Chapter Five

five

Blacking out feels sort of like one giant, full-body blink; like somewhere between your seventh and eighth drink, God pressed the skip forward button on your life. It’s sudden and surprising, a slur of a vodka-soaked memory that barely clings to the edges of your brain. One moment you’re enjoying a perfectly messy evening, sneaking into your place of employment with a girl you’ve known for either three hours or five years, depending on who’s counting. Next thing you know, you’re stumbling home together, laughing and pouring shots from your parents’ liquor cabinet, and then…well, then you’re waking up on an air mattress in your living room, just like you’d originally planned, only not next to the person you expected.

I open just one eye at a time, hoping it’ll make things half as bad. If the hangover wasn’t punishment enough, the living room floor is a minefield of Oreo shards and half-eaten bags of pita chips, and it looks like we pulled all the cushions off Mom’s white leather couch, presumably for some kind of pillow fort that didn’t seem to have come together. The knocked-over bottle of Tito’s scares me fully awake, but a quick survey of the area suggests it was already empty before it tipped over. Thank God. I have until Sunday to replace it and get this place back to Mom’s standards.

I shift onto my right side, careful not to disrupt the blankets too much. Beside me, Ellie’s body rises and falls with slow, even breaths. Just looking at her makes my chest wind tight. She’s curled up remarkably small, a tiny, sleeping angel still in last night’s clothes. I pull back a blanket just enough to check my own status—still fully dressed in last night’s jeans and T-shirt. Given the empty bottle of vodka, that’s probably for the best. The few clues I have—the bottles, the snacks, the faintest memory of a pillow fort—suggest that Ellie and I ended our night on a high note, albeit a fully clothed one.

A low vibrating noise hums from across the room, and I startle, then check to make sure it didn’t wake Ellie up. It didn’t, thank God. I haven’t figured out what to say to her yet. I trace the humming sound to the coffee table, where my phone somehow ended its night safe and sound on a charger. After several attempts to stand up off the air mattress without disrupting Ellie’s sleep, I opt to logroll off and onto the floor, then scramble to my feet, tiptoe across the room, and turn my phone over. A bright glowing image of my mom flashes on the screen, then dips to a notification for a missed call. Shit.

I yank out the charger and make it halfway up the stairs before Mom calls a second time, and although I pick up right away, I don’t say a word until I’m safe in my bedroom and way out of Ellie’s earshot. “Hello?”

“Morning! Did I wake you?” Mom’s voice buzzes with caffeine and sunshine, two things I haven’t seen yet today.

“Sure did,” I manage through a yawn. I’m not as hungover as I deserve to be, but the unmistakable cement-like feeling pouring from my forehead to my sternum hardly has me in “talking to my parents” shape.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Go back to bed, we’ll call you later.”

“No, it’s fine,” I lie, tugging open my junk drawer in search of eye drops. Blackout Murphy may have been responsible enough to charge her phone, but not quite enough to take out her contacts.

“Well happy Thanksgiving,” Mom chirps, reminding me that I’m not just hungover, I’m hungover on a holiday. “We’re so thankful for you, sweetie.”

“And we’re thankful that this place has a swim-up bar!” Dad shouts in the background. Classic.

“Are you guys at the pool already?”

“What do you mean already?” I can hear the frown in Mom’s voice. “We’re an hour ahead! It’s nearly noon!”

I pull my phone away from my face to verify. Jesus, ten thirty already? I could’ve sworn it was the crack of dawn.

“Well, it sounds like you’re having fun. I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, sweetie,” Mom says. “How’s Kat?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. How is Kat? I haven’t heard from her since her grand exit last night. “She’s good. Her boyfriend’s nice.” I tug the junk drawer out a bit more and get back to rummaging.

“Oh, I didn’t know he was joining you!” Mom says, and her excitement on the subject feels borderline insulting. “Is Kat still loving U of I?”

“Yup.” I grit my teeth. “She’s obsessed with it.”

