Chapter 32
32
NOW
“SO.” MOM CLAPPED. “WHAT’S FIRST on the agenda?”
“First on the agenda is everyone over sixty goes to bed,” said Karma.
“Oh, come on.” Mom pouted. “I gave birth to Taron. Don’t you think I deserve to be at his fiancée’s bachelorette party?”
“Did you hear what you just said?”
“I, for one, have less than zero interest in watching my son get shit-faced,” said Speedy. “Especially when the only thing I can drink is Cherry Coke. Gentlemen, goodnight.”
“Ah, ah, ah!” said Clarence, grabbing the handlebars of Speedy’s wheelchair and turning him around. “We need full attendance from the male population tonight.”
Speedy sighed lengthily.
“Don’t listen to Karma, Mom,” I said. “You can stay if you want.”
She perked up. “Really?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s not like we’re going to a strip club.”
“Well, we are.” Clarence led the men to the back door. Under his arm was a lopsided trash bag filled with God only knows what. “Don’t plan on using the back porch tonight, ladies.”
Manuel winked at me on his way out. Then the door swung shut, and I found myself standing before five women, all of whom were staring at me, waiting for a good time.
I cleared my throat. “Welcome, everyone,” I said, hating myself immediately for doing so. Why was I speaking like a flight attendant? “To Helene’s bachelorette party.”
“Riveting,” said Karma.
Shelly shushed her.
“Obviously, I’ve…never thrown a bachelorette party before, and since we can’t do any of the typical activities, I came up with a schedule.” I pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper from my back pocket. On it was a list of activities I’d stolen from Google. From articles titled “Throw the Best Bachelorette Party Ever” or “7 Activities Guaranteed to Wow the Whole Bridal Party!”
I cleared my throat and read them aloud. “First, we’ll do a blind wine tasting. Then, we’ll do a few rounds of Never Have I Ever. Then…”
“Nope.” Karma stood up. “Boose, I love you, but where did you get these ideas? Martha Stewart online?”
“No,” I lied.
“All right. Well. Not happening. I’m sorry. Helene”—she turned to the bride—“don’t worry. We’ll show you a good time.”
—
ROCKS AND STRAY ROOTS CAUGHT my feet as I hurried to follow Karma through the forest.
“Okay. Here’s the plan.” She spoke over her shoulder to the rest of us. “The boys are dicking around down on the rocks. My idea is this: First, we pretend that we’re going off into the forest. Second, we get rip-roaring drunk. Third”—she halted and dropped her backpack onto the forest floor—“we take these bottles of whipped cream”—she opened the bag’s mouth to reveal five aerosol cans and a handle of tequila—“and spray the shit out of the men. Any questions?”
“Just one,” said Mom, raising her hand. “Who’s in charge of cleanup afterward?”
“As I said before: all women over the age of sixty are welcome to make their exit at any time.”
Mom put her hand down and didn’t ask anything else.
Karma lifted out the tequila and popped off its lid.
Helene reached for the handle of tequila. “I get dibs on Taz,” she said.
Karma grinned. “Obviously.”
—
I WAS DRUNK. PROPERLY DRUNK. My drunk brain rambled through memories as we ran toward the rocks, as it so often did when drunk.
Did I say drunk four times?
Drunk.
Other than the Fort, the rocks were Henry’s favorite place on the island. As kids, we put on plays there for our family, improvised tales of two secret agents or two mountain trolls or two Wheat Sprites battling evil, all lit by the setting sun.
As a teenager, the rocks became a hiding place. Somewhere Manuel and I could secret beers and bottles of rum and talk about the important things in life.
“Ideal woman,” I said on one such night. It was the summer before our freshman year of high school. “Go.”
“Easy,” he said. “Small and sturdy. Nice ass. Ideally Latina.”
“Nice,” I said. “Glad to know you really value a woman’s intellect.”
“Hey, hey, hey. I’m being selfless here.”
“Are you?”
“Absolutely. I’ve got more than enough brains for two people. No need to overload.”
I shoved him. “King of chivalry over here. You must have slayed the puss back in Colombia. No wonder you were so pissed about leaving.”
He didn’t laugh when I said that.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“No, seriously. What did I say?”
He sighed. “It’s just…I had a life before you, Eliot. I think you forget that sometimes.”
