Chapter 11: Hangover

Tuesday

Steve woke up earlier than he had wanted to, because he and Brenda had fallen asleep with the drapes open, and the sun was pouring in through the windows and patio door; it was blinding. He groaned as he made his way to full consciousness, made more important by the urging of his bladder. He stood up and went into the bathroom, pissing for what seemed like hours. It was at times like this that he cursed his doctorate in biochemistry, as he contemplated the link between alcohol, arginine vasopressin, and alcohol dehydrogenase. On the plus side, Brenda was probably in even worse shape.

He returned to the bedroom and looked around. Clothing was strewn everywhere, and the room smelled of sex, sweat, and booze. Brenda was snoring loudly but seemed to be making sounds of awakening. Steve grabbed his toilet kit and went into the bathroom to take a shower. It would be quieter than hearing his drunken wife snoring.

Brushing his teeth made him feel human; showering made him feel alive. Less alive was his wife Brenda, who burst into the bathroom a few minutes after he got into the shower. Before he could even turn to look at her, he heard retching sounds.

Steve stepped out of the shower to assist, but there wasn’t much he could do until she finished heaving. As soon as she stopped, he took her by the shoulders and helped her get upright. First, he flushed the toilet, and then pulled her into the shower with him. There was nothing remotely romantic or sexual about it, though. Brenda needed to be cleaned up. A minute later, she lurched back to the toilet and sat down as quickly as possible, then everything came out the other end. Steve sighed silently. Whatever was on the schedule for the day was trashed. As soon as she finished with the toilet, he pulled her back under the shower and helped her clean up. She ended up both puking and pooping a second time before she was finished.

“Just let me die,” she moaned.

“You’ll be fine. You just had a little too much fun last night,” he commented, handing her the shampoo.

“I am going to kill Babs for sending us there,” she replied, moaning loudly.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and dry, and then you need to brush your teeth.”

Steve assisted his wife becoming human again, and then left her to brush her own teeth. While she did that, he returned to the bedroom and stripped the comforter off the bed. He grabbed his last clean t-shirt and carried it back into the bathroom. Brenda often slept in one of his t-shirts; they were large enough for her to use as oversized sleep shirts.

He smiled as he went into the bathroom. Brenda’s face was so puffy and her eyes so bloodshot, she looked like she had some dread illness. “Ready for breakfast?” he teased.

“Only if you want to be wearing it! I feel awful!”

“Well, you should! At least I got the pictures of you dancing on the tabletop and doing shots.”

She stared briefly. “No! That’s bullshit.” Steve didn’t say anything but kept the same smile on his face. “No way! I didn’t ... did I?”

“You’ll need to check on Facebook later. I can’t wait to hear what your children think.” Brenda groaned. Steve pulled a bottle of Advil from his toilet kit and poured a few out into his hand. “Here, take these and let’s get you to bed. I don’t think you’re going out for a bit.” Brenda took the pills and then fumbled her way into the t-shirt. Steve led his wife to the bed and tucked her in under a single sheet. Then he looked around and grabbed a trashcan and set it by her head. Better safe than sorry. She was asleep instantly.

Steve looked at the shambles of their room, and realized he was never getting back to sleep himself. He pulled on a pair of swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, and then began cleaning up. First, he sorted their clothing from the night before into the laundry bags, and then he went into the bathroom. Room service would do a lot, but those girls never signed on for puke and shit detail. Brenda hadn’t quite made it to the toilet before her body betrayed her. He knelt and cleaned up the worst of the mess.

Back out in the bedroom, Brenda was snoring loudly when he returned. She would be out for hours. After leaving a note on the dresser, he grabbed his car keys and wallet, slipped on some shoes, and picked up the laundry bags. Out in the hallway he found the maids already starting their rounds. He went up to the nearest girl, a native Polynesian woman in her late twenties. “You ready for room service?” she asked.

He smiled and shook his head. “No, not for several hours. My wife is still sleeping. Listen, do you know where there’s a laundromat in town?” He held up the bags. “I need to do some laundry.”

The girl directed him to a small laundromat a few blocks off the main drag in Haka Nuva. Steve thanked her and continued down the hall to the elevators. Ten minutes later he was walking into Island Coin Laundry; five minutes had been spent loading the bags into the Land Rover and driving into town, and five minutes had been spent looking for the laundromat. Once inside, he found a manager who made change from his American dollars into the local currency, the Maltesano dollar, which was loosely tied to the American dollar. The coins were in the same denomination and size as American coins. He found three washing machines side-by-side and started doing laundry. He also went to the row of vending machines and bought some snacks and a Coke; it had been a long night.

Two hours later, Steve returned to the room. He still needed to sort the clean clothes out and do some ironing, but rather than rent an iron at the laundromat, he remembered there was a small ironing board and iron in the room. When he walked in, he was hit by the stench. The room reeked of sweat, sex, vomit, and alcohol. He went to the patio door and opened it wide and moved the drapes to the side so some air would circulate.

