Lily and the Octopus(18)
I don’t know why there’s a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach about this, but there is. Is Mom “everyone”? I tend to obsess over the ways in which our mother is like every other mother—and all of the ways that she isn’t. “Okay.” It’s Meredith’s decision.
“But I’m glad you’re here!”
She and Franklin and Jeffrey and I manage lunch at a noodle house in Chinatown and check into our room at the Fairmont Hotel before I can’t hold it inside any longer.
“I. Need. A. Drink.”
It’s almost five o’clock (if the give-or-take is three hours), and so we head down to the bar in the lobby. Some * is playing annoyingly plinky ragtime on a grand piano, but my aggravation doesn’t trump my thirst so I order a double vodka on the rocks. Meredith agrees to an impromptu bachelorette party, partly at my urging (a bachelorette party sounds like a good excuse to drink), as long as she doesn’t have to wear a tiara or carry a penis whistle or anything like that. I apologize to Franklin (he’s not invited) and I call my friend Aaron, who now lives in San Francisco and who Meredith knows from years ago when we all lived in Maine. He agrees to join us for the revelry. Three gay men and a bride.
When Aaron arrives he’s as handsome as ever (for some reason this is comforting—the beauty in life) and I fill him in on the Lily situation and the impromptu nature of both the wedding and this makeshift party.
“We all need some celebration and some fun,” I say. The lobby bar is not fun.
“I know where we need to go,” Aaron says, and he leads us to the elevator.
“We’re already on the ground floor,” Meredith offers. “The front door is that way.”
“Shhh.” He winks, taking Meredith’s hand. “You and me—and I think they’ll agree—are going down to the terrace level to take up residence in the Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar for tropical storms and Singapore slings.”
Was that a poem? I wonder. It feels like he’s using words from another language that I usually speak, but that now sounds foreign thanks to the double vodka and emotional exhaustion.
When the elevator dings, Aaron corrals us inside and presses the button for the terrace level, and the car lurches and our stomachs dip as we head down.
The Tonga Room is squarely underneath the Fairmont Hotel, and the Hurricane Bar is a Polynesian-themed marvel situated around what must once have been the hotel’s swimming pool but is now a lagoon, complete with a rain forest–style thunderstorm every half hour. A barge floats on the lagoon, carrying a band that plays in between storms. The cane-and-rattan furniture and the tiki lights make it a tropical, tacky mess.
In short, it’s perfect.
“Singapore slings for everyone!” I say.
Waiting for our drinks, I fidget endlessly with my phone as if the animal hospital will call. The battery is at 35 percent and I have only one bar of reception. It dawns on me that it’s still New Year’s Day and the hospital is closed except for emergencies and they’re only going to call if something is drastically wrong, but it’s only after Aaron eases the phone out of my hand and sets it upside-down on the table that I really understand that I don’t want them to call. No news, it’s true, is good news.
The cocktail waitress arrives, expertly balancing a tray with our four Singapore slings—gin concoctions the color of a tropical sunset, topped with a pineapple wedge, two Maraschino cherries, and a paper umbrella. Before we can even take our first sip, I look at the waitress and exclaim, “Four more slings!” like I’m at a presidential reelection rally clamoring for another term. Meredith starts to protest, but I cut her off. “It’s either that, or a penis whistle and I tell everyone on that barge that you’re getting married tomorrow.”
Meredith nods her understanding, then confirms my order with the server. “Another round, please.”
The server smiles at my sister with sympathy and whispers, “Congratulations.”
As we drink our first slings, we grill Meredith about the wedding. Who proposed, when, and why elope. We do our best to make her the center of attention. While she’s not consumed with bridehood, it is still her occasion, her day and not mine.
“Remember when you were six and got your head stuck in the back slats of a park bench and Mom freaked out and called the fire department?”
“What?” Jeffrey asks.
“You’ve never heard this? Turns out she could just crawl out the way she crawled in, but for some reason refused until two firemen pulled her out screaming.”
“Why firemen?” Jeffrey asks. “Where was your father?”
“Working,” I say. “He was always working.”
Meredith smiles and turns the color of her drink. “What made you think of that?”
I don’t know what made me think of that. “Are you stuck?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“What? What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know.” I whisper, “Pregnant?”
Meredith nearly chokes on her drink. “I’m stuck here with you drinking this, which is like grain alcohol or something. I had better not be pregnant.”
“Oh, relax,” I say, and Meredith kicks me under the table, hard, like we used to do when we were kids and ordered by our parents to be quiet. I scrunch my face at her, signaling that she will get hers in return, and she laughs again. Aaron and Jeffrey ask something about her dress.