Well Played

by Jen DeLuca

  “Sorry, Em. I have to go with April on this one.” Thankfully the waiter arrived with our mimosas to soften the blow, and I tipped mine to April in acknowledgment. “I mean it. It’s very pretty, but you’ll look like you’re drowning in your grandma’s linen closet if you wear that. You want . . .” I could imagine perfectly the kind of dress she should wear, but none of her choices matched the vision in my head. I set down my drink to head down a Pinterest rabbit hole, tapping and swiping and tapping again until I found a good approximation. “Something like this.” I passed the tablet back to her. She peered at my choice, April leaning over her shoulder, and I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to read their faces.

  Emily’s face hardened at first, and my heart sank. But then she tilted her head, and the more she looked at the picture, the more her face softened. “You think? It doesn’t look too . . . I dunno, casual?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head with no hesitation. “Think about it. You’re getting married outside, so you don’t want something that’s going to drag all over the ground. Not to mention, it’ll be what, July? August? The hottest time of the year. You don’t want all those layers of fabric.”

  “I like the skirt.” April gestured in an up-and-down zigzag motion. “It calls attention to the lace better than that other dress.”

  “I do like the lace.” Emily bit her lip. “And the skirt is really cute.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “The handkerchief hem shows off the lace better, and when it’s in a couple layers like that it’ll give you a fair amount of swish.”

  “Swish?” Em looked up at me now, her eyes twinkling. “Is that a technical term?”

  “Sure is.” I grinned back at her over the rim of my mimosa flute.

  “Yeah, I think Stacey’s right,” April said. “But maybe more of a halter style up top, and keep the silhouette close. It looks like something . . .” She shrugged. “I dunno, like in a fairy tale. If you’re getting married at the Ren Faire next summer, that’s not a bad look to emulate, right?”

  “And you have to have flowers in your hair,” I said. “Like a flower crown. Or maybe a tiara would be better.”

  A smile played around Emily’s mouth. “I like flowers. Good idea.” As our food arrived she looked down at the picture again. When she tapped on it to save it to her board, I felt a surge of triumph.

  “You’re good at this,” April said. She watched me carefully while she took another sip of her mimosa. “You’re one of those people who’s been planning their wedding since they were four, aren’t you?”

  I had to laugh at that. “Hardly.” Weddings weren’t my thing. But clothes were. And I knew what looked good on people. To me it was automatic. One look at someone and I knew whether they should be wearing a ballerina or sweetheart neckline, a tea-length or a maxi skirt. It came together as a picture in my head, complete and sudden, like a snapshot. It was a talent that I didn’t get to use a whole lot these days, so when I had the opportunity, I pounced on it.

  “You are good at this, though,” Emily said. “I mean, you picked out my costume last summer when I did the Faire for the first time too. Maybe you should dress me all the time.”

  I shrugged and tried to look casual, but that sense of triumph only increased, like victory trumpets sounding in my brain. “It’s what I do. Or used to.” Back in college. Back when I’d had a future. Bad memories surfaced, and that little surge of triumph fizzled and floated away.

  “Well, I hope you still do,” Emily said. “We have to decide on bridesmaid dresses, and besides, we’re getting new outfits for next summer, remember? You know I’ll need your help for that. Without you I’ll keep calling a corset a bodice. Then I’ll pick out something that’s ten years out of date and Simon will probably call off the whole wedding in retaliation.”

  I didn’t even try to suppress a giggle; Simon really was a perfectionist when it came to Faire. “Don’t worry,” I said as the food arrived. “I’ll have your back.”

  “Thank God for that.” Emily took a bite of her omelet before spearing some potatoes with her fork. “Okay. Now, flowers. Stacey, did you have a chance to ask your mom . . . ?”

  “I did, and she wrote down the names of the florists she likes for you.” I reached around for my little backpack, which was hanging on the back of my chair. I dug out a slip of paper and passed it across the table. “She also had thoughts on caterers. Of course, she has no idea what kind of food you want for the reception, so I think this is just a list of her favorite restaurants, but it’s a start.”

