by Maurene Goo
It was probably the nicest room I would ever sleep in.
The bellhop left after my mom tipped him, and we were alone, finally. Unexpectedly, I felt shy. But my mom plopped onto my bed and pulled out her phone. “I’m gonna Story this, okay?” Pointing the phone at herself, her chin expertly tilted at a flattering angle as she lay down on the bed with her hair spread around her, she started speaking. “Guys. I had the BEST surprise of my life!” Then suddenly her face turned to its normal expression, and I knew the camera was pointed at me.
It’s not like I wasn’t used to this—my mom had been recording every minute of her life for the past few years—but I still felt ambushed. I pretty much knew what I looked like—a bedraggled mop with half my makeup rubbed off. My hands flew to cover my face instinctively.
Mãe laughed and went back into selfie mode. “That’s my daughter, Clara, and she’s feeling uncharacteristically shy. Best surprise EVER!” The words echoed back as she watched the video a few times before uploading it. She sprang up from the bed. “So, I gotta get ready for this poolside party thing. Meet me out there in a few?”
“What poolside party thing?” I asked, already staring longingly at my bed.
Her hands fluttered dismissively. “Oh, it’s part of this whole tastemaker retreat.”
“Wait, what? What retreat?”
She made a face and laughed. “Clara. That’s what all of this is. I’m here as part of a retreat with other social media tastemakers.”
My heart thudded down into my feet. “Oh. I guess I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t I mention it?”
The fatigue from the travel hit me so hard then that I almost fell over. “Maybe you did? I don’t remember.”
“We’ll still have fun! I’ll just have to do a few events here and there.”
The idea of being trapped in a resort full of social media tastemakers made me want to scream, but I forced a smile. “Cool. Give me a sec and I’ll meet you out there.”
As soon as she left, I pulled out my phone, connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, and took a deep breath. I had avoided this long enough.
After a couple of rings, my dad answered. “Clara?”
Out of nowhere, a tidal wave of homesickness rushed over me, filling my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
“Clara? Can you hear me?” he repeated.
I nodded, stupidly. Realizing he couldn’t see me, I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Hi.”
“HI?! IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY RIGHT NOW?”
Something about his yelling calmed me down. I understood this; this was familiar.
“YOU WENT TO ANOTHER COUNTRY WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!”
Pause.
“HOW IS THAT LEGAL? WHAT HAS THIS COUNTRY COME TO? OH, BETTER NOT LET IN REFUGEES, BUT SURE, HEY, LET A MINOR FLY TO CENTRAL AMERICA!”
Pause.
“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!”
I cringed. “Yes, I’m listening.”
His breath came out in angry huffs. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Young lady.”
“What?!”
“You forgot to add ‘young lady.’”
Another pause.
“Clara, I swear to God, I’m going to—”
“Kill me?”
“You know. Maybe. Maybe I’d murder you. My own child.”
I started to laugh then, but then the laugh got weird and garbled and filled with tears. I managed to say, “I was so mad at you.”
Pai’s silence made me squirm. Finally, he responded, his voice tired. “I know. But, you have to wonder, was this reaction perhaps a tad disproportionate?”
“Nah. Seemed about right.”
He sighed. “Clara. This is insane. You’re in deep trouble when you get home, you realize this, right? Like, this is way worse than the fight with Rose. You’re going to have to work on the truck your entire senior year to make it up to me.”
The mosquito net got caught in my hair as I paced in my room, and I tried to pull it out with one hand. “I know. And I’ll pay you back for this ticket. And everything else. But, I just…” With a quick yank, my hair was released. I straightened out. “I needed to see Mãe.”
“You needed to see Mãe, or get away from us?”
He didn’t have to clarify who “us” was. Hamlet’s and Rose’s unread texts practically weighed my hand down. I didn’t answer, and when enough seconds had passed, my dad changed the subject. “Well, Shorty, how are you? How was the flight? How’s Tulum?” The last word dripped with a faux frou-frou accent.
