Promise Me Something

by Sara Kocek

  Abby made a boo sound and stuck out her lower lip.

  Olive fluffed her pillow. “Like Reyna said, we had a long day.”

  “Actually, I’m kind of tired too,” said Leah. “I think my sugar high is fading.”

  So we all zipped ourselves into our sleeping bags and wished each other good night. I expected to hear Olive drift off first, but Leah was the first to start snoring, followed by Madison, and then Abby. Olive just kept rolling over in her sleeping bag.

  “Are you OK?” I whispered after a while, turning on my side to face her.

  “Just lovely,” she answered.

  “Are you tired?”

  “No.”

  I pulled my sleeping bag up to my chin and stared at the ceiling. We were silent for a long time. Then she whispered, “I still can’t believe I have in-school suspension for threatening Gretchen Palmer with a pitchfork.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For getting you involved.”

  I shrugged, but she couldn’t see me. “It’s fine.”

  “I could have protected you myself, you know.” She scooted her pillow closer to mine and lowered her voice. “I wouldn’t have let them suspend you. I didn’t need Levi Siegel to step in like some kind of knight in shining armor. I can do that.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Olive smiled at me with her lips pressed tightly together, and then we drifted into sleep.

  Let’s play a game.

  OK.

  Say someone tells you they’re going to jump into a pool with you on the count of three.

  Yeah?

  But say that when you jump, they don’t. Say they just stand there laughing.

  OK.

  What would you do?

  Kill myself.

  Ha.

  Did someone do that to you?

  My mom. When I was little.

  At least you know how to swim.

  Ha ha.

  Olive, you laugh a lot for somebody on a suicide prevention forum.

  So?

  Are you sure you’re actually depressed?

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  You might just be cynical.

  Screw you.

  I’m just saying.

  Seriously. Screw you.

  I wouldn’t do that, by the way.

  What?

  The pool thing.

  I know you wouldn’t.

  I’d jump with you.

  I know.

  November

  5.

  When your mom dies, Thanksgiving is the worst holiday. I still remember what she used to cook: sweet potato pie, hot spiced cranberry cider, gooey banana bread. The year I turned seven—the year of her accident—Dad put some chicken nuggets in the oven and we toasted her memory with apple cider from the A&P. After that, we stopped celebrating Thanksgiving at our house. Sometimes we went over to Abby’s and ate dinner with her family, and other times we just stayed at home and watched football on TV.

  But this year, Lucy wanted to cook a bird at our house. She got the idea from a commercial—something about bringing people together—and once it calcified in her mind, there was no stopping her. I told Dad it didn’t feel right to me, but he insisted. “She wants to,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

  So when Olive called me the weekend before Thanksgiving and asked if I felt like joining her family for their annual torture-fest, I said OK. Lucy was upset—she heard me making plans on the phone and then burst out crying when I left the room—but I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for her. She shot me irritable looks all through dinner that night, and Dad told me later he was disappointed too, but only because he wanted us to be a happy family together. Fat chance.

  When I arrived at Olive’s house on the night of Thanksgiving, the driveway was packed with cars. Dad didn’t pull in; he rolled to a stop at the foot of the driveway and craned his neck up at the two-story house. “Looks like a party in there,” he said. “Try to have fun, will you?”

  “We’ll see,” I said, gathering my overnight bag off the floor. Fun and Olive weren’t exactly two words that belonged in the same sentence. It was true we’d been growing closer since Halloween, and I was starting to trust her almost as much as Abby, Leah, and Madison. But all the same, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had fun together—probably the day we threw candy at each other in her bedroom.

  Olive greeted me at the front door flanked by her mother and father. Her mother looked pinch-faced and angry, but her father was more handsome than I expected: tall, with a chiseled face and well-groomed eyebrows. I barely had time to notice the Ralph Lauren insignia on his shirt before he extended a hand and shook mine so hard that my elbow cracked. “Welcome,” he said with a wide, artificial smile. “You’re just in time for the feast.”

  They led me through the foyer, which was emptier and more echoey than I remembered, with tall white walls and modern art. It was a relief to step into the dining room, which was at least smaller but still looked like a museum. A heavy travertine table with a centerpiece of poufy blue hydrangeas dominated the room. Crowded around the table were all of Olive’s relatives and two empty chairs with perfectly straight backs.

  Olive grabbed me by the arm and led me around the table to our seats. “You have to hear what went down between my parents this morning,” she hissed, but before she could elaborate, an old woman wearing a long string of pearls looked up from the table and barked, “Posture, dear! Remember your posture.” She was dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin, and her face had the same pinched expression as Mrs. Barton’s.

  “I am remembering,” Olive muttered, straightening her shoulders. I took a seat next to her and put my napkin in my lap.

  “It would be polite of you to introduce your friend,” said the old woman, who I was now sitting next to. I hoped my own posture was acceptable.

  Olive sighed rudely. “Nana Jane, this is my friend Reyna,” she said. “Reyna, this is Nana Jane.” Then she turned back to me and tapped my empty place. “Do you want white meat or dark? I’ll get you some from the buffet.”