  Emily nodded. “Great. I’ll start making some calls next week. I was thinking something like . . .”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” April put down her fork. “We don’t need to plan this entire wedding in one day, do we? This will probably be the thing we talk about the most for the next year or so, so can we just stick a sock in it for now and enjoy the morning?”

  Emily blinked at her sister, a little startled, and I just smiled into my mimosa. April was definitely the more direct of the two sisters. I didn’t know her all that well, but I found her bluntness to be refreshing. Too many people danced around what they wanted to say, myself included.

  To my surprise, Emily didn’t fight her. “Point taken. Sorry.” She raised her glass to the two of us. “I promise I will do my best to not turn into a Bridezilla.”

  I toasted her back. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “Me too.” April took a healthy sip of her own mimosa.

  “Okay, then. New topic.” Emily took another bite and turned to me. “Stace, what’s new with you?”

  “Nothing.” The word came out a little harsher than I’d intended, and I focused hard on cutting into my waffles. Nothing pretty much summed it all up, didn’t it? That unanswered Facebook message flashed through my mind, along with that fizzled-out reminder that I wasn’t doing anything exciting with my life.

  “Nothing?” Emily echoed. Her smile was still in place, but her eyes looked quizzical. “That can’t be right. You’re always going out. You’ve always got stuff going on.”

  For a split second I imagined telling her. Telling them both how my life had stalled out. Saying, I need to get my shit together. I’ve been doing nothing but existing for the past few years, working an uninteresting job and going to happy hour and karaoke nights like that’s all I want out of life. Because it’s all I’ve got. I pictured filling them in on Drunk Stacey and her laptop a couple nights ago, but I couldn’t decide if they would be amused or horrified.

  But I wasn’t ready to share any of that. It was all too messy, too complicated, to be able to fill her in over one brunch. So instead I put my smile back on. Fixed it in place so I could hide behind it. That was the Stacey that had been invited to this brunch. “That’s me,” I said, as I forked up a bite of waffle. “Always something going on.”

  “I detect sarcasm,” April said.

  Emily snorted. “That’s because you’re the master of it.” April pretended to look offended, but instead just grinned into her drink.

  “Maybe a little,” I conceded. My smile slipped a fraction, but I pushed it back in place. “I think I’m still in that post-Faire letdown, you know? Eleven more months till it starts up again.”

  “Counting down already?” Emily rolled her eyes with a smile. “You’re as bad as Simon.”

  I shrugged. “When you grow up doing it, you look forward to it, you know?”

  “I can see that.” She nodded and nibbled at her toast. “Not to mention that guy. I bet you look forward to him too, huh?” She raised her eyebrows at me suggestively.

  “What guy?” I felt a guilty tingle across the back of my neck. I thought Dex and I had been more subtle than that.

  “That guy you were seeing over the summer. And last summer too.” She frowned. “Is it the same guy? You kept sneaking off to see him. Someone from Faire, right?”

  “Ooh.”
April leaned forward, her eyes eager. “What guy?”

  Emily pointed at her sister with a piece of bacon. “I thought you didn’t like gossip.”

  “This isn’t gossip,” she said mildly. “This is girl talk. Very different.” She turned back to me. “So who’s the guy?”

  I took another bite of my waffle to stall for time. “I don’t know about . . . Who are you talking about?” My heart pounded in my throat, making it hard to swallow. How did she know?

  “Stacey.” Emily put down her fork and looked me square in the eye. “Don’t play coy with me. You sent me texts. With little fire emojis. And something else . . . eggplants or something.”

  “Oh,” I said. My heart calmed down. “Yeah.” I’d forgotten about that. It had been a particularly long, particularly . . . creative night with Dex. And Emily had been going through a rough patch, so I’d sent her a string of dirty emojis to cheer her up. I was nice that way. But now it came back to bite me in the ass.

