Promise Me Something (9 page)

As we changed, I felt sorry for Olive for the first time—truly sorry. Maybe having an alcoholic mother wasn’t better than having no mother at all. Her whole house had a cold, foreboding feeling—like a wax museum—and I got the creepy sensation, as I slipped out of my jeans and into my pajamas, that Mrs. Barton was standing frozen on the floor below us, waiting for a reason to come to life and light the whole house on fire.

Olive flicked the light switch by the door and the room became dark—almost pitch black, but not quite. Light was falling in a chopstick pattern through the Venetian blinds, and I saw her move toward the bed and pull down the covers. I did the same, climbing under them, and rested my head against the overstuffed pillow. Her sheets were crisp and clean.

“Reyna?”

“What?” I rolled over on my side to face her. We hadn’t been whispering when the lights were on, but now that the room was dark, it seemed right.

“Thanks for coming tonight.” She pulled the covers up to her shoulders.

“Thanks for inviting me,” I answered. I didn’t know what else to say. We lay in silence for a moment, and I rolled a certain thought around in my mind like a ball of yarn, trying to figure out where it started and stopped. Finally I blurted, “My dad destroyed a room once. Sort of like what you showed me.”

She glanced over at me. “After your mom died?”

“No, this summer.” I didn’t remind her about the car accident—I just told her about the bowl of Rice Krispies, the shattered bowl, the overturned chair.

“I guess everybody needs to lose control every now and then,” Olive said, turning on her side to face me. “Which reminds me…Do you remember how I told you my dad got rid of all the booze in the house?”

I nodded and shifted my cheek to a cool patch on the pillow.

“He didn’t know about my stash—the stuff I confiscated from her months ago.”

“So?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “So I was wondering if you wanted to try some.”

I stared at her.

“I’ve never been drunk,” she told me. “And I refuse to try it for the first time by myself. That would be pathetic.”

I didn’t say anything. My mind was revving into high gear, suddenly nervous. I had never had anything more than a sip of wine in my life.

“I’ll tell you if you’re starting to get drunk.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “I know how to recognize the signs. We won’t get wasted, we’ll just get tipsy.”

“Just to test it out?” I said.

“Yeah, just to see how our systems respond.” She was watching me carefully. Then she added, “I know I’m not the most fun person in the world. Not like your other friends—”

“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just…
now
?”

Olive raised her eyebrows. “Why not?”

She had a point. I would inevitably try my first drink at some point, and I didn’t want it to be at a party—I had a brief and awful image of throwing up all over Levi Siegel’s jeans. If I was going to get drunk, I preferred to test my limits in the safety of Olive’s bedroom. “I guess I’ll try some,” I said. “I just don’t want to go overboard.”

She smiled and stood up, the springs on the bed creaking quietly. “I don’t have any cups in here, but we can drink straight out of the bottle.”

I sat up and leaned back against the headboard. It felt like a business proposition.

Olive moved through the dark room toward the filing cabinet, crouched, and pulled out the bottom drawer. It slid smoothly on its wheels until it was almost all the way open; then it made a faint screech, and we froze.

But there were no footsteps outside in the hallway—only the sound of the TV on the floor below us. Cautiously, Olive pulled out a tall, rectangular bottle of amber liquid and left the drawer wide open as she got to her feet. “It’s whiskey,” she said. “My mom’s favorite.”

“You go first,” I told her.

She climbed back onto the bed and twisted open the cap. “I hope you don’t mind my cooties.” Then she put it to her lips and took a swig.

The expression on her face was not a good advertisement for the whiskey. She looked like she was swallowing lighter fluid. As soon as she managed to get it all the way down her throat, she opened her mouth and gasped for air. “Ugh,” she said. “That’s disgusting!” But as she passed the bottle to me, she swallowed a few times and added, “My throat feels kind of nice though.”

I didn’t count to three or give myself any preparation. I just brought the bottle to my lips and took a small sip. It felt like liquid fire going down—and not in a good way—but Olive was right. Once swallowed, it left a pleasantly warm, tingling sensation in the throat. “Do you feel anything?” I asked her. “Are you tipsy yet?”

