I don't know to this day how I ended up in my own bed that night. But when I woke up it was two the next afternoon and I was desperately ill.
I staggered to the bathroom and dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, hurling the contents of my stomach forth into the blue water. Whatever I had been drinking was a killer on the way out, tearing up out of my throat like it was crushed glass and not Vodka. I stopped throwing up only after my stomach was completely empty, and even then I continued to dry heave on and off for twenty minutes. When finally my body stopped raging against me, I curled up in a ball on the tile and fell back to sleep.
"Isabel?" My mother's voice. She was shaking me awake, her hands on my shoulders. "Isabel, are you ill?" I moaned and hid my face from the assault of the overhead light.
"Yeah, mom," I said. "I'm fuckin' ill. Leave me alone."
"What did you say to me?"
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, and the anger on her face softened to pity.
"Leon is here," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"What? Oh, God. I can't let him see me like this. Send him away. Tell him I'll meet him at his place in an hour."
"All right," my mother said. "I will. You want me to get some fresh towels and bath beads? You look awful. And God forbid your father should smell you the way you smell now."
"How do I smell now?"
"Like a barroom floor."
I moaned and struggled to sit. My head was absolutely thundering, and I had to lunge for the toilet twice more before I made it into the tub. The bath beads smelled like lilac, sweet and strong, and the clean purity of the smell brought back a little of my pre-last-night self. Jackson Gauthier's girlfriend. Little sweater sets and pleated skirts. Prep school uniforms, black Mary Janes. Innocent pecks on the lips and one five-second blowjob. And now Jackson was going to be a father.
I don't know where it came from. Just snuck up on me. But the tears started and I couldn't stop. I sobbed wholeheartedly, naked in a lukewarm lilac bath in Mexico, a hundred thousand miles from Jackson and the girl I used to be.
Letty answered the door with a cold glare, but when she recognized me she smiled, revealing crooked but blindingly white teeth.
"Hey, Izzie," she said. "We're cookin' out on the beach. Come on." I followed Letty, about as hungry as I was the day after Thanksgiving. Leon was shooting the shit with Vince and Dom. They sat in a row of muscle and sweat in lounge chairs, elbow to elbow, with giant margaritas. Mia stood at the grill, and they all seemed to ignore her. All seemed to be forgiven, or better, between Dominic and Letty, because as soon as she got me a drink, she climbed on him and straddled his hips. He was talking to Leon, but she took his face in her hands and turned it, taking his mouth in hers mid-word, and he didn't protest, as if seized instantly by the dark power of her. He responded with more than she gave him, dropping the margarita in the sand and pushing those beautiful hands up inside her tank, letting them rest on the small of her back as he sucked on her face.
I sighed shakily and went to Leon's side. He looked up at me with those cool, sea-colored eyes and smiled. He'd gotten some sun that day. Maybe he'd been in that lounge chair since he'd woken. Maybe he'd come out to see the sun rise and had never gone to sleep.
"How are you?" he asked, almost shyly, and I smiled, nodding. I wanted to kiss him, but he made no move to do so, so I stood awkwardly in the sand next to him, in my ankle-length pale blue sundress. Vince was talking about the various types of race exhaust and which was the best for the price, and Leon turned and laughed as Vince mentioned someone named Hector, who had the loudest, most expensive exhaust system in the circuit and the slowest car in California.
Letty forced a moan out of Dom in the chair next to us, deep and low, and the sound shook me to the core. It also galvanized Leon somehow. He reached to me and took my hand in his, bringing it to his lips and biting along one of my fingers gently to my wrist, all the while never taking his eyes off Vince. I felt that all-too-familiar-lately heat begin to flood my body, and I took a gulp of the icy drink, trying to soothe it before it got out of hand, nip it in the bud. But he pulled me toward him, gripping my arm around the elbow, and I sat in his lap.
"You sick?" he asked, and I nodded.
"Very," I said, and he laughed a little.
"Ever been drunk before?"
"Not like that," I said, and he kissed my throat just beneath my ear. I leaned into the kiss, and realized then how tired I still was. I rested my head on his shoulder and he moved my hair away from my face and kissed the corner of my mouth softly. I wished now that I had sat facing the other direction. Dom and Letty were putting on quite the show, and it was making me uncomfortable. No one else even seemed to notice, and I tried to remain indifferent, but I was too undersexed to be unaffected. The way he was touching her was making me hot. His hands were too perfect, and the silver of his watch just glowed off of him. I could see now that he was not black, at least not completely. His skin was golden brown, like melted caramel, and his muscled arms were every bit as impressive now, busting out of a white V-necked tee shirt, as they had been the night before, totally bare. And Leon…The way he'd been touching me last night seemed chaste and innocent compared to the way Dom's hands ravaged Letty's body, and the way hers did his, as well.
