The Quest for Epic

Chapter Thirty Seven

It was Saturday and also the day of Rosie's engagement party. I was at Maya's and we were getting primped and pulled for the cocktail event. Actually, Maya was the one doing most of the primping and pulling. I was really happy to spend this time with Maya. Now that I was seeing Noah, I always wanted to be with him all day everyday but I wanted to spend time with my best friend too. Plus, I could make myself look okay for an event, good even... but Maya was the pro. She had magic fingers at this kind of thing. She would make me look spectacular.

"Are you ready yet, Ells?" Maya hollered at me from the bathroom where she was dabbing off a lipstick stain from her rich purple dress.

I had just finished fastening the ankle strap of my left sandal and I stood up straight to admire my reflection in the full length mirror in Maya's room. Maya had finished my make up about thirty minutes ago and the dramatic eye and burgundy lip looked stunning with the yellow, lacy, off- the-shoulder dress my mom had gotten me. Dangly earrings and yellow strappy high heeled sandals completed the look and I got all excited thinking of the look on Noah's face when he saw me.

"I'm ready!" I yelled back at Maya who re-emerged from her bathroom still dabbing at the spot on her dress although I was pretty sure the lipstick stain was gone.

"Ughh I cannot believe I made a rookie mistake like this", Maya muttered, dabbing away frantically

"Maya chill... I can't even see it anymore", I said in an effort to assure her

"Are you sure?" she looked at me with big, woeful eyes

"I'm sure", I walked over to her and took hold of her hands "You, bestie, look nothing short of magnificent"

Maya smiled, rolling her eyes at me. "Well you're a big softie today aren't you?" then she laughed at my dramatic offended gasp "I'm kidding. You look beautiful, boo"

"Thanks to you, obviously", I beamed at her "Now that we've got that out of the way, can we please get going?"

Maya made a face at me but turned to get her matching clutch purse from her dressing table, leading the way out of her room. I grabbed my purse and followed and we made our way out of her apartment building and to my Sedan which was parked outside.

We got in and I turned on my car with a twist of my key in the ignition while Maya automatically began searching for music stations that were playing Top 40 music. She settled for Zayn's 'Pillow talk" and we both excitedly started singing along to the music and giggling at the bad words while I whizzed on by to the venue of the party.

The venue was Rosie's parents' house and we found a parking space a while away from the main house seeing as the street was filled with cars.

We walked up to the front door of the very impressive house and were ushered in by stewards. Everything was really fancy and the decorations were great, Maya plucked off two flutes of champagne from a waiter passing by and handed one to me. We sipped some and milled around, feeling very grown up at such a nice cocktail party until we found Rosie and her soon-to-be husband.

Rosie was thrilled to see us, even though she was swamped with receiving guests and making sure the party went on smoothly from behind the scenes. She was dressed in the lilac dress we picked out, her hair smooth and glossy and she looked absolutely radiant. She introduced us to her family and her fiancé Evan who was one of the nicest people ever. He worked as a stock broker with one of the top brokerage firms in Connecticut and above all, he absolutely adored Rosie, often looking down at her with a beaming smile on his face like he couldn't quite believe his luck.

We spent the next thirty or so minutes munching on crab cakes and hors d'oeuvres that floated by on silver platters while sipping champagne and mingling with a couple of people from work. I introduced Maya to most of them and true to her vast repertoire of social skills; she was hitting it off with them in no time.