Mom sighs, guiltily. “Yes, and I can imagine how it might feel. You know, it was no secret how much I liked Gerard, so to be friendly with Augusto without you knowing… It felt wrong and I’m sorry, but…”
She nods toward my daughter who looks at me firmly. “I wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
“Right.”
“Is it okay if I mail these?” Paige lifts the pile of invitations sending a cloud of glitter into the air.
“Sure,” I reply, absently, because my mind is already spiraling.
I assure them both I’m not about to fall apart, then go and lie down for several hours.
Erin
For the next three weeks, I’m a wreck masquerading as a functioning adult. I reorganize bookshelves that don’t need reorganizing. I volunteer extra hours. I alphabetize the pantry twice. I watch far too many movies starring Robert De Niro. But every quiet moment I have, he gets in.
I wonder if he still looks the same, and if he’ll still find me attractive. Will he forgive me for walking away that day? Will we still find things to talk about? Will I still get goosebumps when—if—he accidentally brushes my hand?
By the twentieth night, I’m pacing the kitchen at the crack of dawn, my heart racing, for no logical reason other than the fact that in a few hours’ time…
I will see Augusto Zanotti again.
I stop pacing long enough to grip the edge of the counter and inhale slowly.
“Mom?”
I jump half out of my skin. Paige is standing in the doorway in oversized pajamas, her hair in a messy bun, her fingers wrapping around each other restlessly.
“You’re awake,” she says.
“So are you,” I smile.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Prom nerves?”
Her mouth twists. “Everything nerves.”
That makes two of us.
“Let me warm you some milk.” I fill a mug and put it in the microwave. “It might help.”
She takes it from me gratefully and heads back up to her room.
As for me, I know for a fact no drink is going to squash the nerves inside my chest—not a warm milk nor a triple shot of whiskey.
So, I pace.
By three in the afternoon, it looks like another glitter bomb detonated in my house, only this time it isn’t of the craft variety but the make-up and clothes variety.
There are palettes of eyeshadow, blush, lipstick and contouring powders everywhere, curling irons on the floor, enough shoes scattered about to fill a small department store. And Paige’s dress hangs from a hook in the hallway like a sacred relic we are both afraid to touch.
Paige is scurrying back and forth, squealing down the phone to her friend Meredith—who’s going to be here in less than an hour, go figure.
And me?
I’m pretending to be calm while my stomach feels like it’s trying to get out.
“So, um, what time did he say he was coming?” I ask Paige as she scurries past me for the millionth time.
