Ashley vs. the Hurricane

September 2004

I don’t know if this is still a thing, but for a while, Disney College Program alumni could stay in program housing if they came down to work for the summer.  I took advantage of this a couple times, but roommates were always luck of the draw.  That’s how I wound up sharing an apartment with two women from Hong Kong who hated all other people (or maybe, just all other roommates), and three American women who, as far as I can remember, were all named Ashley, and all firmly believed that there was no wrong time of the day for bourbon.

The Ashleys thought I was weird.

After an interesting and insect-filled summer, my time with them was finally coming to a close.  Dad was coming down to Orlando the next day to help me drive my car back up to Illinois, and not a moment too soon, for a variety of reasons.  Not only were the Ashleys beginning to wear me down, but Florida was bracing itself for the second of four hurricanes that would hit its shores that year.  I’d already weathered Charley (thanks, Stan and Stacy!); I was determined to get the hell out of town before Frances hit.

As I finished my last shift of the summer, it was starting to look like Frances would be upon us at any moment.  The sky was getting a decidedly Kansas-before-the-twister appearance, and large blobs of rain dropped heavily on my windshield as I pulled into Vista Way.

The apartment seemed pretty empty, apart from the almost permanently-closed door to the Hong Kong girls’ room that may or may not have had them behind it.  I started packing up my stuff to load into the car before the weather turned really bad.  The Weather Channel said that the hurricane was supposed to hit Orlando some time the next afternoon–I was hoping I would be halfway to Georgia by then.

It turns out I wasn’t home alone–one of the Ashleys wandered out of the bathroom in a slinky dress and smoky eye makeup, affixing two ridiculously oversized hoop earrings to her ears.  “Laura!” She said, suspiciously delighted to see me.  “Come out with us!  Hurricane party at Mannequins!”

As a Midwesterner, I’d only recently been introduced to the concept of hurricane parties.  I guess the thinking was, if we’re all going to be stuck together for hours/days in an enclosed and structurally sound building, shouldn’t there be booze?

A hurricane party in a club with a revolving dance floor?  That was… different.

It sounded awful.

I glanced out the window.  The sky was a sickly green.

“No thanks!” I said with a grimace that hopefully looked like a smile.  “Not sure what time I have to get on the road in the morning.”

In retrospect, she probably wanted me to be her designated driver.

I didn’t know where the other two Ashleys were–already out for the evening, apparently–but I planned to make full use of my sole domination of the television by wasting several hours playing Kingdom Hearts, supplemented by a nice cold glass of Coke mixed with a borrowed splash of the Ashleys’ favorite breakfast condiment, as the rain bands washed over Orlando outside the window.

Many lives and a couple level bosses later, a polite knock on the door interrupted my hurricane party of one.

I paused the game and scowled.  Who the hell was coming over for a social visit at… Jesus Christ, 2:57 AM?

Standing in the buffeting winds and sideways rain were two fairly attractive young men.

I was suddenly very aware that I was wearing Mickey Mouse sweatpants.

“Hi,” one of them said with the kind of dazzling smile that usually merits a sparkle effect and a jingly Tinker Bell noise.

“… Hi,” I replied, quietly wishing my tee shirt didn’t have a giant, visible hole in it.

“Is this your room mate?” The other fairly attractive guy asked.

I hadn’t even noticed the drunken bundle in his arms.  It was an Ashley.

“… Yes,” I answered reluctantly.  Ashley was hanging limply in the guy’s arms.  “What happened?”

“She kind of passed out at Mannequins.  Her friends didn’t have a car, so they asked us to take her home.”

Nice friends, I thought.  She’s lucky they picked two honest, nice guys, or she might be in a lot worse trouble… But they should have taken her to the emergency room, I thought.  Ashley hardly looked responsive.  I prodded her a couple times and said her name.  She grunted and twisted in the guy’s arms, her arm accidentally flailing in his face.  A streamer of drool was slowly rolling down the side of her face, poised to drip disgustingly on the poor guy’s arm.

I guess she wasn’t dead, then.

A hard blast of rainy wind knocked into the four of us.  “So… What should we do with her?” One guy asked.

I paused.  What should we do with her?  “I guess… could you… carry her to her room?”  I asked wretchedly.  I didn’t think there was any way I could grapple Ashley’s limp form all the way to the back of the apartment myself.  I honestly wasn’t sure how this guy was managing to keep hold of her as she flopped around.

The guys acquiesced in a cheerful manner, as if it was no bother at all.  I led them to the back bedroom and hazarded a guess which bed belonged to this particular Ashley.  Feeling like a total jerk, I directed them to place her on a random, unmade bed.  “On her side,” I quickly added, haphazardly remembering some of the first aid I’d learned in the girl scouts.

Ashley immediately rolled over, nearly coming out of her dress in the process.  I quickly tucked the covers up around her chin.

The three of us conscious people stood around awkwardly for a moment. My mind raced.  What was the protocol for two guys carrying your drunk room mate home in a hurricane?  Did I tip them?  Offer them a towel?  Pour them some breakfast condiment? I opened my mouth to say one of these things–I wasn’t sure which yet–but the guys spoke first.

