“Oh, Dani, you look gorgeous. So grown up.” Martha twirled me around so she could get the full effect of the dress.
It was more daring than I'd remembered. Trying it on in the store with Jenn, I hadn't noticed the slit cut up to my hip, and the plunging neckline went past the bra I'd put on and then taken off. With no bra, the material clung to my skin differently, and I prayed that the gym would be warm. The first hint of an air conditioner, and people would be able to look at me and see just how nipply it was.
“Do I really look okay?” I raised a hand to my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear.
“Stunning.” She took my hand and led me to the door. “Just make sure you put your sweater on before Paul sees you. You know how he is.”
I smiled. Paul was an old man, not because of his age, but because of his attitudes. He was stuck back in the fifties, unaware of the changes in society. Sweet, but over protective. I grabbed a sweater from the closet, pulling it on before going into the living room.
Paul was stretched out in his recliner, a crossword puzzle half completed in his lap. At the sound of my heels on the hardwood floor, he glanced up.
“You look beautiful. What happened to my little girl in braces and braids?” He pushed out of the chair and came to me, grasping my hands in his. He spread our arms wide to inspect me. I was glad I'd put on the sweater.
“Growing up, I guess.” I leaned forward and he kissed my cheek. I wished his face was the only one I remembered when I thought of a father.
The doorbell rang and I rushed to open it, knowing it was Reece. He wore a dark blue suit, his white shirt open at the collar. The evening sunlight still filtered its way over the mountains, giving him a perfect backdrop of mountains and a purplish sky.
“Hey, you ready?” he asked.
That was Reece. At least I didn't need to worry his charm would blind me.
“Yeah. Bye!” I called to Martha and Paul.
Unlike the last dance I'd gone to with him, we weren't forced to walk to the school. Instead, Reece drove his dad's BMW. Sitting in the car, I wrapped my arms over the sweater. The evenings were beginning to cool down, but Reece had determined it was too warm in the car, so the air conditioner ran at full blast.
He pulled into a parking spot and I slid out of the car, trying to exit gracefully. We walked to the entrance adorned with bouquets of balloons in the school colors.
“Did you do something to your hair?” he asked as we passed through the door.
I lifted a hand to smooth any wayward strands. “I got highlights.”
“Looks nice.”
It wasn't much, but those two simple words were a bow sliding across the strings of my heart.
“Thanks.”
The auditorium looked amazing. Twinkling lights had been strung from the ceiling, and balloons and tulle were everywhere. Small tables were set up with navy blue cloths, and floating candles flickered within bowls of water centered on each table.
Trace and Jenn waved us over from the opposite side of the room. I sank into a chair, watching as Reece gawked at Jenn. I wasn't surprised. She was practically hanging out of the dress and I suspected that, when slow dancing, her partner would be able to see straight through to her toes. She'd give any Hollywood actress a run for their money.
“What's with the sweater, girl?” she asked me.
“It's cold.”
“Dani,” she gave me that look, the one that said she was about to throttle me. “Don't make me come over there.”
I sighed, knowing her intentions were good and her intent was real. I unbuttoned the sweater and stood to pull it off.
“Damn.” Trace's word brought my head up.
He was staring at me. Or rather, he was staring at what he could suddenly see of me, which was a lot. I felt like Jennifer Lopez must have when she wore the famous green dress on the red carpet. It was slightly uncomfortable, but absolutely exhilarating at the same time. I looked at Reece.
The dress was worth every penny. His eyes widened and he looked speechless for the first time since I'd met him. He sprang out of his seat and ran his hands down the front of his pant legs.
“Wow. I mean, you're gorgeous.” He'd said those words to me countless times before, but never with that expression. An expression that said he finally meant it. My entire body tingled at the way his eyes traveled down my body and then drifted slowly back up to my face.
The dance mix faded out, replaced by a soft ballad. Reece cleared his throat. “Wanna dance?” he asked.
Unable to speak, I nodded, fearing I would break the spell he looked to be under.
He loosely wrapped his arms around me and I felt like a kid playing dress up. There was a good foot between our bodies and my hands rested stiffly on his shoulders. The floor was crowded with couples and our space tightened. I was bumped from behind and I let myself inch closer to Reece. I could smell his body spray. The spray's commercials were dead on with their take on how a woman would respond, or maybe it was just Reece's own scent mixing with it, but I was ready to jump him.
His hand pressed against my lower back and the distance between us closed. When I was flush against him, I dropped my forehead onto his chest, loving that he was tall enough that I could. His chin pressed along my cheek and I could feel the slight roughness of his skin.
We swayed to the music, the crowded space not giving room for more than the shuffling of our feet. When the song ended, I stayed pressed to him. He didn't pull away. The beat changed and picked up the tempo, finally forcing us to make a decision to truly dance or to leave the floor. As much as I loved dancing, especially with Reece, I wasn't prepared for him to display his lack of rhythm again.
We walked silently back to the table and watched those who had remained. It felt awkward. I wanted to say something to him, to bring him back, but I didn't know what he was thinking. He looked stunned, and I wasn't sure if that was good or not.
