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Too disturbed.
“I’m never drinking again,” I say, mostly to myself but also to Jupiter. “I knew it was a bad idea. Iknewit. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle my liquor. But you insisted.You.You made me drink and you took advantage of me.”
That’s exactly what she did.
She was the one who insisted that I try out alcohol because I’d never done so. And when I did and got drunk, she scooped out all my secrets from me and spilled them to my mother.
Okay, fine. Not scooped out.
I told them myself, without any pressure from her whatsoever, but still.
She still went ahead and told mymother.
“First,” Jupiter goes, “it was just wine.Whitewine. White wine is not liquor. It’s —”
“Not to you maybe because you’re an alcoholic,” I say irrationally, but I don’t think anyone can blame me right now.
“She’s right though,” my mom adds. “White wine is not really liquor, if we’re being accurate. It’s —”
“Oh my God, Mom, how are you okay with this? I’m nineteen and I gotdrunk. You’re supposed to be mad about that.”
My mom makes a puffing sound. “First, you’re almost twenty, not nineteen. And second, you drank wine. I had my first taste of that when I was ten or so. It’s not really a big deal, honey.”
I look up at the ceiling. “Oh Jesus Christ, please just kill me.”
“And it’s a good thing, isn’t it?” my mom keeps saying, ignoring my lamenting prayers. “Because if you hadn’t gotten drunk, then we wouldn’t have known.”
“Yeah, I’d like to say something about that,” Jupiter says, her voice stern like my mother’s. “We’re supposed to be best friends, Meadow. How is it that you didn’t tell me? You’ve been working there for six months and you never said a word. Not one word about any of it. Especially when I’ve told you everything aboutmy thing.”
“What thing?” my mom asks, all suspiciously.
“Nothing,” Jupiter replies in a high voice.
“Okay, just so you know, honey, you can’t lie to me either.”
I agree.
Jupiter and her younger sister, Snow, grew up with us. When my mom moved us to Bardstown from California, Jupiter and her family were already living next door. And since my mom is friendly with everyone, she became friends with Jupiter’s mom, thrusting us children together.
I was kinda opposed to being friendly in the beginning. I mean, it was a new town. There were all these new people. Being cautious was the prudent choice. But then Jupiter was so friendly, and Snow was this little shy and cute thing, that we all became friends. And even though Jupiter and I went to different high schools — she went to this really strict all-girls reform school called St. Mary’s School for Troubled Teenagers because she had some trouble with our other neighbor — we still remained friends throughout.
“Yeah,” I say, jumping on the opportunity. “Why don’t you tell my mother aboutyourthing, Jupiter? Let’s talk about that first. My thing’s been only going on for six months. Yours has been going for years now.”
But before Jupiter has a chance to say anything, my mom speaks. “Aha! So you do have a thing!”
That’s when I realize what I said and my shoulders sag.
Because my mom’s never going to let it go now.
Never.
I still try to stall though. “Listen, Mom, can we talk about this when I’m not at work?”
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” my mom goes. “You’re always at work.”
“That’s not —”
“And we all thought that it was because you loved your work but —”