“Well,” they said, “we should get back to Chatham before the guy who let us in the security gate gets mad at us.”

These guys didn’t even live in this apartment complex.  They were genuine heroes.  “Well… Thanks for making sure Ashley didn’t die in the hurricane,” I said, awkwardly shaking their hands and leading them back out.

I got ready for bed and ducked my head back into Ashley’s room to check on her, still half-worried that she would choke on her own vomit or something.  She was snoring loudly.  I figured she was fine.

The next morning, the Ashley that shared my room with me still hadn’t returned, which wasn’t unusual.  I was just making my way to check on the drunk Ashley when the third Ashley stumbled out of the bedroom, looking a bit worse for wear and tucking in the shirt of her work uniform.  I don’t know how late she’d ultimately stayed out, but I mentally gave her major props for not calling in sick.

“Hey,” she mumbled as she rushed past me.

“Hey, real quick,” I stopped her, “is Ashley okay?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Can’t you hear her?  She’s snoring loud enough to wake Chatham Square.  And she passed out on my bed.”

“So rude,” I said immediately, keeping my face carefully blank.

As that Ashley was running it the door, the apartment’s phone rang.  A call on the land line was almost always work.  “This is Magic Kingdom food and beverage, I’m calling for Ashley, is she available?”

Magic Kingdom F&B was the Ashley that was currently drooling on her room mate’s bed.  “She’s, um… not available right now,” I said, hoping she hadn’t already slept through her shift.

“That’s okay.  Could you let her know that her shift had been cancelled?  The park will be closing early due to the hurricane.”

“I’ll let her know,” I pledged.

I had no idea how long she would sleep–I might already be gone by then–so I scrawled a quick note that MK had called and cancelled her shift, then I started loading up the car.

After three loads, a terrifying apparition appeared in the hallway.

Ashley looked completely disoriented.  A wedge of dark eye makeup was smeared on each cheek, just above the drool streamers.  One ridiculously large bangle hung from her right ear; she had lost the other one at some point during last night’s adventures. Also at some point in the night, she had apparently decided that clothes were annoying, and her room mate’s quilt was now draped inadequately around her in their place.

She stared at me groggily for a few long moments.  “I’m here,” she said.

“You’re here,” I agreed.

She stared for a couple more seconds.  “How’d I get here?”

“A couple straight-edge guys from Chatham Square dropped you off.”

Her eyes focused on something in the middle distance, her mind clearly blown.  “That’s so great.  I love those guys.  Those guys are great.”

This was kind of entertaining.  “Did you know those guys, Ashley?”

“Which guys?” She noticed the stack of stuff by my door.  “Where you going?”

“I’m moving out today, remember?”

“Where you going?” She repeated.

Okay, this was getting old now.  “Chicago.”

“Noooooooooooooo,” she whined, “you can’t go to Chicago.  We love you, Laura…”

That seemed highly doubtful, but I played along.  “I, um, love you too?”

“You can’t go to–” she abruptly stopped the sentence with an overly dramatic gasp that actually tipped her sideways.  “I have to go to work!”  She yelled, and began shuffling around the apartment, stumbling over the trailing quilt.

“No you don’t,” I said.

“I do!  I do, Laura!  I have to go to work!  Where are my keys?”

That was a great question.  Probably still somewhere on the revolving dance floor.  “You don’t have to go to work, Ashley.  Your boss called.  Your shift is cancelled.”

“Where are my keys?” She repeated, stooping over to look under the kitchen table.

“Ashley!” I said, stepping in front of her so she would actually look at me.  I waited until she stood up and at least attempted to focus on me.  “Your boss called.  Your shift is cancelled.”

She stared at me for a few seconds as the message made its way through the alcohol-clogged pipeline to her brain.  “No way,” she said.

“Yes way.”

“No way,” she repeated.

“Yes.  Look, I even wrote it down for you,” I said, gesturing to the note by the phone.

“My shift is cancelled?” She finally said.

“Yes,” I said, relieved that we were finally getting somewhere.

“No way.”

I rolled my eyes and started to turn back to my pile of luggage.  “Yes, Ashley.  Because of the hurricane.  Remember the hurricane?”

“You’re so great, Laura.  I love you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I pointed out matter-of-factly.  “It was the hurricane.”

“You’re great, Laura.”

“Thanks,” I said, picking up a Rubbermaid container.  “Still wasn’t me.”

“I love you.”

I was suddenly enveloped in an unexpected hug.  This was deeply disconcerting, because I wasn’t really sure how many layers of clothing were under the quilt.

“Ashley–” she was surprisingly strong for being still drunk from the night before.  I struggled to disentangle myself. “Ashley, I’ve got stuff in my arms, let me–aaaaaaaaaand that’s a nipple.”

I loaded the last box in the car just as I got the call from dad that his plane had landed. I peeled out of Vista Way as fast as I could. Hurricane Frances definitely wasn’t the only thing I was happy to leave behind.