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Lauren stopped in her tracks, looked up. The conga line had broken up.
Mira and Livvy were dancing together. Maria stood in the corner, watching her daughters with a smile.
Angie rushed toward Lauren. "You cant leave yet. Its a party. "
"I dont--"
Angie grabbed her hand, grinned at her.
The word--belong--was lost.
The music changed. "Crocodile Rock" blared through the speakers.
"Elton!" Livvy yelled. "We saw him at the Tacoma Dome, remember?"
And the dancing started again.
"Dance," Angie said, and before Lauren knew it she was in the middle of the crowd of women, dancing. By the third song--Billy Joels "Uptown Girl"--Lauren was laughing as loudly as the rest of them.
For the next half an hour or so, she was enfolded in the warm raucousness of a loving family. They laughed, they danced, they talked endlessly about how busy the restaurant had been. Lauren loved every minute of it, and when the party broke up near midnight, she honestly hated to go home.
But there was no choice, of course. She offered to take the bus--an offer that was rejected almost instantly. Angie ushered her out to the car. They talked all the way and laughed often, but finally Lauren was home.
She trudged up the gloomy stairs toward her apartment, shifting her heavy backpack from one tired shoulder to the other.
The door to the apartment was open.
Inside, gray smoke hung in strands along the stained acoustical tile ceiling. Cigarette butts lay heaped in ashtrays on the coffee table and scattered here and there across the floor. An empty bottle of gin rolled slowly back and forth on the wobbly dining table, finally clunking onto the linoleum floor.
Lauren recognized the signs: two kinds of butts, and beer bottles on the kitchen counter. It didnt take a forensic team to analyze the crime scene. It was familiar territory.
Mom had picked up some loser (they were all losers) from the tavern and brought him home.
They were in her mothers bedroom now. She recognized the thumping rhythm of her mothers old Hollywood bed frame. Clang-clang-thump. Clang-clangthump.
She hurried into her bedroom and closed the door. Moving quietly, not wanting anyone to know she was home, she grabbed her day planner and flipped it open. On todays date she wrote: DeSaria Party. She didnt ever want to forget it. She wanted to be able to look down at those two words and remember how tonight had felt.
She went into the bathroom and got ready for bed in record speed. The last thing she wanted was to bump into Him in the hallway.
She ran back to her room and slammed the door shut. Crawling into bed, she pulled the covers to her chin and stared up at the ceiling.
Memories of tonight filled her mind. A strange emotion came with the images; part happiness, part loss. She couldnt untangle it.
It was just a restaurant, she reminded herself. A place of employment.
Angie was her boss, not her--
mother.
There it was, the truth of the matter, the pea under her mattress. Shed felt alone for so long, and now-- irrationally--she felt as if she belonged somewhere.
Even if it was a lie, which it certainly was, it felt better than the cold emptiness that was the truth.
She tried to stop thinking about it, to stop playing and replaying their conversations in her mind, but she couldnt let it go. At the end of the night, when theyd all been crowded around the fireplace, talking and laughing, Lauren had loosened up enough to tell the one joke she knew. Mira and Angie had laughed long and hard; Maria had said, "Th
is make no sense. Why would the man say such a thing?" The question had made them all laugh harder, and Lauren most of all.
Remembering it made her want to cry.
