Personal Statement (11 page)

Where. The hell. Am I?

I wake slowly. Open one eye. My left one. My right one is pressed hard against the mattress. Or maybe it’s the sofa. Either way I can tell I’m drooling all over it. My left eye moves, trying to take in my surroundings, but I’m not getting enough information. Red plastic cups. A random seat cushion. Manicured bushes? Um.
What?
Why are there
bushes
in my room? And why is it so effing
bright
in here? Did Rani leave the curtains open?

I try to raise my body. Zero movement. I’m sure I’m giving my arms and legs the signals from my brain that would ordinarily elicit motion. But nothing happens.

“Jesus Christ, Rani,” I moan. “How much did I drink last night?”

“…Who’s Rani?”

I sit up with a jolt and look around the room, the foggy world edging into focus: paper plates… a smoldering fire… a pool! Oh God. It’s coming back to me. I’m not in our
room
at the B&B. I’m
outside
the B&B!

I pick myself up off the bed, my dress that I slept in relentlessly clinging to me, only to realize I wasn’t sleeping on a bed. It’s one of those fancy outdoor loungers with a privacy canopy. I try to stand, my legs not fully cooperating, the hazy sun (already burning hot on the horizon) forcing me to squint and shield my eyes with my hand. WTF
happened
last night?

Wait. Didn’t someone just
say
something to me? I do a quick 360-scan of the pool area and backyard. Empty. Quiet. Just a few birds chirping in the trees. Nobody else around. Maybe I’m hearing things. Or I’m still drunk. Or dreaming. I rub my eyes with my hands and then release them. When the stars in my eyelids fade away, I notice a boy’s oxford folded neatly by a pair of saddle shoes on the lawn.

Oh God.

Last night comes back in a flash: Rani ditching me for that weird theatre dude who went crazy for Richard Gains; some Star Trek geek giving me a wildly alcoholic drink called Calliope Punch; eating a hot dog against my better judgment; eating two more because the first one was so freakin’ good; downing more punch; peeing in the bushes because the line inside was too long; the three hot dogs in my stomach not seeming so awesome anymore; deciding another glass of punch was exactly what I needed to feel better; cornering Farmer Ted and telling him off; planting a massive
kiss
on him; stumbling back toward the B&B; throwing up on the grass; Farm boy getting me water and a cool towel, trying to coax me up to my room; me refusing, saying I’d be better off outside in nature, under the stars; cleaning my face over the edge of the pool; staring at my rippling warped reflection on the water; wondering who I am and what I’m doing with my life; curling into a ball on the lounger; the boy sitting next to me, stroking the hair out of my face; feeling secure and taken care of; moving to kiss him again and then… and then… Oh God! I can’t remember anything after that!

A body slowly sits up from the ground. Even though I’m completely dressed, I instinctively duck behind another lounger to cover myself. So
he
was the voice in my head just now: Farmer Ted. Or—dammit! What’s his
name
?

“Hey,” he says to me, eyes still sleepy, dirty blonde hair tousled but sexy. He’s wearing one of those sleeveless undershirts that I thought only Ryan Gosling could get away with, but this kid is pulling it off nicely. Man, those farmers got it figured out! Wait. He said something. And I’m just staring blankly at him, weirdly half-crouching behind outdoor furniture. Say something back, you idiot!

“Hey.”

Brilliant, Emily. A perfect SAT score and
that’s
the best you can come up with?!

“So, uh…” the boy begins. But I don’t let him finish.

“Yeah, I gotta go.” As I look around, hoping,
praying
no one else is witnessing this debacle, I notice the now-defunct pig spit a mere three feet from where I was sleeping all night. Great. I’m going to smell like a pork chop all day.

“…What?” the boy asks, still in a haze.

“Go. Me. Now.” I run a hand through my hair, try to make it less rat-nesty, but there’s really no point. I’m sure I look disgusting. Whatever. No time to waste on appearances. “I mean. This was fun. I think? But… Where are my shoes?”

“…What?” he repeats.

“Shoes. My shoes. Where are my shoes?”