She laughed. “One sip isn’t enough.”

“Have another, then.” I held out the bottle and met her eye. “And I will too.”

It wasn’t long before we were stretched out on her floor like beached whales. After three more sips of whiskey and two big gulps of vodka, I was more than just tipsy: I was tipped. Whenever I focused on one part of the room, it seemed fixed in place, but as soon as I moved my head, everything became unhinged and floated around like objects at sea.

Olive wasn’t such a lightweight. Besides whiskey and vodka, she tried four sips of coconut rum, which she claimed was supposed to taste good with vanilla ice cream. Vanilla ice cream made me think of pigging out at Abby’s house when we were little, and without thinking, I sighed, “Don’t you wish we went to Ridgeway?”

Suddenly Olive started groaning on the floor. I thought at first she was going to throw up from drinking too much, but then she moaned, “Why would I want to go to school with your friends? They hate me!”

“That’s not true,” I said. My voice sounded far away, as though my head were packed with bubble wrap. “They think you’re nice.” It was a lie. Madison had told me a few days after our Halloween sleepover that Olive reminded her of the kind of person who would one day “go Columbine” and shoot up a school.

She flopped over on the carpet and stared at me.

“What?” I blinked. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Promise me something,” said Olive.

“What?” I sat up a little. Her cheek was pressed against the floor.

“Promise me something, and I’ll promise the same to you.”

“
What?
” I said again.

“Never lie to me.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m not lying!”

“Suuuuure.” Olive reached again for the coconut rum, only, this time she didn’t sip from it; she put the bottle to her lips and chugged. There wasn’t much left in the first place, but what was left, she gulped down—probably an inch or two of liquid. And then, as she let the empty bottle roll off her fingertips onto the carpet, she began to cry.

“Uh-oh.” I sat up on the floor. “What’s wrong?” She looked blurry just a few feet away from me, but rubbing my eyes only made them itch.

“Sometimes I just feel like you don’t like me!” she burst out. “You spend all this time with me, but I get the feeling you secretly hate me.”

I felt my mouth open. The edges of my lips felt crusty, but no words came out.

“Are we friends?” She stared at me. “Because I’ve been nothing but a friend to you, and all you ever do is mope around wishing you went to Ridgeway.”

“What about the time you threw a rock at my head?”

“What?” Olive’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I didn’t tell her it had been on the day we met, or that it had been a pebble, not a rock. All I managed to say was, “We’re friends, OK? I’ve never told anyone else about my dad destroying the kitchen—”

“We’re not friends,” she said, wiping her eyes. “We’re not, because if you really knew me, you would hate me. And you already hate me, so you would
really
hate me if you knew.”

“Knew what?” My stomach was folding unpleasantly. I hoped I wasn’t going to throw up.

“Nothing.” She gulped a big breath of air. “I’m just drowning in secrets, that’s all.”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say. My tongue felt heavy, and I concentrated on not getting sick all over the carpet.

“Or maybe it’s just my parents.” She swiped at her cheeks. “Maybe that’s why everything is the way it is. Do you think it’s wrong of me to hate my mom?”

“Hate’s a strong word,” I managed to say. My speech came out slurred.

“But I do hate her.” Olive was staring past me into the darkness. “I hate the way she can’t control herself. The way she can’t love me like she’s supposed to.”

The room seemed to slide in and out of focus before my eyes, and I could tell that I was either going to throw up or fall asleep on the floor, but I wasn’t sure which. “I’m not in a position to judge you,” I said at last.

“Of course you are,” Olive sighed, turning away from me. “Everybody judges everybody else automatically. That’s the whole fucking problem with the world.”

It was late—or technically early—when we finally climbed back into bed. We both fell asleep on her carpet for a while, but by two a.m., we woke up and realized we were cold.

Stumbling up from the floor and onto the bed, I told Olive that my head was pounding. The room still seemed to rock slightly, as though we were sitting in a big cradle.

“You need some water,” she mumbled, but neither of us stood up to get some. Instead we just wedged our feet under the covers and pulled the blankets up to our chins.

“I feel guilty,” I told her. My mouth was dry and the words came out sounding scratchy.