  “Yeah,” Emily echoed, her eyes shrewd. “And if you think I didn’t notice how sometimes you practically ran out of Faire at the end of the day and came in the next morning looking suspiciously tired yet happy . . .” She trailed off, obviously forgetting the beginning of that extremely long sentence. “Well, I noticed,” she finally said.

  “Right.” I pretended that my memory had been jogged, as if Dex and our sporadic hookups hadn’t been sitting in the forefront of my mind for the past few days. “It was nothing,” I said. “At least nothing that lasted.” I hated the note of regret that colored those words. I wasn’t going to see Dex for eleven months, and since he hadn’t answered my message it seemed unlikely that we’d be picking up where we left off. I should just write him off for good at this point.

  “Do you wish it had?” Emily’s eyes searched mine, a flicker of sympathy in them.

  I didn’t want sympathy. “Nope.” The Stacey Smile was back in place, but it didn’t feel as much like a mask this time. The sting had started to wear off the rejection, and maybe in a day or two I’d even be able to forget I’d sent it. I could delete the one-sided attempt at conversation and pretend it had never happened. Sure, it might be a little awkward when next summer’s Faire came around. I was already sad at the prospect of losing my summertime hookup. But it was probably all for the best. Wine-drunk Stacey had gotten everything off her chest, and now I could cross Dex off as any kind of prospect. Not that he’d ever been a legitimate one in the first place.

  One mimosa wasn’t enough to untangle all these conflicting feelings. But I kept my smile in place and I didn’t order a second one. Alcohol had gotten me into this mess, after all. Moderation was the way forward.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’d just pulled into the driveway after brunch, my belly full of waffles and my brain full of whirling thoughts, when my phone pinged in my bag. I pulled it out while I bumped the car door closed with my hip. Before we left the restaurant, April had invited me to her neighborhood book club, but she’d forgotten which book they were reading. Emily had promised to text me with the title when she opened up the bookstore after brunch.

  Before I could read Emily’s text my phone lit up with a second notification, and I froze in place three steps up the staircase. Emily’s text was there, but I didn’t register it. All my attention was focused on the instant message icon below it, along with the first few words: I have to say first that getting your message the other night was such a surprise. But . . .

  Jesus Christ, phone. That’s where you chose to cut off the preview? Despite the heat of early afternoon, I went cold all over. Tingles spread from the back of my neck down my arms, every little hair standing at attention, while my entire consciousness focused on that one little word on my phone screen. But.

  I’d been resigned to him not writing back. Not hearing back from him was a rejection, sure, but it was a passive one. This message, with its “but,” was going to be a much more active kind of rejection, and I didn’t know if I could handle it. Oh, God, I didn’t want a message from Dex cataloging my many faults, but here it was. I’d messed up big-time.

  I didn’t want to open the message, but if I ignored it, that little (1) icon would bug me for the rest of my life. I considered throwing my phone away entirely. Getting a new number. Maybe a new identity while I was at it. People did it all the time in movies. How hard could it be?

  Instead, I sank down to sit on the stairs leading up to my apartment, certain my legs wouldn’t carry me up to the top until I ripped off the Band-Aid and opened the message. I drew in a long, slow breath and clicked on the message before I let myself change my mind.

  I have to say first that getting your message last night was such a surprise. But it was probably the best, most welcome surprise I’ve had since I can remember.

  “Oh my God.” I leaned back against the railing and let relief wash over me. That was a good “but” after all. I pressed one hand to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart, and kept reading.

  For one thing, I’m glad you finally told me your full name. After knowing each other for so long, you’d think I’d know it already. I guess it just never came up, huh?

  On to the more important things:

  Lots of things make me laugh. My cousin doing something stupid, which happens almost daily, so that’s good news for me. Japanese cat videos. Dogs wearing sweaters. I don’t know why on that last one. They just usually look so bewildered by the whole idea of wearing clothes that it makes me laugh.

