Mauve Momma #6

My eyes creaked open. Ow. Shit. Head hurt. The yellow light was too much. I closed them again.

I exhaled, tasting the sour liquor on my breath, and took a fresh breath in. This didn't smell like my room. It smelled...old. Like the inside of a Kleenex box. It smelled like a church pew, plus a couple of cat hairs. Yesterday my room had smelled like sandalwood incense, plus the old pizza and dirty laundry I was trying to cover up. Not my room.

I tried opening my eyes again, real slow. Ow. And...huh. Definitely not my room. Unless my bed had acquired four posters during the night, and had transported itself to the world's stuffiest bed and breakfast. With my head pounding, and through blurry eyes, I surveyed what I could see from where I lay- the curtain frills, the wooden rocking chair, some framed piece of sewing or something above the chair.

Well. I laid back against the pillow and tried to remember how I might have ended up in such a place. I drew a blank, but the whiskey breath and the migraine indicated they probably played a part. Dammit. I had been having a raucous but fairly sober time with some old high school friends, and in the middle of it all, my ex-girlfriend had called, drunk, and said a couple heartless things. I had gotten angry and thrown my phone across the bar. After that I didn't remember.

The door opened, slowly, and a dark head peeked in, with an amused look of concern. Melanie. My band buddy and den mother since 10th grade. I was pleased to see her and managed a weak hangover smile.

"Well. Good morning, sunshine." She put a glass of water next to the bed.

"Hi Mel," I croaked. "Um." I looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to tell me what the hell I'd done now.

"It's not that bad," she reassured me. "You only cursed at two really buff guys with mustaches. No cops this time."

"This room..." I was too woozy and confused to get out the question. "It smells like an orthopedic shoe or something."

Mel sat on the edge of the bed. "Here's the story, drunky. You were real out of it last night. We took you back to your house, but you'd lost your keys and you didn't want to face your mother in your condition. I didn't know what else to do, so I took you back to my parents' place."

"Oh god. Did your mom-"

"She remembered you. Said you looked just like when we were in band together, except way drunker." She winked at me. "Anyway, you tried to pass out on my living room floor, but she wasn't having it, so we put you up here. In my grandma's room."

Well, that explained the mothball and cat smell. But I was still confused. "What about your grandma, where did she sleep?"

At this Mel's face grew cold. The concerned smile vanished. "Brian, my grandmother died when we were in 12th grade. We just haven't used her room for anything."

The guilt hit me like a cold wave. Shit. I'd forgotten. Mel's grandma had died of a stroke the day before Winter Formal, and I had skipped it to take her out for pancakes. Fucking whiskey. Fucking Deanna. I closed my eyes and Mel could tell I was sorry.

"Brian, it's okay. Sleep some more if you want, and then come down and have breakfast with us."

I had nothing else to say. "You're amazing. Thank you."

She gave me a businesslike kiss on the forehead and swept out of the room. I looked around at the room again. It didn't seem so stuffy this time, just kind of lost in time. The kind of love that had passed here was a kind that I, with my misplaced anger and my Jim Beam, could hardly understand.

"Hey, Mrs. Alexander." I heard myself say out loud. "I like your embroidery thing. It looks really nice."

What else could I offer? I stood and tried to pull the comforter straight. And I went down to breakfast.