to even the most basic of commands. I finally stagger to one side and sit down on a patch of short, sandy grass, trying to get my bearings.
That’s when I notice where I am.
The lagoon. More specifically, I’m sitting right in front of the rental shack for the lagoon.
Paddleboards, a sign reads in large letters on the back of the shack. Ten dollars per hour.
I choke on a laugh. It isn’t remotely funny, but I can’t help it. I panicked and ran for my life and somehow ended up practically in the line to rent a paddleboard—my plan all along. I laugh again, and then my laugh becomes a dry sob.
I put my hand over my mouth. Poor Pop. How could she do it?
I mean, seriously, how? Not just how could she cheat on her spectacularly smart and sweet and good-looking husband, but how could she bring some man back to the room she shares with us? How could she know we wouldn’t come back and catch her? How could she be so careless? Or does she even care if we find out?
My heartbeat picks up again. I have another thought, an important one.
Afton and Abby could be headed back to the room right now. My sisters might be about to walk in on Mom having sex.
I fumble in my pockets and find my phone in one of them. My hands shake as I make the call. The phone rings and rings, then goes to voice mail. I don’t know what else to do, so I try again. And again.
On the fourth time Afton picks up. “What’s up?” She sounds normal, almost cheerful. She doesn’t live in this world yet, the world where Mom is a cheater and everything we’ve been suspecting is true: Mom and Pop aren’t in love anymore. They’re done.
“Are you finished with hula? Where are you?” I ask between pants.
“Just wandering around.”
“Don’t go back to the room,” I say.
Her voice sharpens. “What? Why?”
“Abby’s with you, right?”
“Are you okay, Ada? Your voice sounds funny.”
“I’m fine.” I clear my throat. “Where are you? Come meet me for lunch somewhere.”
“They’re serving lunch free in the Promenade,” she reminds me.
I shudder. I do not want to go to the convention center, not with all those people who knew Mom. And maybe by now she’s done . . . doing that . . . what she was doing . . . and she will head back there, too.
“No, that’s always sandwiches,” I say. “Abby hates sandwiches. You should bring her to the lagoon. There’s a restaurant where I’m at. It’s called”—I swivel around to see the sign—“the Lagoon Grill.” Another thought occurs to me. “Hey, do you have money?”
“Didn’t Mom give you some?” Afton asks.
“I spent it. I have like seven dollars.” But money is the least of my problems.
“Okay, sit tight,” Afton says. “We’ll be right there.”