Hawaii

A loud vibration galvanizes me awake. I try to flutter open my eyes, but they are glued together with crusty make-up. I finally open one eye and take in my surroundings. I am in a foreign room with no memory of how I got there. I can’t process anything because my body is in excruciating pain. I can only think about how much everything hurts. My mouth is so dry, I can’t produce enough saliva to swallow. I am pressed against a naked body in a twin-sized bed with the worst hangover of my life.

My phone is next to my ear and I realize its persistent buzz woke me up. I flip it open and see a missed call from my dad. I know why he called. I have to get up and leave as soon as possible but my body disobeys the command. Suddenly, the urge to vomit propels me into the bathroom across the room. Between loud dry heaves, I pray he won’t wake up. The bathroom is filthy, covered with short black hairs and dried urine on the toilet, which makes me continue to retch my body without any satisfaction of a release. I have a wild thought to slam my head as hard as I can on the porcelain so it will crack, and some pain will escape. I get up and wipe my mouth with a bleach-stained towel and intentionally avoid looking in the mirror. I don’t need my reflection to tell me my heavy eye makeup is smudged down my face and my hair is tangled like a tumbleweed.

I grab my phone and scan the bedroom for something else belonging to me. My jeans are in a ball in the center of the room and are cold and stiff as I yank them on. By some miracle, both shoes are nearby, and I stumble trying to slip into them. I can’t remember if I took a purse out or left the party with a jacket. There is another unoccupied twin bed adjacent to where I passed out. Posters for teams I never heard of haphazardly adhere to sterile white walls. My head is throbbing so loud, I am convinced it will wake my nameless bedmate. I definitely didn’t take a purse but vaguely remember wearing a jacket. He begins to stir, and I decide I would rather lose a jacket than have to talk to him. I give the room a final look but see nothing on the floor except piles of dirty clothes and my dignity.

It is almost April, but the temperature is nearly freezing. I am wearing a dumb short- sleeved gray sweater with an oversized cowlneck, likely from Forever 21. The brash wind whips me in the face as cars speed down Broad Street and cherry and white flags violently flap above. In the distance, I hear church bells beckoning sinners to come inside and repent. If I take a shortcut through the promenade on campus, the buildings will block some of the wind. My body is shaking, and I’m still highly intoxicated. I should have looked harder for that jacket. Did I even wear one last night? Where did I meet that guy? What the fuck did I drink? It suddenly occurs to me we probably had sex. I want to slip through the cracks in the sidewalk and disappear beneath the broken concrete.

Campus is deserted in the early hours of a Sunday morning and I am thankful no one can witness my walk of shame. I pass the 7Eleven and think about getting coffee and a Gatorade, but I don’t have any money on me and can’t stomach the smell of rotisserie hot dogs. My phone buzzes again. I ignore another call from my dad.

Somehow, I have my ID card to get into my building and mechanically ride the elevator to the fourth floor. I see something shapeless hanging on the doorknob of my room. It’s my leather jacket with a note pinned to it.
“You left this in my dorm last night. Hope you had fun! – Mike”

Suddenly I remember drinking in Mike’s dorm before going out, guzzling copious amounts of an electric liquid aptly named “Blue Wave” while dancing to Britney’s Blackout album.

I enter my room relieved to see my roommate isn’t there. The minifridge is out of water bottles, so I stick my head under the faucet of the utility sink in the laundry room directly across the hall. I gulp mouthfuls of tepid water until I vomit it back up. I hope a hot shower will make me feel better. It will at least get rid of the smell of cigarettes and stale beer. I look in the communal bathroom mirror and see several purple marks on my neck. Tim. His name is Tim. He is from New Jersey and plays Lacrosse. That’s all I know about him and I let him defile my neck.

Back in my room, I put on a hoodie and sweatpants and curl into a ball on my lumpy bed. I don’t bother brushing my wet hair. I trace my fingers around a perimeter of pink satin ribbon on my diaphanous security blanket. Years earlier, Nana sewed the ribbon on to protect the fraying edges. My phone rings and again, I ignore it. I am not ready to hear the words.

I close my eyes; my head still pounding and think back to the day before. My aunt and cousin pick me up from school and we drive to the suburbs where her nursing home is located. As we arrive, we see her older sister in the parking lot, tearful and dazed holding onto her daughter. I go to hug her, and she faintly breaths into my neck: “She was my best friend. I’ll be your grandmother now.” When she passes away some years later, I remember those words and how much they comforted me in that moment.

