Eight #2
“Go to the bar, and get as much water as you can; then go get Thomas. He should be over by the other sofa.” I sit down with Leila, brushing aside some of the sweaty strands of hair that have escaped from her French braid and are plastered to her forehead.
I gently shake her again, trying to get her to wake up.
Tiffany returns with a large bottle of water and Thomas, who strides past her furiously. “What happened?”
I stand up immediately. “She’s drunk; we can’t get her to wake up.”
He kneels down in front of her and grabs her by the shoulders, giving her a shake. “JC? Open your eyes.”
Leila shakes her head and tries to get away from him with a pretty well-placed kick to the knee for a girl who’s dead drunk. Tiffany and I trade bewildered looks.
“We should get her home; she needs to sleep it off,” I yell, but I’m not sure Thomas is listening. He just keeps calling Leila’s name to no response.
“JC, open your eyes, or I swear I’ll open them for you,” he snarls. Leila remains motionless. Until suddenly, without a moment’s hesitation, Thomas turns and grabs the water bottle out of Tiffany’s hands and splashes it all over his sister.
“Thomas!” I shout, rushing to the defense of Leila, who, meanwhile, has leapt to her feet at lightning speed. She wobbles for a second, clearly still out of it.
“What the hell? Are you out of your mind? You soaked my entire bag!” she sputters, punching his shoulder.
Thomas doesn’t bat an eyelid. He jabs a finger at her and, with the most uncompromising look I’ve ever seen on his face, says, “I’m taking you home now.”
Leila doesn’t respond, but neither does she seem at all intimidated by her brother.
Without even looking at him, she takes her sodden bag and shoves it into his chest. “You better hope to God that my phone still works!” Then she stumbles past him.
The rest of us retrieve our coats and follow her out of the club.
***
Ten minutes later, and we’re still sitting in our parked car in the ClubSeven lot because apparently Thomas can’t multitask. He can either yell at his sister or he can drive. And he’s chosen the former.
“Shut up, you’re gonna give me a headache,” Leila snaps, exasperated, in the back seat behind her brother.
“You’re so wasted, your brain wouldn’t even recognize a headache,” he finishes angrily, glaring out the window.
“Come on, leave her be; can’t you see she’s sick?” I say, coming to Leila’s defense. I reach across the seat and give her leg a gentle rub, trying to comfort her a bit.
“She’s not sick; she’s drunk,” Thomas points out, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
I give him the side-eye. “It’s nothing you haven’t experienced before, though, is it? I’m betting you got your first hangover when you were still taking your whiskey in a baby bottle,” I say, and I can hear Tiffany laughing behind me.
“This isn’t about what I do.”
Oh, of course it isn’t.
“Hey, people…” Tiffany murmurs.
“Think about it this way,” I begin. “If the bouncer hadn’t let her into the club, none of this would have happened.
And apparently we only got in thanks to you and that…
What’s his name? Oh yeah, Martinez… So maybe instead you should tell us why your names carry so much weight around here? What are you, some kind of mob boss?”
Thomas dodges my question and glares at his sister in the rearview mirror. “Did you drop his name to get in?”
“I had to…” Leila’s voice trails off.
“Either way, this doesn’t seem like the time to start lecturing her.
” I take Leila’s side, hoping that Thomas will leave her alone.
“She could have been on her way home by now, Thomas. In fact, we all could have been.” I snort impatiently, looking at my phone screen, where the clock reads 1:20 in the morning.
“Oh, but now seems like the perfect time to me,” he replies.
“Look, you’re blowing this out of proportion,” I say. “She tied one on… She’ll sleep it off by tomorrow. She’s eighteen years old, not a child. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, and I understand that you’re worried about her, but yelling won’t make the situation any better.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta…” Leila continues from the back seat, interrupted by Tiffany’s voice.
I can’t hear what either of them are saying because Thomas admonishes me so harshly that it makes gasp: “Don’t stick your nose into things you know nothing about, Ness.”
Stung by his reproachful tone, I look down at my interlaced fingers and start worrying at them. “Sorry,” I mumble awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No! Don’t even think about doing it in here, not on me!
