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“What’s that face for?” I asked.
“Your friends are coming,” he said. “Good talk, Mrs. Lucas.”
Without another word, he shifted and vanished into the darkness of the forest, his footfalls so quiet and soft that they didn’t even leave markings in the snow.
The only thing left was his damned cigarette butt.
The door opened behind me, and I turned to see Paulette in the doorway, her arm tossed around the back of Rosie’s neck. “Get back in here, bitch!!” Paulette cried. “I demand girl time!”
I considered picking up the cigarette butt, but decided just to leave it there. For all I knew, the two of them would be able to smell Curt on it. I really wasn’t sure how their sense of smell worked with things like saliva.
“I’m coming!” I called, walking over to the open doorway and the warmth of the home my husband and I were building.
A few hours later, the crowds thinned as people went home. In the end, Ginger went back to her own apartment, leaving Paulette to her own devices with us. She seemed relieved not to have to play babysitter to her drunk girlfriend.
We made our way up to my bedroom, arms laden with leftover catering and snacks and bottles of wine to keep the party going. I didn’t tell any of the girls about seeing Curt, and I was grateful that none of them seemed to smell him on me.
The room was bathed in the soft, warm glow of lamplight, casting everyone in colors of amber, auburn, and ochre. Rosie, Lana, Paulette, and I sat cross-legged on my king-sized bed, the centerpiece of our evening a bottle of red wine and the remaining food. As laughter and secrets filled the air, I couldn't help but feel that these moments were the stitches binding our lives together—not only as friends, but as individuals, too. Without these girls, I was sure I wouldn’t have been able to get through nearly half of what I’d been through. Lana was my savior from Wyatt. Paulette, my first real friend and connection other than Lana. Rosie was a shifter who had a mind like mine. These girls made me feel like I really could belong among the people I’d spent most of my life with.
With a hint of mischief in her eyes, Rosie raised her glass. "To the fabulous four!" she exclaimed.
“Ohhh, I like that,” Paulette gushed. “Are we calling ourselves that? Do we have a code name now?”
“If we’re gonna have an alliterative code name, I want it to be more interesting than that,” Lana slurred, sipping on her third glass of wine.
“What do you propose?” I asked her.
“Mmm...something sexy,” she said. “Fuckable Four. Freak-a-leek Four.”
“Freak-a-leek?” Paulette guffawed. “What is this, the year 2003?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Lana shot back. “I’m not old.”
“No one said you were old,” I pointed out. “Just that ‘freak-a-leek’ was.”
“But by the transitive property, if I say something old, then I, too, am old,” Lana said, pointing at me with her wine and almost splashing red wine onto the bed. “Fuck,” she cursed, firmly grabbing onto the cup with two clumsy hands.
“You’re drunk,” Rosie told her.
“Bitch, you are, too!” Lana retorted.
“I know, but I’m jus’ a lil’ girl, so it’s not as funny as Miss Big Scary Principal-or-Superintendent being drunk.”
“I’m not funny,” Lana said.
“Yeah, but you’re funny-lookin’!” Paulette shouted.
“Shhhh!” I hushed them. “People are sleeping downstairs.”
“Like you didn’t soundproof the room,” Lana called me out. “Don’t fucking lie.”
“First of all, that’s rude,” I said, wrestling with another wine bottle. “Second of all, how do you use these shitty bottle openers?”
“This is why we should only ever order the ones with the twist-off caps,” Paulette said.
“Says the girl who would gladly drink wine straight out of a cardboard box like some kind of mongrel.” Lana snorted, reaching a hand out for the wine bottle.
I handed it off to her as Paulette pouted. “Lanaaaa, why are you being so meaaaan to meeee?” Paulette whined.