Mom is quiet for a moment, leaving me enough time to scrounge up some eye drops and pry out my crusty, dried-out contacts. “Did it get you excited about next semester?” she finally asks. I don’t speak fluent Parentese, but I believe that roughly translates to “are you moving out of my house soon?”

I push a long breath out through my nose as I flick my contacts into the trash like boogers. “Still working on the transfer app, Mom. I’ll be all set so long as Professor Meyers doesn’t flunk me again.” The only people who want to see me off to U of I as much if not more than I do are Mom and Dad.

“Well, let’s not blame this on Professor Meyers when you’re the one taking the tests.” She’s using that playful, pretending not to be bothered tone, a Susan Konowitz classic. I guess she’s sick of telling the other agents at her brokerage that her daughter “isn’t quite ready for U of I.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, responsibility for my actions,” I rattle off. “Listen, I should go…”

“Hang on,” Mom stops me. “At least tell me about your plans for the day. When are you headed over to the Flemings?”

My stomach churns, and for a second I think I may need to hit my knees and snuggle up to my trash can. Throwing up would be a great excuse not to discuss the only subject more depressing than my accounting grade. “I don’t know,” I say, breathing through the nausea. “I’m not sure if I’m going.”

The silence on the other end of the line feels heavy with disapproval. “What do you mean you’re not going?” Mom finally asks. “Wasn’t that the whole reason you didn’t come to Florida?”

“I said I’m not sure,” I correct her. “It’s a whole thing. I’ll tell you more about it when you get back, but I’m definitely not skipping Florida Thanksgiving again.” I sandwich my phone between my face and my ear, grabbing a bottle of Tums from the back of my junk drawer. Expired. Damn.

“All right, well, we’ll be home Sunday afternoon,” Mom reminds me. “I have a few showings on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I’ll send you a few nights that might work for family dinner this week.” That’s the Mom I know, on vacation and still coordinating both her real estate and family life.

“We’ll figure it out, Mom. Just enjoy your trip.”

“Right, right,” Mom grumbles, sounding like she needed the reminder. “We’ll let you go, but we just wanted to call and say that we love you.”

“And don’t drink all my beer!” Dad calls out.

My stomach goes full spin-cycle mode, and in desperation, I shake out two expired Tums into my palm. “I don’t think you need to worry about me drinking anything anytime soon.”

“All right, well. Love you!”

“Love you back, bye.”

I end the call, pop the Tums, and give myself a moment to recalibrate before opening my texts. No word from Kat—not even a text to let me know she made it home. I flop down on the bed and start crafting a message that functions both as an apology and a reminder that she’s not off the hook for being a dickhead last night.

“Admiring our pictures from the bar?”

I fumble my phone, pressing a hand to my heart to keep it from jumping out of my chest. “Jesus Christ, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” Ellie leans against my door frame, using her ring fingers to scrape the crust from the corners of her eyes. “Is this your room?”

My cheeks go hot as I start to stammer. “Oh, um. I, uh.” I’m not usually so self-conscious about living in my childhood bedroom, but I’m also not usually giving tours to girls who make wiping away eye boogers look cute. If I weren’t so hungover, I’d make up an excuse for all the teenage decor, but my head feels like it’s been dragged behind a semi from here to Chicago, so all that comes out is “Yup.”

Ellie nods and takes one cautious step inside, then another, then a third. It’s almost like she’s waiting for me to stop her; when I don’t, she starts to walk the room’s perimeter, and my heart rate climbs with every book or softball trophy she picks up for closer inspection. “Have you always lived in this house?” she asks.

“My whole life.”

“And how long did this take you?” She gestures to the giant collage of posters, pictures, and ticket stubs on the far wall, years of memories layered so thick, you can’t even tell what color the paint behind them is.

“The Wall of Fame? I think I started it sometime in elementary school.”

Ellie hums in thought, studying the wall like it’s a two-page spread in a Where’s Waldo? book, and my chest constricts a little around my breath. I don’t even remember what all’s up there. Nothing I would want to hide, obviously, or I wouldn’t have taped it to my wall, but the longer she stares, the more it feels like she’s sorting through the intimate details of my personal history. I toss my phone on the bed and stand up to join her, trying to follow her gaze over the chaos in case there’s anything incriminating that warrants an explanation.