“Oh.” I pressed the bottle cap into my leg. “No. Of course I don’t forget that.”
Of course I did. Of course I felt that Manuel had always lived in Chicago, had always split bags of Cool Ranch Doritos with me while we watched Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns on Saturday night, had always texted me right before he passed my house during cross-country runs just so he could wave hello.
“I lived in Colombia for ten years, Beck. That’s longer than my life in America. I had friends and relatives and track and school. My classmates loved me. I didn’t get it, back then. My parents’ decision. When they said they were taking me to a ‘better life’ in America…you have to understand—I already had the best life. A million friends. Promising grades. The world ahead of me. Maybe it’s shallow to say, but if I had stayed, I would probably have been the most popular boy at secundario . To me, it felt like…what the hell could America offer that Colombia couldn’t?”
He picked at the label of his Labatt Blue.
“I didn’t understand, back then, the strategy behind their decision. I didn’t understand economics or education or politics. I couldn’t see my country’s limitations. Didn’t know that there was a ceiling to how far certain systems could go toward supporting a promising young man. Ceilings that didn’t exist in America. Or, at least…weren’t quite so low.”
I didn’t say anything. How could I? We were sitting on my family’s private island . What did I know of ceilings?
Manuel paused. After a few moments, the silence stretched long enough for me to know that it was over. Closed. His brief moment of vulnerability. If I tried to push any further, he would shut down.
“So…” I cleared my throat. “My main takeaway from this is, no white chicks?”
He burst out laughing. Nudged me with his elbow. “Why? You interested?”
I remember whacking his shoulder hard at that one. “ Cállate ,” I said. (Shut up.)
“Kidding, kidding. No. The Latina preference—it’s not about that. That’s what my mom wants for me, you know? That’s what she always tells me. ‘White women won’t understand,’ she says. ‘No matter how hard they try. They won’t get it.’?”
“Won’t get what?”
He winked. “Exactly.”
—
AS WE NEARED THE ROCKS, the tinny boom box music we heard through the trees solidified, taking shape as the Rolling Stones. A track Speedy used to play for us in Sunny Sunday.
Helene smiled.
“What?” I whispered.
“This song. It’s Taz’s favorite.”
I didn’t know that. I didn’t even know Taz listened to classic rock.
I wondered what else we had in common.
“You’re so lucky I’m not a groomsman,” Shelly whispered to Karma. “If you pulled a prank like this on me, I’d divorce the shit out of you.”
“That’s fine,” Karma whispered back. “I have a better attorney.”
We reached the last stretch of forest before the clearing out onto the rocks. Karma drew to a halt, crouching behind a tree. We followed suit. Then, from under the cover of bushy pine, we crept silently out onto the rocks. Mick Jagger was nearing the end of his track. The boys were just above us, moving about at the top of the rocks, near the porch.
I peered up at them. Karma slapped my shoulder, motioning for me to duck down, but not before I got a glimpse of Bachelor Night. Up at the top of the rocks, the boys had scattered the porch furniture: lounge chairs and side tables. Atop them sat various bottles of alcohol—beer, tequila, coconut rum, gin—awaiting the men like stations in a workout class. Up on the porch, Speedy was asleep in his chair.
The track ended. Karma raised one finger to her lips, the other hand a flat stop sign. When the music started back up again, she leapt to her feet, Helene raised her can of whipped cream, Shelly yelled like a bullfighter, and together we charged.
“What the…? !”
They stood no chance. We crested the rocky hill, erupting forth in a grand display of whipped cream and tequila breath. The men were gathered around one of the stations, pulling beers from a side table. And they were sloshed, all of them. Five fish in a barrel.
Manuel stood with his back to us. When he heard Shelly’s howl, he spun around, but his long, gangly runner’s feet got twisted up in themselves. “ ?Hijueputa! ” He tipped sideways. His neck craned wildly, eyes finding mine just in time to receive a full blast of whipped cream. He grasped blindly about, one hand managing to snag my left elbow and pull me down with him. With my free hand I kept spraying. Covered every inch of his torso in soft, sugary clouds.
A pillow of moss caught our fall. The collapse of its soft surface. In one messy jumble, we rolled sideways. I nearly rolled all the way back down the hill, but Manuel grabbed my shoulders, stopping me just in time.