"Dom," Mia said. "Dom. Come on." He looked up at her with a bored smirk. "Food's ready." He snarled playfully and bit Letty's throat before lifting her under the arms and setting her on her feet in the sand.
"Hungry?" Leon asked, and I shook my head emphatically. He laughed. "Come sit with us, then?"
"Sure," I said, standing and heading to the weathered-smooth wooden picnic table. I sat next to Leon, feeling suddenly very out of place. They were like a family, these people, closer than blood. They jostled each other, smacked each other around, hugged and kissed and teased each other. I was the new girl, and yet my presence was obviously not in anyway awkward for them. I sat between Leon and Letty as Mia piled chicken on a plate and put it down in front of everyone, and as Vince dove for the food, Dom slapped his hand, then pointed a big index finger in his face.
"Ha," he said. "Your turn."
"I'm not prayin'," Vince said.
"Come on, V, you know the rules," Mia said, and he scowled, folded his hands, and bowed his head. The rest of us followed suit, minus the scowl.
"Thanks for the food. Say hi to Jess. Amen."
Jesse. They were quiet a moment, looking at Vince, shocked, almost. The mood was subdued and somber as we ate then, until Letty, with a devilish smile, made Dom gasp and jump with a strategically placed bare foot under the table. I blushed as everyone else laughed, and she nudged me, smiling.
"La virgen," she said, slowly, grinning, and at first I didn't understand what she'd said. La veer hen? What? But I got the humiliating gist in the ensuing conversation.
"No way," Dom said, his face snapping up from his plate. He blinked and looked at Leon, brows furrowed, confused. "I thought just last night you…"
"No," Leon said, his mouth full, and looked at me. "No, we were just messing around. Letty's…Letty's radar is right on." A big cocky smile spread across Vince's face.
"Wow," Dom said, taken aback, sincere. And then I got it. I flushed fiery red and hid my face with my hands.
"Oh, my God," I said.
"Oh, it's all right," Letty said, tousling my hair, and Dom cracked up.
"Well, this is swell," he said. "V, when's the last time we had a virgin at the table?"
"Eighth grade, I think," Vince said, "And it was Mia."
"Please." Mia rolled her eyes. And they all laughed. My face was so hot.
"Oh, just let me die now," I said, unable to keep the broad, mortified grin off my face, staring at the table before me with my fists on my forehead. Vince laughed out loud and pointed at me.
"Shut up," Letty said, almost protectively. "A virgin is a holy thing." She crossed herself solemnly and kissed her hand. Vince and Dom and Leon were in hysterics now.
"Yeah," Dom said, his face contorted with laughter. "It's holy all right. That's why you held out so long." Letty gasped, her jaw dropping.
"Oh, you asshole!" she exclaimed, grabbing a roll and chucking it at him. "I never once heard you complain about me giving it up." Everyone laughed, including me. I started and I couldn't stop, until I could hardly breathe, my cheeks still burning, and I covered them with my hands. When I could draw air, I shook my head.
"I cannot believe you guys," I said, shaking my head and staring down. Leon roped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close, kissing my forehead, his words only to me as the others continued to talk shit.
"It's all right," he murmured in my ear. "They like you, or they wouldn't bother."
"How old are you?" Dom asked, suddenly sobering, and I couldn't bring myself to meet his gaze. I felt ashamed of being a virgin, under his intense black stare, felt immature and childish in a way completely foreign to the comfortable nonchalance, even tentative awe, with which my virginity had been acknowledged by Leon.
"I'll be eighteen soon," I said, and Dom nodded. When I looked at him, I saw that he was licking his bottom lip and that the tease was gone from his face. There was something new there, something sincere. But I'd never seen it before in any man, and I'd never seen a man like him anywhere. Again, that whipping, reeling oblivion as my eyes and my attentions were locked solely on his face. A mocking comment from Vince finally reached into the depths of my (our?) reverie and woke me:
"You savin' it for marriage, or what?" he asked. "Because Leon's not the family type, but I'm about ready to settle down…" Mia slugged him in the arm, only half playing. They all laughed, including Dom, but the joy never quite reached his eyes. My own gaze was drawn to them again, to the deep, smoking, pupil-less black, and I studied them for a moment, confused. Confused at what I was feeling. Confused at the quiet, determined intensity that had replaced his playful grin.
What was that? What was he thinking?
Why was he looking at me…that way?