I sat down on the bed, my back against the fluffy pillows. “The flight was fine. I watched three movies.”
“Whoa, which ones? Wait, let me guess. The new Marvel thing, the new Pixar thing, and a documentary about the financial crisis of 2007.”
“Are you psychic?!”
We both laughed, then an awkward silence settled between us. “So, how’s your mom?” he asked.
I stared at a large spider that was making its way across the wall next to the window. “She’s good!” Could he hear the effort it took for me to be chipper? “And this hotel is, as you would say, the bomb. My villa is on the beach.”
“Your villa?”
“Yeah, I get my own. Isn’t that cool?”
The judgy pause on the other end made it clear that no, it was not cool. But he replied with, “Yeah! So what have you guys got planned?”
I turned on the ceiling fan when I realized how hot and sticky I was. “Well, I just got here, so not sure. There’s a party tonight or something, so we’re going to that.”
“A party?”
“Pai. Calm down. It’s one of the events for this retreat thing.”
“Oh. So she told you about that?”
My dad’s relief didn’t go unnoticed. “You knew about it?”
I felt his shrug over the phone. “Yeah. Jules told me about it a while back.” Jules. It was moments like this that reminded me that my parents had actually known each other at one point in their lives. Really well.
“Wait,” he said. “Did you know?”
Ugh. When you were a kid with parents who were divorced or separated or whatever it was my parents were, you were stuck in this annoying diplomatic purgatory—always wondering if you were saying something to get the other parent in trouble. “Yeah, I knew,” I lied again.
“I’m surprised you were still hell-bent on going, then.”
I took my time responding because, had I known, maybe I wouldn’t have been so quick to hop on a plane to get here. With my dad’s credit card. In the middle of a fight with my boyfriend. “It’s going to be fun. Once the storm passes, I’m going to work on my tan.”
“Right, that storm. I saw that when I checked the weather report. Did your flight get in all right? When did you land?”
My dad and I talked for a bit longer—I told him the details of my flight, which he actually wanted to hear. Suddenly, I realized the rain had stopped. And that there was live music playing outside.
“I think I should go now,” I said, reluctant to interrupt our conversation. “Party’s in full effect.”
“Okay. Well, enjoy yourself, because you’re grounded forever once you get back.”
I would have laughed except I knew he wasn’t joking. “I will. I’ll buy you a puka-shell necklace.”
He laughed then. “Looking forward to it.” A beat of silence. “I told Hamlet and Rose where you were.”
Another wave of homesickness hit me. “I’m pretty sure I broke up with Hamlet. And Rose is probably mad, too.”
“I don’t think so. They were both worried about you.”
I blinked, my eyes tired. “Is it okay if we don’t talk about them right now?”
“Sure.” He sighed. “Can you do me a solid, though, and call Hamlet? Or text him? Or something?”
The room was growing warmer. I fanned my face with my hand. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“And, I noticed in my lovely airline receipt that yo
u didn’t buy a ticket back home yet. How long are you going to stay there?”
I stood up and moved the phone to my other ear so I could examine the thermostat. “I don’t know.”
“Lot of thought went into this plan of yours.”
“Well, I mean, it’s not forever.”
“Oh good!” I heard Flo mew in the background, and I missed her so much.
“Talk to you later, Pai.”
“Later, Shorty. Also: one week max, got it? You need some downtime before school starts.”
A week. That seemed like forever and not enough at the same time. “Okay.”
A pause. “Love you, little girl.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Love you, too, Pai.”
When we hung up, I stared out the window at the beautiful people who had started to gather in the courtyard. Time to put my game face on.
CHAPTER 29
When I stepped outside, the air was cool and the sky was filled with stars. The storm had left everything drenched and sparkling—palm trees, the woven hammocks in everyone’s villas, and the slick stone paths leading from the rooms to the lit-up courtyard.
Strings of twinkly lights and torches made everything glow. Perfect Instagram lighting, apparently—every single person out there seemed to be snapping Stories or photos on their phones. Beautiful moments never happened unless you uploaded them first.
