‘Okay.’
This might be serious. His lips pull into a straight line and I brace myself against the door frame, ready, for the past hour, to be blasted to smithereens by what he has to ask.
‘How does a person, let’s say a guy, in this case, go about making plans with a girl who can’t leave her house?’ He lowers his chin, looks at me from under his eyebrows. ‘Hypothetically,’ he reminds me. It’s lucky I’m holding on to something so I can’t fall down dead. Her heart just exploded is what they’d have to engrave on my headstone.
‘Well,’ I whisper, because this has to be a dream and I’m afraid talking too loud will wake me up. ‘Hypothetically speaking, he would probably have to ask her. Then, I don’t know, maybe if the girl likes movies, they could watch one together?’ I shrug, wish I were wearing a sweater so I’d have a sleeve to hide behind. I toe the brass runner at the bottom of the door.
‘Hey, Norah, you wanna watch a movie with me on Friday?’
‘Yes.’
Ispend Tuesday walking around on colourful clouds. Sort of. Occasionally my brain forces me to think about all the ways my date with Luke could go wrong, then my energy goes into trying not to fall off the clouds and land in a mangled mess on the ground below.
On Wednesday it takes me almost six hours to complete a math assignment. Luke is in my head (sans all the morbid BS about disaster dates), and I don’t want to waste time trying to figure out angles of triangles. I want to listen to the Love Life Live acoustic sessions on 98.6 FM and think about the colour of his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the sound of his voice.
Thursday goes like both of the above, except there’s this low-level buzz of frustration simmering beneath my bones. I’m moody, irritable. I want to scratch off my scalp when the obnoxious guy on TV starts raving about politics with what seems to be nothing more than a first-grade education. Mom’s response to my ranting and raving is ‘You’ve got it bad for this boy.’ I’ve no idea how she’s deduced this. I was simply trying to explain that people who don’t know facts shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to important discussions.
My mood lifts around seven that night when I find a neatly folded note on the doormat and read a single line written in perfect handwriting.
See you tomorrow, Neighbour.
It’s Friday. Thank God. When did they start adding hours to weekdays?
I climb out of bed like a normal person, no rolling, flopping, or crawling. Straightforward steps, all grown up. I pull on jeans and a black, slightly fluffy, slightly sparkly sweater without wincing once. It’s like New Year’s Eve up in here. I’m making resolutions to better myself every five seconds.
I sit down at my dressing table, something I haven’t done in for ever. The thing is antique, dark, way too big for my room. It’s the sort of dresser you see on the set of a horror movie. That’s what my gran said when she gave it to me. We both agreed it was magnificent.
Good Lord. I get a sharp shock when I first see myself in the mirror; it’s like being snuck up on by a ghost. My enthusiasm for today wanes a little.
An increase in worry and a decrease in sleep has been screwing with my face. Pretty sure my current diet of cheese and sugar isn’t helping anything either. Like a sculptor, I pull at the skin on my cheeks, the sag under my eyes, the creases on my forehead, but I am not clay. No matter how hard my fingers try, they can’t banish the Crypt Keeper from my reflection.
I open my dresser drawer. It’s full of make-up samples that Gran used to send me every time K. Maine launched a new something-or-other. It’s all unopened. Make-up takes a lot of effort for someone who only puts on real pants approximately fifty days out of the year. I’d been planning to sell it online, buy myself a new phone instead, but today seems like a good day to indulge. Plus, Gran used to swear that a smear of lipstick and a dash of mascara was magic because it never failed to make her feel more confident. Confidence is something I could always use more of. Especially when I have a date.
I root through the drawer, check labels, tear off cellophane, and streak various shades on the back of my hand. Who knew lipstick came in so many colours? I find five different reds, four pinks, three browns, two purples, and a stick of jet black.
I line them all up in a neat little row along the edge of my dresser, select one, and test it against my cheek. It’s times like this when I could really use a girlfriend to come over and help me figure out which shade suits me best. At this rate, I’m going to miss my date completely.
I’m pretty sure I break the record for time spent choosing lipstick. I’ve lost two hours, and after all the umm-ing and ahh-ing, I settle on the first colour I found.