I am suntanned and very drunk. It is still early, only a little after noon, but it feels like I have been lying on this towel for days. I’ve heard that time flies when you’re in love, or something like that, and it’s true. I’ve never been so in love with my backyard pool. This has been the best afternoon I’ve had in a while, just me and this bottle of wine, under the hot summer sun. Aaah. My arm is heavy and slow as I push my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose. They are too large for me but I wear them anyways. I grabbed them out of my parents room before the funeral, years ago, and now I wear them like a fashion statement. They aren’t doing a good job of keeping the sun out of my eyes. I feel dizzy from the heat, or maybe from the wine. An old friend of Dad’s used to giggle and say that being drunk off of wine feels like being in love. That seems like an eternity ago. Now I understand what he meant, and I giggle too, thinking of him and Dad as dumb young drunk kids, like me and my little brother are now. Well, I’m drunk, and Mark, my little brother, would be too, if he wasn’t busy smoking pot and playing videogames. He can do the best cannonballs in the neighborhood, probably because he’s too fat for a kid who’s only fifteen. I always yell at him to lose weight, or else he won’t kiss a girl until he’s thirty seven. I don’t think he cares. He doesn’t care about much of anything. He was too young when Dad died. I take a gulp of wine and hiccup and roll over on my towel, giggling because the world is spinning. Mom doesn’t always notice the bottles of wine missing from the pantry, she gets too distracted by work. It’s a week day, Monday I think. Or maybe Tuesday. I lost track of the days when school got out and summer started, but that was months ago. Time flies, right? Mom keeps nagging me to pack my room because I’m moving next week. I want my little brother to come out and swim, to break the pool’s still surface when his fat ass jumps in. I’m worried what will happen to him when I leave for college. His grades have been slipping again, faster than dad’s big glasses on my small head. Mark and I used to hotbox my truck in the parking lot before school with his nerdy friend Phil. Phil is the only kid Mark will talk to, apart from me. Phil is tall and skinny and has kissed two girls, they say opposites attract, and Phil is the exact opposite of Mark. They match each other at ping-pong, they can play sudden death for hours. It’s a breathtaking site to behold. I shouldn’t worry about Mark. He can smoke pot with Phil in the bushes before school starts, when I’m gone. Maybe I’m just worried about myself. It’s so hot, my skin is sticky and itchy, but I’m tanning nicely, I think, the world is spinning. The gardeners are making a racket with the lawn mower, they’re shouting at each other in Spanish and it’s making me want a taco. I wonder what’s in the fridge. I wonder if they want me to move (but I’m so drunk and hot and lazy). I am worried about myself, I’m worried about getting run over by a lawnmower, I’m worried I won’t be able to find a taco. Slowly I start moving my stiff body. It’s a process because I am sun burnt, not suntanned. I drop the bottle of wine as I stumble inside, tripping over my towel. Nothing spills because I drank it all, but the bottle shatters all over the hardwood floor. The world is spinning and there is broken glass everywhere but I don’t care so I laugh because I’m happy.
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