Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen (8 page)

“
Sorry your dad’s an
A-hole.”

Ok so it wasn’t the best
choice of words, but under the circumstances.

“
Don’t be sorry for
something you have no control over. This is how my relationship has
been with my dad my whole life. I’m the perfect example of a
privileged throw away kid.”

“
Don’t say that.” It was so
pathetic, I almost couldn’t take it.

“
It’s the truth. Every
major holiday, he was gone or busy. Even when he’s here, he’s not
really here. Either he’s on the phone, or working on the computer
in his office. He could never just hang out with me. On parent
visiting days at school everyone else had actual parents that came
and saw them. You know what I got; a certified letter telling me
some lame excuse why he couldn’t come and see me.” She crumpled the
letter and tossed it into the sink. “At least you can understand
how I feel. Your family life is about as messed up as mine.” She
walked over and patted me across my back.

That, right there, was the
difference between Cindy and me. I never considered my life anymore
messed up than the next person’s. I was grateful that my
grandparents made the choices they did when I was little. I
wouldn’t ask for
any
part of my life to be changed, because that would affect my
life today and I have to say, my life wasn’t all that bad. Cause
and effect—things I did, created and fed what the outcome was going
to be. For instance, if my mom and dad weren’t so F’d up, I
wouldn’t have ended up at Bethany School for Girls. I wouldn’t have
met Joanie and we wouldn’t have been best friends. If I didn’t go
to Wesley I wouldn’t have had Max Goldstein for Government my
senior year and that just wasn’t acceptable. I could’ve ended up in
some jacked up school dating some tweaker that believed we were all
put on this Earth to be farmed for food by aliens that worshiped
the Haley Bop comet, and that would’ve been worse than rotting in
hell.

“
This weekend was about fun
right? I’m not going to let him screw it up.” Cindy disappeared
into a room off the kitchen. “What’s your choice of drink?” her
voice echoed from the other room.

“
Um, how about a Diet
Coke?” It didn’t register with me until she poked her head out to
me and gave me the
‘are you really that
stupid’
look.

“
WTF Wilson, I’m not
talking about
that
type of drink. Get with it now.” She rolled her eyes and
disappeared again. I heard bottles clang together and shuffle
against the shelving.

“
Will you come in here and
help me? I’ve only got two hands.”

“
Sorry.” I rushed into the
room. I expected it to be a pantry. Boy was I wrong. It was a mini
liquor store. The only thing it was missing was the cash register.
It was the size of a bedroom. The wall had shelves filled with all
different types of alcohol. The back of the room had two huge glass
door refrigerators filled with different types of beer and wines.
Between them, rack after rack of dark wine and to my left, the hard
liquor mixtures and potion bottles. Anything we wanted under the
sun lived in that room. I wondered how many down and outs or
alcoholics would have thought they had died and gone to heaven. I
noticed Cindy already had tequila and vodka cradled in her arms.
She wasn’t just thinking of snagging a couple of beers and catching
a slight buzz, she was determined to party hard tonight and worry
about the leftovers later.

She poked her chin towards the other
side of the room. “Grab the cranberry juice on the third shelf and
the margarita mix below that. I like the strawberry
one.”

“
Won’t your dad notice it
missing?” Maybe it was a naïve question, but one I felt obligated
to ask.

“
Hello, don’t worry. He
doesn’t even come in here. Besides, we’ll make sure the kitchen
staff restocks the missing bottles before we leave. So when you’re
done playing the innocent goodie two shoes friend, put that down in
the kitchen and grab some more. I’ve gotta make calls to all of my
seasonal friends.” She pulled a dark brown bottle off of the
shelf.

Seasonal friends? What the
hell was a seasonal friend?
I didn’t know
such things existed. I was curious to know the definition of a
seasonal friend. I could only imagine it would read something like
this.

sea-son-al friend:
[
see-zuh-nl frend
] A person who fulfills the needy voids of ostentatious
people who travel to Aspen in the winter months for binge-drinking
and snow skiing.

It makes me wonder what adjective she
put before my friendship.

I had pulled the last couple of
bottles from the “liquor store” and turned to walk out when I ran
into Nick. The bottles squished my chest and his arms swung around
me.

“
Oh, Ouch! What the—” I
stopped.

“
Sorry. You okay? I didn’t
mean to stand in your way. I was coming in to find Cindy. This is
usually her first stop when she gets here.” He backed up and
grabbed the bottles from my arms.

“
She went to call some of
her friends.” I wrapped my arms around my chest and slid my hands
into my armpits. I was hoping the sharp pains and numbness would
subside.

He walked towards the boatload of
booze we had piled on the counter. “Oh yeah, she wants to rage
tonight. Let me guess, her dad left her a note, again.”

“
Yeah.” I was always good
at keeping conversations interesting.

“
Seasonal friend calls
right?” He put the bottles down.

“
What’s with that; seasonal
friends? It sounds so…detached.”

“
It’s how she
compartmentalizes her life. She doesn’t have to invest in her
seasonals. They all do it. It’s different here.”

“
What’s up with you then?
You’re so different from her.”

“
I don’t know how different
we really are. She has her agendas and I have mine.” He walked over
to the refrigerator and pulled it open looking at the contents. It
seemed ridiculous to stand with the door wide open, when the entire
front was made of glass.

“
You seem so much more down
to earth than her. She always has reasons for what she does;
never—just because.” He handed me a Coke.

“
We all have skeletons in
our closets. Some of us are just better at hiding them behind the
hangers filled with clothes.”

“
Yeah, right, you don’t
seem like the type of guy that has a pile of femur bones stuffed
behind your collared shirts and navy blue blazers.”

“
How did you know I have
navy blue blazers?” He smiled and for the first time since I
stepped foot in their “cabin”, I was comfortable. I cracked the
Coke open and took a swig. I actually found myself wishing I was
hanging out with him instead of Cindy.