“I was in that.” Ellie points to a light-blue piece of paper: the program from our high school’s production of Grease . “Just in the ensemble. The only show I ever did.”

“Yeah? Kat played in the pit orchestra.”

“What about this one?” Ellie points to a photo of Kat and me, blue lipped and baby faced in matching Cubs hats.

“Kat’s first Cubs game. It was her eighth grade graduation present from my parents. We housed, like, four snow cones each.”

“Huh,” Ellie says with a nod, but I don’t miss the tiny pinch of her eyebrows that has me concerned that I’ve accidentally built a wall-size shrine to my best friend. It’s not my fault that most of my favorite memories include Kat, but it does mean she takes up about a third of the wall. The early stages of my panic spiral are interrupted by Ellie’s snort-laugh. “Is this you?”

I follow her finger to an even older photo of me and my family on one of our first Florida trips. Mom hadn’t committed to growing out her bangs yet, and Dad’s wire-framed glasses are half the size of his face. Between them, I’m a third grader with one front tooth missing, grinning behind purple heart-shaped sunglasses.

“That’s me. That might’ve been our first Thanksgiving in Florida.”

“Is that where your parents are now?” she asks.

“Yup.”

“And you’re not there because of…”

That’s a fill-in-the-blank question with multiple correct answers. “Kat, finals, and the Sip reopening,” I list off. “In no particular order.”

“Gotcha.” Ellie steps away from the Wall of Fame, seemingly remembering her hangover. She scrunches her face tight, groans, then relaxes it again. “God, I feel rough.”

“I can offer you Tums, but they’re expired.”

“That’s okay,” she says. “We have some at home.” She pulls her phone out, checking the time. “I should probably get going anyway.”

“I can drive you,” I volunteer. “If I can find my keys.”

“If they’re the ones with the, uh…” she taps her thumb against the rest of her fingers as she searches for a word. “The key chain thing? The pink one?”

“Oh, the bottle opener that says ‘dyke’ on it?” I laugh.

The corner of Ellie’s mouth hooks into a smile. “Yeah. They’re on the counter downstairs.”

I follow Ellie out of my bedroom, but not before catching my reflection in the mirror and immediately wishing I hadn’t. Last night’s minimal eye makeup has melted into two not so minimal smudges, and my hair has committed to falling in every direction at once. Not exactly the look for impressing a cute girl who just spent the night. I’d love to at least brush my teeth, but I don’t want to make Ellie wait, so I grab a swig of mouthwash and call it good enough. If we’re gross, at least we’re gross together.

Downstairs, Ellie points out my keys on the counter before hunting down her coat, which was ditched somewhere among the living room snack pile. She’s done a little cleanup since I’ve been down here—the couch cushions are back in their place, and the air mattress is almost fully deflated. “Do you want help cleaning the rest of this up?” Her lip twitches toward some pita chip crumbs crushed into the carpet.

“I’ve got it,” I say. “It’ll give me something to do today.”

She pins her twitchy lip with her teeth. “You’re not going to Kat’s?”

I toss my keys from one hand to the other, then back again, letting the “dyke” key chain knock against my wrist a little harder with every throw. “Oh, uh, yeah. I’ve gotta figure that out.”

In lieu of repeating this painful conversation for a second time this morning, I launch into some diatribe about Mom’s obsession with keeping a clean house. Ellie nods along while I shove my arms into my coat, yammering without even knowing what I’m saying. My brain is too dedicated to creating a pros and cons list for going to the Flemings this afternoon. Pro: I get to see Kat. Con: It’s all about Daniel. Pro: I’m not alone on Thanksgiving. Con: I’m playing third wheel to the happy couple.

Ellie graciously cuts me off midsentence. Only then do I realize how heated I was getting about carpet cleaner. “Ready?”