  No sugar, but a good dollop of cream. I mean a GOOD dollop. Several dollops, actually. So much that I almost have to put my coffee in the microwave to make it hot again.

  I love cats. See above re: Japanese cat videos. I’ve never had one myself, but they’ve always fascinated me. They’re these perfect little predators, yet we let them curl up on our laps like they wouldn’t eat our faces if we died in the night. Hmm, that got morbid. They’re also really soft, and I hear that sometimes they let you pet their bellies. I like that.

  And Stacey, I do miss you. More than I should. More than I have any right to, for someone who’s not really in your life. For all the time we spend on the road (and to answer that question, it’s a lot; we’re on the road more than we’re home, and that’s really only for a month or two around the holidays), I’ll tell you here and now that your smile is something I look forward to seeing every summer. And now I’m looking forward to seeing it more.

  I’m between shows right now, so I have to run. I don’t have time to come up with questions to ask you, so how about this: Tell me something. Something I don’t know about you. Which, let’s face it, is just about everything.

  That long, slow breath escaped in a whoosh as I read over Dex’s words. I read his message twice, and the cold feeling that had enveloped me was quickly replaced with heat. My cheeks burned, and I put one palm to my face in an effort to cool them.

  He missed me too. Well. That certainly changed things. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t even go all the way up the stairs into my apartment. My thumbs flew over my phone’s keyboard as I composed a quick message back.

  Dex,

  I owe you an apology. For the past couple summers we’d said that there was nothing more to us than what we did in bed (NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING ABOUT THOSE THINGS). I thought you were never interested in getting to know me. I thought that all you were looking for was . . . well, what we were already doing.

  And here we were missing each other. I guess that’s what I get for not speaking up sooner. But you could have too, you know. Though I guess you just did.

  Have a great show today. Or shows. It’s early in the day still.

  Something you don’t know about me: I told you my last name, but you still don’t know my first name. Here’s a hint: it’s not Stacey.

  Stacey (or am I?)

  Before I could lose my nerve, I hit Send. Always le
ave them wanting more, right?

  My legs only shook a little as I pulled myself to my feet and up the stairs to my place. He missed me. He loved my smile. I traced the wings on my dragonfly necklace with one hand as I unlocked my door. “Change,” I whispered to myself. That’s what I’d been looking for, after all. Maybe these messages were the first step toward making that happen. Toward finally moving forward and getting a life of my own.

  Four

  A watched pot never boils, and a watched phone never . . . lights up with a text. Something like that. I was never good with metaphors. The point was, Dex didn’t message me back right away, and I was almost mad at myself for thinking he would. He’d said he was between shows, hadn’t he? I needed to get a grip.

  I was so caught up in waiting for Dex to message me that it took a good hour and a half to remember that Emily had texted me too. Have extra copies of April’s book club book if you want to come pick one up! I’d just seen her at brunch, but the only other thing I had to do today was laundry, and that could wait. Besides, going to see Em would distract me from my darkened phone and its lack of notifications, so I grabbed my keys and headed downtown to Read It & Weep, the bookstore Emily managed.

  “Sorry,” she said, as she handed the book across the counter. “Apparently her friends are in a depressing, World War II phase right now.”

  “That’s okay, I’m just in it for the snacks. April did say there were snacks, right?” I frowned at the book. How much would I have to pay for a book that, let’s face it, I was only going to pretend to enjoy reading?

  Emily nodded at it. “Half price, by the way. That’s a used copy.”

  Okay, that made it less painful.

  “I guess I can’t talk them into reading something fun, huh?” I fished my wallet out of my backpack and handed over my debit card.

  “Probably not. They seem determined to read ‘important’ books.” Emily shrugged. “But you make a good point. I’m lining up selections for the store’s book club soon. I’ll make sure to pick . . .” She thought for a moment. “Well, books that are less depressing than this.”