Her shoulders were bright pink, and her nose was an interesting shade of rose. “Hey, Rudolph,” Lauren said later that afternoon, when she found Maya examining her face in the bathroom mirror.
“Shut up. Do we have any aloe?”
Lauren came into the bathroom and reached past her into the medicine cabinet. “Here,” she said. “I think there’s some Noxzema in Mom and Dad’s—I mean, Mom’s bathroom, too.”
“Noxzema is disgusting,” Maya said, ignoring Lauren’s slip-up.
“Why are you so sunburned?” Lauren asked, sitting down on the closed toilet.
“Flew too close to the sun,” Maya muttered, trying to spread the goo on her nose without it dripping on the rest of her face.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just went outside and forgot sunscreen. Did you get Dad’s text?”
Lauren nodded, resting her elbows on her knees.
“Question,” Maya said. “Why are you hanging out in the bathroom with me?”
“Because there’s nothing on TV.”
Maya glanced at her in the mirror. “Where’s Mom?”
Lauren shrugged again.
“Laur,” Maya said.
“She’s asleep,” Lauren said quietly.
Maya sighed to herself. Asleep at five thirty in the afternoon. More like passed out. Fantastic. She had been “asleep” the day before when Maya came home from school. There had been more empties than usual that week, and both Maya and Lauren had started recycling them without even saying anything to each other. Their mom must have noticed.
Right?
“What do you want for dinner?” Maya asked Lauren instead.
“Pizza.”
“Pizza’s boring.”
“You asked me what I wanted. And the Greek place doesn’t deliver.”
Maya sighed. She had already had one disastrous fight with someone that day. She wasn’t up for another.
“C’mon,” she said to Lauren. “Let’s just walk to the Greek place. Mom can sleep it off. We’ll bring her back something.”
“You’re not going to invite Claire, are you?”
Maya froze. “Why?” she asked, her voice sounding strangled to her own ears.
Lauren didn’t seem to notice, though. “Because then you’re just going to be all lovey-dovey and canoodly with each other and I’ll have to sit there and watch—like a big weirdo.”
The fracture in Maya’s heart split a bit wider. “No canoodling,” she said. “Claire’s hanging out with her family tonight.” None of that, Maya thought, was actually a lie.
Lauren went to find her shoes while Maya tiptoed into their parents’—their mom’s—bedroom. The room seemed even bigger now that their dad wasn’t there, the bed emptier. Her mom was curled up on the far side of the mattress, her breaths deep and even, and Maya watched her for a minute before reaching down and pulling the blanket up over her shoulders.
Then she went over to the dresser and opened the top drawer, finding the wad of twenty-dollar bills that she knew would be there. She took out two, then counted the rest. Assuming her mom planned on sleeping through the rest of the week’s dinners, she and Lauren could eat out at least four more times. Five if Maya gave in to the pizza idea.
At the Greek restaurant, she and Lauren sat side by side at the counter facing the windows, eating pita and tzatziki and kabobs. (Steak for Maya, chicken for Lauren. Neither of them would even consider the lamb. It just seemed too mean to eat a baby lamb.) Maya wondered if it would ever be like this with Grace and Joaquin, the ability to just sit quietly side by side, content in the knowledge that no matter what happened with your parents, or your girlfriend, that your siblings will still be there, like a bookend that keeps you upright when you feel like toppling over.
When they got home, the house was still dark, and Maya turned on lights as she made her way into the kitchen, then stashed her mom’s takeout chicken souvlaki in the refrigerator. “Mom?” she yelled. The car was still in the driveway, at least. Her mom wasn’t that stupid.
“Mom!” she yelled again. “Wake up! We brought you food!” Secretly, she hoped the idea of Greek food would make her hungover mom nauseous. Then she wondered when she had become such a mean person. “Mom!”
There was silence from upstairs, and then she heard Lauren scream, “Mom!”
Maya was running up the stairs before she even realized she had left the kitchen.
“Mom!” Lauren kept screaming, and Maya followed the sound of her voice down the hall and into her parents’ bathroom. Lauren was on the floor next to their mom. She was crumpled like a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, and there was blood coming from her head, staining the marble floor that was freezing cold