The Loose Ends List(18)

“This one seems to be a stretch,” I say to Wes as we watch them make their way back from the buffet. “How is alcoholism as bad as these other diseases?”

“Honey, I’d take the cancer card over those kinds of demons any day.” Wes has a point.

Skinny Dave stinks a little like a homeless person and sips clear liquid from a tall glass. His mom’s name is Barb. They live together and probably sit in front of the TV every night with a bottle of vodka and a vat of ice cream. Oh my God. They’re Mom and Bev.

“So what kinds of takeout do you guys like to order?” I’m employing the Wes “find something in common” technique.

“Chinese, sometimes Italian,” the mom says.

Skinny Dave perks up. “Thai food is my favorite. I love pad Thai with the peanuts. I squeeze in two or three limes. Damn, that’s good.”

“We have great Thai places in New York.” Wes nods. I almost tell them they should come visit us sometime, but I stop myself. I have a tendency to say things I regret. It’s the Astrid North O’Neill blurt gene. Except Gram doesn’t regret anything she blurts.

The conversation shifts to freak waves.

Skinny Dave says he hasn’t been able to sleep with the constant rocking. His mom says she has a fear of a giant freak wave engulfing the ship.

I think a giant freak wave has already engulfed the ship.



I’m in my bed scrolling through songs on my bee.

Somebody knocks on the door, and I jump. I’m edgier than usual these days.

Janie answers with a face full of zit cream.

“Girls night in?” It’s Paige, carrying a vat of jelly beans, and our room attendant, Camilla, holding a bucket of ice and a six-pack of beer.

“Paige!” I yell. “Give me some jelly beans.”

“Nope. They’re for the game. We’re going to play Never Have I Ever. We’ll get you all geared up for college.”

Janie slides open the balcony door, and a warm breeze sweeps into our little sorority den.

“I want to start it,” Janie says. “Camilla, are you staying or dropping off our pillow chocolates?”

“She’s staying,” Paige says. “I recruited her. She’s never played Never Have I Ever.”

“In my college, we just drank vodka and f*cked. We didn’t need the games.”

“See, girls? I found a live one,” Paige says.

Janie opens a beer. “How’s Maddie going to play? She doesn’t drink.”

“That’s what the jelly beans are for. We’re playing jelly bean Never Have I Ever.”

Janie gets up. “Wait, I have to get one more player.”

“No boys allowed,” Paige says.

“It’s not a boy.”

Janie runs out of the cabin. Camilla tells me she’s a graduate student from Panama who took time off to do the Wishwell for her doctoral dissertation research, but she actually likes cleaning cabins. She says it’s therapeutic.

“We’re back.” Janie walks in with Gram in her nightgown and slippers. This should be interesting.

“Okay, Astrid, it’s simple,” Paige says, handing her a beer and a paper towel full of jelly beans. “Someone says a sentence beginning with ‘never have I ever.’ If you have done whatever the person says, you eat a jelly bean.”

“Have or haven’t?” Gram pops a jelly bean into her mouth.

“Have,” we all say.

“Never have I ever kissed two guys in one night,” Paige says. Camilla and Janie eat jelly beans.

“Never have I ever had sex in a car,” Janie says. Camilla, Paige, and Gram eat jelly beans.

Gram takes pity on me. “Never have I ever dumped a bad kisser,” she says.

We all eat a jelly bean.

Gram belches loudly. “God, I hate beer.”

“Maddie, you need to get out more,” Camilla says in her annoyingly sexy Spanish accent.

“Hey, leave her alone. She’s my little sister,” Paige says.

Janie comes up with a series of over-the-top Never Have I Evers to mess with Gram.

“What the hell is ass play?” Gram says. “In my day, ass play was when your husband goosed you in the elevator.” Paige is in hysterics.

By the end of the game, they’re all sick and I’ve had two jelly beans.

“You’ll catch up someday,” Janie says, patting me on the head.

We stay up late, tossing jelly beans to the fish and talking about boys and men and all the deadbeats (Gram’s word) in between.



Vito and his family are crisping their stubby bodies again and Wheelchair Mark and Burt are sitting in the shade listening to music on their bees.

Gram and Janie and I are hanging out in the Grotto. Gram claims she’s on her unmarried honeymoon, so now I can’t escape the horrifying visual of Gram’s bony body getting slammed by old Bob Johns.

“How are you feeling, Gram?” I ask.

“I’m tired. I have a nagging pain all around my pelvis and lower back like I’ve started my period again. It’s so aggravating. But the doctors are fabulous. They’re giving me meds and keeping me happy.”

Janie digs her nails into my leg so hard flesh-eating bacteria are probably invading the wound. “Ow! What are you doing?”