” Tiffany squeals. Throwing open the car door, she jumps out and drags Leila with her.
Thomas and I whip around to see what is happening.
The two girls move a few feet away from the car before stopping.
Leila bends over, her hands pressed to her stomach before… vomiting.
Thomas heaves an exhausted sigh, letting his head fall back against the car seat.
***
Fifteen minutes later, and we haven’t moved.
Thomas gave Leila his jacket to protect her from the cold and tried to help her, but she shoved him away rudely.
So then I gave it a shot, only to discover that seeing her puke makes my stomach queasy as well.
I held out for as long as I could, but eventually I was forced to ask Tiffany to swap with me.
Now Tiffany is holding back her hair and supporting her shoulders, while Thomas and I lean against the car and supply Tiffany with clean tissues and water for Leila.
“You cold?” Thomas asks me, frowning at me slightly. I’m shaking. The cool damp of the night has gotten into my bones.
I nod. “A little…”
He pops the trunk and gets out one of his usual thick dark sweatshirts and gives it to me, helping me pull it on. I’m swimming in it, but it’s so warm and cozy, and even smells like him, and I think that I could happily use it as a blanket and sleep under it for the rest of my life.
“Sorry about before,” I say again. “I wasn’t trying to butt in; I just wanted…”
“To stand up for her,” he finishes for me, a hint of gratitude in his voice.
“She came to see me at the Marsy tonight,” I say, watching Leila.
“She was trying to hide it, but I could tell that something was wrong. I just didn’t think the situation would get this out of hand.
” I look sadly back at him. “I know about your father, about him being sick. I’m so sorry,” I murmur, wrapping his sweatshirt more tightly around myself.
“Don’t be sorry. That man doesn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy,” Thomas answers harshly.
“My sister isn’t like me, though. She’s sensitive, emotional…
a good person.” He turns and watches me for a few seconds before continuing.
“They begged her to come back home, and even though that’s the last thing in the world she wants to do, she can’t tell them no.
And this”—he gestures toward Leila, who is still being held up by Tiffany—“is just the fallout.”
“Sensitivity is the good person’s curse,” I murmur.
“And indifference is the clever person’s armor,” he adds, surprising me. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one.
Yeah, I’d say that’s your philosophy exactly, Thomas…
“Are you really going to let her go alone?” I ask, trying to sound as neutral as possible.
He breathes out a cloud of smoke and nods in a melancholy sort of way. “I don’t care about that part of my life anymore, you know that.”
“But don’t you think that she might need you? For better or worse, you’re still family,” I say encouragingly.
“I lost my family a long time ago,” he answers coldly, refusing to look at me.
I don’t reply. I’d like to say lots of things and to ask him even more, but I know that this is neither the time nor the place.
So I just interlace my fingers with his, lean my head against his shoulder, and whisper, “The most important part of your family is right here.” I look to Leila. “And she will never leave you.”
At first when he looks at me, I’m afraid I’ve said the wrong thing, but then Thomas just rests his head against mine and rubs the back of my hand with his thumb. The little movements echo, I imagine, the twisted spiral of his thoughts.
The silence is broken by shouting from somewhere behind us.
We turn around to see Thomas’s friends; apparently they are all drunk.
They slur indistinctly and stagger around shouting.
They’re yelling like they’re still in the club with deafening music drowning out their voices.
Unfortunately, they are actually in a deserted parking lot.
There doesn’t seem to be a designated driver, and they seem too drunk to summon a rideshare.
“Shouldn’t we call them an Uber? They can hardly stand up,” I point out to Thomas, worried.
“Dumbasses,” he mutters, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
As he begins ordering an Uber, Tiffany advances on us. “I’m afraid we’re going to be here for a while, so I’m going to take advantage of this moment of calm to get Leila into the bathroom, get her away from all these prying eyes, okay?”
Thomas agrees with a short nod. “Have Marcus get you the key to the private bathroom,” is all he adds.
I help Tiffany lift Leila up, and we escort her to the back entrance of the club.
When I return to the parking lot, I discover that Shana is now here.