  “White, please,” I said.

  Nana Jane watched Olive leave the table; then she leaned toward me and asked me to repeat my name. Before I could answer, Mr. Barton stood up at the head of the table and tapped his spoon to his glass. I felt disoriented. It was unnerving to be plunked in the middle of someone else’s family gathering, with all its politics and personalities.

  “Now that we’re all here…” Mr. Barton announced, clearing his throat, “I thought I’d say a few words…”

  The room quieted as Olive slid back into her seat beside mine. “Here,” she whispered. “If you want any gravy, help yourself during the speech. He likes to hear himself talk.”

  Mr. Barton began a typical Thanksgiving toast—something about coming together and the importance of family—and I zoned out, noticing that next to me, Olive was tracing a word into her mashed potatoes with her fork. At first I thought she was spelling hell and I felt a familiar twinge of annoyance. Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how much you hate your family, doesn’t count as hell. Learning that your mom was just killed by a drunk driver—that’s hell. But then Olive added a small swoop with her fork, and the word changed to help. I glanced sideways at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring straight ahead at her father. And before I had time to wonder about the word, she smoothed it over with the flat edge of her fork.

  Other than Olive’s uncle dropping a plate of apple pie onto the carpet, dinner was uneventful. When we were finally excused after dessert, I followed Olive up to her room and set down my overnight bag on her impeccably made queen bed. “Well?” I asked. “What happened with your parents?”

  “I didn’t want my grandmother to hear,” said Olive, kicking off her shoes in the direction of the closet. I took off my own shoes and lined them up neatly below her desk. Then I looked
around, wondering whether I should sit on the floor or the bed.

  “Just sit on the bed,” said Olive, noticing my hesitation. “It’s where we’re both going to be sleeping anyway. There used to be a cot up here, but I hardly ever had sleepovers, so my dad moved it to the storage shed.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” I said. Madison had a queen bed too, and sometimes we slept in it together. It was easier and more comfortable than using a sleeping bag.

  “The thing about my parents—you have to keep it to yourself,” Olive said, lowering her voice and making sure the door was closed.

  I nodded and sat down on the bed, wondering if they were getting a divorce.

  She took a seat by the desk. “My dad wants to run for public office.”

  I stared at her.

  “District attorney,” she said. “Can you believe the jerk?”

  I hardly knew what to say. “Is that bad?”

  “Are you serious?” She laughed. “He’s a Republican.”

  “Oh.” I looked down and busied myself with a loose thread on my shirt. I didn’t want to get into politics—not with Olive.

  “It’s not just that,” she sighed. “When you run for office, your whole life gets pushed under a microscope. Your personal life. Your family’s personal life.”

  “Are you sure?” I crossed my legs and leaned back against the headboard. “It’s not like he’s running for president. I’ve never even heard of the district attorney.”

  “That’s because you don’t pay attention,” she said. “It’s a pretty big deal, and my mom flipped out when he told us. She threatened to tell a reporter about the time he cheated on her a couple years ago—as though that’s the real scandal in this family.”

  “He cheated on her?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed again. “It’s one of those accusations she flings around when she’s drunk, only she wasn’t even drunk this morning.”

  “Not at dinner either.”

  Olive blinked. “You noticed?”

  “Just a guess.” Mrs. Barton’s pinched, angry face floated in my mind.

  “It’s because my dad threw out every drop of alcohol in the house this morning.” She stood suddenly. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

  Without waiting to see if I was following, she strode out of her bedroom and led me down the hallway into another room—her father’s study. When she pushed open the heavy wooden door, I heard the sound of shattered glass crunch under its arc. The room looked fancy at first glance—my eyes landed on a great oak desk and a huge, swooping reading lamp—but nothing else was as it should have been. It looked like the scene of a crime. There was shattered glass everywhere and a dozen long-stemmed white tulips scattered across the rug.

  “My mom did it this morning,” said Olive. “She lost control.”

  I felt a pang and thought of Dad after the car accident, when he received the part of the medical bill not covered by insurance. He flung his bowl of Rice Krispies onto he floor, the milk splattering all the way across the kitchen. “You must’ve been scared,” I said, staring at the scattered tulips on the floor. I thought about picking one up, putting it into a vase with fresh water, and giving it to Olive.

  “Whatever,” she said. “As long as I don’t have to clean it, I don’t care.”

  “It’s not whatever,” I told her. “It’s horrible.”

  “I know.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward in a smile. “Can’t you recognize a defense mechanism when you see one?”

  I stepped backward into the hallway to leave, but Olive stayed still for a few seconds. She stood there with her hand on the doorframe, taking it all in, and when she finally followed me back to her room, she took a shard of glass with her and set it on her dresser.

  As we changed, I felt sorry for Olive for the first time—truly sorry. Maybe having an alcoholic mother wasn’t better than having no mother at all. Her whole house had a cold, foreboding feeling—like a wax museum—and I got the creepy sensation, as I slipped out of my jeans and into my pajamas, that Mrs. Barton was standing frozen on the floor below us, waiting for a reason to come to life and light the whole house on fire.

