The Night I Got Lucky by Laura Caldwell

pleased?”
    “No, I am, I am.” I took another bite of my salad greens. “There’s one more thing that’s happened.” I swal owed. “Evan.”
    “Meow.” Tess had met Evan on numerous occasions and had found him as delicious as I did. “How is the Everlasting Crush?”
    “He’s been flirting with me,” I said.
    Her eyes widened. “What?”
    “Yeah. You see what I mean? Everything happened in the span of twenty-four hours. I got everything I wanted.”
    “I stil think it’s a coincidence, but either way, you’ve got to tel me what’s been going on with Evan.”
    “Wel , last night…”
    “What? What happened last night?”
    I looked around the restaurant, at the soft light from the wal sconces and the patrons tucked into banquette tables. I turned back to Tess. “I almost kissed him.”
    “Holy shit. Waiter!” She gestured frantical y with one arm. When he reached us, she said, “I’l need a glass of wine. Whatever she’s having.” She looked back at me. “I can have one glass, and my God, this story sounds like I’m going to need it.”
    I laughed. “You won’t get flack from me.”
    I’d always thought the pregnancy ban on even a drop of alcohol a tad too strict. My mother, for instance, didn’t realize she was pregnant with Dustin until she was almost four months along, having spent those months smoking and drinking Campari with my father in jazz clubs around Chicago. She drank while carrying Hadley, too. It wasn’t until she was carrying me that doctors cautioned pregnant women against alcohol. Her abstinence during the pregnancy with me was a problem, as I saw it. Dustin and Hadley were clearly smarter than I was, more ambitious and accomplished. Would I have been the same if my mother had stopped teetotaling and kept boozing?
    Tess made me wait until her wine arrived before I could tel her about the Hel o Dave show. I left nothing out, giving the tiniest of details, just like we used to when we were in high school and didn’t have jobs or husbands or kids to take our time away.

    “And so that’s it,” I said. “I took off like the place was on fire. I had to walk five blocks to find a cab, and when I got home…Oh, you won’t believe it.”
    “What?” Tess took the last sip of her wine. She glared at the glass, as if angered at it for holding such a smal amount.
    “Chris was waiting up for me. With champagne.”
    “No.”
    “And caviar.”
    “No!” she said again. “God, Bil y, did you tel him about Evan?”
    I shook my head. “I started to, but I couldn’t. The picnic was so sweet of Chris. So seductive. I don’t think I’ve ever been turned on by two men within the same hour. And there real y wasn’t anything to tel .”
    She raised her eyebrows as if to say, maybe, maybe not. “You know me. I usual y don’t give advice, but I’ve got to say something.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m not sure what’s going on with you, or why al these things have happened, but I do know something. You’ve got to be careful here, Bil y. Real careful.”
    I quickly switched topics, and Tess and I talked for another hour about this and that, everything and nothing. But in the back of my head, I couldn’t seem to shake her words. Be careful here, Billy. Real careful.

chapter seven
    T he next day, at exactly eleven o’clock, my office phone rang.
    “Hi, baby dol ,” my mother said.
    My heart bounced like a tennis bal . My mother was back from Milan and cal ing me at eleven on a Monday, just as she always did. It was like normal! “Mom, I miss you.”
    “You too, sweetie.” But she sounded distracted. There was static behind her words, as if she was in a windy tunnel. “I’m on the plane coming home. We land in an hour or two.”
    “Do you want me to pick you up? I could get out early.” The airport pickup was something my mother always desired, something I rarely did, but I wanted to see her badly.
    “Oh, no. You keep working.”
    “Wel