“So?” said Olive.

I shrugged. “I shouldn’t have drank anything. Dranken. Drunk?”

“Drunk.”

“Leah got wasted with her older sister one time.” It popped out of my mouth out of nowhere, and I began to suspect I was still drunk. “She threw up and it was gross.”

“Leah…” Olive frowned. “Was she the one with the pink bra?”

“Yeah, the slutty one.” I felt my hand fly to my mouth.

Olive started giggling.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” I said. “I have a headache.”

But Olive was grinning now. “Doesn’t she remind you of a dog that humps everything in sight? Like she really needs to be neutered or something—”

I laughed so suddenly and unexpectedly that I actually snorted. Then Olive did too. “Shut up!” I squealed. “You’re making me say bad things about my friends!” I rubbed my temples, where the headache was blaring like bad music.

“Oh—how about that hickey she had!” Olive touched her own neck. “It was like the size of a vacuum cleaner. Couldn’t you see her making out with an inanimate object?”

“Not Leah, but maybe Madison,” I said. “Because she’s such a prude, it would be the only way she’d ever—” I could barely finish my sentence. Olive was clapping with glee.

“You’re so mean!” She was wiggling her feet under the covers. “Are you really Reyna? Reyna doesn’t say mean things. Ever.”

“It’s your fault for getting me drunk,” I said.

“More, more!” She pounded her fist against the mattress. “Tell me how great I am and how everyone else sucks.”

“It’s not funny,” I said. “I’m growing apart from my friends.”

“You don’t need them.” She rolled over onto her back and stretched out her arms until her knuckles grazed my pajamas.

“When we were ten, Abby touched her dog’s penis,” I said. Something about the buzz in my brain made the words slip out without their usual censor. “She wanted to know what it felt like.”

“Oh my God!” Olive nearly snorted. “That’s probably illegal in some states.”

I laughed along, feeling spacey and drunk and thirsty at the same time. I also felt weirdly peaceful, as though Olive’s room was exactly where I needed to be. Like all along I’d been faking our friendship, and then suddenly, to my surprise, I wasn’t.

Remember that time we…online…?

That’s a little vague, Olive.

You know…together…?

Refresh my memory.

Pretended to be a cop and a swimsuit model?

Oh. That.

Did you like it?

Sure. I guess.

It was a little weird, though, right?

A little.

Would you maybe want to do it again?

I don’t know…

We could be something other than a cop and a model.

No, it’s not that.

You pick this time—whatever you want.

I don’t think so…

Why not?

I don’t have room in my life right now for anything more than friendship.

Oh.

Are you OK?

I guess.

I’m just too messed up right now.

T
hanksgiving dinner had—according to Dad—exceeded Lucy’s expectations. Apparently, when they were halfway done cooking the turkey, he’d hobbled out of the dining room on his crutches and come back carrying a little blue box, which Lucy snotted all over. Inside was a diamond necklace, and once she stopped sobbing about how she was “just so happy to finally be happy,” she let Dad put it around her neck like a medal of honor. She’d been flouncing around the house in her pajamas ever since then, talking about plans for a “family” vacation and collective “household” goals.

When I told Abby about it a couple days after Thanksgiving, she said exactly what I was afraid of: “Maybe it’s a good thing. Your dad seems happy.”

My response was, “Who ever heard of wearing a diamond necklace with pajamas?”

It was just the two of us alone in her room for once. Leah and Madison were busy with after school clubs, and even though Abby and I had different homework to do, I liked being in the same room together doing it. I missed that about middle school.

“Guess what?” she said as I flipped a page in my math book, trying to figure out how to calculate the arc-length of a partial circle.

“Let’s see…” I looked up from my book. “You’re transferring to Belltown because you can’t live without me?”

“You wish.” She laughed. “Actually, I started going out with someone.”

“What?”

“Yeah…” She was watching my face to see my reaction.

“Who?”

“You don’t know him.” She closed her math book. “But his name is Jeremy, and we have the same taste in music. It’s actually kind of creepy. Our iPods are almost identical.”

“Wow.” My stomach flipped over like I’d swallowed something gross.