He looked up. I looked down. I was right on top of him. When he inhaled, I felt his chest press closer to mine. Our breath in unison. Our faces nearly together. His eyes a warm shade of chestnut.
And then, just as the tips of our noses were about to touch, the can of whipped cream vanished from my hand.
“Hey!” I yelled, but it was too late. Fluffy sugar hit my face. Clouded my eyes and ears and nose and lips. Blocked out the moonlight. I squealed and flapped my hands. By sheer luck, one of them whacked the can right out of Manuel’s hand, knocking it onto the ground.
I rolled onto my back and wiped the whipped cream from my eyes. Manuel did, too. We started to laugh, our bodies shaking atop the rocks. I blinked away the last bits of billowing white, and finally, my vision cleared.
I turned my head to the side. He was already looking, too, eyes surprisingly heavy and intense. My breath caught in my throat.
“Manny…” I whispered.
But just as I was about to say them—just as I thought to voice the words that had bounced around inside my head from the first moment I saw him standing on that dock, which, if I was perfectly honest, had bounced around inside my head since the first day I ever laid eyes on him—I heard it.
The voice.
Don’t do it , it said. Don’t tell him. Not when it isn’t the truth.
Not when you know what you really are.
Manuel looked back at me. Raised his eyebrows.
And then the porch lights—designed to illuminate the lake during night swims and, therefore, roughly equal in power and wattage to football stadium floodlights—switched on. As did the surround-sound speaker system. Everything reset to the state it had been in when the electricity shut off the night before, which, apparently, was as bright and loud as possible. Clarence and Karma’s handiwork, no doubt. Queen exploded from the speakers at a volume loud enough to reach mainland Canada.
“Jesus criminy ,” yelled Speedy up on the porch, jolting out of sleep and covering his ears.
Mom leapt into the air. “The power’s back on!” She started to applaud.
You know what you are, Eliot.
Caleb ran over to the system and shut off the music. Speedy, grumbling about already being a cripple and not needing to go deaf, too, turned his chair to face away and cranked it back into a lounge position. He tilted his head back and shut his eyes.
Disgusting.
Immoral.
Evil.
“Eliot?”
My eyes shot back to Manuel. He had pushed himself up onto one elbow and was watching me expectantly. Almost hopefully.
“Were you going to”—he tilted his head to one side—“say something?”
Freak.
Deviant.
I opened my mouth, unsure of what would come out, but a yell cut me off.
“—you just stop ? For fuck’s sake, Clarence!”
I spun around. Across the rocks, Caleb stood, face red, fists clenched, whipped cream all over his cheeks and nose. His glasses were gone, likely on the ground somewhere. He glared at Clarence, who just smiled lazily back.
“Oh, lighten up,” said Clarence, rolling his eyes and shaking a stolen can of whipped cream. “It’s just a bit of fluffy sugar.”
“You know I scratched my cornea two weeks ago. I can’t afford to get anything in them.” Caleb dropped to his knees, feeling on the rocks for his glasses. “God. You’re such a fucking child sometimes. You never know when to let a joke die.”
I inhaled, eyes snapping back to Clarence. Though he tried to keep his expression light, I could see the way his spine stiffened, the tightening of his fingers around the can of whipped cream.
“As opposed to you,” Clarence said flatly, “a man who is such a mature adult that he can’t even admit to the rest of his family that his wife is—”
“That’s enough of that!” interrupted Wendy, voice shrill with false positivity. She’d been talking to Speedy up on the patio, but she sprinted down the steps to stand between her two stepsons. “Let’s move the party inside and get cleaned up, shall we? Karma, darling, can you—”
“Is this a joke?”
The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to say them.
Everyone turned to face me, stunned. I pushed myself to my feet, wiping whipped cream from my chin. I must have been drunker than I realized, because I didn’t even consider stopping myself. Instead, I could only see the vitriol rippling between my older brothers and the ridiculous attempt by my mother to just smooth it over. Could only hear that voice, the one that had fought too hard to reappear and had finally won.
Disgusting, incestuous freak of nature who doesn’t deserve to be loved.
I looked around the group. “Am I the only one who sees how messed up this entire family is?”
“Eliot!” Wendy said, shocked to hear such sharp words coming out of my mouth.
