“That stuff made me paranoid.” He laughs. “To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk.”
“You were always a lightweight.”
“If I can survive that without getting sick, then I think I can survive eating dog food.”
“Uh, you did get sick.”
“Did I?”
“My parents wanted to burn down the tree house after you came down from there.” The memory makes me smile. “Let’s hope there isn’t a repeat.”
“Well, I’ve grown up a bit over the last two decades.” He gazes out the windshield. “It went by fast, didn’t it?”
“Some parts did,” I whisper.
Other parts, particularly when I was in high school and college, seemed to go on forever.
Chapter 5
Thanksgiving 2003:
The One with Vermouth
My girl Vermouth.
She’s the first bottle I grab from my father’s liquor cabinet in his office, and I instantly regret it. Vermouth tastes as if cold medicine, window cleaner, and a stale bag of black licorice had an orgy. I hate her from the first sip, but that doesn’t stop me from taking another. And another.
“Pen, slow down.” Smith grabs the bottle from my hand, splashing a little on my Abercrombie hoodie. He takes a drink and makes a face. “This shit is awful.”
“Don’t talk about Vermouth like that.” I rest my head on his shoulder. “She’s poetic, if you think about it. She’s bold, but not necessarily in a good way. She’s memorable. Also not necessarily in a good way. OK, fine. She’s awful, but she’s all we’ve got up here.”
“Why exactly are we in your old tree house?” Smith takes another swig and shivers as it goes down. “My parents wouldn’t care if you came over.”
“Your parents don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. They call it Colonizer’s Day.”
“True. But they are having a séance. They’ve also got normal booze like beer and those little bottles of fruity wine.”
“Why are you so eager to abandon Vermouth?”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think she’s going to help us get down from this tree if we keep partying with her.”
In hindsight, the tree house is a less than ideal place to escape to. I haven’t been up here since I was in middle school, and it’s now home to a large community of dust bunnies, cobwebs, and probably a venomous spider or rabid opossum. My father has talked about tearing the thing down for years, but he’s never gotten around to actually doing it. I bet if I started spending time in here again, he’d find the time to have it removed. He’d probably have someone here within a day to rip it out, along with the tree, just to make sure I didn’t get any wild ideas about putting another one up in its place.
God, I can just hear him right now.
Tree houses are a distraction, Penelope. People who spend time in tree houses aren’t the kind of people that get accepted into Princeton, and they’re definitely not the kind of people who work for my company.
“I can’t drink any more of this.” Smith holds out the green bottle in front of me. “One more sip and your girl Vermouth is going to push me right out of this death trap.”
“She would never.”
“She would, and if the fall didn’t kill me, your parents would.”
“That would be a good distraction.” I hold the bottle to my lips. “But I’m pretty sure once we cleared your body off the grass, my dad would still force me to sit down with Mr. Yates for my mock interview. Princeton waits for no one, not even death, you know.”
“I had no idea how anticlimactic my death would be for your family.”
“It’s true.” I force down another gulp of the putrid liquid. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’d really prefer you not to die. I’m pretty invested in us being together forever and having an epic honeymoon like Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy did in Just Married.”
“Their honeymoon was awful in that movie.” Smith kisses the top of my head. The smell of vermouth on his breath is overwhelming. “Nothing goes right. They fight the whole time.” He lowers his lips to my ear. “And they never have sex. How is that romantic?”
A warm smile takes shape over my slightly numb face. It won’t be long now until my head goes foggy. After that, the fight with my parents this morning will seem like a distant memory. Hell, as strong as this stuff is hitting me, maybe I won’t remember it at all.