“Do you want something to drink?” he yelled over the thumping music.
I jerked my head up and down, not trusting my voice to sound normal. I didn't feel normal. My eyes followed his progress across the room. The look he'd given me had been like a kick in the ass. I'd always figured that I didn't have a shot with him, that he could never feel the same way about me as I felt for him.
But his face said something different tonight. Maybe it was my own fault that he saw me only as his best friend. Maybe I could change that.
I was suddenly glad that of the two homecomings I'd been invited to this past month, I'd come to this one. Reece's invitation had been a surprise, one I had felt I couldn't refuse.
The other, well, I'd hoped it would never happen. Four weeks ago, it had been thrust into my face as I'd sat watching TV in the living room.
“Dani, you have a phone call. It's your mom.” Paul stuck his head into the room.
“Thanks, Paul. I'll take it in the kitchen.”
I sluggishly made my way to the kitchen. Martha was baking and watching a prerecorded Martha Stewart episode. I reached for the receiver and she looked over at me.
“Dani, I'm watching Martha. Can't you take it in the computer room?” She was in a mood. Usually I just steered clear of her when she got that tone of voice, but this time I didn't want to be alone.
“I'll only be a minute. It's my mom.”
“Oh.” The irritation drained from her face as concern deepened the few Botox resistant wrinkles on her forehead.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hey, sweetie.”
“Hi, Mama. What's up?” I hated how the childhood name rolled off my tongue, but try as I might I couldn't completely break myself from it.
“I was wondering if I could see you this weekend.”
I didn't say anything. She hadn't called in almost four months, and her voice was tense. She didn't just want to see me. She wanted to see me for a reason.
“It's been so long since I've seen you, baby.” She slurred her esses. She was drinking again. “Your daddy called. They're transfer
ring him back. I thought we could go and see him together. Like a family.”
I wanted to scream, to rage at her. My fingers tightened on the phone and I forced myself to move slowly. I laid the receiver back on the cradle. My fingers curled in to fists.
“Everything okay?” Martha laid a hand on my arm.
“Yeah.”
“Dani,” she sighed.
“He's coming back to the area. She wanted me to go and see him.”
Martha wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me an awkward sideways hug.
I gave her a pathetic reassuring smile and went back to my room, finally uncurling my fingers to open the door. I froze when I saw my nails. The skin under them was red from the blood that seeped from the crescent cuts stretching along my palm. They were nearly as red as they'd been the day Jace died and the nurse had to dig out the hard red plastic embedded under my nails.
The rhythmic thumping of the song ended and the sudden silence in the auditorium jarred me. I watched Reece approach the table just as Trace and Jenn deserted the dance floor. More couples joined our group and eventually another table was pushed over to make more room. With each added person, Reece moved nearer, until finally he pressed against me from hip to shoulder. He lifted an arm and let it fall behind me. His fingers tickled the hair at my nape, and my stomach fluttered in response.
I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, only to find he was watching me, a smile on his face. He was relaxed again, back to his normal self, except that his normal self wouldn't be teasing me like that. His fingers played with my hair and then traced the curve of my ear and finally down the side of my neck.
Trace provided me with a reprieve when he dragged me onto the dance floor. Reece followed with Jenn in tow. I smiled at the sight only because it was a fast song. Within seconds, Jenn was mortified, while Reece grinned and started hamming it up. A circle formed around him as people cheered him on. He shuffled his way to me at the edge of the crowd and then shoved Trace into the center of the group. A few more people danced through the circle before the song wound down and everyone's interest waned.
The final dance came just after one in the morning. It was a slow one, and Reece pulled me close, no hesitancy. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to remember every moment of being in his arms.
The final note drifted away and Reece led me back to the table. We held hands. Not in the innocent hand holding a friend might do to pull someone along, but fingers linked together, palms pressed tightly.
We sat at the table, lingering as the crowd thinned. Finally, when only the cleanup crew surrounded us, we left the gym. I wanted the magic of it to continue, to spill out into reality, and take over my life. He held the door for me and I walked through. His hand around my waist stopped me, and he tugged me to the side so that a few couples who'd been waiting in the halls could pass by. He turned me to face him, his arm still around my waist.
“I had a great time,” he said.
“Me, too.” Was that my voice?
“Dani, I...” He stepped closer, his head dropping. Our eyes met and I knew this was it. The moment that would give me everything I'd ever wanted. Him.
I closed my eyes and his lips fell to mine. They were soft and perfectly moist. They were Reece. My heart raced and I let my lips part. He traced the crease of my mouth with his tongue and I moaned wanting more. He stepped forward again and I felt the brick wall of the school at my back. His kiss turned urgent and one hand slid into my hair while the other traveled down to my leg, pushing the slit apart. My own hands buried themselves in his thick hair, urging him to press harder. I could feel him against me. He wanted me. Finally.
We broke apart for a moment, our heavy breathing filling the air between us.
“I love you,” I whispered. I couldn't not say it. He was absorbing every part of my being, and I needed him to know.