He points to a chaise lounge where one J-Lo wedge sits by itself, like it’s ready to get a tan. Where’s the other one? Damn it, where’s my other shoe!? Oh there it is—under a table strewn with red plastic cups and beer cans. I cradle both shoes and plop down on the grass, trying to strap on the left one.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Me? Yeah. Great. Always. Just gotta. You know. Get ready. Presentation day. You do too, right? Damn it!”

My shoes are not cooperating. Screw it, I’ll carry them. It’s only twenty yards across the flagstone to the B&B, I’ll be fine. I stand up, head pounding, smooth out my dress, wipe the grass and dirt off my butt, turn to the Amish Wonder and say, “So. Again. Fun. Thank you. Good times. But. Yeah. I’ll uh… see ya.”

“Wait!” he calls out. I could just keep walking. But something tells me not to be my usual curt self, so I turn to hear him out.

“You know nothing happened last night, right?”

I blink at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you kissed me. Twice. But that was all.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah,” he says with a shy smile. “Then literally one second later you passed out on this lounger.” He pats it in case there was some confusion as to which lounger I gracefully blacked out on.

“Right, I… knew that.”

“Really? Because you’re acting awkward and embarrassed but you shouldn’t be.”

I stare at him. He’s unlike any boy I’ve ever met. I think that’s a good thing.

“So we just… kissed?”

“If you can even call it that,” he says with a light chuckle. “You were, uh, kind of yelling at me? And calling me ‘Papa Yoder’ a lot. Then just sort of… kissed me.”

“That’s kind of my thing,” I say in a rare moment of transparency.

“Your thing?” he asks.

“I yell at boys and then kiss them. It seems to work.”

“Yeah, because you’re pretty hard to ignore.”

I can’t tell if he’s insulting me or complimenting me. But he does look cute sitting on the grass behind the lounger.

“Anyway,” he says, “after that first kiss, you stumbled around and got sick and I tried to help you inside but you just wanted to stay here. Then you kissed me that second time.”

“
After
I puked?”

“Yeah, but you mostly missed,” he says pointing to his cheek, “so… it wasn’t gross or anything, it was completely fine. And then you, uh… fell asleep. So I stayed here. With you. To make sure you didn’t get sick again or anything.”

I nod and size him up. “You’re a lot cooler without your sister around.”

“…I get that a lot.”

“Do you wanna… go inside?” I ask. “Maybe grab something to eat.”

“Absolutely,” he says. “I’m starving.” As he starts to rise, it’s clear that he’s just in his undershirt and boxer shorts.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on!” I say turning away. “If nothing happened, why are you in your underwear?”

“Because,” he says innocently, “I can’t sleep in my pants. It’s uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” I say, still not facing him. “Right. Well. Okay then. I guess you can… have breakfast with me. If you want.”

“Thanks, Emily,” he says and I’m mortified because I still don’t remember
his
name. To cover, I decide to help him with his clothes.

“Here, let me help,” I say, tossing him his button-down which he catches it with one hand. As I toss him his pants, some pages fall out of the back pocket and scatter across the lounger. I pick up the papers, about to hand them over as well, when I notice that they’re plans of some kind: sketches and designs.

“What are these?”

“Oh, that’s our plan,” he says yawning. “For the governor.”

I scan them quickly, flipping from page to page. “I thought you weren’t part of the competition.”

“We weren’t originally,” he says buttoning his shirt. “But Prayer said she mentioned our idea to Governor Watson and he convinced her that we
should
make a presentation, so…”

Looking at the schematics I mumble, “You’re building a device… that will divert the river away from town?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “It’s pretty decent.”

Pretty
decent
, I think. It’s
epic
! Life-changing. The kind of plan that gets you on the national news! But I have no words for him. I’m too flabbergasted. Stunned. Standing there in my wrinkled dress in the early morning light, feet cold on the wet grass, hundreds of thoughts racing through my head, most notably:
Holy shit. We’ve been playing on the edges of this volunteer thing while these farmer twins are smack dab in the middle of it. They’re playing GOD!

I step gingerly to him (his pants mercifully zipped up) and hand him his pages. Then I slap him hard across the face. The sound and force of it surprise us both. I cover my mouth with my hands, shocked at my own brutality. Without thinking, I climb on top of him, forcing him back down to the ground, and kiss him passionately. Then I come to my senses and push myself away from him. I see a large red handprint starting to develop on his left cheek.

