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Alice lets out a low whistle once Jo’s done drying my hair from where she’s perched on the bench at the foot of my bed. “Punctual man. We like that. Hey, if that’s the case, I should probably go downstairs to greet him. You know, make sure he looks okay?”
I open my eyes and give her an annoyed look. “Alice, I think we both know he’s going to look better than okay. I don’t want you scaring him off before I have the chance to go out with him no less than three times. By then you may not be as intimidating.”
The older woman cackles in response.
“So, you really don’t know where you guys are going?” Joanna asks, smoothly changing the subject as she lays a fresh curl against my shoulder. It nearly sears my skin, but I manage to stay still. “That’s kind of daring for you.”
“Look who she’s going out with, though,” Alice points out. “I’d say yes to a date with that man if he asked me to go see the God-forsaken bats at the zoo.”
“You’re married,” I remind her.
Alice nods. “Right, but if I wasn’t. This is a hypothetical scenario, honey darlin’.”
My lips twitch. “I see.”
“But, like, he hasn’t given youanyhints at all?” Jo presses, moving surprisingly quickly through my hair. I’m gonna hire her every time I need or want my hair curled from this point forward. I might have to ask Seth if it would be legal to duct tape her mouth during it, though, because I don’t want the interrogation every time. “None?”
“Nope.”
“I think it’s mighty sweet how much time he’s spending with Ella and Eli,” Alice says. “Even though it cuts into my time with them, of course. If he wasn’t so pretty, I’d probably put a stop to it.”
“It’s not all about looks, Alice,” I tell her, trying with all my might to keep a straight face. “You know, what’s on the inside and all that?”
Alice blinks slowly. “Yes, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt to have something nice to look at if you’re gonna go through the effort of havin’ a relationship.”
Both Joanna and I burst out laughing, and by some small miracle, Jo doesn’t burn me with the curling iron in the process. I’m not sure how because, even through my laughter-induced tears, I can see it bobbing around in the mirror across the room from me.
I don’t think I even realized until now how much I needed this. Alice, Joanna, and I are in very different seasons of life, and yet we’ve become friends in the tightest sense of the word. If I need something, they’re there for me at the drop of a hat, and I try my hardest to reciprocate. Thanks to Alice I don’t have to pay for a babysitter or send my kids to daycare (she accepts ice cream and new novels as payment) and thanks to Joanna I have a job with a generous salary, flexible hours, and wonderful work environment/coworkers. These girls have been with me through the ups and downs of the last three years like the honorary sister and mother (or crazy aunt…) I don’t have.
Well. I’m assuming Jade is still out there somewhere but considering August ninth will mark a decade since we last saw each other, I don’t think it constitutes as her being in my life. We’ll always be sisters. Certainly. Our blood tie will link us irrevocably and forever.
But something I’ve learned is that blood relation does not always equate to family. Sometimes it does, yes, but sometimes the relationship starts and ends with that blood tie.
“Okay.” Joanna finishes one last curl, tells me to close my eyes as she spritzes my hair with a healthy dose of hairspray, and then hands me a mirror. “All done. What do you think?”
I stare at my reflection. She managed to make the curls loose and carefree while also keeping them styled and falling perfectly around my bare shoulders. Paired with the delicate gold necklace that has aJon it and my yellow dress, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so simultaneously fancy yet relaxed at the same time.
Because of this, we hug and then I tell both women how grateful I am for them and then we all group hug again before Joanna opens my bedroom door. Which means that, considering I can hear Seth’s voice mingling with Jack’s and Ben’s and my kids’, it is go time.
“Have fun tonight, pretty lady,” Jo murmurs as she nudges me towards the door. “Don’t worry—we’ll make sure the kids get a sufficient sugar high with enough outdoor activity to counteract it.”
I laugh despite the nerves that have congregated like a crowd at a Jason Mraz concert—the ones who are there to enjoy the show, the ones who are superfans who are too obnoxious, and the ones who are too drunk to remember how to handle themselves in a civil manner. That’s how it is inside my abdomen right now. I also wonder briefly if this is how the princesses in every movie ever made feel as they approach the staircases, because I kind of wish I didn’t have a staircase I was approaching right now. It seems like far too grand of an entrance and I don’t like the idea of everyone staring—
“She’s coming!” Alice bellows as she and Joanna go down the stairs ahead of me.
Oh. Well, so much for my non-grand entrance, because the chatter stopped, and my house is suddenly quieter than it ever is. Except for when my kids are asleep, there is always some kind of noise.
But not now. Nope, right now you could drop a pin on my upstairs shag carpet,and it would sound like a nuclear bomb.
It’s as I’m almost to the top of my stairs that I remember: shoes! Alice and Joanna and I were so caught up in our laughter and then our sappy hugs to remember that I probably shouldn’t leave the house barefoot. Even Jo and Ben, who are very laidback, enforce the shirt and shoes rule at Farm to Table simply because it’s a respectable restaurant that’s had some really notable food bloggers and critics walk through its doors. Not that we’re going to Farm to Table since I don’t know what we’re doing, but you get my point.
“Just a moment!” I hear the nerves in my voice, but I go with it and dart back into my room.
I’m not graceful in heels, nor do I want to try going down the stairs elegantly in them, so I grab my brown (imitation) leather sandals from Target and slide them on. I glance in the mirror one last time, almost change into the heels, and then decide against it. I take a deep breath to mentally prepare for the audience downstairs and mentally play an empowering marching band song as I make my legs carry my down the stairs.
And then I stop on the landing because there’s not an audience waiting for me.
It’s only Seth, standing in my entryway wearing a pair of perfectly tailored black slacks with brown dress shoes and a white button up shirt that’s open at his throat. A jacket that matches his slacks hugs his muscular shoulders and puts thebusinessin his formal attire. I’m confident he could walk into a big corporate meeting room like this and easily negotiate a multi-million dollar deal even if he didn’t know the other bigwigs from Adam.
