Who are you? my grandma says, and what have you done with my curlers?
The hotel rooms surround us in a circle going up and up. Families have set up lawn chairs, mattresses, radios on every floor; they read magazines, leaning into the light. One TV works down here in the lobby, and swarms of people fight over which channel, which star. Right now, it’s disaster coverage—Katrina, Ophelia, Rita, Wilma—the reason we’re all here.
I’m your granddaughter, I say.
My granddaughter’s sweet, she says, seven years old with a bad haircut. I could show you a picture.
I’m still here, I say, shuffling the cards.
Did you know Katharine Hepburn was a dyke? says grandma.
I need some quiet, says my mother. She stands up, moves to the other side of the lobby with a paperback and her mug of tea.
Want to see a magic trick? I say.
Want to get some wine, she says. No magic tricks.
My grandma stands up and walks fifteen feet to the bar in the center of the lobby. It’s crowded over there. She orders a glass of merlot, looks at me, Whaddya want? What’s her face?
I’m okay, I say.
When I became official with Stratton, I swore I’d get clean. I haven’t touched a bottle; I haven’t rolled a joint; I threw away my cigarettes, every last stash. Last week, I lost my virginity to him. We were in his dorm room at the University of Miami, his roommate gone for the weekend, a single candle lit. Usher’s “Nice and Slow” played on repeat, and we kept most of our clothes on. As soon as he pushed his way inside me, I flipped over onto my stomach; I wanted to feel like an animal. I can wear pastel polo shirts and chew Winterfresh gum and learn bedtime prayers and bring his mother tulips, but in that moment I could not put myself away, not once I felt that kind of pain. Blood dripped onto the sheets. Pull my fucking hair, I said.
Stratton kept rocking, gently. He pressed his hands over my back tattoo to cover it, I’m sorry, he said, I can’t with the old you.
My grandma sits back down in her floral, upholstered chair. She has a glass of merlot in each hand. She crosses her ankles. I’m gonna meet myself a fella tonight, she says. What’s your face again? There are so many ways to lose a person. Of all things, this is what I know best.
Every airport is closed. On the one lobby TV, we watch dots of people bobbing through the rushing waters of New Orleans. It’s been the worst hurricane season in history—so many dead, an entire alphabet of storm names—and most of the south will remain without power. I stay up all night and sit by the glow of the TV, trying to find something else. I bite into Sour Punch Straws to keep myself from finding a smoke.
A girl from middle school is here, wrapped in a blanket. Her name is Morgan. The roof of her home caved in, and she’s been here four days.
So what have you been doing since the Craptop years? she asks. What’s new?
I flip through the channels. I make up lies.
Going to college on equestrian scholarship.
Where? she asks.
North, I say. I hadn’t considered the question.
My grandma is curled up on a bench in the lobby with a homeless man. He told her he would get her out of this hotel, this town. He took one look at her earrings and held on.
What else? asks Morgan. She is braiding and rebraiding a piece of her hair, pulling at it, twisting it. Dogs bark through the shadows of the halls.
I have a boyfriend, I say. He’s gonna marry me.
When do you think you’ll get out of here? asks Morgan.
I told you, for college.
This lobby, she says. Where’s your home?
ANOTHER WORD FOR CREEP
Hey neighbor! she writes. I hear you’re from Boca! Me too! Small world, huh?
I’m twenty years old, single with an Adderall addiction, a fashion design student in New York City. It’s seven in the morning, October, and I’m drinking coffee out of a mug when Lennox Price’s name shows up on my screen, in my inbox, calling me Neighbor. I read on.
Well, I recently moved here for a guy but we broke up, and then I met this dope chick named Leah who said she dormed with you or something and I told her where I was from and she was like, another Boca girl! Sweet! You two should be friends! So, what do you think, neighbor? Hang sometime?
I stare at the screen. I light a Camel. I look up recent pictures of Lennox Price. When did she move to New York? She looks the same as she used to on Myspace, though she’s platinum blonde now, with a diamond Monroe piercing to look more like Marilyn. She poses with the boyfriend—a comedian, I recognize him from his late-night specials—the square jaw, a scar across his cheek. The two of them look happy, beautiful, symmetrical in their power. In some photos, Lennox uses a book to cover her face from photographers, but I can tell by her eyebrows that she’s smiling. I call Clarissa, to whom I haven’t spoken in years.
You won’t believe this, I say to her voicemail. Remember Lennox Price?
My mother picks me up from the Fort Lauderdale airport two days before Christmas. I feel more mature in my college clothes, New York clothes, wearing a black turtleneck and emerald, tweed pants.
Aren’t you hot? my mother says. Aren’t you dying?
I’d rather sweat to death than dress like Jimmy Buffett, I say.
How’s my college girl? she says. My Project Runway girl?
Same old, I say. Dog piss freezes up there.
My mother’s spray tan is wet; she looks like she’s been smeared all over with syrup. She and my father, who now split their time between Florida and New York, recently employed a woman named Elna to come over to the house and assemble a pop-up tanning tent in front of the living room TVs. My parents take turns standing in the structure, naked save for goggles, while Elna has them spread their fingers, their toes, spraying their bodies with bronze. The two of them have never been happier.
We drive straight from the airport to Best Buy. We need to pick out some Christmas and Hanukkah gifts, says my mother. Choose some cool electronics—I don’t know electronics—and we’ll hand them out. Doesn’t matter who gets what, just choose some nice shit.
I pick up cameras, iPods, DVD players, USB drives. They clatter in my blue basket. I silently assign who will get what, based on how I currently rank everyone in my family, and who voted for John McCain.
On the way back to the car I say, I think these gifts are good.
Good, says my mother. Good, I thought so. Expensive enough.
Also, I think I’m in love, I say.
David? she says. Still? He’s no good for you, baby. He’s really such a pussy. He’s really a scumbag shit-mouthed mooch of whiney white garbage. And a liar face.
Not David, I say.
Stratton again?
It’s a girl, I say, as my mother pops open the trunk. Girl, the word shapes my mouth in a new way—tongue to teeth. I feel like I’m playing the role of a daughter testing her mother, a daughter grinding her way through a rebellious stage, pushing buttons—Girl—just to see how far it can go. Her name’s Lennox. We’ve been friends since high school. It’s actually very sweet.
My mother pulls the bags from my arms one by one, loads them into the trunk of our car. She lines them up in neat rows. Pats the plastic flat. She smooths her shirt. Takes her sunglasses off to wipe the steam, squints dramatically at the sun, places the glasses back on her face.
What do you want for dinner? she asks. Anything you’ve missed?
It’s true—I’m from Boca! I type back. Parkland, really. I try so hard to forget. How funny that we don’t know each other! I include my phone number. I hit Send before I can change my mind.
Hours later, Lennox responds. How about tomorrow? Natural History Museum? I’ve never been.
Great, I type. There’s a new show at the planetarium. And the whale—the whale is really something.
It’s not that I never thought about it. Girls. Women. It’s that I thought about it too much.