Steve straightened the room up some more and began putting away clean clothes. Some could just get stuffed into the dresser, but some, his pants and shirts, and Brenda’s skirts and tops, needed pressing. He was halfway through that when Brenda stirred alive. “Hey, sleepyhead, how you feeling?” he asked.

“Awful,” she answered lowly. “What are you doing?”

“The laundry. Remember, we needed to do the laundry today.”

“I thought we were collecting samples.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t seem to be in any shape to go wandering around in the jungle.”

“Oh. Sorry. Since when do you do the laundry?” That was exclusively Brenda’s job back home.

“Bren, I used to be a bachelor, remember? I can still run an iron.”

“Are you doing it right?” she mumbled.

He set the iron upright and put his hands on his hips. Rolling his eyes, Steve replied, “Brenda, it’s an iron, not a jet fighter. I learned to solo a long time ago.”

“Still...” Brenda moved to roll upright, but then groaned and sagged back down in the bed. “Leave it, I’ll do it later.” She rolled back over and began to snore again.

Steve snorted and rolled his eyes, and then went back to ironing.

The next interruption came five minutes later, when the door opened and a girl called out, “Housekeeping!” She stopped from entering when she saw Steve standing there ironing.

“Can you come back later?” he asked.

The girl nodded and closed the door. At noon, she returned, and Steve delayed again, asking her to come back at two. In the meantime, he finished with the laundry and did some work on his research. At quarter after one, he woke Brenda and forced her to get out of bed. “You need to get up and get moving. You’ll feel better.”

“I hate you,” Brenda mumbled, but she swung her feet to the floor and stood up.

“I’m sure. You need to take another shower and get dressed. We need to leave the room and let room service clean up.”

“This is all your fault.”

“You’re the one who told me about the place and you’re the one who said we had to go. How is it my fault?”

“You’re the man. It has to be your fault,” she grumbled.

Steve just shook his head. “Take some more Advils and get cleaned up and dressed.” He pointed her towards the bathroom.

Brenda moved towards the bathroom slowly, grumbling at him as she went. On the plus side, she was over the worst of her hangover; he didn’t hear either his wife puking or the toilet flushing. She took a long, hot, and steamy shower, and returned to the bedroom looking considerably improved.

“Feeling any better?” he asked.

Brenda shrugged. “A bit,” she conceded.

“We need to leave the room and let housekeeping clean up in here. Get dressed and we’ll go out and get a late lunch.”

Brenda swallowed. “I don’t think I’m up for eating.”

“Well, we need to leave, so you can come with me and watch me eat,” he told her.

“You are an evil and awful man. I don’t know why I married you!” Steve simply smiled and held his hands about a foot apart. “And that is never ever happening again!” she finished.

“Just get dressed.”

Brenda selected a long button-front skirt and a short-sleeved blouse and took them into the bathroom. Ten minutes later she returned, looking better though her eyes were still bloodshot. She grabbed her sunglasses and a straw hat and followed Steve out the door. As they walked towards the elevator, they found a maid heading towards them, pushing a cart. Steve nodded his approval and slipped the girl a twenty in passing.

Then it was down the elevator. He led the way to the tiki bar on the beach and they settled in at a table out of the sun. Avoiding any booze, he ordered some POG juice, the passionfruit-orange-guava blend that was popular throughout Polynesia. He also ordered a large Italian-mix sub sandwich, though Brenda refused lunch. As he suspected she would, once it arrived, she cut some off his, and ate that, along with his chips and a pickle. He teased her more than once about not being hungry. She ended up eating almost a third by the time they were done.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Brenda was over the worst of her grumpiness by that point. She nodded and said, “I still don’t think I’m up for anything alcoholic any time soon.”

“Okay.”

“I think Captain Jack used to be a pirate. He probably ran a slave ship, taking weak and innocent women to their doom.”

“Sure, that’s probably what it was. He was probably forcing the women to drink, too,” laughed Steve.

That got a grin and giggle out of his wife, her first of the day. “They were probably sold into slavery by their husbands!”

Steve let out a barking laugh. “We are definitely going back now! I’m getting payment up front before we even sit down!”

Brenda joined in laughing at that. When the waitress came by for their plates, they ordered some more POG. “Want to go out into the sun?” Steve asked.

“That’s still more ambition than I have. Besides, I’m not exactly dressed for it,” she responded.

“Hmmm?”

“I’m not wearing a swimsuit under this,” she explained.

Her husband shrugged. “So? Half the women on the beach aren’t wearing a top, and I don’t think the other half are even wearing bottoms.”

She gave him a smile. “Cute. I am not going topless in a skirt, and I’m still not ready for the other thing. Keep dreaming.” Steve gave her an innocent and hurt look at that, which Brenda ignored.

At that point, a couple entering the tiki bar diverted their attention. He was in his fifties, short, considerably overweight with a hefty potbelly, had pasty white skin, and had just a fringe of hair ringing his sunburned scalp. He was smoking a foul-smelling cigar and wearing Speedos, a flowered print shirt, and sandals. It was not a good look.