“Yup.” I zip my coat to my chin. “Let’s hit it.”

It’s a quick drive, and we’re quiet for most of it, leaving me plenty of headspace to work on my pros and cons list. Pro: Kat’s Thanksgiving will have stuffing made out of challah bread. Con: Kat’s Thanksgiving will have Daniel. Pro: I’d love to see Mr. and Mrs. Fleming. Con: Mr. and Mrs. Fleming are going to be way more interested in getting to know their daughter’s boyfriend.

“Right here.” Ellie points toward a dusty-blue Subaru turning down an approaching side street. “That’s my parents’ car. Just follow them.”

As advised, I pull up behind the Subaru into the last driveway on the block. I can practically hear my mother going full realtor mode in my head. A two-story colonial! Great curb appeal! Just steps from Colfax Elementary! I imagine her playing up the big yard to Ellie’s parents. Who knows, maybe she did. There are only so many realtors in this town. There’s a nonzero chance Mom sold them the house.

“Thanks for the ride,” Ellie says, pulling me out of my head yet again and back into reality, where I’m missing my chance.

“Yeah, um, hey.” I labor through a dry-mouth swallow while Ellie’s chipped blue fingernails linger on the door handle. Planning how to ask out the girl in my passenger seat would’ve been a better use of time than my stupid pros and cons list.

“What’s up?”

My throat constricts. It’s not like I haven’t asked a girl out before, but the beads of sweat between my palms and the steering wheel are an unwelcome reminder that I’m very out of practice. “Last night was fun,” I start, “and I was wondering if you’re around the rest of the weekend? I’d love to, uh…maybe I could buy you dinner after the Sip opening? I’m sure I’m gonna clean up on tips.”

Ellie’s face doesn’t change much, but there’s something sad hovering in her eyes, and I pray to God it’s not pity. “Last night was perfect.” She says it like she means it. “I’m so glad we reconnected, and I wish I would’ve known you sooner. But—”

“Skip the but.” I flick my wrist and fumble her gaze. I should’ve known this was too good to be true.

Ellie exhales through her nose, and her eyes close for a moment. When she opens them again, they’re cloudy and sad. “With the whole moving to New York thing, and the just getting out of a relationship thing, I’m really not looking for anything serious. And I don’t really do casual hookups, so…I’m not really looking for anything. At all.”

My chest deflates in what has to be my body’s attempt to make itself as small as I feel. Right. Of course. The details of last night’s conversations fade back into view: the breakup and grad school and moving to New York. I’d remembered the flirting but forgotten the facts, and I think my brain might’ve done that on purpose. “For sure,” I say. “Well. Can’t say I didn’t try.” I can’t hold her gaze, so mine bounces from her smile to the passenger side of the Subaru parked ahead of us. A short man in an enormous coat is struggling out of the car with an oversize bag of charcoal.

“I hope we can be friends, though,” Ellie says, then follows my eyes to the man who must be her father. “Oh, Jesus. I forgot Dad is smoking the turkey this year. God help him.”

But God doesn’t help him, and neither do we. Instead, we lean our heads back on our headrests, marinating in the double discomfort of my rejection and her father’s attempt to close the car door without dropping the charcoal. We’re a silent, captive audience, breathing a few tandem laughs as her dad booty-bumps the car door closed. It must not close all the way, though, because he has to reopen it and try again.

“I think I’d like your dad,” I say, and Ellie’s laugh dissolves some of the tension.

“You probably would,” she agrees. “I’m less sure about my mom though.” She smiles at me, then looks past me, tipping her chin up. “Speak of the devil, I think she wants to say hi.”

There’s a triple tap on my window, and I try out a laugh, too, just to see if it clears up the rest of the awkwardness. That same laugh catches in the back of my throat, though, the instant I lock eyes with Ellie’s mom. Outside my car, a familiar set of horn-rimmed glasses sits above a wide, toothy smile, a better reaction than any of my accounting grades have ever earned me.

“So,” Professor Meyers says. “You must be Ellie’s girlfriend.”