“It’s your turn to take Abby for the day,” Mom announces when she comes in the next morning.
She’s addressing this to Afton.
Afton, who’s standing at the mirror putting on a pair of new dangly dolphin earrings when Mom makes this pronouncement, actually gasps in outrage. “But I took her on Monday!” she exclaims. (This being Thursday.) “Remember? Hula?”
“And Ada took her yesterday,” Mom says matter-of-factly. “So now it’s your turn.”
Afton looks stricken. “But I have . . . plans!”
I snort. Plans to get continue getting kissy with Michael, no doubt.
“Well, now you have plans with your little sister,” Mom says, spritzing perfume onto her wrists. “Michael will understand. He’s got a little sister, too.”
“Mom!”
“Deal with it.” Mom thrusts the hundred-dollar bill she usually bestows upon me into Afton’s hand, then goes out in her usual hurry.
Afton puts a hand on her hip and glares at me through the mirror. “What did you tell her about Michael?”
“Nothing.” It’s safe to say that I haven’t said more than a few words to Mom since Monday. But it’s possible that Mom spoke with Pop last night, and Pop knew about Michael, courtesy of Gabby Abby. The thought of Mom and Pop on the phone together, Mom acting all innocent as she relayed the details of our trip so far, makes my stomach clench. Everyone but me seems to be so adept at pretending away the truth.
“Can’t you—” Afton starts.
“I really can’t. I, too, have plans.” I finish rubbing myself down with sunscreen and put on my big mirrored sunglasses. “I’m sorry, but as Mom so wisely said, Michael will understand. How’s that going, anyway? You two looked pretty lovey-dovey last night.”
“Stay out of it,” Afton snarls.
“Happy to.”
From the adjoining room we both hear Abby stirring, first a yawn, and then, “I’m hungry.”
“But, Ada—” says Afton.
“Deal with it.” I grab my bag and go out the door.
Today it’s paddleboard or bust.
For all of five minutes it feels like it’s going to happen. But I’ve just reached the front of the line at the lagoon rental place, after waiting for more than an hour, so close to paddleboarding I can practically taste it, when I hear a familiar voice from behind me.
“Hello, dearie!” the voice says. “Hello!”
Oh no. I close my eyes and wish her away, far, far, away. Or at the very least I wish for her to be talking to someone other than me.
“Ada!” says the voice. “I’m talking to you, Ada Bloom. Hello?”
I open my eyes and turn to face her. “Hi, Marjorie.”
“Oh, good. I thought that was you.” She looks thrilled to see me. She’s dressed in a neon-purple swimsuit, and on top of that she’s wearing a blue-and-white flowered blouse, open in the front, blue Bermuda shorts, a pair of red flip-flops, a giant straw hat over her mass of white hair, and huge white sunglasses.
She beams at me. “So I see you’re going kayaking.”
“Well, actually, I want to go pa—”
“I want to go kayaking. In one of those nice blue kayaks they have, not a green one,” she says. “That’d be nice.”
She reminds me of Abby, in a wrinkled-up way. Just announcing what she wants for everyone to hear, and then waiting for people to help her accomplish those things.
“I was wondering, would you like to kayak with me? It would be a great help. I’m still sharp, but I’m not as strong as I used to be. You look strong. I’ve always thought so—that Ada Bloom looks strong.”
I stare at her in dismay. “Uh, well, you see—”
“You’ll help an old lady, won’t you?”
I have to hand it to her. That “old lady” knows how to outmaneuver a sixteen-year-old girl.
So that’s how I end up paddling an eighty-something legendary former heart surgeon all over the lagoon for the next two and a half hours.
“I’m sorry that your stepfather didn’t come this year,” she says as I paddle us to one end of the lagoon. “I quite like him. He’s a peach.”
“I think so, too.”
“Your little sister’s a doll,” she says. “And that Afton’s a go-getter, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” I agree, to both things.
“I almost feel sorry for the Wong boy,” Marjorie says. “She just swept him off his feet like he didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Does everyone at the conference know about Michael and Afton?”
