Page 74 of February

“Hey,” she said when she opened the door.

“Hi,” Monica replied. “I’m sorry to just show up like this.”

“No, it’s fine. Are you okay?” Bridgette asked her.

“I’m good. I just…” Monica paused. “Aaron is back in his room, preparing for LSU tomorrow, and… I don’t know. It was early still, and I didn’t have anything to do. I was going to work, but I couldn’t focus, so I…”

“Came here?” Bridgette asked.

“Yeah, I guess.” Monica chuckled. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just see myself out.”

“You can come in,” Bridgette offered as she pushed her door open more. “You didn’t call, though, so I don’t have the plush red carpet ready for you to walk on. I hope that’s okay.”

Monica laughed and said, “I’m sure I can handle it.”

Bridgette motioned for Monica to come inside and then closed the door behind them. She locked it, too, giving her anextra second to stall because she didn’t know what to say or do right now.

“Nice place,” Monica noted, looking around Bridgette’s modest living room.

“Well, it’s no million-dollar home in Manhattan.”

“Actually, this might just be worth a million dollars in Manhattan.” Monica turned around to face her. “I wanted to thank you again for today. What you did really meant a lot to Aaron and to me.”

“I just walked you around campus. No big deal.”

“Itisa big deal, though. He’s my son. This is important to him, which makes it important to me, and you took the time to show him around, to get him excited about the possibilities of college, and you told him which dorms to avoid, which I appreciate.”

Bridgette smiled and replied, “Well, you’re welcome, I guess. Can I get you a drink?”

“Oh. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to interrupt your night. I just didn’t want to stay in the hotel and wasn’t comfortable going out on my own.”

“You didn’t want to stay in your fancy hotel?”

“No, I’m getting used to the humidity, I suppose.”

“You want to be outside?”

“Yes, but without the walking. Don’t make fun of me, either. I took a car here because we walked all day.”

“Red or white?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve got red and white wine. Which would you like? Keep in mind, I bought them at the grocery store, so they’re probably not what you’re used to, but we can have a glass and sit on the balcony.”

“There’s a balcony?”

“Yeah. Not the best view, but you can see some of the city if you squint really hard.” She squinted to demonstrate, earning her a laugh from Monica.

“Red, then,” Monica said.

“Okay. Give me a minute. Make yourself at home.”

Bridgette disappeared into her small kitchen, where she had a momentarily freak-out because she couldn’t remember where the wineglasses were. She had wineglasses, didn’t she? She had wine. She had to have glasses for it, no? She had a corkscrew, too. It was somewhere.

“Junk drawer,” she whispered to herself.

She pulled the drawer open and promptly rifled through all the ketchup packets, the rogue batteries, and pens until she found the corkscrew. Then, she reached for the one bottle of red wine she had and took a few more minutes than was probably necessary to get the bottle open before she went in search of those glasses. She’d bought a set of six when she’d graduated college, expecting that she and her friends would suddenly begin drinking wine at her small apartment. She’d broken one – no, she’d broken two over the years – but there should still be four more in a cabinet. She pulled one cabinet door open after the other, looked, and finding no evidence that she’d ever even had wineglasses, she gave up and pulled two regular glasses down off the shelf in embarrassment.

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