I’d been to plenty of these kinds of events with my mom, and I’d dressed for the occasion. Knowing that I couldn’t match these people with their outrageous clothing budgets, I went with “teenage minimalist”: black cutoffs, my Docs with black ankle socks peeking out, and a white cotton T with the sleeves rolled up. I hadn’t had time to shower, so I leaned into my dirty hair by adding more product to push it back from my face, the tousled strands tucked behind my ears.
Eyes appraised me as I wove through the crowd—everyone was probably wondering if I was that teen fashion blogger, or a YouTube star.
I found my mom pouring some kind of bubbly drink into a delicate wineglass, surrounded by people. She’d had a wardrobe change, too. Still wearing the fringy robe, she had switched into a long, silky black dress with a leg slit a mile high. She was barefoot and her hair was done up in an artfully messy topknot. What glammed up the entire outfit were her bright pink lips on a glowing, otherwise makeup-free face. When I noticed these things about my mom, I couldn’t tell if it was admiration I felt or irritation.
She looked up with the glass and her eyes met mine. “Clara! Finally!” she exclaimed. “Everyone, meet my perfect daughter. I mean, look at her.”
Gazes zeroed in on me. You could see some faces registering my age and doing the math. Others skimmed over me, head to toe, trying to figure out what I was trying to do with my outfit. Some smiled warmly at me.
“Cool intro, Mãe,” I said drily before smiling at everyone. “Hi, I’m Clara.”
Here’s the thing: when you act confident, even when you’re nervous, people relax and stop scrutinizing you.
“I didn’t know you had a child, Jules!” A Latino man wearing the tightest shorts I’d ever seen pushed my mom playfully on the shoulder.
She handed me the drink, and I happily accepted it. “Well, I do, Jeremy. She’s my one and only.” Pouring another drink for herself, she looked up at the mini crowd held in her thrall with a huge grin. “And Clara is amazing. She flew out here and surprised me!”
“Get out!” This time Jeremy pushed me, and I had to laugh.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said before taking a sip of the drink, the fizziness pleasantly traveling down my throat.
A blond white woman wearing a tropical-print romper pointed her drink at me. “Said like a true cool teenager. How old are you?”
I glanced at my mom before answering. “Sixteen. Seventeen in a couple months.”
Her eyes widened, metallic blue eyeliner meeting meticulous eyebrows. “Wow! Jules, when did you get pregnant?”
The familiarity didn’t seem to faze my mom. She rolled her eyes. “Kendra, I was so young. God … I was basically her age. Can you even?”
“Babies having babies,” Jeremy said with a disapproving cluck. Everyone cracked up, and the music thrummed through the night air, making everything feel funny and good and clever. Or maybe it was the champagne.
“Who’s the dad?” Kendra asked.
Mãe perched herself on the edge of an armchair, the twinkly lights creating a soft halo around her. “He was my high school boyfriend, Adrian. Meu Deus, Adrian was so hot back then.”
I groaned. “Grossss.”
She laughed and pulled me over to her. “Sorry, filha, but it’s true. He was good at break dancing.” Everyone laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. Like a nostalgic we-get-it kinda laugh. “Anyway, I got pregnant, and the rest is history. Adrian’s done a fantastic job helping raise this daughter of mine in LA.”
Helping raise? Something needed to be corrected there, but I felt like it would be awkward to react, so instead I took another sip.
And I continued to drink—people kept offering me shots and various frosty cupped drinks with fruit in them. At one point, my mom and I did a near-perfect choreographed dance to “Baby One More Time.” When Jeremy claimed that he was swim team captain in high school, I pushed him into the pool, only to dive in soon after. Soaking wet, I peeled off my shirt and wore it as a turban.
And I knew all this because people there recorded every single moment.
* * *
Sunlight streamed through the mosquito net, and I blinked. My mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, my head was throbbing, and there was something happening in my stomach that I had to stay very still to ignore.