Marjorie purses her lips. “Everybody knows who’s got eyes to see with, or ears to hear about it. It’s a small world, with the STS, and people do like a little scandal now and then.”
“Is it scandalous?”
“Perhaps scandal is the wrong choice of words. But you have to remember that we’ve been seeing you since you were little babies. Some of us aren’t ready for you to be all grown up. Afton’s a chip off your mother’s block, if you ask me,” Marjorie continues. “But you . . .” She taps a finger to her chin. “You I haven’t quite been able to figure out. You keep your cards close to the chest, don’t you?”
I’m starting to think Marjorie had me paddle her out into the middle of the lagoon so I couldn’t escape her questions. But I’m not sure this is actually a question. “Cards?” I say.
She laughs. “From what I gather, you’re the peacekeeper of the family. Is that right?”
I swallow. “Most of the time.”
She chortles. “Classic middle child. But that can’t be easy,” she says. “With a mother like yours.”
I stare into the water, wondering what would happen if I just dove in and swam away. Surely somebody would come by and rescue Marjorie eventually. “My mother’s amazing,” I feel obligated to say.
Marjorie nods. “Yes, she is. She’s an amazing surgeon, that’s for sure. But they call her the Whirlwind for a reason. She reminds me of myself, at that age,” she muses. “I was a bit of a flurry once, too. Driven. Centered around my work. So much to prove. But you can’t keep that up for too long before your real life starts to demand your attention. Something’s got to give, eventually.”
Or something already has. I swallow.
She reaches forward to pat my shoulder. “The trick will be for you not to smooth things over for her. You’ve got to let her face her own failings. Which means you’ve got to let her fail.”
I try to decide how much she knows. Not about the affair, I think. Marjorie is only talking about Mom working too hard. “Okay,” I say softly.
She gives a short laugh, like a bark. “Listen to me, blabbering on about something that’s none of my business. Forgive me. I’m becoming a busybody in my old age. Because I am not, otherwise, busy.”
“You’re a hero,” I say.
“Oh, go on.”
“No, really.”
“Well, yes,” she says with a sparkle in her eyes. “I know. But most of the time these days I’m also tragically bored.”
She shifts to talking about the weather, and how young people are using their phones too much, which seems to me to be the only wisdom adults want to impart to us lately, and ends up telling me a story about trying to find a phone booth in the pouring rain while a man on her bus had a heart attack.
“Thank you so much, dearie,” Marjorie says finally as I help her out of the kayak after our time is up. By now it’s past noon and it’s 90 degrees out, pretty hot for Hawaii, and there’s a huge line for the paddleboards.
But I am determined. Give me a paddleboard, I think as I wipe sweat from the back of my neck, or give me death.
“How long’s the wait?” I ask the lady at the front as we return the kayak.
“About two and a half hours, I’d say.”
Fuck! I think, but happily I don’t say it out loud. I can’t tell if Marjorie would be amused or offended by my potty mouth.
“You don’t want to go right back out there, do you?” Marjorie says, tsking. “Why don’t you take a rest and have lunch with me? My treat.”
She’s giving me the there’s-no-way-I’m-letting-you-say-no look again.
I know better than to flat-out refuse. “Um, sure,” I say slowly, fumbling for my phone. “But first I have to check in with my mom.”
Do I intend to call my mother right now? Absolutely not.
I can’t call Afton, either. Boo. And Pop is sleeping.
So there’s only one other person on this entire island that I’m friendly enough with to ask for a favor.
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, I text to Nick. I NEED YOUR HELP.
What’s up? he texts back immediately.
I need you to call me and pretend to be my mother.
. . .
He’s in that status for a while, like he’s in the process of responding, but no response actually appears. Meanwhile, Marjorie is leading me over to the restaurant nearby (the one where, just a few days ago, I had lunch with Afton and Abby after walking in on Mom) and reading the menu.
“Ooh,” she says. “A Hawaiian bacon BBQ burger.”
