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“Completely.”

“Then it’s worth it,” she said. “Because damn, naked Johnny Dellasandro cannot fucking be bad.”

“His wife’s in it. His ex-wife.”

“Which one?”

“He has more than one?”

“I think he’s had three or four,” she said with another surreptitious look.

He had to know we were talking about him, or looking at him. How could he have missed it? We were worse than a pair of giggly girls in the back of the room passing notes about the hot substitute teacher.

“How did I miss that?”

“Maybe you only Googled pictures of his cock.”

I tossed a napkin at her. “Shhhh!”

Jen laughed into her hands. “Sorry!”

“He’s not married now, is he?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Dating anyone?” I asked.

Jen’s brows raised. “My stalking does have its limits. I mean, I don’t think so. If he is, he doesn’t bring her around here. Though he was with that chick last week, and I have seen him out and about a few times with her.”

“Shit.” I sounded miserable and didn’t try to hide it.

“Oh, girl,” Jen said, sympathetic. “Look at you.”

I frowned and licked my finger to pick up the last bits of sugar from my plate. “I know. Pathetic, right?”

“You should talk to him. Just say hello or something.”

I sighed and risked a glance, but Johnny was deep inside his book, the title of which I couldn’t see. “I sorta kinda did that.”

“And?”

I looked at her, coming clean. “I took him some cookies as a thank-you for that day I slipped on the ice.”

“You
fucked
him!” Heads turned. Not his, thank God. Jen lowered her voice to a hiss. “You fucked Johnny Dellasandro?”

“No! No, no,” I amended as my cheeks turned to infernos. “He didn’t want to have anything to do with me, actually. In fact, when I went to give him the cookies, he wouldn’t even eat one. He was a douche bag, actually.”

“No.” She sat back in her chair, slumping, defeated. “I mean, he’s always sort of standoffish, but to be a douche bag? That’s so disappointing. Did you tell him you wanted to ride his face or something embarrassing like that? Because that’s probably what I’d do.”

“No. I just made him some cookies because he’d mentioned he liked homemade cookies.”

She scoffed. “Who doesn’t?”

“Apparently, Johnny Dellasandro doesn’t. Or at least not mine. And if he won’t even eat my cookies, I sincerely doubt he’d be interested in eating my pussy.”

Jen burst into laughter, and I followed, even though I wasn’t really trying to be funny. We both guffawed until even Johnny turned to watch us. Our eyes met, his somber and mine I could only imagine as full of glee. I could’ve sobered at the look he gave me, but I didn’t. Screw him, I thought. I’m not going to pretend I’m intimidated.

“Ah, well, I have to run. Taking Grandma to the hairdresser.” Jen sighed with the last remnants of her laughter and got up. “When can I come over to watch the movie?”

“Thursday?”

“That’s good with me. You want to watch it again?”

I hadn’t been sure, but I nodded, anyway. “Duh!”

“Cool. See you Thursday.” She laughed, shaking her head, and muttered, “Cookies,” as she left.

I sat there a minute or two longer, braving the energy to face the cold outside, now dark. I stalled by making a trip to the restroom. When I came out, Johnny was gone. He hadn’t gone far, though, just outside the Mocha’s front door. He was lighting up a cigarette.

I stopped when I saw him. I almost said hello, then thought better of it. Then thought again. I’d say hi to a stranger I passed on the street; I shouldn’t make Johnny be anything less. Or anything more.

“Hey,” I said, casual.

He nodded and blew smoke out into a thin stream that was whisked immediately away in the wind. The smell bit at the inside of my nose, but at least it wasn’t oranges. I gave him another look, willing myself not to leap into his arms and make a bigger fool of myself, though once my teeth started chattering it was hard to look like anything else.

We had to walk in the same direction, and without words we fell into step next to each other. It was the longest three blocks I’d ever walked, and possibly the coldest.

I never wanted it to end.

