Tonight is the night Lydia has her annual Halloween party. In celebration, I am getting drunk.
I’m sitting on the sofa, watching television and drinking vodka and orange juice from a mug. If Nonna walks in on me, I don’t want her to know I’m drinking hard liquor. She already thinks I’m a mess.
Lydia’s Halloween party is infamous. It’s funny because she never calls it a Halloween party, but it always takes place the weekend before Halloween. She calls it a “festive party,” which is vague enough. One thing you can count on is there will be lots of expensive hors d’oeuvres and lots of wine. So much wine.
I didn’t get an invitation this year. Even after Lydia’s little speech about how our friendship needed to cool off, I thought she’d still invite me. But nothing ever came in the mail.
I told myself maybe there’s an issue with my mail forwarding. Maybe she wanted to send it but she wasn’t sure of the new address. But I was kidding myself. Lydia knew she could only invite one of us, and she chose Joel. And his new girlfriend.
I’ve been holding onto Olive’s keys for two weeks, but I haven’t done anything with them. I have these fantasies about trashing her apartment, but would I really do it? That doesn’t seem like me. Then again, I’ve done a lot of things that haven’t seemed like me in the last few months.
The truth is that every time I think about Olive, I want to wring her pretty little neck.
Nonna pads into the living room in her pink housecoat and fuzzy slippers. She is wrinkled all the way down to her feet. It’s hard to imagine ever being that old. “What are you doing home on a Saturday night?”
“I don’t need to go out every Saturday night.” “You don’t go out any Saturday night!”
Somehow, I think of Dean’s business card, nestled inside my wallet. I had intended to toss it when I got home, but I didn’t. I didn’t call him either though.
“I have the perfect boy for you,” Nonna declares. “My friend Esther’s grandson.”
I roll my eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”
“There is nothing wrong with him. Why do you say that?” She hesitates. “Well, he is a little bit on the short side. That’s all.”
“How short?” “Just a little bit.”
“How short, Nonna?”
“Tutto bene, forget it,” Nonna sighs. Which means he is about four feet tall. “I am just saying, patatina, that you need to get out of the house. It’s not healthy for you to be here every night.”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“Isn’t there anywhere you can go tonight?”
Well, I’m not invited to Lydia’s party, so that’s off the table. I grab my purse and rifle around until my fingers close around a set of keys. Olive’s keys.
Maybe there’s something I can do tonight.
