Page 88 of Back for Seconds

I don’t miss it—and I didn’t miss it even as I thought about it with tears in my eyes. I guess I was just happy that it had happened—and that I had gotten a chance to move on.

That’s when Dante came out, hands shoved in his pockets and his tie all undone. He told me he wanted to apologize for how he’d acted at first. “I’ve never shared a living quarters with anyone but my wife before.”

“You’re married?”

“Widowed,” he said, correcting himself. Then, he’d smiled a sad smile. Probably a lot like the one on my face.

I asked him all about her, their kids, his life. We sat on our deck chairs and watched the sky and talked for hours, me and my roommate.

Then, around midnight we heard Luther Vandross drifting out on the air from the ballroom.

“I apologize if this is odd, AnneMarie, but will you dance with me? I love this song and my Gloria…”

I held out my hand. “Say no more, Mr. Altiera.”

He took my hand in his and we swayed there on the gleaming deck, the full moon hanging in the sky, twinkling off the ocean in every direction. He spun me once, twice, dipped me low…

Then, well, he kissed me.

It was a nice kiss. Soft lips. No tongue.

Bittersweet, that moment was. I wanted that song to last forever, to expand on and on. To feel how Dante had made me feel that night forever. But that’s not how things work, is it?

But isn’t it so sweet to know I can still believe in forever?

<3 forever,

Mom

Chapter 28 June

December 28

Three days until New Year’s Eve

The days passed in a familiar blur. I read all my mom’s emails, relishing the ding sound of them arriving in my inbox. And with everyone still, mostly, out of the office, I spent my days fiddling with complex code while snuggled on the couch under a blanket that had, somehow, retained the littlest bit of Joey’s scent. His hair product, maybe.

This was the same life I’d lived for the last year, but suddenly, it all felt very different. The details of my life no longer felt like a foreign dance I was trying to remember the steps to. Joey had brought me back into my own life, not as a guest but as the arbiter, and I appreciated it—all of it. The cinnamon in my coffee. The slates of light that fell in through the window over my kitchen sink, warming me while I washed dishes. The last blondie in the tray I’d made for Joey, sitting in the center of a glass plate. I wrapped it up, froze it.

Today I woke up and drove to the hardware store, picked out the perfect shade of midnight blue, bought all the supplies I needed to paint, and promised myself that, by tonight, my living room would no longer be gray.

She doesn’t like it either, a little voice reminded me in the back of my mind. The ghost of Joey’s grandmother hated my wall color. That made me chuckle all the way home. The ghost haunting my house hates my wall color.

I got to work immediately, pushing the few pieces of furniture in the living room together into the center of the room, tossing a sheet over them. The internet told me I should really tape the edges to protect the trim, but I was a Virgo moon and rising. I trusted my own ability to paint perfectly.

By six o’clock, the living room was thrown into total darkness, except for the light coming from my Christmas tree, and all the walls were primed, the long wall that ran the length of the room was painted, and I was exhausted. I collapsed onto my couch, still in the center of the room and covered in drop clothes, and picked up my phone for the first time all day.

No texts. No missed calls. No new email from Mom yet. She was having the time of her life. Lucky girl. She’d earned it.

Mimi was off somewhere for work. She’d left yesterday, promising to email me her itinerary—which she never did.

I was alone. And I was lonely. I went for a scroll through my usual apps and then I found myself on Joey’s profile. I shouldn’t have done it…but I was already there, wasn’t I?

There were a few new videos uploaded over the last couple of days. Joey looked as handsome as he always did, but that didn’t stop my chest from constricting into a painful, angry ball of nerves and regret and just plain-old envy. What if he finds someone new while you sit around “taking time”? It was a mean little voice in the back of my mind—a voice that could sound an awful lot like my father.

I had to remember why I wasn’t just running headfirst into a relationship with Joey. I had to hold true to the principle of the matter.

Sal had said it best—sometimes we get to learn the lesson.