By the time we got to my house, though, I was shuddering with cold. My jaw gritted to keep my teeth from clattering. My nose raw. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I turned in at my front walk, and I thought Johnny would keep going without a word the way we’d walked the whole way home.

“You should have a better coat,” he said.

I turned to look at him. “What?”

He was almost finished with the cigarette and pointed at me with the butt. “Your coat’s not warm enough. You should have a better one.”

“I, um, misplaced my other coat,” I told him.

He studied me for what felt like a very long time. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Johnny said as he backed up a couple steps on the sidewalk, “you should get yourself another one.”

And that was all. I watched him walk down the sidewalk to his own house. He didn’t look back. Not once.

Chapter 12

S
o it wasn’t a marriage proposal. I still went to bed with my head and heart buzzing. I slept hard, no dreams, and woke refreshed. No strange smells, nothing shifting around. I felt better than I had in weeks, the difference subtle and unnoticeable if I hadn’t been so focused on every small twinge of my body.

After work I found the dress my mom wanted and decided on a whim to drive it down to her. Harrisburg was only a forty-minute drive to Annville and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. Or worse. And…I wanted to see my mom. With everything that had been happening, I needed to sit at the old kitchen table, drink some chocolate milk. Be babied, just a little.

But when I got there, the house was dark and quiet. No car in the drive. I let myself in the front door, feeling like a guest even though I used my own key. “Hello?”

No answer. I checked my watch. It was just after 7:00 p.m, by no means late at night, but for my parents it was the equivalent of one in the morning. I put my keys in my bag and set it on the chair just inside the front door out of habit, though my mom had always yelled at me to put my stuff away. I had no place to put it now.

I didn’t live there anymore.

“Mom? Dad?” I hung the black dress, still covered in plastic from the last time I’d had it dry-cleaned, on the coatrack. “Hello?”

The crunch of car tires alerted me to someone pulling into the drive, and the next minute the electric garage door opener rattled the decorative plates hung on the dining room wall. I stepped through into the kitchen just as my mom came through the door from the garage.

She screamed. Loud. I screamed, too.

“Emmaline!”

“Mom!” I started laughing. “Didn’t you see my car out front?”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” my mom said, a hand over her heart. She was puffing. “You scared the breath out of me!”

“Sorry.” Chagrined, I moved forward to hug her as my dad came through the door. “Hi, Dad.”

My dad greeted me with an absentminded kiss and a hug. He pushed past us and down the hallway toward their bedroom as though my visit were nothing special. God, I love my dad.

My mom held me at arm’s length and looked me up and down. “You look thinner.”

“I wish. But you definitely do.” I’d seen her only a month or so ago, but she’d lost weight. She wore a tracksuit and had dropped a gym bag at her feet when she screamed. “Were you at the gym?”

My mom looked at the bag, then her clothes, then at me. “Yes. Your dad and I figured we’d better get in shape.”

My mom had never been fat. Just pleasantly rounded, thick in the thighs and full in the chest. It was strange to see her cheeks more hollowed. I’d brought the dress thinking there was little chance she’d fit in it, but now it looked as though it might actually be too big.

“Wow,” I said. “I should take a page from your book.”

It was her pet phrase, and I sounded just like her. My mom laughed and hugged me tight. I closed my eyes and hugged her back just as hard.

“Oh, my baby girl. I’ve missed you.”

“Mom,” I said out of habit, not because I really minded.

“What are you doing here?” she said when we pulled apart.

“I brought the dress.”

“Oh, right. Good!” My mom beamed. “Let me just take a quick shower and I’ll try it on. Have you eaten yet? I’m going to throw together a salad for Dad and me, but there’s some leftovers in the fridge.”

“No, I’m fine.”

I did pull open the fridge to get some milk, but when I opened the cupboard to look for the chocolate milk mix, it wasn’t there. And the table itself, I realized when I looked it over, was new. The same shape and size as the other one, but definitely different. I put the milk back and sat down heavily in a chair that was different, too.