Chapter Six:

Wish in one hand and spit in the
other, see which one filled up faster. That was what my grandpa
used to tell me. Even though the thought of it was grosser than
gross, I understood what it meant. My grandpa always had little
catch phrases like that. That was his way of teaching me life
lessons. I could feel it in my bones, this weekend was going to be
one of those, life lessons.

Cindy strutted into the kitchen I
could tell she was determined and on a mission.

“
There you are. Would you
call some of your more mature friends? Not that one that walks
around hitting on all of my friends. Or the belching one.” She
stared through him.

“
What about the one
that—”

“
What about that Calvin
guy? He’s cute and if my friends know he’s coming with some of his
friends,” she interrupted him.

“
Calvin? His family is in
town this weekend. I’ll give him a call but I doubt he’ll
come.”

“
Whatever; just make it
work so we’re balanced with guys.” She went into the liquor room
and started shuffling bottles.

“
What’s wrong with having
more ladies than guys?”

I liked Nick, not in an Oh My God, he
was so hot way, but in a wow, he was cool enough to hang out with
for the weekend way. Just knowing he was going to be around made
the thought of hanging out with Cindy so much easier.

It wasn’t long before the door bell
was ringing and Cindy was downing her second strawberry margarita.
She was playing it real thick for her seasonal friends. Treating
Nick like crap, ignoring me and acting like a total tease to the
guys that showed up. I was pretty much done. It wasn’t fun to hang
out as wallpaper, while she went on and on about how much her life
sucked at Wesley. I grabbed my second can of Coke and went
upstairs. I figured I could find a quiet room and call Joanie to
tell her I arrived in Aspen safely.

It was around the fourth
door on the right side when I found a room that wasn’t occupied by
people
hooking up
. I was beginning to think the life lesson for this weekend
was, never help with a party where the hostess is a total lush. I
was not a square. I’ve partied, plenty of times. I just didn’t want
to let my guard down with Cindy. I didn’t want to wake up tomorrow
to her venomous poison that seemed to spew from her pie hole so
freely up here in Aspen. There you go—that lack of trust thing with
me again.

I pushed the door shut and pulled my
phone from my pocket. I had one more number to press and send when
the door flew open and Nick came sauntering in.

“
Oh, hey—looks like you
found my room.” He had two drinks in his hands.

“
Sorry, I didn’t know this
was your room. Just wanted to escape the loud noise of American
Idol and call my friend. All the other rooms appeared to be taken.”
I pushed my phone in my pocket and started to leave.

“
You don’t have to go. I
know what you mean. I was on my way up here to chill out and escape
too. Someone handed me this drink, told me it was a Skip and Go
Naked. Would you like it?” He pushed it towards me.

“
Skip and Go Naked? Almost
sounds like a cheap pick up line.” I grabbed the drink and looked
around the room.

“
We could call it Walk
Completely Clothed, crazy name for a drink. I guess they wouldn’t
sell as many if it was called that.” He stood in the middle of the
room watching me look at all the pictures of his friends on the
wall.

I pointed to a picture thumb tacked on
his bulletin board above his desk. “Is that you?”

His chest brushed across my
shoulder as he pointed with the beer in his hand. “Yeah, and that’s
my buddy Calvin. He should be here tonight.” The space between our
bodies didn’t exist.
Whoa—he was way too
close.
I backed away from the desk and
looked around the room to find something to change the
subject.

“
High school year book?” I
pulled it off the shelf and sat on his bed. I figure if I buried my
nose in the pages he would get the hint. He came and sat next to
me, a complete awkward moment. I didn’t want him to think I was
leading him on. Totally not the vibe I was trying to send
him.

He took a drink from his beer and set
it down. “Yeah, my senior year.” He snatched the book from my lap
and thumbed through it then closed it. “Not much to see, just
delinquents and punks, and that’s just the girls. The guys are all
much worse.” I reached for it and he held it up high in the
air.

“
What are you afraid of?
Scared to let me see the jacked haircut your mom gave you before
your senior pictures?” I stood up and reached across him trying to
get the book. I felt his hand go around my waist and heard a knock
at the door before it swung open. We both froze expecting to see
Cindy in the doorway. It was a relief to see it was someone I
didn’t know. Nick twisted around and met him as he came into the
room.

“
Hey man, how are you?
Didn’t think you were going to make it.” Nick grabbed his hand and
they did a guy shoulder bump handshake. I could never get why guys
did that. Maybe a hug was just too emotional for them.

“
Well, I couldn’t miss this
one. Heard from the guys, there was going to be hot chic—.” The guy
looked at me.

“
Oh yeah Calvin, this is
Wilson. She’s a friend of Cindy’s.”

“
Nice to meet you.” He
pushed his hand out to me. I shook it. There was something about
his eyes.

“
You look familiar to me.
We’ve met before,” I blurted out, pulling him closer to me. He
flinched; I think I scared the life out of him.

“
I don’t think so but it’s
nice to meet you.” He let go of my hand and turned to Nick. “I hope
you don’t mind I brought my brother. He’s grabbing a
beer.”

“
No problem. I didn’t know
your brother was in town.” They continued like I wasn’t even in the
room. It was better for me anyway, perfect opportunity to escape. I
grabbed my drink and headed to the door. I didn’t make it half way
there before I was stopped in my tracks.

“
There you are bro. Nick,
this is my brother Max. Max, this is Nick and Wilson, right?” I
shook my head up and down. My eyes glued on Max. My heart skipped
and missed beats as our eyes met. Unbelievable, it was him. Mr.
Goldstein, My Max. My mouth was dry as a desert and the pit of my
stomach released all the butterflies that were waiting to greet
him.