“At least you showed up with some eye candy on your arm.”
“Eye candy?” I asked. Did Joe qualify as eye candy?
“You know,” Sue said, nodding in Joe’s direction. “Your male prostitute.”
Guess so.
“I might have been wrong about that,” I said.
Sue let her gaze linger. “Maybe he should be,” she said with appreciation. “He could make a killing.”
“Sue,” I said. “Let’s focus. This is a problem.”
“What?”
“The party! The people! My ex roaming loose!”
“Why?” she said. “Everybody here loves you.”
“But I can’t recognize anyone.”
“They won’t care.”
“They will care, Sue. They will think it’s super weird when they’re talking to me and I have no idea who they are.”
“Then let’s just tell them what’s going on with you.”
“NO!” I choked out.
“You don’t want to tell them?”
I leaned closer. “Never. I never want to tell anyone.”
“Why not?” Sue asked.
“It’s humiliating.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
“Trust me. Having your brain malfunction is humiliating.”
“If you say so.”
But Sue was realizing now that she hadn’t exactly thought this through.
“Look,” I said. “The only people in the entire world who know about this are you and my dad and Lucinda … and Parker.”
“Parker knows?”
“Lucinda told her.”
“Then it’s not a secret anymore. She’ll tell everyone.”
“Not yet. I think she’s enjoying lording it over me.”
“But she will.”
“Maybe it’ll fix itself before then.”
Sue sighed. “Okay,” she said then. “Here’s the plan. First, you’re going to change out of those wet clothes.”
“No argument there.”
“And then just stick close to me. Whenever anyone talks to us, I’ll say their name right away, so you’ve got it.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. “That could work,” I said.
“It’ll totally work.”
“Just promise me,” I said then, holding out my hand so we could shake on it, “that you won’t leave my side.”
“I promise,” Sue said, pumping my hand up and down, “that I will never ever leave your side.”
* * *
GUESS WHAT?
She left my side.
Not on purpose. She just got dragged away.
I went into the bathroom to change, and I never saw her again.
I was left alone, as Picasso-faced person after Picasso-faced person came up to me and forced me to Sherlock Holmes one theory after another about who I was talking to.
Looking back, I could have just left.
I could have found Joe’s floppy hair and hipster glasses and steered him off to feed me that meal he’d promised. But he was lost in the faceless crowd, too—and all attempts to search for him got intercepted by faceless people hugging me, until I wound up making way-too-friendly chitchat with my ex-boyfriend for five solid minutes before realizing who he was.
All to say, the situation snowballed.
Before I even really saw it coming, I was having a panic attack out behind the utility room.
At least I think it was a panic attack.
Is it a panic attack when your entire body is utterly hijacked by … panic?
And you get dizzy? And you sweat and have the chills at the same time? And your heart pounds and your chest hurts and your hands go cold? And you can’t catch your breath? And you feel like you’re dying? And you collapse to your knees in a dark corner and press your forehead to the concrete to try to make the world stop spinning?
Is that a panic attack?
’Cause that was me.
And I sure as hell wasn’t celebrating.
I have no idea how long I’d been there, trying not to pass out, when I heard a voice say, “Are you having a panic attack?”
So of course I said, “No.”
“You look like you’re … not okay.”
Not okay? That was just insulting. Okay was my whole thing. “I am always okay,” I said, to set the record straight. And then, when the person didn’t accept that and leave, I said, “I’m fine.” Then, my voice muffled against the concrete, I added, “I’m good.”
“You don’t look good.”