“Sorry,” I blurt out. “Sorry. Um. I’ll go inside. Now. Then you. But wait a few minutes. Okay?
Don’t
follow me.”

Still reeling from the discovery of his almost biblical plan, I turn on my heels and storm toward the B&B, back to the room I should have slept in with Rani, thinking that I should be freaking out even more and breaking every piece of pool furniture I can find. But it doesn’t matter. I’m gone—away from him, away from his plan.

I race across the moist-with-dew flagstone and up the four little steps to the back patio. Once inside the drawing room, I stop. Breathe. Think. No. My head hurts too much to think. So I keep moving. Quietly through the large common area and up the stairs. I’ll find Rani. Tell her what the hell those freakish twins are up to. Probably have to confess
how
I found out about it. Oh my God oh my God oh my God. This is not happening. Not today. The most important day of my pre-college career and I went and did something as stupid as this! I’ve kissed three boys in my entire life. Why would I choose last night of all nights to be my fourth? Am I self-sabotaging? Is my conscience trying to tell me something? And how the hell can our dinky guesthouse idea compete with Moses and his literal parting of the sea? Especially since instead of following up on those celebrity leads and my cousin’s website templates for our presentation, I came here last night, got drunk and kissed someone I just
met
! What is wrong with me? I try to put it all out of my mind as I come to the second floor landing, turn right and—

“Ahh!”

“Ahh!”

I run head on into that hunky roommate of Robert’s. Mark or Max or whatever. We silently size each other up. He’s wearing shorts and no shirt and his hair looks like someone else’s fingers have been running through it all night. Probably hooked up with one of those hippie chicks from the Grateful Ten. Rah-rah. Good for him.

“Hey,” I mutter.

“Hey,” he replies, voice throaty and tired.

There’s a brief moment when we don’t know what to do. Then we silently agree to say nothing more and move on, me further down the hall on the second floor, him down to the first floor or wherever he’s going this early in the morning without a shirt.

As I step toward room number six, the floorboards creak wildly. At the end of the hall, a door clicks open and I freeze. A head pokes out and looks right at me.

It’s Robert.

He’s wrapped in a blanket, his bare dark shoulders peeking out over the edges. A panicked look wafts over his face and he stands more rigid than usual. I half nod and he returns the casual greeting. Then he steps back into his room and clicks his door shut.

And only now do I piece it together. Robert totally hooked up with his beefy roommate! Whoa! I had no idea that dude was
gay
. Robert for sure. He told me he was gay within like two minutes of meeting him at HOBY. But that
other
guy does
not
strike me as being homosexual. Not even
bi
sexual.

But I have no time to dwell on this major bit of gossip. I’ve got to tell Rani what kind of epic plan Farmer Ted and his evil sister have concocted so we can come up with something better by 8 a.m. It can be done. It
must
be done… Jesus, there’s no
way
it can be done.

I tap on our door as quietly as possible and whisper Rani’s name. I don’t remember where I put my key—or even
getting
a key. Pressing my ear to the door, I hear nothing on the other side. I try the latch. Miraculously, it opens. Then it hits me—I have no key because there are no
locks
on the doors. Richard Gains even made a slightly vulgar comment about it at the party last night:
“It’s an old house with no locks. But we’re all friends here, right? Nothing to steal but each other’s innocence.”
Man, that guy is creepy.

I tiptoe inside, quietly latching the door behind me. “Rani,” I whisper toward the lump under the covers. “
Rani
. Get your bony ass out of bed.”

Rani darts back the covers, revealing just her face. “What?!”

“The twins? Those farmer twins? Their plan completely
crushes
our ‘Empty Rooms, Full Hearts’ plan. It’s, like, straight out of scripture. Like the hand of Yahweh writing the Ten Commandments.”

“It can’t be
that
great,” Rani says with the hint of a smile.

“I’m not kidding.” Then I whisper, “I think they talk to God.”

“How do you know what their plan is?” she asks, eyes darting around the room, blanket tucked all the way to her chin. If I weren’t so intent on beating the twins, I’d ask her why she’s acting so weird. But I let it go and focus on the matter at hand.