She cocks a brow. “Oh yeah, forgot that.”
I wonder where Peter is right at this moment. Is he home? Will he be there when I go back home? Or did he run away?
“Anywho,” Sylvia says. “I’ll go now and tell everyone.”
Gabbie sits next to me, and pulls a tissue from her clutch, dabs at my wet cheeks – she is such a mom. “Do you need help getting out of your dress? We can help you clean up.”
“We can go back to my place and get drunk and watch corny Emma Stone movies,” Kayla chimes in. “I haveCrazy, Stupid Loveon DVD.”
That sounds really good to me. The last place I want to be right now is home. I’m so thankful for my friends. Where would I be without them?
“Can Mandy come?” I ask. Mandy is still shell-shocked. Turns out the Cinderella fairy tale was all a sham, and she can’t quite wrap her mind around that. She looks as devastated as I am.
Kayla smiles. “Of course… the more the merrier. We’ll have a blast.”
“Whoo-hoo,” Corrie cheers. “Girls’ night!”
They’re all trying so hard. They’re patching and gluing the cracks, desperately trying to keep me together. We all know that I might completely break apart any minute if I dwell too much. No pity party for me.
“Sounds like a plan,” Gabbie says. “Eli can look after the kids… I’m in.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and squeeze Gabbie’s hand. “Let’s do it!”
* * *
The room is dark,and I drown in the buzz of hushed chatter and popcorn popping. I loaf on Kayla’s orange sofa, sandwiched between Gabbie and Corrie. My wedding dress is a cloud on Kayla’s bed, and I’m wearing her cozy pajamas. The PJs are covered with penguins – they don’t cheer me up. They just remind me of that time Peter and I went to SeaWorld. He told me that penguins were monogamous, that they stayed together for life, that they were just like us.
I want to crawl under a rock and die.
The expressions on everyone’s faces are not helping. They’re all looking at me like I’ve just lost a limb. And in some ways, it feels like I have.
“Are you sure you don’t want tea?” Kayla asks for the umpteenth time.
I nod and fiddle with my phone again.
Corrie tears it from my hands. “Enough of that,” she scoffs. “He’ll call you when he calls you.”
So bossy.
Momma, who is sitting in the armchair across the sofa, shifts in her seat and reaches for her cup of tea. “Corrie is right, Maeve. Tonight’s all about you. Forget about him for just tonight.”
Her soothing voice brings me to tears. This is just like old times. She used to always crash my sleep-overs, rudely plopping her rear on the couch between me and my friends. “What are we watching?” she’d ask. But that’s my momma for you, young at heart.
She’s back to her regular self; her dreadlocks are loose, and she’s wearing leggings and a hippie tunic. I like her that way.
Mandy is lying down out on the shag rug. “I love this movie,” she trills. “Ryan Gosling is so hot in this.”
I grab the DVD case, and study the movie graphic – Steve Carell sprawled out on the sofa, and a woman’s sexy stilettoed leg propped on a coffee table. So hot. It reminds me of that one time I dressed up for Peter – the whole nine yards. Sexy black teddy, stockings, garter and five inch slutty heels. He loved it. And he showed me how much he loved it too.
I’m never going to have sex again. I’ll have to buy a better dildo.
Marilyn sits on the carpet and crosses her legs. “You should eat something at least,” she urges – such a big sister. She’s always been a mother-figure, often more responsible than Momma, who is an eternal child. I take after Momma, and Marilyn takes after Daddy. A small part of me is glad Daddy is not here to witness the disaster that is my life. He would have never stood for it – he would have hunted Peter down and wrung his neck.
“I can’t eat a thing,” I tell her. “Getting your heart ripped out of your chest does that to your appetite, I guess.”
She jumps to her feet and dashes to the kitchen. She comes back with a banana. “Have this.”
I stare at the banana. It’s bruised, like me. “You want it?” I ask Gabbie, who loves bananas.
