Page 71 of When Stars Collide
“Well, I wouldn’t have known there was anything to check had it not been for you.” I grabbed one of the trays of cupcakes to take out to the banquet table. “Thank you, Violet, truly.”
“You know,” she called out to me as I was walking out of the kitchen, “Daffodil was kind of growing on me.”
“Roger that, Snapdragon.”
I sat next to Elle, chewing on a gumball from a bottle labeledBlow Jobsthat was given to her as a gag gift from, of all people, Candy. In my lap was a steno pad on which I was jotting down an inventory of the gifts she received for her thank you cards. Presently, those gifts consisted of lingerie, lingerie, lingerie, a set of monogrammed towels, massage oil, a gift certificate to a local spa, and more lingerie. The monogrammed towels were a gift from Elle’s lookalike half-sister, Alex, who Elle met in person over Christmas when Mark and his family visited her and Luke. Alex couldn’t be more like the younger version of Elle if she tried. She sat quietly, smiling politely and making commentary when it was expected of her, but you could tell that a room full of people wasn’t where she wanted to be.
Same, Alex. Same.
The real gift, though, was Elle’s expression each time she opened a package and was forced to hold up yet another teddy she was probably never going to wear. Her cheeks burned a bright red, matching some of the undergarments. It had become so amusing that I wrote a reminder note to myself to send her a thank you note for the entertainment. For some reason, Elle saved my gift for last, under the impression, perhaps, that its contents were worse than the gifts she already received. When she picked my gift up from the table, her expression told me that she regretted not having been successful in taking it from me and opening it back home.
“Brace yourself,” I whispered to her as she began peeling back the paper.
“I swear to God, Mena,” she muttered, her cheeks already burning.
She sighed as she finished unwrapping the cardboard box and peeled away the tape holding it closed. After some serious side-eye directed at me, she opened the box and peeled back the paper covering my gift to her, gasping in what I hoped was delight.
“Oh, Mena.” She was in tears by the time she freed the canvas bearing a photograph of her and Luke taken shortly after they first began dating thirteen years ago. “I can’t believe you held onto this for so long.” She turned the canvas around to show Candy who held her hands up to her face as she, too, became emotional.
“You know me, nostalgic and shit.”
“I just can’t believe you had it blown up and mounted. Luke is going to love this. Thank you so much.”
She leaned over to hug me, her sudden movement jostling the box still on her knees, making its position there tentative at best. I cringed, remembering what else was inside it.
“You know, maybe thank me some other time,” I said, encouraging her to sit upright.
“Come on. You hugged Violet today; you can hug me, too.” She lurched forward once more, the box now balancing precariously on one leg instead of two.
“No, seriously, you’ll thank me later.” I held out my hand, hoping she would take it, instead.
“You’re being ridiculous.” And with that final move, that one last attempt at catching me in her grasp, the box fell to the floor in what felt like slow motion. Without wasting any time, the second it struck the floor, the industrial-sized tube of lube I’d picked up at an off-color gift shop rolled merrily out of it. Like the box from whence it came, the tube also seemed to move in slow motion, finally coming to rest at Kirsten’s feet.
Elle looked from the tube to me and back again, her eyes as wide in circumference as the tube on the floor.
“Huh.” I smiled, clenching my jaw. “How did that get in there?”
*****
“Still mad at me?” I asked Elle as we were on the way back to her place.
“No, I’m not mad, just …”
“I know, I know. Just disappointed. In my defense, I tried to warn you. Plus, I gave you like the best gift ever, so I think that cancels out the embarrassment.”
She nodded. “It was a pretty epic gift, and I suppose that if I were to look on the bright side, I won’t need to buy lube again until I’m seventy.”
“My thoughts exactly. You know I’ll always have your back, even when we’re in the nursing home together throwing them out and—” I started moving my mouth again, but no sound came out as my brain took in the scene unfolding across the street from the stoplight we were sitting at.
“What is it?” Elle asked, puzzled until she followed my gaze to see what I was looking at. “Oh.”
Peter and Amanda had just exited an Italian restaurant with Jackson, presumably walking back to Peter’s car. Jackson walked between the two of them, holding onto both their hands, laughing as they periodically lifted him up and swung him back and forth between them. They looked every bit the happy family from one of those sappy, wholesome family shows I only watched when there was nothing else on television. And as much as my mind was telling me to avert my eyes, I continued to watch them until the light turned green and Elle could move forward again.
CHAPTER NINE
My leg bounced up and down uncontrollably as I finished what I hoped would be the last of the paperwork I was going to have to complete today. It was a nervous tic of mine, shaking my leg, and I hated that my nerves were getting the best of me. Most of all, I hated waiting in thecramped waiting room in the windowless Nuclear Medicine department, sitting in its uncomfortable plastic chairs, while waiting for a procedure that wasn’t even my actual surgery.
Elle rested her hand on mine. “Do you want to get up and walk around before your leg falls off?”
