As I Am

Chapter Twenty-Seven

            Twenty-Seven

          “You look beautiful.”

            I run my fingers across the hem of my lace dress, staring at it in the full length mirror. In my eyes, I’m still me. But as I look over myself, I see someone else in the mirror. Someone I hadn’t seen in a long time.

            I smile at my mom and turn around. “Thank you.”

            “The blue matches the necklace perfectly,” she replies, gently picking it up. Her hand trembles a bit, and I instantly know she’s nervous about tonight. “Ready? Everyone is downstairs waiting for you.”

            “Except for me!” Hadley yells from my bathroom, the sound of a hair spray can being shaken filling my ears before the smell drifts into the room.

            “They’re waiting for you too,” I call back, laughing quietly. “So hurry up!”

            We make a grand entrance as we come down the staircase, as if Hadley and I are two girls dolled up and ready to come downstairs to meet our dates for prom. Except for the fact that there’s only Evan, and this doesn’t exactly qualify as a date.

            My mother is full of nervous jitters as she locks the door to the house, my father putting a comforting hand on her shoulder before guiding her to the SUV.

            “No detours,” he says to Evan, who nods before shutting himself inside the Jeep.

            I let Hadley take the front, knowing she’s tired of being in the back seat and the third wheel to us all the time, and stare out the windows instead. It’s already dark out, the perfect warm evening with a cool breeze and a sky full of stars. When we pull up to the event, which is located at the country club on the edge of town that my parents vouched for this evening, there’s already people handing their cars off to the valet.          

            Evan looks down at his keys once we’re standing in front of one of the red vested men, unsure of how this whole thing works. Clearly he’s not one to ever be to a country club before, and I don’t think I’d ever have gone to one either if it wasn’t the only place to host an event like a book release party.

            He takes my hand as we go inside, our eyes instantly falling on the twinkling star lights draped up and down across the space above our heads, casting the entire room in a low, warm glow.

            “I didn’t know book release parties looked like this.” His head is still looking upward.

            “They don’t,” I say with a smile, scanning the room for Hadley. She had come in with us but now she’s nowhere to be seen. Strange. “But my mom’s always been a bit over the top.”

            He grins and meets my eyes. “I noticed.”

            As my eyes land on the buffet tables to the left side of the space, I find my father talking with a man, whom just like the rest of the guests, I don’t recognize. Beside him, but off to the side for more privacy, my mother is talking to Hadley, her head close to hers. Whether it be to hear each other over the faint sound of classical music or the fact that she wants no one else to hear, I don’t know.

            “Come on.” I pull Evan towards the table and we both grab small plates to begin picking and choosing from the small portions of food. My plan is to make it down to the end of the table, where I can cut in with my dad and ask what’s going on, but before I’m even halfway, my mother goes into a door behind the temporary stage and Hadley is standing there by herself, unmoving.