  Olive flicked the light switch by the door and the room became dark—almost pitch black, but not quite. Light was falling in a chopstick pattern through the Venetian blinds, and I saw her move toward the bed and pull down the covers. I did the same, climbing under them, and rested my head against the overstuffed pillow. Her sheets were crisp and clean.

  “Reyna?”

  “What?” I rolled over on my side to face her. We hadn’t been whispering when the lights were on, but now that the room was dark, it seemed right.

  “Thanks for coming tonight.” She pulled the covers up to her shoulders.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I answered. I didn’t know what else to say. We lay in silence for a moment, and I rolled a certain thought around in my mind like a ball of yarn, trying to figure out where it started and stopped. Finally I blurted, “My dad destroyed a room once. Sort of like what you showed me.”

  She glanced over at me. “After your mom died?”

  “No, this summer.” I didn’t remind her about the car accident—I just told her about the bowl of Rice Krispies, the shattered bowl, the overturned chair.

  “I guess everybody needs to lose control every now and then,” Olive said, turning on her side to face me. “Which reminds me…Do you remember how I told you my dad got rid of all the booze in the house?”

  I nodded and shifted my cheek to a cool patch on the pillow.

  “He didn’t know about my stash—the stuff I confiscated from her months ago.”

  “So?”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. “So I was wondering if you wanted to try some.”

  I stared at her.

  “I’ve never been drunk,” she told me. “And I refuse to try it for the first time by myself. That would be pathetic.”

  I didn’t say anything. My mind was revving into high gear, suddenly nervous. I had never had anything more than a sip of wine in my life.

  “I’ll tell you if you’re starting to get drunk.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “I know how to recognize the signs. We won’t get wasted, we’ll just get tipsy.”

  “Just to test it out?” I said.

  “Yeah, just to see how our systems respond.” She was watching me carefully. Then she added, “I know I’m not the most fun person in the world. Not like your other friends—”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just…now?”

  Olive raised her eyebrows. “Why not?”

  She had a point. I would inevitably try my first drink at some point, and I didn’t want it to be at a party—I had a brief and awful image of throwing up all over Levi Siegel’s jeans. If I was going to get drunk, I preferred to test my limits in the safety of Olive’s bedroom. “I guess I’ll try some,” I said. “I just don’t want to go overboard.”

  She smiled and stood up, the springs on the bed creaking quietly. “I don’t have any cups in here, but we can drink straight out of the bottle.”

  I sat up and leaned back against the headboard. It felt like a business proposition.

  Olive moved through the dark room toward the filing cabinet, crouched, and pulled out the bottom drawer. It slid smoothly on its wheels until it was almost all the way open; then it made a faint screech, and we froze.

  But there were no footsteps outside in the hallway—only the sound of the TV on the floor below us. Cautiously, Olive pulled out a tall, rectangular bottle of amber liquid and left the drawer wide open as she got to her feet. “It’s whiskey,” she said. “My mom’s favorite.”

  “You go first,” I told her.

  She climbed back onto the bed and twisted open the cap. “I hope you don’t mind my cooties.” Then she put it to her lips and took a swig.

  The expression on her face was not a good advertisement for the whiskey. She looked like she was swallo
wing lighter fluid. As soon as she managed to get it all the way down her throat, she opened her mouth and gasped for air. “Ugh,” she said. “That’s disgusting!” But as she passed the bottle to me, she swallowed a few times and added, “My throat feels kind of nice though.”

  I didn’t count to three or give myself any preparation. I just brought the bottle to my lips and took a small sip. It felt like liquid fire going down—and not in a good way—but Olive was right. Once swallowed, it left a pleasantly warm, tingling sensation in the throat. “Do you feel anything?” I asked her. “Are you tipsy yet?”

  She laughed. “One sip isn’t enough.”

  “Have another, then.” I held out the bottle and met her eye. “And I will too.”

  It wasn’t long before we were stretched out on her floor like beached whales. After three more sips of whiskey and two big gulps of vodka, I was more than just tipsy: I was tipped. Whenever I focused on one part of the room, it seemed fixed in place, but as soon as I moved my head, everything became unhinged and floated around like objects at sea.

  Olive wasn’t such a lightweight. Besides whiskey and vodka, she tried four sips of coconut rum, which she claimed was supposed to taste good with vanilla ice cream. Vanilla ice cream made me think of pigging out at Abby’s house when we were little, and without thinking, I sighed, “Don’t you wish we went to Ridgeway?”

  Suddenly Olive started groaning on the floor. I thought at first she was going to throw up from drinking too much, but then she moaned, “Why would I want to go to school with your friends? They hate me!”

  “That’s not true,” I said. My voice sounded far away, as though my head were packed with bubble wrap. “They think you’re nice.” It was a lie. Madison had told me a few days after our Halloween sleepover that Olive reminded her of the kind of person who would one day “go Columbine” and shoot up a school.