“That’s not true,” she said.
“It is true. He’s been back with her. For weeks,” I told her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“But I saw them together. At the World of Waffles. They were—”
“Breaking up,” she finished for me. “That was the night he saw you at Milton’s, right, and he said he had an appointment?”
I nodded, still confused.
“He was on his way to break up with her.” She paused for a second, as if she could see this sinking in, all finally coming together. “He wants to be with you, Macy. Now if it was me, I would have told you that night, but he’s not like that. He wanted to be free, totally in the clear, before he let you know how he feels. He’s just been waiting for you, Macy.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes. Now, I’ve been telling him to just come over here and tell you, and ask you if you feel the same way,” she said. “But he’s not like that. He has to do it in his own way. In his own time.”
Like the final question, I thought. He wasn’t waiting to torture me, or because he didn’t know it. He just wanted to get it right. Whatever that means.
Everyone was looking at me. Once, I thought, my life was private. Now the entire world was into my business, if not my heart. But, I thought, looking across their expectant faces, this wasn’t really the whole world. Just mine.
“He came over today,” I said slowly, all of this sinking in. “This morning.”
“So what happened?” Kristy asked.
I glanced at my mother, waiting for her to realize I’d broken her rules. Instead, she was just looking at me, her head slightly cocked to the side, as if she was seeing something in me she hadn’t before.
“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, he just asked me if this, the way things are now, was what I wanted.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it was,” I told her.
“Macy!” Kristy smacked her hand to her forehead. “God! What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t know,” I told her. Then, more softly, to myself, I said, “It’s so unfair.”
Kristy shook her head. “It’s tragical.”
“It’s time,” Delia said, nodding at the window. The rain had let up some, finally, and people were now starting to emerge from their cars, shutting doors and unfolding umbrellas. Regardless of everything else, the show had to go on. “Let’s get to work.”
Everyone started to move away from the window, toward their various tasks: Kristy picked up her tray of wineglasses, Bert and Delia headed toward the kitchen, and my mother moved to the mirror in the foyer, taking one last look at her face. Only Monica stayed where she was, staring out the window as I tried, hard, to comprehend everything that had just happened.
“I can’t believe this,” I said softly. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late,” she said.
For a second, I was sure I’d imagined it. After a summer of monotone, one-word answers or no answers at all, here, from Monica, was a complete sentence.
“But it is,” I told her, turning to look at her. “I don’t think I’d even know what to do if I did have another chance. I mean, what could I . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s just one of those things,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly level and clear. “You know, that just happen. You don’t think or plan. You just do it.”
There was something familiar about this, but it took me a second to realize where I’d heard it before. Then I remembered: it was what I’d said to her that night at the party, when I’d been trying to explain why I was holding Wes’s hand.
“Monica!” Kristy yelled from the living room. “There’s a tray of cheesepuffs in here with your name on it. Where are you?”
Monica turned from the window, starting across the foyer with her trademark slow shuffle. “Wait,” I said, and she looked over her shoulder, back at me. I didn’t know what to say. I was still in shock that she’d spoken at all, and wondered what other surprises she might have up her sleeve. “Thanks for that. I mean, I appreciate it.”
She nodded. “Um-hmm,” she said, and then she turned her back and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’d catered enough jobs to know the signs of a good party. You had to have plenty of good food, for one. A crowd that was relaxed and laughing a lot, for another. But then there was that other thing, the indefinable buzz of people talking and eating and communing, a palpable energy that makes little things like shredded tents or pouring rain or even the end of the world hardly noticeable. An hour in, my mother’s party had all of these things, in spades. There was no question it was a success.
“Great party, Deborah!”
“Love the bistro idea!”
“These meatballs are divine!”
The compliments kept coming. My mother accepted each one gratefully, nodding and smiling as she moved among her guests. For the first time, it seemed to me that she was actually enjoying herself, not focusing on getting literature to every person or talking up the next phase, but instead just mingling with people, wineglass in hand. Every once in a while she’d pass behind me and I’d feel her hand on my back or my arm, but when I turned around to see if she needed me to do something, she’d have moved on, instead just glancing back over her shoulder to smile at me as she moved through the crowd.
My mother was okay. I was okay, too. Or I would be, eventually. I knew one night wouldn’t change everything between us, and that there was a lot—an entire year and a half’s worth, actually—for us to discuss. For now, though, I just tried to focus on the moment, as much as I could. Which was working fine, until I saw Jason.