He rested his cheek atop my head, hugging me fiercely to him. Our hearts slowed and, linking our hands again, we walked to the car. When we pulled up to the house, he walked me to the door, waiting as I pulled out my key. I reached on tiptoe to taste his lips one more time.
I waited for him to go back to his car. When he reached it, I turned back to the front door.
“Dani,” he called, and I twisted to see him. “I'll love you forever.”
Chapter Nine
Where would we go from here? It was a question that haunted my dreams that night. Even as I relived the pressure of his lips on mine, the touch of his hand on my thigh, it was there hanging between me and my memory.
Eight hours after his final words, I rolled from bed, my dreams not giving me any of the answers I sought. I slid my feet into my slippers and shuffled towards the bathroom. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed the restless night I'd had. Dark circles ringed my eyes and blood shot through their whites.
I spent the rest of that day and the entire day on Sunday wallowing in self-pity and misery. I hadn't expected him to call. We might have been best friends, but that didn't mean we spent every waking moment together.
But at the same time, I wanted him to call. To say something. To explain what his words meant. How could he leave me hanging like that? I just didn't know what it meant. 'I'll love you forever'. They were words he'd said so many times with a look of friendship on his face, but last night, he'd said them again and for once, I hadn't been able to read him.
Was it possible he'd truly meant them, in the same way I did? Or was I simply projecting my desires onto his words and constructing a skewed interpretation of it?
Sunday night finally came and I went to my room early, hoping I'd sleep and bring the next morning all that more quickly. Instead, I found myself laying in bed, words dancing through my mind. I sat up and reached for one of my notebooks. I flipped through the pages, scanning the songs I'd written over the years., then threw it on my desk. I grabbed the new one and, picking up a pen from the top of the desk, I began to write.
You held my hand, brushed my cheek
You touched my skin
You kissed my lips
Every dream I had
Came to life in that one moment
I watched you walk away
Down the path and wondered
If I'd see your smile again.
You left me there standing
Hoping
Hoping. It was something I'd stopped doing a long time ago. I threw the notebook on the desk beside the others, then went to the bookshelf mounted to the wall and pulled down a photo album.
The first page was of Jace. I had two photos left of him. Mom had tossed the rest. I guess seeing him reminded her of what Dad had done, and that would have only made it harder to forgive Dad and take him back.
Two pages later, I found the picture I was looking for. I stood in an angel costume on center stage, Reece at my side. It was the sixth grade Christmas pageant. I had wanted to play Mary to Reece's Joseph, but Mrs. Sheffield had decided I was too tall. Instead, I was an angel. The only part that hadn't bothered me was the solo.
When Mrs. Sheffield told me about the song, I was so excited I called Mom as soon as I got home. I tried for a week to reach her, but she never called back. Two weeks before the concert, she finally answered.
“Hi, Mama!”
“Hey, baby.” She sounded good.
“I got a part in the Christmas play. I'm gonna be an angel.”
“That's wonderful sweetheart! Jace would be so proud of you.” She must be doing well for her to mention Jace.
“I've even got a solo. I get to sing all of Away in a Manger, all by myself.”
“Well, of course they'd give you a solo. You're the best singer in that school.”
I beamed at her compliment, ignoring the fact that she'd never heard any of the other kids sing. “It's gonna be on the eighteenth. Can you come?”
“Dani...” she sighed. “Did you check with the Thompsons? You know I can't just show up.”
“They said I could invite you. Please, Mama?”
> “I'll be there.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The days leading up to the concert were filled with phone calls, and a visit where Mom even helped Martha make my costume.
The night of the concert arrived, and I anxiously waited for her. I'd stopped believing that she would get better, but when Martha and I met with her about the costume, she'd looked healthy, sober. I'd seen Jace in her eyes again.
“Where is she?” I asked Paul for what must have been the millionth time.
“I don't know, Dani.” He squeezed my hand as Martha adjusted my wings. “I'm sure she'll be here. We'll save her a seat right up front with us.”
Most foster parents would have hesitated to give Mama access to me, but Martha and Paul seemed to realize how much I needed Mom to get healthy, to be there for me, even if it was just a few times a month.
When I walked on stage, I smiled at Reece. He was all dressed up in a striped blue sheet tied with a belt at his waist. I was supposed to be gazing in awe to the doll lying in the wooden box. I took my spot, center stage. The lights shifted and for a second, I could see the front row. Martha and Paul sat proudly watching me. Beside them was an empty seat. She hadn't come.
The music started. I tried to listen for my cue, but all I heard was a gasping sound. It was my heart trying to make it through another day without my Mama, without Jace. Only now it gasped with the realization that neither of them would ever come back to me.
I missed the cue and the pianist started over a second time, then a third. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I stared into the spotlight petrified by the idea of being alone forever. If Mama and Jace weren't there for me who would be?
I felt a warm hand slid into mine and I glanced over to see Reece standing beside me, a smile of encouragement on his face.
“Sing, Dani.”
And I did. I did it for him, because he was the only one I could see standing beside me, holding me up. Martha and Paul were there, but in my twelve-year-old mind and heart, I couldn't see them. The spotlight blinded me to their presence. Only Reece was there.
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