Page 323 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

The vintage-music-box intro of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” loops again, its twinkling bells tapping my shoulder. An annoying reminder that I have exactly six hours to find him the perfect suit for tonight, get ready—hair, makeup—and devise a plan to make sure Andrew doesn’t reject me at the final second.

I dump the air from my lungs,

hold up another shirt,

toss it to the side.

Celie stands in the mirror’s reflection.

“And what was wrong with that one?”

“He has long arms,” I mutter.

Her face falls deadpan.

“You know his arm length.”

I shrug.

“He reaches for things, don’t he?”

Another four minutes pass,

and Mariah’s high note shreds the air.

I wince through the saccharine pitch,

just before it loops again,

no longer a jingle but now a death knell.

Celie’s not bothered by it.

The models aren’t bothered by it.

Doesn’t matter how many times the song plays, they still sing and hum on autopilot.

Meanwhile, I’m two seconds from either killing something or taking it out on my clit.

I close my eyes.

Inhale deep.

Breathe out slow.

Celie’s voice floats over Mariah’s—“You really gonna show up to the bar, tell him to get his ass in the car?”

When my eyes open again,

I move to the next rack.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

I shove ten hangers aside,

the wire hook screeching across the rod.

“If I ask him to leave work early, he starts talkin’ with his hands—‘Oh, sure, let me just tell the boss I’m callin’ out on a Friday night. That’ll go over real great when the mortgage is late.’” Then I do his blue-collar sigh. “‘Christmas party don’t pay the stack’a bills waitin’ on me’—like some forty-five-year-old sole provider of the entire state of Jersey.”