Lauren Holmes - Barbara the Slut and Other People

We had no choice but to spend the next three hours in silence, or obviously not in silence but not saying anything. My mom drove in the right lane. She put on her sunglasses and tried to ignore all the cars passing us and staring.

I had insisted on taking my car because I didn’t want it to look like my mom drove me to break up with my boyfriend. My plan had been to drop her off near James’s house and pick her up when I was done, but now all my plans had gone to shit.

When we finally got to Emerald Isle, my mom’s boyfriend, Mak, was unloading beer from his car, and my brother, Noah, was on a walk with the dog, meaning he was smoking weed somewhere and letting Petey chew on rocks. The three of them had left Virginia at the crack of dawn that morning because Mak was in a big hurry to get to North Carolina to play golf. My mom and I had waited to get our hair and nails done, because my mom wanted to look good for her boyfriend’s brother’s wife, and because I wanted to look good for when I turned single.

We were renting a house with Mak and Mak’s brother’s family, the Henderchenkos. They were the Henderchenkos because Mak’s brother used to be “Boychenko” and his wife used to be “Henderson,” and by combining they saved themselves six letters and a hyphen.

The house was smaller and crappier than I had imagined when my mom said we were getting a nice big house for everyone. There were only three bedrooms, and I guessed I was sharing with my brother, which left my mom and Mak in the second bedroom, and the Henderchenkos — Andy, Tina, and their son, Dylan — in the third. Unless Dylan was sharing with me and Noah, but I didn’t think my mom and Mak would do that to us.

We had been on Emerald Isle at the same time as the Henderchenkos for the past several years, but we had never shared a house. I liked them fine, but they were very serious people. They were always dressed up, even at the beach. Tina wasn’t as pretty as my mom, but she worked much harder at being pretty, and that somehow made my mom want to go get her hair and nails done. Andy was in much better shape than his brother because Tina didn’t let him eat carbs. Andy also had all of his hair, and I wondered if Tina had a hand in that as well.

The Henderchenkos got there shortly after my mom and I did, and we followed Mak outside to meet them. Mak and Andy hugged and thumped each other on the back. They looked like before-and-after pictures of the same man — the same face and the same height and roughly the same age, but Mak fat and bald and dressed like shit, and Andy thin with hair and wearing a polo shirt and khakis and a belt. If I were my mom I would have been disappointed to find out that I was dating the “before” brother and not the “after” brother, but she didn’t seem to mind. Tina was also wearing a polo shirt, with a khaki skirt and wedge sandals. She hugged me and my mom and Mak. Dylan got out of the car dressed like his parents. He didn’t look at anyone, and he ducked when Mak tried to tousle his hair. His mom made him say hi and he said it to the ground.

Dylan was twelve and seemed like he was two or three years away from realizing that he hated his parents. For now, though, he liked to sit as close to his mom as possible, and other than that his only hobbies were whining and watching anime. He had this weird energy that clearly came from the shows, like he was playing out the action sequences in his head at all times — cartoon creatures battling in midair, crashing into each other and throwing balls of fire, set to ominous music and slow-motion flashes and explosions.

The Henderchenkos toured the house and confirmed that Dylan would be sleeping with his parents by putting all of their suitcases in the room with the queen bed and the twin bed. Then Tina declared that the women needed to go shopping. Mak had gone to the store, but he had only bought beer, a loaf of bread, a pound of lunch meat, and a box of donuts.

I went with Tina and my mom, and on the way to the store they agreed that the house had been grossly misrepresented on the website, and talked about what the weather was supposed to do all week. My mom was using her polite voice, which she reserves for people in the service industry, my friends’ and Noah’s friends’ moms, and her own mother, from whom she’s been estranged for most of her life. I had never wondered if my mom and Tina were friends, but now I understood that they weren’t. I was worried that I was going to have to follow them through the store, listening to them talk politely about food, but when we got there they decided to split up.

“Can I take Natalie?” Tina asked my mom. “I haven’t seen her in so long.” She put her arm around me.

“Sure,” said my mom. “I’ll meet you guys up front.”

Tina started in fruits and vegetables. “So,” she said, “how’s school?”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“You’re majoring in international relations?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I don’t have to decide until next year.”

“The sooner you decide, the better,” she said. “You should be looking for internships for next summer.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I heard you have a boyfriend,” she said.

“Sort of,” I said. “I’m trying to break up with him.”

“Oh no!” she said. “Why?”

“He’s very serious about me. Very, very serious.”

“But that’s a good thing,” said Tina.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Well I obviously don’t know this guy,” she said. “But you need to think strategically, Natalie. You need to find a good man in college, because after that all you’ll find is bums.”

Maybe she was right, but I would rather be single for the rest of my life than be with James.

• • •

That night the grown-ups got drunk. Noah went for another “walk” with Petey, and I spent the night reading in bed. Around midnight I went downstairs for a glass of water and found the four of them plastered. Tina told me how much she and Andy loved me and how smart I was and how pretty I was. Mak told me he would love me more if I played golf or really any sport. My mom kissed me good night and sat back down with her arms around Mak.

Early the next morning I woke up to someone starting a racing car. I lay there for a moment trying to block out the noise, but it was too loud. Noah had come home at some point and was fast asleep with pink earplugs in. Petey was awake and looking out the window and wagging his tail. I opened the bedroom door at the same time my mom opened hers. Petey jumped on her.

“I think that’s my car,” I said.

“No shit,” she said.

We went downstairs and out to the porch. Mak had jumper cables between his car and mine, and was trying to start them both.

“Honey!” my mom yelled over the noise. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Mak turned off my car. He looked very hungover or possibly still drunk. He was wearing golf shorts and a wifebeater.

“My car is dead,” he said.

“You hear that noise, right?” said my mom.

“Yeah,” said Mak.

“You remember that the muffler fell off?”

“Yeah,” said Mak.

“Okay. Well. Why don’t you take her car and drop it off at the place near the golf course?”

“Fine,” said Mak.

“No!” I said. “He’s drunk, he’ll crash it.”

“If he did he would be doing you a favor,” said my mom.

Mak transferred his golf bag to the trunk of my car.

“Ugh,” I said.

Mak started my car and backed out and drove away. I was pretty sure the whole island was awake now.

“Don’t even ask,” said my mom.

We went upstairs and back to bed.

When I got back up the women and the boys were eating breakfast. Tina and Dylan Henderchenko were eating fruit, and my mom and my brother were eating Lucky Charms. Dylan had clearly been crying at some point in the last ten minutes.