At the luau I find out one key thing about myself: I’m a lightweight when it comes to booze.
I know this because I accidentally (or maybe not so accidentally) pick up my mom’s mai tai instead of my fruity nonalcoholic drink from the table, and chug it down. Thinking it will help me relax and get through this meal in one piece.
A mistake, it turns out.
I think the alcohol hits me so hard because I’m stressed out over what’s just transpired with Afton and worried about what will happen next. Or because I’ve been running around in the sun for half the day without drinking enough water, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Or because the mai tai is heavy on the rum, which lands right on my empty stomach.
Whatever the reason, less than ten minutes after I partake of the forbidden mai tai, my brain goes fuzzy, and the world starts to spin.
The worst thing is, Mom is seated next to Billy, who is next to his wife. I try not to stare at them, but I have to look that way to see the stage.
“Are we going to eat a pig?” Abby asks.
“I think so,” I answer, on account of the bunch of shiny-chested men wearing loincloths made of leaves who walk by carrying an entire roasted pig. The smell of pork hits me hot and heavy, and my stomach suddenly feels like it’s filled with rocks.
Mom leans close to Billy and says something in his ear.
He laughs.
She smiles, a white flash of her teeth.
I know something with absolute certainty then: I’m going to be sick.
I lurch out of my chair and toward the restroom. I make it to the entrance to the ladies’ room before I hunch forward and throw up violently into the trash can next to the door.
This has not been my best trip, vomit-wise.
Afterward I feel much better, almost normal, hungry, even, like I’m ready to eat some pig. When I return to the table, Mom has shifted our plates around, moved me over one so she can attend to cutting Abby’s meat, I think.
Which means I’m now sitting between Mom and Billy Wong. And talking to Billy is slightly (and only slightly) less nauseating than watching my mom talk to Billy.
He’s super chatty, too. He keeps asking all these questions about school and my art stuff and how I’m enjoying the trip so far.
“It’s been enlightening,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he says.
Somehow, I doubt that.
“I love all of these representations of East Asian art at this hotel,” he says. “I feel like I’m bumping into Buddha at every turn. Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask something.”
Speaking of Buddha? “Yeah?” I say.
“I’d like to hire you.”
“Hire me?” I’ve done some babysitting for Peter and Josie over the years, but not for a while.
“To do a piece for us,” he clarifies. “I’d like to have a big painting of our family for over our fireplace. I know you can fake it these days, use Photoshop to doctor a photo to look like a painting and print it on canvas and so on, but I want the real deal. An artist. I think an artist can see beyond the physical sometimes, capture the essence of a person better than a photograph ever could. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t do portraits,” I say briskly. This isn’t at all true. Portraits are the main thing I do. I’m drawing and painting people in my sketchbook all the time. I did like three of them today.
“You don’t?” He sounds surprised.
“I only do landscapes,” I lie. “Watercolor, mostly.”
I did do one landscape today. But I snuck in people at the end. Possibly Billy himself.
Billy is undeterred by my reluctance. “Maybe you can do a landscape for us, then. Of Hawaii, so we can remember our trip.”
“Maybe,” I say.
But it’ll be a cold day in hell before I paint something for Billy Wong. Especially something to commemorate this particular vacation.
“That’d be awesome.” Then he finally seems satisfied that he and I have “caught up” with each other, and he turns to talk to the other person sitting next to him, who happens to be Marjorie Pearson.
“Hello, dearie,” she says.
I finish my meal in seething silence. How dare he? I keep thinking. The sheer nerve he has, that he would ask me to do something for him.
When he’s endangering my entire world. Right now, Afton is back at the room going through what I went through, Monday night. Coming to understand that life as we’ve known it is over.
Billy’s poisoning my family.
Smiling. Always smiling. Acting like he’s such a nice guy.
My eyes fall on the small pile of salt and pepper packets I picked up when I went through the buffet line. I intended to sprinkle the salt over my pork and rice bowl.
But instead I grab a pepper packet.
I tear open a corner.
And dump the entire contents into Billy’s glass of iced tea.
For a second I just stare at it, the clumps of pepper whirling in the glass, sinking, disseminating through the tea like it’s meant to be there.
Then I stand up, shocked by what I’ve done and eager to get away from the scene of the crime. I cross to the dessert table and grab a tiny chilled plate. I pretend to be taking my time considering which flavor of haupia—those tiny gelatinous cubes that are everywhere in Hawaii—would be tastier: coconut or strawberry. I take a strawberry one. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Billy. He’s still turned to Marjorie, still talking, still smiling.
Any second now, I think.
I swivel so that my back is to him. I don’t even want to be looking in his direction when it happens.
I wait for him to start coughing.
Will it hurt him, I wonder? It will be a surprise, obviously, and there’s the possibility that he’ll gasp and inhale the pepper somehow, and that can’t be good for his lungs. But that can’t be too bad, considering that the cops use pepper spray on people all the time and it never seems to do permanent damage. It won’t really hurt him.
Will it?
I do a quick search on my phone. All I can find are sites listing the health benefits of pepper. Eating it, but also drinking it. Apparently it’s a thing to drink hot water with pepper in it.
So I am actually helping Billy to flush his body of toxins.
If he drinks it.
I dare a glance over my shoulder at the table again. Billy is still there.
Still talking.
But his glass is gone.
I look around, but I don’t see it. The only glasses on the table are my water, my mom’s empty glass with a lemon in the bottom, and Marjorie’s, which she is currently holding in her hand, waving it around as she talks. In front of Billy: nothing.
It’s like I hallucinated the entire thing.
It’s probably for the best. Some part of me still wants to make Billy suffer, even just a little bit, but it’s a juvenile part. What is wrong in my life will not be fixed by Billy drinking some pepper in his tea. I know that. But still—
“Those look delicious.” I startle at my mother’s voice from beside me. I turn and meet her questioning blue eyes. She was sitting on the other side of me all through dinner. She could have seen me do it and snatched up Billy’s glass the moment I left the table.
If she did see me do it, she will naturally be wondering now why I’m mad at Billy. And maybe she’ll suspect that I know.
“Uh, yeah,” I stammer. “Do you want mine? You can have it. I just figured out that I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Her hand touches my cheek. I flinch away.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m just . . . worried about Afton. Do you mind if I go back to the room and check on her?”
“Yes, go ahead,” Mom says. She smiles. “You’re a good sister, Ada. I appreciate all that you do. Your pop and I both do.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I mutter, and hurry to get away from her.