Chapter 18 #2
The evening before, it was Luau Night at the Club.
The weather had been hot and humid all day, threatening rain, very Hawaii.
Laura wanted us to wear matching muumuus, only wrapped different ways.
She clipped beach roses to wear in our hair.
We bobby-pinned them on each other, giggling.
Laura’s hair was long, shiny brunette, like Kate Middleton; mine was curly and dark and held the bobby pins better.
“Mine keeps slipping!” Laura complained, so I tried again, crisscrossing the bobby pins this time, until her flowers finally held just above her ear.
“There,” I told her. “You look beautiful.”
She did look beautiful. She looked cool and perfect, her muumuu wrapped over one shoulder and in such a way that you could glimpse her seductively concave midriff even though it wasn’t exposed, per se—a no-no at the Club.
I wrapped my muumuu like a muumuu and looked like a circus tent with flowers on top.
“You do not!” Laura said, as we bumped up Serenity Lane in the middle seat of the Club Car.
Sedge Senior drove old Mrs. Peabody in the front seat—Laura’s mother had had some kind of ladylike emergency that called her back to Boston—while Sedge and Ben sat gallantly in the rear, facing backward and holding on for dear life. “You look graceful and…botanical.”
“Botanical is the new black,” said Sedge.
“Dare you to wear that in Piccadilly Circus,” said Ben.
Laura shoved his shoulder. “What do you know about Piccadilly Circus?”
“I know more than you think.” Ben’s gaze swept across me, so our eyes met for a split second that nobody could possibly have noticed except us.
At the clubhouse, Laura went straight for the punch bowl. “Basically Hawaiian Punch and rum with a slice of pineapple,” she said. “Drink up.”
There was a band playing island music and a man wearing coconut boobs over his jacket of Madras plaid.
We took turns dancing with each other. At the Club, you only ever danced with partners.
First Sedge danced with me while Laura danced with Ben, then I danced with Ben while Sedge danced with Posie Pinkerton and Laura danced with some guy I recognized but didn’t know.
“Don’t drink the punch,” Ben warned me. “It’s pretty vile.”
“I poured mine into one of those planters with the palm trees.”
“I can’t believe I’m bringing this up, but doesn’t this party strike you as kind of awkward? Cultural appropriation or some shit?”
“And you haven’t even seen the pig,” I said.
“The what?”
“Try to think of it as homage. That’s how I get through these things.”
“Is it wrong to say that you look so fucking beautiful in that muumuu thing and I don’t know why?”
“I love the way your lei accentuates your pectorals,” I said.
His voice shifted into a midcentury drawl, like Mrs. Peabody’s. “An intriguing observation, Miss Cooper. May I have the honor of meeting you at the sixth hole green at, say, a quarter past nine, to discuss our costumes in more detail?”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, sir. The links and I are not acquainted, remember?”
“Damn you for a vixen. Shall we say the corner of the pro shop and I’ll lead the way?”
“Why, sir. What kind of a girl do you think I am?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “The sporting kind, Miss Cooper. But I do have a serious question for you. As a native of these parts.”
“Ask away.”
“Can ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ really be considered a Hawaiian song? Isn’t it more of a Christmas song?”
—
“So? Did you two have a good time dancing together?” Laura wanted to know. We were picking at some roasted suckling pig and pineapple as we dangled our legs over the side of the stone wall that separated the terrace from the lawn.
“What do you mean, a good time?”
“You and Sedge. Did you see how I made sure he danced with you first? God, you make such a cute couple. We just have to find a way to get Nympho Nerissa out of the picture.”
“Please,” I said. “Don’t waste your time.”
“You have to be patient, that’s all. Like me with Ben. I’ll wait forever.” She placed a molecule of pineapple on her tongue. “Speaking of. What were you and Ben all giggly about?”
“ ‘Mele Kalikimaka.’ ” I checked my phone—seven minutes past nine. “Does it give Hawaii or Christmas?”
“I was thinking the same thing! So funny. What did Ben say?”
“Definitely leans Christmas. I’ll be back in a minute. I have to use the bathroom.”
She set down her plate on the stone. “I’ll come with you.”
At twenty minutes past nine I rounded the corner of the pro shop. Ben snatched my hand, kissed it, and pulled me into a run. We sprinted laughing across the dewy grass and the dark, damp air until Ben stopped under the shelter of a tree and dragged me against him.
“What took you so long?” he said, kissing all the way up the side of my neck.
“I had to give Laura the slip.”
