Chapter 5
Chapter Five
There are times, after drinking too much alcohol, I wonder if the prohibitionists were on to something when they coined the term “demon liquor.” It felt like I had a demon inside of me who was stabbing my eyes with a corkscrew, scooping out pieces of my brain with a spork, twisting cotton in my throat, and wearing soccer cleats as it jumped up and down on my bladder.
This was only my third time with a hangover and, like all the other times, I promised myself it would be my last. The first time was not my fault; my younger sister, Jem, diluted my breakfast of orange juice with vodka on the morning of the SATs.
She said it was a protein drink, and it would keep my brain alert.
I ended up throwing up all over my examination, and the proctor screamed that I’d ruined his perfect test administration record.
The second time I was with Jon at a tiki bar near his parents’ house in the Hamptons.
He ordered me a drink called “The Hurricane,” which didn’t taste like anything but fruit juice.
I ordered several, liking the little umbrellas and other accoutrements that donned the rim of the glass, and ended up getting sick on the beach.
I passed out on the sand, and Jon, being just my height and of a lean build, wasn’t strong enough to lift me.
He had to call two of his friends over to help him pick me up and carry me back to the guesthouse. When I woke up, I wanted to die.
Now, lying face down on a strange bed with my mouth tasting like whatever the Grim Reaper served at Thanksgiving, I knew three things for certain: I was not in Elizabeth’s apartment; I was wearing only my bra, thigh-high stockings, and underwear; and I wanted to die.
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, wanting to postpone my collision with reality for as long as possible, and willed myself back to sleep.
I wasn’t certain how much time passed as I lay there hoping that my fairy godmother would appear along with little talking birds and mice, clothe me in jeans and a T-shirt, put me in a pumpkin carriage, and send me to Starbucks for a soy latte.
When I finally opened my eyes, all my earlier unpleasant assertions proved true.
I wasn’t in Elizabeth’s apartment. In fact, I had no idea where I was.
Swallowing with a great deal of exertion, my mouth free of saliva, I slowly moved my gaze around the room.
My eyeballs felt like sandpaper, and I had to blink several times, both in response to the unforgiving brightness of the world and the dryness resulting from sleeping in my contacts.
When my eyes were appropriately lubricated, I scanned my surroundings from where I lay.
It was huge, with walls of exposed red brick, and it was sparsely decorated.
The ceiling was tiled tin, rusted in a few places, beige everywhere else.
There were no overhead light fixtures; rays of sunlight poured in through tall windows along two adjacent sides of the room.
Near the bed was a floor lamp, which was currently off. The floor was sealed cement.
From my vantage point, I saw only five other pieces of furniture besides the mattress and the floor lamp: a drafting desk, a tall wooden chair for the desk, a bookshelf, a brown leather couch, and a side table.
The drafting table was covered in papers, and the bookshelf was littered with what looked like machine parts.
I was wearing only my bra, stockings, and underwear. I confirmed this belief by peeking under the white sheet pooled at my mid-back. I glanced again around the room and found my dress folded in half over the back of the wooden chair and my shoes neatly settled under the desk.
I struggled to sit upright and find equilibrium in the vertical world. My hands automatically went to my chest to adjust the strapless bra and ensure it covered my breasts, minimal modesty intact.
My hair fell to my lower spine in a puffy, untenable tangle of curls; it must have come completely loose sometime during the night.
Elizabeth called it my mane of hair; I called it my bane of hair.
I kept it long, though, because—paired with my freckles—I looked like Orphan Annie when it was short, sticking straight up or out at awkward angles.
At least when it was long it almost obeyed gravity.
I wanted to die. Almost as soon as I was in a sitting position on the mattress, but before I was fully able to bring the world and my current misadventure into focus, I perceived the sound of running water, emanating from a door to the right of the bed.
A sudden thunderbolt of panic struck my heart and I stiffened, immediately regretting the ungraceful movement and the resulting stab of pain in my temples.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I took several deep breaths. I went to the invisible closet space in my head and went through the motions of wrapping up the panic in the beach towel, somehow fumbled with the lid of the box, finally found the damn key for the box, and inserted it into the lock.
