Page 14 of The Summer of ’98

Getting Ellie into the car was like a game of Tetris. First, she slid right off the seat and into the gutter, and then her leg ended up over the center console, and then her laughter was so hysterical that she couldn’t keep her body from going limp and she was no help at all. I exhaled and shut the door when she was finally seated and buckled. There was no way that I could take her home in this condition. Not if Mom and Dad were awake. It was midnight, but there was a good chance that they would be waiting up. We had an hour to get her as sober as possible and the only idea I had for that was food.

“Ellie,” I gave her a gentle shove when we arrived at Rocky Ryan’s diner. The owner kept it open late on weekends because of how much business the students brought through during the late nights. Ellie had her forehead on the car window, eyes closed, shoulders slouched. I gave her another shake and she snorted awake, blinking. “You want something to eat?”

Her eyes were narrow, glaring at the storefront that was illuminated with neon signage and flashing string lights.

She smacked her lips and stretched, “A burger sounds dope. Damn, did we fly here?”

I laughed and opened the car door. “Yeah. We did.”

She met me on the other side and straightened her dress, combed her fingers through her hair, and bumped into my wing mirror while she watched her feet moving forward. “Shit, my bad.”

She was amusing the hell out of me—her demeanor was so different from its usual timidness. We held hands and I opened the door so that she could head in first. The diner wasn’t packed but there were a few different groups of people spread out, in the booths, ordering. Anna, Murray, and Kevin, who had been at the party tonight, were at a table near the counter.

“What’s doin’ bro?” Kevin hollered and leaned over the table so that we could slap hands while I stood in line with Ellie tucked into my side. Her arms were wound tight around my waist, head on my chest. Kevin gestured at her. “She straight?”

“She’s just a little drunk,” I said, not loving the way that Murray was staring at her bare legs. Anna leaned back in her seat, her long pink hair falling behind her. She gave my girl a slow once-over and I didn’t like it one bit. Anna was notorious for her bitchy attitude to everyone—not just people she didn’t like, but people she did. Just a classic mean girl. She and Noah had dated for about six months in his sophomore year, but one day I noticed that I hadn’t seen her in a while and my brother said they’d broken up. He wouldn’t tell me what had gone wrong, just that it was over. It surprised me at the time; from what I could tell, he really cared about her. But then again, she was not a nice person to be around.

“Hey, chick,” she said, and Ellie raised her head a little.

“Hey, I love your hair!” Ellie straightened right up with excitement and stepped away from me, stumbling a little. “It’s so pretty!”

Anna ran her fingers through it and wore a smug look. “Thanks,” her lips pursed. “I like your . . . T-shirt. Walmart, right?”

Ellie flinched, but she still smiled.

I bit the inside of my cheek with frustration and slipped a hand into my pocket. “Hey, Anna, how’s summer school going?”

Her mouth fell open, Kevin and Murray sniggered, and that was all the attention that we gave her. The line moved forward, and it was our turn to order. We got a burger and drink each and sat in a booth at the front of the diner, out of sight so that we could eat in peace. Ellie seemed a bit more put together by the time she was done. She was still drunk, but not to the point that she couldn’t keep herself upright. We went back out to the car at quarter to one and I drove home to Ellie singing “Ray of Light” by Madonna, which was on the radio at full volume. It amazed me how she seemed to know the words to every single song that she heard. No matter how old or new it was, how popular or fast or slow, she knew every lyric.

I parked the car in the drive, and as feared, the living room lights were still on. “Shit,” I said and looked at Ellie, who was blinking so slowly that I thought she was about to fall asleep right where she sat.

“Els?”

She swiveled toward me so fast that her forehead almost collided with mine. I gripped her shoulders and looked into her unfocused, wandering eyes.

“Listen, when we go inside, head straight upstairs. You follow? Straight upstairs. The last thing we need is Mom calling your mom and telling her that you got smashed.”

“M’kay!” She nodded so forcefully that all I could do was hope like hell that Mom didn’t want to talk to her tonight. I probably shouldn’t have let this happen.

When we got out of the car, I held her hand, led her up the footpath, and shoved her inside as fast as I could. “Upstairs,” I whispered. “Go.”

Her eyes grew wide and she nodded, spinning around and taking off with so much speed that she put her foot, with force, straight into the leg of the hall table and knocked the vase off. It shattered on the tile, ear piercingly loud. My blood ran cold at the sight of shattered vase fragments and a frozen Ellie. Her stumbling feet crunched pieces of ceramic and each little noise was the knife digging in deeper.

“What on earth is going on in here?!” Mom appeared from the living room in her robe and slippers, her hair rollers creating an evening crown on her head. Her curious stare darted between the floor, Ellie, me, and the floor again. “Is she drunk?”

“Nope,” I grabbed Ellie and pulled her in tight beside me, giving her a light pinch in the side in the hopes that she would get the hint and put on the best damn performance of her life. “It was just an accident. A normal, sober accident.”

Mom tilted her head, eyes narrow, lips pursed.

The tension while she waited for me to cave was unbearable. The last time I had been challenged this hard was when Noah and I dabbled in pot last summer, ate the entire Fourth of July food preparations, and refused to confess. Mom knew, but she didn’t know, and we stood solid. Sort of like now, how it was obvious that Ellie was rolled, but I was hoping that she’d mistake it for tiredness and let us be.

“I was drugged!” Ellie suddenly shouted, the quiet snapping like a rubber band. I groaned. “I mean—what?”

“Leroy Lahey,” Mom seethed.

“It’s not his fault, Mrs. Lahey,” Ellie slurred, and I knew we were screwed. “I’m a lightweight, I didn’t realize how much I could handle. I only had two!”

“You’re holding up four fingers, Ellie,” my mom said.

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