We kissed and kissed until we were both out of breath. Ben’s mouth tasted of whiskey, not punch. I felt the raw joy sing through his body and into mine. The smell of crushed flowers rose from the conjoining of our leis. He pushed my hair from my face.
“Do we have to wait until tomorrow?”
“I think we do. We have about two minutes before we’re busted.”
“Two minutes would not be a problem.”
I laughed and kissed him again. He lifted me to straddle his hips and leaned back casually against the tree, as if kissing me was his only job in the world. I loved his effortless strength, his whiskey breath. I loved how he made me feel reckless and safe at the same time.
Ben laid a last line of kisses down my neck and set me back on my feet. “Five o’clock at the top of Plum Lane. Drink lots of water tonight, okay? No hangovers.”
He pulled the flower from my hair, kissed it, and put it in the pocket of his jacket.
—
I found Laura outside on the grass near the terrace, smoking. “There you are,” she said. “Have you seen Ben?”
“Is that a joint?” I asked.
“Topher gave it to me.”
“Who’s Topher?”
“Oh, you know Topher Dumont. The one I was dancing with.” She held out the joint. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“I think he went off with Posie Pinkerton,” she said.
“Topher did?”
“No. Ben.” She dragged on the joint. “Posie’s a bitch. You know I caught her with my dad, once.”
Laura dropped this piece of news so casually, so almost amused, that I needed a beat to process the words.
“Your dad?” I said.
She leaned back on her elbows in the wet grass. “He’s not the most discreet. Granny’s so pissed at him. That’s why Mom went back to Boston in such a huff.”
“Because of Posie?”
“No, stupid.” She gave me a little shove, like she’d given Ben in the golf cart. “That was a couple of years ago. When Posie was in high school. Nope. This was another one.”
I took the joint from her and allowed myself a shallow but necessary hit before handing it back. “You don’t sound mad.”
She shrugged her shoulders. The bare one gleamed in the gold light from the clubhouse.
“My dad is an asshole. What can you do? It sucks for Mom, though. I don’t know why she doesn’t kick him to the curb.
Probably keeping things together for the children.
” The scorn she heaped on for the children could burn stone.
“That’s what I like about Ben, though. He’s not going to fuck around behind anyone’s back, you know? He’s like, old-fashioned somehow.”
“You just said”—I coughed, I wasn’t used to smoking—“you just said he went off with Posie.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was just shooting my mouth. I honestly don’t know what’s vibing me right now? I feel like I don’t give a shit about anything anymore. Except you. Sweet Lucy. Come lie down next to me.”
She patted the grass at her side. I lay down gingerly. The dew was cold on my skin. She put her arm around me and hugged me close. Side by side.
“This is what matters, right?” she said. “This is what lasts. Sisters before misters.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’re like a sister to me, Lucy. You know that?
” She kissed me where my hair met my forehead, where Ben had kissed me minutes earlier.
“Do you remember last summer? Eating ice cream at the marina? It was the end of the season. I think it was your last day before you flew home. And I dropped my ice cream in the water.”
“I remember,” I said.
“And you wanted to give me yours. I said no but you kept insisting. You were like, Please, Laura. And I could see in your eyes what you meant. You thought I dropped it on purpose.”
“Laura, I wasn’t trying to—”
“I’m not anorexic,” she said. “I know everybody thinks I am, but I’m not.
I just—it’s like a test, right? Does anybody love me enough to say something?
Does anybody even notice that I’m not eating?
Or do they let me starve myself because, you know, she’s just doing it for attention?
That’s how it started, anyway. That level of not giving a fuck about myself.
Not feeling like I was even worthy of food. ”
I started to interrupt, but she pushed on.
“Except you, Lucy. You were the only one. You saw. And you tried. I could see it in your face. You were worried for me. And that’s why I took your ice cream that day.”
“You didn’t really eat it, though.”
“I ate a little. But that’s not my point. My point…” Her voice trailed away. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have a point. Just that it meant a lot, I guess. Like you’re the only one who really sees me. Who loves me.”
“That’s not true. Your parents love you. Sedge loves you. Your grandmother. They’re all worried about you.”
She kissed my hair. “I have a great idea, Lucy. How about we travel to South America together next summer? Instead of coming here?”
“South America? Why?”
“I’ve always wanted to go. Climb the Andes and everything. Patagonia. And there’s no one else I’d rather go with.”
“Won’t it be winter there, though?” I asked.
“There’s no such thing as bad weather. Don’t you know that? Only the wrong clothes.”
Her skin smells like gardenia skin cream and pot smoke. “I need to tell you something,” I said.
“Wait. Let me say something first.”
“What’s that?”