The Loose Ends List(14)

As we glide toward the open sea, Bermuda is a smudge on the horizon. I focus on the guacamole. It’s the best I’ve ever had.





SIX


THE PARTY IS about to start. When we get there, I’m going to see them: the disfigured, the dying. How will I be able to eat around them? How will I make it through a whole summer of this?

Gram slaps my arm, hard. “Get rid of scrunch face.”

Mom pulls me aside just as we’re leaving. I assume she’s about to give me a pep talk.

“Honey, that’s an adorable dress, but it’s a bit clingy. Why don’t you try this?” She opens a drawer and pulls out nude Spanx.

“Really, Mom? You want me to squeeze my body into Spanx to hang out with old people?”

“It’ll smooth you out. Come on, do it for your wacky mom.” She gives me her pout face.

“Fine, Mom. But you are ridiculous, you know that?”

“Thank you, honey. I’ll see you down there.”

I kick off the shoes and pull the Spanx up. I can barely get them on. My mother never lets me leave the house without tweaking me in some absurd way. I can’t get air, but I head to the elevator anyway, dreading what lies ahead.

I’m reaching up under my dress to yank at the Spanx just as the doors open. A guy is standing in the elevator, staring at his bee. I quickly remove my hands from deep under my lavender dress and walk into the elevator as he looks up. My God. He’s gorgeous.

He nods hello, and the doors close. They open again two floors down, and he nods again before he gets off. I barely smile. It all happens so fast.

I take a minute to collect myself. Clearly the guy isn’t going to the reception. I can’t tell if the tightness in my throat is from the two-second encounter with the ridiculously hot guy or the party I’m about to attend. I try to take a yoga breath, but my torso circulation has been cut off.

People are gathered in the ballroom bar. I recognize the stubby family. Even close up, they all look alike.

I make a beeline for Wes just as Gram rushes over to hug an old man with tubes in his nose lugging around an oxygen tank. “Vito,” she gushes.

“She knows people?” I say to Wes.

“She met some of them in New York.”

“Can you stay with me? This isn’t my thing.” I follow Wes to the bar.

“Is this anybody’s thing, Maddie? Seriously?”

We stand awkwardly and watch the people file in. A very pale elderly woman, completely bald, with purple lipstick, chats with a broad, dark-skinned middle-aged man in a striped suit and Harry Potter glasses. He has a hand on the shoulder of a woman in a wheelchair. From the way she’s kind of slumped over, I don’t think the woman can move at all.

“What’s wrong, Mads? You creeped out?” Wes says.

“A little. I don’t even know what to say to these people.”

“The key to small talk”—Wes sips his bourbon—“is to find something in common with the person. It can be anything. Come on, I’ll show you how it’s done.” Wes takes my hand and pulls me toward the bar. “Shirley Temple, Mads?”

“No. Just get me a Coke.”

Wes turns toward a huge pasty guy with a pockmarked face wearing a Batman T-shirt under a blazer. He’s holding a straw to the mouth of a smiling guy in a wheelchair.

“Hi, I’m Wes. This is my niece Maddie,” Wes says to the big guy.

“Oh, dude, for a minute there, I thought you were a couple. I was, like, jailbait alert!” The guy laughs like a buffoon.

“Nope. I’m with him.” Wes points to Uncle Billy, who is talking to Janie and the Harry Potter glasses guy.

“Oh, you two are gay? I mean, that’s cool. We have a gay cousin. Or technically a lesbian cousin, because she’s a girl.”

Wes glances at me, clearly also aware this person is a buffoon. He looks down at the guy in the wheelchair, who is actually good-looking and in no way resembles the oaf. “So then are you two related?” Wes asks.

“Yeah, this is my brother, Mark. I’m Burt. We’re from California.”

“Where in California?”

“LA,” the guy in the wheelchair says.

“No way. I lived in LA for almost ten years.” And there’s the thing in common. Wes is a genius at this. Meanwhile, all I can think about is the fact that this guy is here to die and his brother is here to watch.

I try to make my way to the bathroom, but Gram chases me down and introduces me to Vito from Queens. He’s dying of lung cancer. He says he never smoked a day in his life, but the warehouse where he worked for forty years was contaminated with chemicals.

It’s my biggest nightmare—a dinner party where people introduce themselves by telling you how they’re dying. I would do anything to be at the lake club right now, where my friends are probably building a campfire and choosing make-out gum flavors. I’m sure Lizzie and Kyle are fighting and Remy is wearing her hoodie and Abby is telling her she looks like a man. It’s probably really buggy, and I’m sure the boys are whining that they can’t find alcohol. I’d be bored already, but I don’t care. I want to be there right now. This is f*cking depressing.

My family sits together at a table in the dining room. I slide in next to Janie, who also has scrunch face.