My stomach lurches. “That sounds . . . delicious.”
My phone rings. Thank god. It’s Nick, of course.
“That’s my mom—I have to pick up or she’ll worry. Excuse me.” I walk a few steps away, but not too far, because I still want Marjorie to be able to hear me.
Took you long enough, I want to say when I pick up. “Hey, Mom,” I say instead. “You’ll never believe who I bumped into at the lagoon: Marjorie Pearson.”
“I don’t actually have to act like your mom, do I?” Nick whispers. “I’m not on speaker? Nobody can hear me but you, right?”
“That’s right!” I say brightly. “I bumped into Marjorie in the line. We’ve been kayaking together all over the lagoon.”
“Ah, crap,” Nick says.
“I know! Isn’t that nice?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I like Marjorie, but that kind of sucks. Why did you want me to—”
“Now she’s so generously offered to buy me lunch.”
“Oh,” Nick says.
“Oh,” I echo. “Oh, okay.” I pretend to listen for a minute and then press the phone to my chest to talk to Marjorie. “I’m so sorry, Marjorie, but my mom wants me to meet her for lunch.” I put the phone to my ear again. “Are you sure, Mom?”
“I’m sure, sweetie,” Nick says in a high-pitched voice. “But seriously, maybe you should just have lunch with Marjorie, don’t you think? I mean, what could it hurt?”
It could hurt my chances of ever getting to paddleboard, is what it could hurt. I like Marjorie, too, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the entire day with her. Especially because I am supposed to be relaxing by myself today. And I certainly don’t want to endure another one of those burgers or another hour of her insights on my family.
“She’s sure,” I say to Marjorie.
“Oh, all right, dearie,” Marjorie sighs. “Some other time. Although honestly, I’m not sure how much time I’ve got.”
She’s messing with me, I’m almost sure of it. Her eyes are dancing again with mischief. She probably knows I’m not talking to my mother.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you in minute,” I say into my phone as the hostess leads Marjorie away to a table.
“Really? Are you coming over?” Nick asks hopefully.
“No,” I say. “Not until Saturday. But thanks. You just did me a solid.”
“You’re welcome,” he says.
There’s a pause. “I can’t find any condoms,” he admits then, glumly.
“I guess that’s it, then,” I say. “No tea for us.”
Maybe him not finding condoms is a sign.
“But I still want tea, if you still want tea. Do you still want tea?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Then I’ll get the condoms. Somewhere. Somehow,” he promises.
“They’ve got to have them in the hotel shops. This is a hotel. People get busy in hotels. They’re going to need condoms.”
“I looked all over the resort,” he says. “There’s nothing on the shelves.”
“Did you ask the cashier?”
Silence.
“You didn’t ask the cashier,” I say accusingly.
He grunts like I’ve just asked him to do something painful. “Maybe if I got the right cashier? It’s hard to go right up and ask. There’s got to be a pharmacy around here somewhere. Or a gas station.”
I stop walking. “No gas station condoms.”
“I’m sure gas station condoms are just as effective as—”
“No gas station condoms,” I repeat firmly. “This is not a joke, Nick.”
“Yes. We’re very serious. I remember.”
“Let me know,” I say. “Seriously. Soon.”
“Okay,” he says, and I hang up.
The line to the paddleboard rental is even longer than it was a few minutes ago.
I sigh and head toward the back of the line.
But before I reach it, I spot Afton and Abby waiting in the middle of the line, both red-cheeked and sweating in the heat. Afton is, predictably, on her phone.
“I don’t know,” she’s saying as I approach from behind them. “We’re going to be here for a while, and then maybe go make those flower necklace things. Probably not until late tonight. I’ll text you.”
“Hey,” I say loudly, startling both my sisters. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re going paddleboarding!” Abby cries. “It’s going to be so much fun!”
“Oh, now you want to go paddleboarding.” Unbelievable. But maybe I can work this to my advantage. “Can I . . .” I lower my voice. “Cut in with you?”
