I Was Told It Would Get Easier(82)

“Hold on, kid,” we heard him say, and then Casper sidestepped him and knocked the envelope out of Alice’s hands.

“Don’t do it, Alice,” he said, “you’re so much better than this.”

Which was when the guy in the suit jumped on him.





JESSICA


If it’s possible to feel guilty when receiving a text, I felt guilty. Sheepish might be a better word, and it’s certainly a funnier word.

I looked at my phone and frowned. I was wearing a tall stripy hat, pulled from an old dress-up box somewhere, and Amanda was sitting next to me, wearing a pair of aviator goggles. It had made sense at one point.

“Emily texted me,” I said. “Look.”

I angled the phone so Amanda could see it. “Huh,” she said. “They’re at the Met, how boringly educational of them.”

“Kids these days,” I said. “They’ve got no sense of adventure.”

“But who’s that?” asked Amanda. “Is that a friend of Emily’s?”

I examined the photo more carefully. “Yeah,” I said, “although I’m surprised they’re hanging out, they’re not very close. That’s Alice.”

“Alice the bitch?”

“Yeah.” It’s possible I had maligned Alice a little, in talking about the trip.

“Who’s that with her?”

I peered at the photo and smiled.

“Oh, that’s sweet,” I said. “It’s her dad.”





28





EMILY


Well, that was awkward.

It turned out that Alice was meeting her father. He was in town for work, and the big yellow envelope had contained cash for shopping and an upgraded first-class airline ticket. Alice was in the process of saying she’d rather sit in coach with the rest of us when Casper had crashed into them. Once the confusion of who was who was sorted out, and Alice’s dad’s driver had apologized to Casper, we all had a moderately good laugh about it. Of course, Alice had slowly turned to look at me when Casper explained I’d thought maybe she was involved in the cheating plot, which probably meant total social destruction when I got back to school. But hey, you might as well go out with a bang.

I got a text from my mom just as we were all sorting ourselves out.

“That’s her dad,” she said. “How nice. Are you having fun?”

“Yes,” I replied, then put my phone in my backpack and decided to ignore it completely.

Alice seemed particularly touched that Casper had been willing to tackle a potential criminal in order to save her reputation, and her dad invited us to dinner with them. Casper seemed pleased and went, despite having already eaten dinner, but Chloe had somewhere else to be. That left Will and me, and I was about to make my apologies and head back to the Upper West Side, when Will spoke.

“It’s very nice of you, sir, but Emily and I already have plans.” He stepped back and shut the car door, and we both watched it glide away.

“We do?” I asked. “What are our plans?”

He pulled me close and kissed me. “I’m going to apologize for being kind of a dick about this whole thing, and then we’re going to get the subway downtown to Union Square and get the best hot chocolate in the city.”

“I do like hot chocolate.”

“There you go,” he said. “I’m sure your mom won’t mind if you’re a little late.”

I shook my head. “I’ll text her. She worries.”

“Good idea,” he said, then we turned and started walking back to the subway, side by side. I’d have to wait to text; I couldn’t do it with one hand.





JESSICA


I had already sobered up quite a bit when I got another text from Emily, saying she was fine, she was with Will, and she was going to be a bit late. I told her I would see her at the hotel and turned to Amanda.

“That’s nice,” I said, “she’s hanging out with the boy she likes.”

“The one who gave her the chocolate?”

I nodded.

She smiled. “Well, hopefully they’ll get up to all kinds of mischief and have a wonderful time.”

“That would be good,” I said, looking around for my handbag. “Kids are so serious these days.”

Amanda walked me to the door. “You’ve given Emily the best seventeen years of your life, you’ve done everything for her. She’s beginning to live her own life, and you can live yours, too.”

I shrugged. “I am living my own life. Sometimes I felt I was working to take care of Emily, but maybe that was just a convenient excuse. I work because I love it, and I’m good at it. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been a crappy mother if I’d put my own needs second. Maybe I’m going to be the best mother ever of a young adult. Maybe little kids aren’t my forte.”

“Who knows?” said Amanda, opening the door. “Emily seems to have turned out totally awesome, regardless of your influence.”

“Yeah.” I stepped through the door and turned to face my friend. “Sometimes limits are their own form of freedom.”

“You’re stoned,” she said. “Text me when you get to the hotel.”