Everyone is uncomfortably jammed into the smallest room imaginable. The heat is blasting, and the persistent beeps of the machines bother me. I sit directly on the radiator below the window and want desperately to let in some air but no one else seems to notice the temperature. Her body is shutting down, but her mind is still astute. She accurately predicts the open the season against the Washington Nationals but fail to clench the series, so everyone is dubious. But come October, they manage to win the title and I smile thinking about her, an angel in the outfield.

I am not listening to what anyone is saying, and I try not to make eye contact. I do not know who is in the room, but it seems bodies keep flooding in making it hotter. My cousins’ small black dog is lying at the foot of her bed. I want to pet him, but he seems really far away. I do not remember what I say when I lean over her body to give a perfunctory farewell hug before I leave. This is what I remember: squeaky shoes on sticky white linoleum, the pungent combination of urine and chemical cleaner and flickering fluorescent lights. A few years later, I remember this day when I say goodbye to my aunt in another nursing home, in another town.

The cluster of family members walk next door to a pizzeria. I move a garden salad I need to get back. It’s Saturday and there will be some parties around campus.

~

“Hey...” my dad sounds somber and hoarse like he’s been talking for a really long time about a really sad topic. “Nana passed away this morning.”

“I know,” is all I say.

“I’m coming to get you. We’re all meeting at my sister’s to be together.”

I look at the calendar pinned on the bulletin board next to my bed with obsessively color- coordinated notes: tests, projects, meetings, deadlines. I’m going to miss a Poli Sci test for the funeral and my professor is going to be a dick about it. I think about packing a bag, but my head still hurts, and I just want to sleep.

I walk into my aunt’s house and it’s the first time I’ve felt warm all day. I want to lie on the couch and sleep but there’s a lot of people talking loudly.

“Nice hickies,” my sister says. “Who gave them to you?”

I shrug. “Tim.”

“Who the fuck is Tim?” she demands as she hands me a scarf.

“I honestly don’t know,” I confess as I wrap it around my neck twice to hide my embarrassment.

My family gathers around the dining room table, my aunt tells me there is soup on the stove and it occurs to me I’ve barely eaten in almost two days. I am oddly proud of this fact. There are boxes of unorganized old photos, chaotically spilling out on the table.

I find a tattered postcard from the Kodak Hula Show at Waikiki buried beneath sepia- toned Polaroids and over-exposed 3x5s. “When did Nana go to Hawaii?” I ask surprised.

“Hawaii? Oh, I don’t know. She did a lot of traveling with Aunt Theresa after dad has his stroke. They went to Italy, out west, I’m not sure about Hawaii...” my aunt trails off.

On some level, I know she had a life filled with memories of trips and first loves and heartbreaks. But at 18, I am besmirched with a juvenile naivety. I only ever saw my grandmother in one role for a small part of her life, which was maybe her happiest and proudest. I suddenly wish I thought to ask her about her life. A crushing fear cascades over me when I realize it’s too late. What was it like living during the depression? WWII? The Cold War? Civil Rights? Did you wish your immigrant parents taught you their native tongue? What do you remember about your husband before his stroke? What happened in Hawaii to make you write such a beautiful postcard? I realize I knew her as well as a book I once bought but never got around to reading and I’m ashamed. I read the postcard again:

Dear Family,

Having a fantastic time. It’s so beautiful here that it must be heaven! The flight on the 747 was so smooth. The favorite expression here is “hang loose” and after drinking a few Mai-Tai, you really do. Taking lots of pictures. It’s like being in a merry-go-round!

Aloha, Mother

I think about riding my bike to her apartment after a fight with my parents, making biscotti and escarole soup in her tiny kitchen while my cousins and sister played outside, staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live, eating peach ice cream and black licorice, laughing at jokes I was too young to understand, sleeping over and patiently waiting for her to recite the entire rosary before she would make me breakfast.

I’m still holding the postcard. Everyone else is preoccupied scouring old photos for evidence of bad haircuts and outdated clothes. A sudden understanding and serenity washes over me. Her words echo deep inside, and I am mesmerized by their sweet music, harmonious and elated: “It’s like being in a merry-go-round...”