Everything feels different, Saturday morning. For real this time. Fingers crossed. It seems like birthdays sometimes do: you wake up, one year older, and ask yourself if you’re different now, or if you’re going to be different after today.
After tonight, I think, I won’t be a virgin.
Will nonvirgin me be more of an adult? Will people sense that and treat me like a grown-up? Will I think more mature thoughts? Will I finally understand the ways of the world?
I kind of doubt it. But at least I’ll get to check the event off my life’s to-do list, so I won’t have to worry about it anymore.
It’s just sex. Millions of people in the world are probably having sex right this minute. It can’t be that hard. I’d say that Nick and I are above average intelligence when it comes to most things. We’ll figure it out.
I check on the period situation. It seems like I’m done with that, just in the Nick of time.
“Abby’s going to spend the day with Josie,” I tune in to Mom saying. “There’s a kid day on the beach, and I said she could go with the Wongs. Jenny should be here to pick her up in just about—”
There’s a knock on the door: Jenny. Abby squeals and goes off arm in arm with Josie. Afton slips out as the door is closing, muttering something about shopping. She was in a foul mood all last night, tossing and turning and keeping me awake, too. This morning there are dark circles under her angry blue eyes. Maybe I should be concerned, but I am relieved to see her go.
“It looks like it’s just you and me today,” Mom says, after they’ve left.
“Don’t you have to be at the conference center soon?”
“I have the day off,” she says, rolling her neck from one side to the other. “I could use a break. You girls have been having all the fun without me this week.”
I bite my lip to hold back the words, Well, not all the fun, though, right?
“You should call Pop,” I say instead. That’s my new strategy: to remind Mom that she still has Pop to think about, that he loves her, that we are all counting on her to love him back.
She smiles obliviously. “I’m going to the morning yoga class in the wellness center in a few minutes. Come with me?”
I try to think of an excuse but come up empty. One-on-one time with my mother at this juncture is a terrifying idea, like walking around with a lit match into a room doused with gasoline. But if I go to yoga with her, at least we won’t have to talk.
“Okay,” I say.
Thirty minutes later we’re each sitting on a mat in a cool, sunlight-dappled room, celestial music rolling over us as we twist, flex, stretch, and roll.
“Breathe into your feet,” the instructor says.
“My feet don’t breathe,” I whisper to Mom.
“Don’t be a smartass,” she whispers back.
“My ass isn’t smart” is my reply.
She snorts. “Just relax, all right?”
“Fill yourself with silence,” the instructor says a bit sharply. “And reach.”
Here’s what I learn at yoga when I’m supposed to be finding my inner calm and lifting my heart and acknowledging and exhaling my pain: first, my mother is incredibly flexible.
I am not.
I could call that a metaphor, too.
Second, my mother is at peace with herself. She doesn’t act like a woman who’s betraying her husband, like she’s hiding anything, like she’s lying. She’s as relaxed as I’ve ever seen her. Like her conscience is completely clear, so much so that I feel doubt bubbling up again, that what I saw on Monday morning was real.
But it was real, I tell myself.
I know what I saw.
So Mom being so completely chill about it means that either she’s a magnificent actress (which I know she isn’t) or that the affair has been going on for a long, long time, so long that it feels normal to her. She doesn’t feel like she’s doing anything wrong.
“Are you okay?” she asks as we wander, loose-limbed and woozy, out of the yoga studio.
I really wish people would stop asking me that. Especially if they’re not really interested in finding out.
“I want you to know, I heard what you said to me before, about the child labor thing. I have been taking you for granted. I’ll stop doing that.”
“It’s fine. I like hanging out with Abby,” I say.
We reach the front desk of the wellness center. “Will you be paying with a card?” the woman there (who’s wearing a name tag that reads Malia) asks my mother.
“Can you charge it to the room?” Mom asks.
Malia nods and takes down our room number, and Mom signs to accept the charge.