“So, what do you think?” My mom came into the kitchen almost shyly, wearing the dress. It fit her perfectly, only a little baggy in the chest. She twirled slowly.

“It looks great.”

“You think so?” She tugged at the neckline, which was way lower than anything she usually wore. “It’s not too revealing?”

“No. Not at all. With your hair up and a pretty necklace, it will be great. You’ll need different shoes.” I pointed to her thick ankle socks, and we both smiled.

“Good. Well, that’s taken care of, then.” She smoothed the dress over her belly and turned from side to side to catch her reflection in the mirror hung on the back of the basement door. “Saves me having to buy one.”

“What are you wearing it for?” I thought she’d say a wedding or something.

“Oh…” My mom chewed her lower lip for a second before looking at me with shining eyes. “Your dad’s taking me on a cruise for our anniversary.”

“What?” My jaw dropped.

“Yep. And there’s a formal dinner night. This will be perfect.”

Could. Not. Process. “A cruise. You and Dad?”

“Yes,” she said. “An Alaskan cruise!”

Not even to the Caribbean, which was at least closer. “Wow. That’s great, Mom.”

“We haven’t taken a trip together, just the two of us…well…probably not since our honeymoon.”

Because of me. She’d never say it, and I knew lots of parents who’d never taken a vacation without their kids when the children were small, but my parents had stuck close to home for long years after their friends had all started hopping off on weekend getaways. And cruises.

Suddenly I was choked up, on the verge of tears I didn’t want my mom to see. “Sounds like fun. When do you leave?”

“Oh, not until March. That’s why we joined the gym. Marianne Jarvis, you remember her, right? Well, she said that cruises stuff you so full you come back ten pounds heavier. I thought we should get rid of at least ten before going.” My mom smoothed the front of the dress again.

“I’m sure you’ll have a great time. And you look great, too.”

She studied me then. “Emm? Are you okay?”

No chocolate milk. A new table. My mother in a black cocktail dress, looking younger and prettier than I could ever remember. These were the changes that had happened since I’d moved out, and I didn’t want to ruin her excitement with my own fears.

“You always ask me that. And what do I always say?”

“You always say you’re fine,” my mom answered.

“So, I’m fine.”

“Okay, let me go get changed out of this. Are you staying for long? I can heat up something for you.”

“I have some things to get out of the basement, if that’s okay.”

She gave me a funny look. “Of course it’s okay, honey, this is still your house. It will always be your house.”

I made it to the basement before bursting into tears I stifled with my fist. The battered love seat I’d left behind was still there and I sank onto it with both hands clapped over my mouth to keep even the tiniest sound from escaping. I rocked, weeping for reasons I couldn’t really understand. I’d wanted to be independent. So why did I feel abandoned instead?

I forced myself to stop before I disintegrated entirely. The breakdown was mawkish and self-serving, not to mention selfish. And stupid. It was also dishonest, because I knew very well if I’d told Mom flat out that I’d been having fugues again she’d have hog-tied me to a kitchen chair and refused to let me leave until I made a doctor’s appointment, and maybe not even then.

I wanted to tell her so she could pet and pamper me. I didn’t want to tell her because I knew she would. I couldn’t really have it both ways; that was my burden to deal with, not hers. I was almost thirty-two years old, and it was time to stand up on my own.

I hadn’t left a whole lot behind, but there were a few plastic bins full of miscellaneous crap in the crawl space. Old yearbooks and photo albums, some treasured dolls, that sort of thing. Stuff I hadn’t thought I’d want to look at again and yet found myself thinking of as I unpacked the boxes in my new place. Okay, so it was silly to want to see my old My Friend Mandy doll sitting on the bookshelf the way she had for all the years I’d lived at home. I’d left those things behind precisely because I wanted to have a grown-up house, but it felt too bare without those pieces of my childhood.