“No. Mom, no. You float around these events like the leader of a cult, with your obedient little husband and your five obedient little children. Like we’ve all grown into these perfect little adults, like we’re all best friends, like these events are filled with so much love. But guess what?”
Mom didn’t guess. She could only stare, horrified, afraid of what would come next.
“It’s bullshit,” I snapped. “All of it. You didn’t even raise Caleb and Clarence. You were ten years old when Caleb was born. They have their own mother. You try to take credit for the work of a woman you barely know. Meanwhile, you can’t even acknowledge the fact that one of your actual sons, one of the kids you actually pushed out of your vagina, is dead. Dead. ”
Silence.
Then: “She’s right.”
I turned around. It was Karma who had spoken. We made eye contact, ten years of unspoken fury and grief passing between us. A connection that we’d never been able to acknowledge before that moment.
“Now, let’s not get carried aw—”
I rounded on Wendy. “You’re an idiot, Mom. We’re fucked. Everyone in this family is fucked. When are you going to admit that to yourself?” I moved into the center of the group. The toe of my sneaker caught one of the beer bottles, and it rolled down to the water’s edge. “When is anyone going to admit it? Half the people in this family are alcoholics. Caleb and Clarence basically hate each other. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Taz say more than two sentences in a row.” I swallowed. “And then there’s me. The baby. The one who watches. The weakest .”
Mom’s eyes widened, and Karma gasped, and I knew my words had hit home.
YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE LOVED.
“That’s how you see me, isn’t it?” I asked, turning to the rest of the group. “The weak one? The one who needs sheltering and protecting? The one who can’t even handle learning that her oldest brother’s wife has fucking cancer ?”
I paused, as if expecting a response, even though the shock on my family’s faces told me that I would receive none. I lingered on Caleb’s face for a second, half expecting him to drag his wife’s illness into my public meltdown. Instead, his face was even. Almost…almost encouraging .
Could that be right?
“Well, guess what?” I said, turning back to the rest of the group. “None of you have any fucking idea what it’s like to live inside my head. None. I work so hard…”
My voice cracked. To my horror, I realized that I was on the verge of tears. That a lump had built in my throat and I hadn’t even noticed, and now it was trying to block my words from coming out.
But I wouldn’t let it. Not this time.
“I work so fucking hard to be…to be okay.” My voice wavered on the word okay . “To not be a burden to those around me. To prove that I’m a high-functioning adult who fits in with the rest of the family. But the truth is, it’s fucking hell up here.” I pointed at my head. “I have OCD. I know you can’t see it, but I do. And I’m done trying to hide it.”
My siblings exchanged wide-eyed looks. Karma took a step forward, as if she wanted to say something, but I held up a hand. I had one more thing to say.
“Sorry to tell you when you’re already trapped on this island,” I said, turning to Helene and her parents, who were gathered into their own awkward cluster just outside the group. “But you’re about to marry into the fucking loony bin. Good luck. We all pretend to be best friends, but we have nothing in common. Nothing. All that ties us together is money and the fact that we’re all, each and every one of us, well and truly fucked up.”
Speech complete, I let my hand fall to my side.
YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE LOVED.
“Eliot?”
It was Manuel’s voice. Manuel’s beautiful, deep, honey-smooth voice.
The voice to which I knew I could not turn. Not ever. Because the thoughts were back, and I had no doubt that it was my fault. I’d let my guard down. Let myself skimp on work. Let myself have long open days of nothingness. Followed no sort of schedule, ticked no boxes. Of course the thoughts were back. Of course they were. All my routine, all my control—it had gone to shit.
But I shouldn’t have been surprised that the thoughts were back. Because where had they gone, really? Not away. Never away. Maybe they hid away for a time, but they were always going to come back. They were always going to return, to whisper the truth to me again.
Because it was the truth.
I was disgusting. I couldn’t even tell the difference between real attraction and a random pulse in my crotch that told me I might be in love with my dead brother, so how could I ever be sure? How could I ever know if I was a good person, a normal person, or someone royally, disgustingly messed up?
I didn’t deserve to be loved. I shouldn’t have even been there at the wedding, associating with all the people I cared about. Putting them at risk.
I need to get away.
The thought hit me like a runaway ski boat going fifty, mowing me down, drowning me.
I need to get away.
So I did. I turned around and I sprinted straight into the trees.