Her signature, like most doctors, is an illegible, hurried squiggle. Pop calls it her “chicken scratchings.” I’ve seen Ruthie sign it for her a bunch of times, just the big loop of the A for Aster and another shape that could be a B for Bloom.
“Be sure to take a brochure and check out the services that are available from our spa.” Malia hands the brochure to my mom.
“Services?” I take the brochure out of Mom’s hand and scan down it.
“We offer massages, facials, waxing, threading, eyelash extensions, a full hair and nail salon, body scrubs, cleanses—you name it, we’ve got it. Plus if you pay for a service, you are allowed access to our exclusive relaxation area and hot tubs.”
“No, thank you,” Mom is saying to Malia, but then I blurt, “Yes, I’m interested.”
Mom turns to look at me, frowning quizzically.
“I’d like a . . . massage,” I say brightly.
If Mom knew me, really knew me the way a mother is supposed to know her child, she would be suspicious. I’ve had exactly one massage in my life, and vowed never to do it again. I was so weirded out by the feeling of a stranger touching me that I giggled through the entire thing and ended up weirding out the masseuse.
But Mom has never heard that story.
I have a good reason to lie to her, and no reason not to, right? If I tell her what I am really after—namely, hair removal and general beautifying—she’ll definitely find that suspicious. And if she finds out what I’m up to tonight, she’ll put a stop to it. She isn’t going to be good with it, like Nick’s dad. She isn’t one of those no-sex-before-you’re-married types of mothers, but she’s definitely a wait-until-college one. Not that we’ve ever talked about it outside of that single conversation about sex we had when I was a kid. Apparently she was cool about the topic of sex when Afton told her about her experience, but I doubt she’ll be similarly chill with me. In fact, Afton’s not-so-great sexual encounters might even make Mom more protective, now that it’s my turn.
“We have an opening for a hot stone massage in about ten minutes,” Malia says.
Mom is still frowning.
“Come on,” I plead. “We’re on vacation. Don’t I deserve some pampering?”
Mom’s lips purse the way they do when she’s weighing her options. “All right, if that’s what you want. I just envisioned us having a day together.”
“The entire day?” I say, aghast. I don’t know how I could stand to be with my mom for an entire day, knowing what I know.
“We could head back to the room and change into our swimsuits,” she says. “Then maybe you and I could go paddleboarding. Word is, you’ve been wanting to do that all week. I thought we could do it together.”
There’s nothing in her eyes, no accusations, no awareness, just a kind of hopefulness. She wants to hang out with me.
“When your stepdad and I got married, we came to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and we went paddleboarding this one morning,” she says, because she doesn’t know that I already know this story. “It was beautiful. Almost magical. This would be different, I know. It’s more a tailored experience here. But I’d like to share something like that with you.”
It feels good, being around her, hearing her say she appreciates me, that she’s listening, that she’s not going to take me for granted anymore. It’s what I’ve wanted for such a long time, for my mother to see me. To value me. To want to spend time with me.
But I can’t.
It’s too late, I think bitterly. No amount of her being interested in me now will ever make up for what she’s done. “I have plans today.” I look away before I can see the disappointment flare up in her expression. “By myself. Sorry. Yoga was fun, but now I have to go do my own thing. But I’ll see you at the awards ceremony tonight, okay?”
“Oh,” she says softly. “Ada—”
“You should call Pop today,” I add. “He misses you.”
“I will,” she says.
Malia, the lady at the counter, moves off to straighten some of the items that are for sale around the front desk: fluffy white robes and smelly lotions and jars of face masks. Because she can tell we’re about to be in the middle of a serious conversation.
“Good,” I say. “This thing where you’re missing family nights, and you’re not talking to each other as much, and he’s not here, it’s bullshit,” I gather up the guts to say. Her telling me that she’d call him makes me feel hope. That maybe it isn’t over.
Maybe I can fix this.
“It’s complicated,” Mom says stiffly.
“No.” I refuse to let her get away with that. “It’s not that complicated. Pop is the center of our world, you know. More than just Abby. Afton and me, too.”
“I know.”
“You said we’d always come first.”