I tried to ignore the shaking of my hands as the pretend me in my head put the box on the top shelf of the closet, quickly turned the light off, and ran screaming from the make-believe closet.
I needed to focus. I really needed to.
I had to get out of here before the mystery person emerged from the bathroom.
Avoid confrontation at all costs!! My memory was drawing a complete blank.
I had no idea if the mystery person was a man or a woman.
At this moment, I wasn’t sure if I really had a preference in their gender, but I drew some hope from the fact that I saw no discarded monkey suits by the bed or littering the floor.
I raced to the chair, grabbed my dress, and quickly pulled it over my head. It felt just as inadequate in daylight as it had the night before. I shimmied into my shoes just as I heard the water cut off in the bathroom.
“Oh, God.” I couldn’t find my handbag.
My gaze swept over the desk and the chair, but they proved to be purse-free zones.
My eyes darted to the brown leather couch and side table—again, no handbag.
I tiptoed to the queen mattress and lifted the sheets.
The box spring was lying directly on the floor; otherwise, I would have crawled around looking under the bed.
I gave up my search for the bag and instead started hunting around the room for a phone. Before I could initiate my first sweep, I heard the handle on the bathroom door turn, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
This was it.
This was going to be my second walk of shame in two weeks.
I just hoped that whoever was on the other side of the door didn’t insist on a no-eye-contact breakfast. The worst part wasn’t just the fact that my stupidity had resulted in a one-night stand (and maybe a plethora of incurable venereal diseases) or my immediate embarrassment at the situation.
It was that Jon and Elizabeth had been right: I needed an escort.
I had reclusive tendencies for a reason; I couldn’t be trusted to live in the world and make decisions on my own.
I swallowed again, my hand on my stomach, as I turned to face the door.
When he emerged, I thought I was hallucinating or, at the very least, still passed out from my night of drunken disorderliness.
I had to blink several times to understand, and several more times to accept that McHotpants was standing in the doorway, clothed only in a white towel wrapped low around his waist as if it didn’t matter to him whether it stayed in place or pooled on the floor.
I vote for the floor!
Even through the lingering, pounding pain of my hangover, I couldn’t help but gape at the perfection of him, of his bare chest, arms, and stomach. Every part of him looked Photoshopped.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, but what actually might have been four seconds, I realized I’d been staring at not his face and moved my gaze to his eyes.
He wasn’t smiling. In fact, his expression wasn’t cool or warm or disgusted or pleased; it was completely unreadable.
We stood, watching each other; me with a burning unfamiliar mixture of lust, mortification, and complete astonishment, him with a marble mask of calm.
This stalemate lasted for an indeterminable amount of time.
He was the first to break the stare, his eyes moving over my now-clothed form. I shivered involuntarily.
Finally, he removed his attention from me and walked farther into the room, crossing to the bookshelf. “I believe you are looking for this.”
I watched him, how the muscles in his back moved, still struck dumb by his sudden appearance.
He easily reached to the top of the bookshelf and retrieved my bag.
His bare feet made hardly any noise as he moved to where I stood and handed it to me.
I took the offered purse and tucked it under my arm.
“Thank you.” My voice was surprisingly calm given the fact that my brain and heart and lungs and stomach and lady bits were all rioting. I was determined to stay off the seesaw of crazy; I was going to be unaffected by him.
“You’re welcome.” He replied, his eyes skimming over my face. Without warning, he brazenly reached out, pulled a thick puffy tendril from my mass of bedraggled hair, and looped it around his forefinger. “You have a lot of hair.”
Suppressing a swarm of butterflies in my stomach, I nodded and cleared my throat.
“Yes. I do.” Before I could stop myself, I continued.
“Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals.” I quickly bit my lip to keep from telling him that there were only four species of mammals still alive that laid eggs; among them were the platypus and the under-publicized spiny anteater; everyone always forgets about the spiny anteater.
He released the lock of hair and crossed his arms over his chest. “What are the other characteristics of mammals?”