There was a vibration near my leg. I grasped for my phone with the most minimal movement possible. Do not barf. Do not barf. Do not barf.
When I peered at the screen, the clock said eleven a.m. And there were about a billion texts from Rose and Hamlet. Now a prisoner in my hungover body, I finally decided to read them. I opened the ones from Rose first.
Yesterday:
Adrian told me you left for Tulum. He’s kidding right?
HOLY CRAP YOU DID IT
How could you do this to your dad? TO US? The whole deal was we had to work all summer or get suspended when we get back. You BETTER not have messed this up for us.
Clearly we were never friends.
I hope you drown in the ocean.
This morning:
You know, for some reason I lost sleep over that last text to you. I don’t want you to die but I wouldn’t mind some severe injuries.
My head throbbed behind my eyes as if in response, but I still had to smile at these texts.
I wanted to read Hamlet’s next, but first I needed some water. There was a bottle of Perrier in a gift basket from the hotel and I chugged it, almost choking in the process. Stupid sparkling water. I managed to drag myself to the bathroom, splashing my face. When I glanced in the mirror, I startled. If a raccoon became a ghost and then dipped its head in grease, it would have looked like me.
Feeling like The Worst, I picked up my phone again to read Hamlet’s texts.
Yesterday:
I’m sorry about our fight. Can we talk?
Ok, I understand if you need time.
Wait. Adrian told me you went to TULUM???????
Because of our fight? Or your dad?
Either way, WTF CLARA! Can you please text me when you land? I just checked the weather for Tulum and there’s a storm coming??
All right looks like there were no plane crashes today. But I also checked to see if anyone was abducted or murdered in Cancun and its surrounding areas and looks like no. So that means you’re alive. I guess I’m relieved.
Today:
Uh. Have you seen your mom’s IG? Who is that guy in the tight shorts?
I almost dropped my phone. Last night came back to me in quick flashes. Ugggghhhhh social media influencers! I wanted to respond to Rose and Hamlet, but I needed to
shower. To clear my head.
An hour later, I managed to make it to the hotel café, essentially a long balcony filled with tables lined alongside the beach. My mom was already there, wearing a large straw hat and sunglasses, nursing a giant cup of coffee. I sat down between her and Kendra, who was drinking a Bloody Mary of all things. I held back a gag.
“Morning, filha,” Mãe said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Want some coffee?”
I took her mug gratefully. “Yes, please.”
Kendra clinked my mug with her Bloody Mary. “You were a total star last night. My DMs are crazy this morning. Everyone wants to know who you are!”
That made me cringe. “Oh God.”
“Oh, yes. I got an earful from Adrian this morning,” my mom said with an eye roll. “Thanks for getting me in trouble, friends.”
Kendra laughed. “You’re always welcome. Anyway, Clara, you have to join us for the activities today,” she said, her round, mirrored sunglasses showing my grimacing expression reflected back at me.
I looked at my mom, who grinned and dug into a plate of eggs. “Oh yeah. You’re coming.”
“What are these activities?”
Kendra answered, “First, we’re going shopping. There are a few sponsored posts we have to do with local boutiques. Then we’re hitting up a spa. Lunch at a resort later. Then back here for a yoga class and chill before dinner.”
I shrugged. “Cool, I’m in.”
Mãe squealed. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
With my headache subsiding and the sun shining, I couldn’t help but smile and agree.
CHAPTER 30
Tulum has one long main street, and it’s where you can find a lot of the boutiques, cafés, and restaurants. It was a very sleepy town that had somehow, in the past few years, become wildly popular.
Riding a sleek new beach cruiser, I glanced at the squad I was with. Jeremy and Kendra had joined us, along with a few others: a photographer who traveled the world taking photos of fancy hotels, a stylist for celebs, someone who ate a lot of fancy food, and an interior designer. My mom and Kendra were both fashion influencers—meaning they wore free designer clothes and took lots of photos and collaborated with designers sometimes. Jeremy was an architect who also happened to be a model.