The reminder was more of a warning, a clean cut, slicing night into day, 2012 into 2013 and right into wrong but no one found it sinister. Only compelling. Hauntingly so.
This is about Bridget. It's about what she needs.
(Only I'm right here. I can hear you speak. I can hear you breathe. I can distinguish between your heartbeats and between the voices in your own heads and I'd better do it quickly because my own heartbeat is thumping between my ears, pounding a rhythm to a dance I don't think I remember all that well or maybe I do and maybe I would have liked to forget.)
A head bends down and kisses the space between my nose and my mouth. Softly. No razor burn. No expectation. Butterfly kisses in the new darkness. The fireworks have ended, the sparklers have fizzled out and the guests have all gone home. Black takes over, cool sophisticated black the color of unstrung bowties and tuxedo jackets. Everything else is pure white gold. The champagne. My earrings. The stars, I bet, but I can't see them because of the clouds in between the earth and heaven.
Breath against my lips, waiting for a sign. I exhale slowly, nodding my head up higher still for a kiss on target. The breathing excites me, held in control, anticipating, halted and measured. My hands are brought behind my back and held as lips trace along my neck. My shoulders. I lean back against a wall of solid muscle. I am kept there. My shoulders are squared, my neck extended and my eyes are slow to focus through the haze of sparkling bubbles.
No regrets, little Bumblebee, mumbled softly, a kiss planted on top of my head as if I might grow from it. Surrounded by love, enveloped in their hearts, I don't need a net right here because they are the net. I reach up, taking the end of a tie. I pull it away from a collar in exchange for a smile. I tie the bowtie around my neck and pick up my glass to finish that one last drink that's been refilled twice since. The glass is taken away, handed off. I don't know where it goes, I have champagne-brain again and don't have to be responsible. Instead I feel powerful. I say the word. I want to test it. Immediately all movements stop, concern replacing need.
I say it was a test and feel the relief replace the brief concern. Hands slide around my head until my face is held up close to another and I reach up and free another tie for my stylish new collection. Everything will be fine, Babydoll, I am told as I am turned away once more. This is my own private carousel where I can stand amongst the prettiest horses where the music is the perfect volume only the lights are leaving tiny trails in my eyes as I turn faster. I reach out to hold on. To keep balance.
I nod. I understand but this is only the beginning so I might test again.
My hands are released and I am handed into arms and held tightly. Possessively. You're okay, Peanut? I am asked. Wanted is the reassurance I was just looking for. I nod again and pull another tie out from under a collar but it is taken back from me, stuffed into a pocket. Included but continuing to be kept apart. I go to work on the shirt studs and fail miserably as kisses rain down along my temple, as I am held so tightly that if I didn't have to breathe I might never let go again. I put my head down against a shoulder and the hold is further tightened until I am gently pried away. This night will come so easy for some and so haltingly slowly for others. This night will never ever happen again.
In the morning I have two bracelets, one earring and two bowties still on. I look in the mirror and the night stares back, judging me. I tell it harshly to walk a mile in my shoes and it tells me with contempt that it wears my shoes every time the sun goes down, until it comes back up again, to not even pretend that I will be absolved for this, that when the bubbles wear off there will be hell to pay.
I lean in very close and remind the night that I have been saving up for years, that I have more than enough to cover whatever price it can come up with.
I want to remind it that it should pay me for my cost. That the scales are tipped in its favor and that isn't right. That the curses of favoritism and dignity and terror and need are all at price points neither one of us can even touch.
But then I remember there were moments. I made it from one end of my high wire to the other intact. So many moments. I take one more look at the carousel before I turn to leave. I turn back to the mirror and I stand up on my tiptoes, reaching up with my lipstick, writing NO REGRETS on the mirror in Dior's 752 Cherry Red. I smile at myself and for the briefest moment I feel like I conquered the world.
Then I reach up again and smear the words until you can't read them anymore, because I know better than that.