She sucks in a breath. “I know.”
“So deal with it,” I say. “Soon. I’ll see you later.”
Mom looks like she’s ready to argue. But maybe she’s had enough of her daughters reaming her out for one day. She nods once, quickly, and then hurries toward the stairs, not because she has anywhere to be, but because Mom only has one speed: fast. Always the Whirlwind.
I take a few deep breaths. That was close. I almost cracked. I almost mentioned Billy.
When Mom’s out of sight, I turn quickly to Malia, ready to shift my focus to something else. Something that’s not so serious, but at the same time is pretty freaking serious. “Actually, can I switch the massage to waxing?”
“Of course. Which areas would you like to be waxed?”
“All of them. It’s kind of an emergency.”
She gives me a knowing smile. “No problem. I think we’ll be able to fit you in.”
I can sum up the next hour in one word: ouch.
The result, though, is very smooth legs, and underarms, and bikini line. I am even willing to brave waxing that spot that no man has ever gone before, but the torture expert—aka the wax specialist—asks me, “So you have big plans tonight?”
And I tell her. I tell a total stranger that in less than twelve hours, I am planning to have sex for the very first time.
“That is big plans,” she says, and I say, “I know, right?” and we laugh awkwardly and then she rips another swath of hair from my thigh.
“Do you think I should wax . . . all of it?” I ask. “I mean, I don’t want to look like a cavewoman down there, but I also don’t want to look like a little girl.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, actually,” says my torturer. “Waxing that area isn’t great to do right before—uh—intercourse. It can make the skin red and irritable and leave tiny microscopic tears, which could lead to an infection if you . . . you know.”
“Well, that would have been helpful to know about a half hour ago,” I say.
“It’s in the fine print.” She rips off another strip.
“Okay, so no crotch waxing, then,” I say, blinking away tears. I don’t want to risk an infection. “Just do the bikini line.”
My skin feels hot and tight all over, like a sunburn, as I hobble out of the waxing area. The same woman—Malia, I remember—is still at the front counter. She smiles when she sees me.
“I hear you have a big night planned,” she says.
Heat rushes to my face. Or maybe that was just from where I’ve had my upper lip waxed. “I think that classifies as a violation of my patient-waxer confidentiality,” I gasp, outraged.
“In Hawaii, we have a saying,” she says. “A’a i ka hula, waiho i ka maka’u i ka hale. It means, ‘dare to dance, leave shame at home.’”
“Okay. Thanks, I guess?”
“Just make sure he’s a good boy. Respectful, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, calling up the image of Nick at the coffee plantation, being so understanding, giving my little sister a granola bar, making us laugh. “I think he is.”
“Good.” Malia taps her pencil against her scheduling book. “What else?”
I glance up at her. “I don’t think I have much hair left on my body.”
“No, we could work on the rest, give you a makeover.” She thrusts the brochure at me again. She’s already circled a bunch of things in pink pen: a haircut and styling, deep-conditioning treatment, a pedicure, manicure, facial, and a makeup consultation.
I do some quick ballpark math and realize that all of the things she’s circled add up to more than three hundred dollars.
“We have another saying,” Malia adds. “Kahuna nui hale kealohalani makua. It means, ‘Love all you see, including yourself.’”
My jaw tightens. What the hell, I think. Malia is right. Tonight is going to be about sex, but it’s also going to be about doing something for myself.
“Okay,” I say breathlessly. “I’ll do all of it.”
“Wonderful,” Malia says, beaming, but then she, too, seems to realize how much it’s going to cost. “Are you sure you want to do all of it? Maybe just pick one or two? Otherwise it will be a lot—”
I’m two steps ahead of her this time. “I’ll charge it to the room,” I say.
She looks hesitant. It’s a normal thing for people my age to charge things to our parents’ rooms, but she must need some sort of permission.
“Trust me, my mom’s okay with it,” I lie smoothly. “The waxing is less than the massage anyway, right?”
Malia relaxes a bit. “Right. I’ll charge it to your room.”