Abby gasps. “You want to cut in the line?”
Now everybody in the line is glaring at me.
“No, no,” I explain. “We’re sisters. You were saving my place.” My gaze meets Afton’s. “Because that’s what sisters do.”
She stares at me a moment, considering. “No,” she says flatly. “You can’t cut with us. But if you want to swap, that’d be okay.”
“Swap?”
“You take Abby. You get to go paddleboarding. I get to go see Michael. We both get what we want. It’s a win-win.”
Yeah, maybe, but it also sounds like a lose-lose.
“No.” I reject her offer without even giving it too much thought. Pop would call this cutting off my nose to spite my face.
But this is my day. Mom assigned Afton to be the babysitter today, because Mom’s finally recognizing—too little, too late, perhaps—that I deserve some time for myself.
“Have a good time, you two,” I say to my sisters. Then I walk off. Back to the only place I can think to go.
Back to the room.
I don’t want to go back there, of course, the scene of my mother’s crime, but it’s too hot to go anywhere else. I don’t have my usual hundred dollars, so I can’t go shopping, or out to eat on my own somewhere, or to the spa. So the room seems like the reasonable choice.
On the way, I stop at one of the gift shops to peruse the toiletries section. Nick was right.
No condoms.
Using my peripheral vision, I glance at the cashier. He is currently, like everyone else, engrossed in his phone. He’s also, like everybody who works at this hotel, tan and tall and fairly attractive.
I try to imagine myself going up to the counter and asking this man if they sell condoms.
I picture the look on his face when I ask.
And what if they’re expensive? As we’ve already established, I don’t have much money.
“Can I help you?” the cashier asks.
“No, I’m good.”
He nods and smiles politely and goes back to his phone, but I get the sense that he’s also watching me now, out of his peripheral vision. He must think I’m going to try to shoplift or something.
I abandon the condom quest and go back to the room.
It gives me a bad, shivery feeling, entering the empty room. But it isn’t dark this time. The curtains are pulled wide open, revealing the swaying palms behind them. The room is neat and freshly serviced, bed made, carpet vacuumed, clean towels on the rack, and a mint on our pillows.
I plop down in the center of my bed and turn on the television. I scroll through the channels, but there’s nothing good on, until, as fate would have it, I land on an episode of some sexy Scottish show I’ve heard about before but never watched until now.
I watch for a while. It’s not the first episode, but I think I get the basic idea of where the story’s going.
It’s not long before the sexy Scottish shows gets, well, sexy. And then it gets downright graphic.
After that I turn the TV off. Even here, in the air-conditioned hotel room, I feel suddenly hot. The sex scene has left me worked up—okay, I’ll admit that, but it’s also left me with some questions, and they’re not about condoms or herpes or what kind of underwear I should wear.
I find my sketchbook and open it to the page that says THE SEX PLAN. On the opposing page I jot down a few thoughts I feel that I should probably sort out before Saturday night.
Thoughts I have.
About sex.
To start with, orgasms. The woman in that show made a lot of noise during sex, and she had an orgasm after like sixty seconds. I’m not supposed to have an orgasm in sixty seconds, am I? The show’s just compressing things for the sake of time, right?
It isn’t real life. Is it?
How long does it typically take to have an orgasm?
Is that even something I should expect?
I know about the mechanics of it all. Mom told me about the birds and the bees when I was kid. I had health class. Afton talked about it some, after it happened with her. There was even a point a few months ago when, after I made out all evening with Leo, I came home and lay down on my bed with a mirror and looked—down there—to attempt to figure out what was what and why and how could it possibly work?
I’ve masturbated a few times, but I’ve never been adept at it. It seems like a lot of work.
It’s almost disturbing, how much I don’t know about myself. It’s frustrating to think that right now, as I’m sitting here freewriting about my sex anxiety, Nick is probably in his room playing his video game, his mind completely unworried about all of this. He can just show up and do it. Bam.
I sigh and close the sketchbook.
Boys have it so much easier.