Two Weeks Later
“Go to Drybar, get your hair done, and make sure you throw a pair of clean panties in your purse,” Janie said over the phone.
“I’m not going to sleep with him. I don’t even know if I’ll see him or talk to him. Plus—”
“I didn’t mean him. Who knows who you’ll meet at this thing, Char? O.M.G.” She spelled out the letters ... for real. “You may see Ryan Reynolds. Make sure your bra and panties match.”
I rolled my eyes and shifted my feet, avoiding a ticklish spot.
“You pick color yet?” the nail tech asked, interrupting my conversation.
“J—what should I wear? The red dress by Chanel or the black Givenchy? I think the black is safe.”
“The red, definitely.”
“Hold on,” I said into the phone and directed my next words to the nail tech sitting at my feet. “Let’s just do a French on my toes.”
“Don’t do a French,” Janie yelled in my ear. “It looks like fingers on your feet. And you don’t want that if you end up in bed with some guy.”
“Janie, may I remind you I’m going for work? If Sherri hadn’t come down with the stomach flu, I wouldn’t be going at all.”
“Not true. Your pen pal invited you.”
I’d made the mistake of coming clean to Janie at brunch on Sunday after spinning ... I must have been dehydrated or something. I told her all about my plane ride home, about Layton, and about how we occasionally corresponded over e-mail.
Our virtual chats had only become a regular thing over the last two weeks when he started working on a new project. He began sending me little clips and jokes under the guise of wanting to make me laugh after hurting my feelings. I had declined his offer to attend the premiere, saying deadlines were keeping me grounded in New York, but then Sherri got sick.
An interoffice plea for one of us to drop everything and fly to Los Angeles to cover the premiere made its way through the office, and in a weak moment, I’d agreed to go. Of course, my boss let me raid the fashion closet, including allowing me to keep the Blahniks I picked out, and off I went to California.
“Hello? Are you there, Char?”
“Yeah, I got distracted with the colors. I wasn’t going to go whenLaytoninvited me.”
“You’re there now, so time to party, babe. I want to hear every detail, and don’t do the French—”
“Okay, okay.”
“And don’t forget the underwear in your purse.”
“Good-bye, Janie.”
Once I ended the call, I told the nail tech, “You know what? Let’s go with that dark gray shimmery color,” and leaned back into the vibrating chair.
I spent ten minutes trying to clear my head to no avail when my phone pinged with an e-mail alert. Unable to ignore the ding, I pressed the mail icon and wished I hadn’t.
The first message glaring at me was from my mom, and I silently wished it had gone to spam.
Of course, she still had an AOL account. Who the heck still used America Online? My mom. Her e-mail address was ancient, a relic from her groupie days. She had no reason to part with it since she didn’t really use it much. Except to bug me. I tended not to argue with her on these matters, but I was starting to think it was time we had a conversation.
I had always felt some strange sense of guilt when it came to my mom. First, she’d given up her groupie lifestyle to be with my dad. I didn’t quite get her earlier choices because they seemed so opposed to how she tried to be now, but she was my mom and had sacrificed a big chunk of who she was for the privilege.
We weren’t supposed to get everything our moms did, which was fine because I truly didn’t. Believe me, understanding her wasn’t easy. I was the resident nerd, the smart girl who was pushed ahead because my teachers couldn’t teach me alongside theregularkids my age.
Sighing, I clicked on the message to see what she had to say.
FROM:[emailprotected]
TO:[emailprotected]
