As we laugh and chatter, the limo glides through sun-drenched streets heading toward the Towson hotel ballroom where our festivities begin. It’s one of those glorious spring evenings with everything wonderful about the season wrapped up like a present with my name on it. The whisper of warm air. The hide-and-seek scent of early honeysuckle. The squinty-eyed glare of the sun’s last gasp. It’s the kind of night that usually makes me feel tingly with excitement, filled with thoughts of new possibilities.
And maybe I am. But I’m also filled with thoughts of fading friendships. As I stare at Doug’s strong jawline and bright eyes, I realize I don’t really care for him the same way anymore, and that hurts almost as much as when I wondered if he didn’t care for me at all. Maybe, just maybe, I was so quick to suspect disloyalty because it was easier than facing my own weakening commitment.
You see, the problem with letting go of a first love is that it shakes your sense of self-knowledge. After all, when you first fall for Big Crush Number A, you’re absolutely, positively, one hundred-percent sure you could never love another guy like that again. Then, bingo-bango, you’re suddenly faced with the possibility that you were wrong, that you’ve failed this subject. And it’s a subject you should have known better than any others — yourself.
But speaking of failing things, there’s one thing I didn’t fail — my SATs. After all that angst, I got my scores online, only to discover that I just might qualify for a school like Hopkins. After he heard the news, Steve took us all out to dinner. Even Kerrie was sincerely happy for me, forgetting in an instant all the hidden messages she’d been sending about my intellect. She responded to my joy with the same enthusiasm she threw into my worry — endorsing my feelings of the moment. That experience taught me something — you can’t count on your friends to believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself. If they see a Loser sign around your neck, chances are you’re the one who put it there.
And the stunner of all stunners — Connie offered me a summer job in her office, not just “helping out” with typing and filing but working on cases. She made a point of letting me know that’s what it would involve. She even said she was going to check into licensing requirements to see exactly how much I could legally handle. Funny thing is, I’ve not yet given her an answer. I still don’t know what it will be.
“Here we are,” Kerrie announces as we pull up the hotel driveway. Other guys and gals are arriving. Some stand in front of a fountain taking each other’s pictures, sunlight washing everything into a merry glimmer of orange/yellow hope.
Doug gets out and grabs my hand to help me disembark. I smile up at him, but my gaze catches a group just beyond a pillar — several girls and guys laughing and joking. Brian’s among them. So is Brenda. And I wish with all my might that I could be the girl on his arm, the Cinderella to his prince.
All this time I’d been hankering for Doug to come to the Junior/ Senior Ball, what I really wanted was for him to really want to come. Not the “I think I can” stuff he’d been throwing my way. Not the “I’m going to try” mumbo-jumbo that had me analyzing his voice pitch and tone for signs of yearning. I wanted him to tell me he’d be there come hell or high water, that it was one of the most important things in his life because he knew how important it was to me. And he did know that. When he was at St. John’s, I’d gone with him to his Junior/Senior Ball.
But when Doug didn’t pony up the exuberance that would have set my heart on fire, those embers died away pretty fast.
Spring light paints stripes across the green lawn by a stand of nearby trees, yellow-green where sunset blanches color from the grass, forest green where shadows wield a more nuanced brush. This is my absolute favorite time of year, when everything seems new and fresh again. The perfect time for a special dance, filled with promise and the possibility of life-changing moments. I look over at Brian. He catches my gaze. A slow, shy smile colors his face, crinkling his eyes. He nods his head in that funny, nervous way that makes his curly hair shake like a mop.
A breeze blows blossoms in the air. The fountain gurgles hidden messages.
Will he say he’ll wait for me? Will I dare ask him?
“Come on,” I say to Doug. “I see some people I know.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A BALTIMORE NATIVE, Libby earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and also attended the summer American School of Music in Fontainebleau, France.
After graduating from Peabody, she worked as a Spanish gypsy, a Russian courtier, a Middle-Eastern slave, a Japanese geisha, a Chinese peasant, and a French courtesan — that is, she sang as a union chorister in both the Baltimore and Washington Operas, where she regularly had the thrill of walking through the stage doors of the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. before being costumed and wigged for performance. She also sang with small opera and choral companies in the region.
For many years, she and her family lived in Vermont, where she worked as an education reform advocate promoting school choice policies, contributed occasional commentaries to Vermont Public Radio, and was a member of the Vermont Commission on Women.
Libby’s first young adult novel, Uncovering Sadie’s Secrets, was a finalist for the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America. The second in her Bianca Balducci mystery series, Finding the Forger, was released in hardcover in November 2004 (both were published as mass-market paperbacks by Smooch). Her debut adult novel, Loves Me, Loves Me Not (published under the name Libby Malin) was released in 2005 to critical acclaim. Her historical YA novel, The Case Against My Brother, received highly favorable reviews in 2007. Her adult novel, initially entitled Fire Me!, will soon be published, and movie rights have been optioned.
She is married, with three children, and now resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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