It made me long for my mother again. She would have understood. She would have loved me changing up my look. She would have told me that it was okay to do frivolous things that made me happy. To want to feel pretty.
To my surprise, though, Grandma stayed quiet. “You can’t come home so late. We didn’t know if you were going to come home,” she said in a soft, hurt voice.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that staying out that way would be hard for her. Like the night my parents didn’t come back. “I’m so sorry. I’d never want to worry you that way,” I said, feeling terrible, but she hunched her shoulders and went back into the kitchen. I knew better than to follow her. She needed some time to process and work things out for herself.
I’d talk to her about it later and apologize again.
My grandpa had gotten up and came over to give me a hug. He kissed me on my forehead and then said the nicest thing in the whole world to me. “You look just like your mother.”
He returned to his newspaper and his birds while I headed upstairs to take a power nap.
All in all, it had been a good morning. Nobody freaked out too badly, and now I had a secret that made me smile every time I thought of it.
Marco liked the Muppets.
True to his word, Marco sent me a text and asked if I wanted to catch a movie with him. I immediately replied yes and then, to ease my guilty conscience, I added, “For practice.”
He didn’t respond.
I met him at the theater because my grandma was still in a mood and I figured that was the safer bet. He was waiting for me outside. I’d considered myself to be a punctual person, but he always seemed to beat me to the punch.
His whole face lit up when he saw me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “You made it!”
“I almost didn’t,” I said, pointing at my forehead. “I burned myself.”
“How?” he asked, looking and sounding concerned.
“With a curling iron! I just want you to know that I think it is ridiculous the amount of work women have to put in to look nice. I know that makes me a hypocrite given the industry I work in, but it is so stupid.” I paused to take a big breath. “Why do we have to put hot things next to our foreheads?”
“I think the point is for it to go on your hair, not your face.”
“Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious. I slipped.”
He reached over and lifted the hair away from my forehead. I held my breath in anticipation of the moment when his fingers would make contact with my skin, but he only touched my hair.
“Poor Anna. Do you want me to kiss it better?”
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. “No.”
“It has glitter on it,” he pointed out unhelpfully, letting my hair fall back into place when he took away his hand.
“I know. I think I burned it permanently into my skin. Like my own personal tattoo of shame.”
He was grinning at me, and I didn’t like it. “What?” I asked.
“You got dressed up for me.”
I did. I wanted him to think that I looked nice. To say something. “It was for practice,” I said, which was what I had told myself the whole time I was getting ready, including when I burned myself. Practice.
Too bad nobody here seemed to believe that.
Because he was wearing a pointed and knowing smile, and he was right. I could have left the makeup off and worn sweats and a hoodie, but instead I’d put on a nice pair of jeans and a pretty top with a black jacket that Gloria had picked out for me.
“Shouldn’t we go inside?” I asked.
He held the door open for me, and we stepped inside. He asked if I wanted any snacks and, figuring he was paying and could afford to pay ten dollars for something that cost a dollar at the grocery store, I asked for Red Vines, popcorn, and a blue raspberry Icee.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
My phone buzzed. I had a text from Catalina. I realized that I hadn’t called her yet to fill her in on what was going on with Marco. She was probably dying. I dialed her number.
“I’m going to make you put that Find My Friends app on your phone so I can track you down,” she told me. “What’s going on?”
I tried to quickly catch her up and ended my recap explaining how I’d stayed over the entire night playing Monopoly, to which she made a sound like she didn’t believe me.
“You played board games all night with a man who looks like that?”
“It’s the truth,” I insisted.
“You poor, wretched soul,” she said. “All of that man going to waste.”
She wasn’t wrong. It seemed like somebody should be kissing him. It was then that I realized if that wasn’t already happening, it would be soon.
With another woman.
That thought made me feel like somebody had dropped a one-ton anvil on my head.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
I pressed my hand against my chest, as if I could stop the way that my heart was aching. Which was dumb, because it was over something that wasn’t even happening. He had told me he was single. “On a date with Marco.”
Of course I realized my mistake a second too late. I tried to correct it. “Not a date. A hang. A friendly outing. A practice session.”
But it was too late. “A date? With Marco? Banks and schools should close. There should be fireworks. People should barbecue in honor of this day.”
“You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes. Nothing is going on with Marco and me. It’s a business arrangement.”
But that sounded hollow even to my own ears.
“It’s too bad,” she said. “Based on what you told me about his childhood, it sounds like he had to develop a personality because he couldn’t just rely on his looks.”
Why did that feel like a specific dig against Craig? I didn’t want to get into that right now with her. “Marco is pretty great.” Better to just agree with her.
There was so long of a pause on Catalina’s end that I thought she had hung up. I was about to ask whether she was still there when she finally spoke. “I kind of feel like you owe it to us to see if this crush on Marco could turn into something more.”
“Us?” I asked.
“Yes, us. All the women made to feel like they’re less than. Not pretty enough, not thin enough, too smart, too ambitious. You have the chance to have a relationship with a gorgeous man who is obviously falling for you.”
Why did I want that to be true? Craig. I said his name in my head. Repeating it over and over. Craig, Craig, Craig. Like that could force me to not consider Catalina’s words.
“Marco and I are not in the same league,” I told her. Even if there wasn’t a Craig, Marco would still be himself and I would still be me. “We’re not even playing the same sport.”
“What did you just say to me?”
“Oh, I’ve been learning some sports stuff. I can make references now.”
“Just think about it. By all accounts, and my own personal observations, Marco is a good guy, and I think you should give it a chance.”
I wondered if she’d investigated Marco through the office grapevine, too.
He was walking back toward me with the food and I said, “I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”