Shock number three of the evening. “Really? That must be a flaming hell. Are you being punished for something?”
“No, my mom died a month and a half ago.”
“Oh, no.” Jane’s chest squeezed. “I’m so sorry. I was trying to be funny and I said something insensitive. I feel like such an ass.”
“It’s okay.” Marie gave Jane half a smile. “And living with Luc isn’t always a flaming hell.”
Jane took back her gloss and turned to face Marie. What was there to say? Nothing. She tried anyway. “My mother died when I was six. It’s been twenty-four years, but I know…” she paused, searching for the right word. There wasn’t one. “I know the hole it leaves in your heart.”
Marie nodded and she looked down at her shoes. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“I know how you feel.” Jane dropped the tube back in her purse and put her arm around Marie’s shoulders. “If you ever want to talk about it with someone, you can talk to me.”
“That might be okay.”
Tears filled the corners of Marie’s eyes and Jane gave her a little squeeze. It had been twenty-four years, but Jane clearly recalled the emotions that were so close to the surface. “But not tonight. Tonight we’re going to have fun. Earlier I met some of Hugh Miner’s nephews. They’re here from Minnesota and I think they’re your age.”
Marie dabbed at her eyes with her fingers. “Are they hot?”
Jane thought about that. If she were Marie’s age, she might think so, but she wasn’t, and thinking teenage boys were hot made her uncomfortable. She could almost hear the song “Mrs. Robinson” in her ears. “Well, they live on a farm,” she began as they left the bathroom. “I think they milk cows.”
“Yuck.”
“No, that means they’re buff, and as far as I could tell, they don’t smell like a barn.”
“That’s good.”
“Very good.” Jane looked across her shoulder at Marie. “I like your eye shadow. It’s very sparkly.”
“Thanks. You can borrow it sometime.”
“I think I’m a little old for eye glitter.” Jane dropped her arm as they wove their way through the crowd. She found Hugh Miner’s nephews looking out over the city and introduced Marie to the two teenage boys. Jack and Mac Miner were seventeen-year-old twins and were dressed in matching tuxedos with scarlet cummerbunds. They had spiky crew cuts and big brown eyes, and Jane had to admit that they were kind of cute.
“What grade are you in?” Mac, or perhaps Jack, asked Marie.
A blush stained her cheeks, and she hunched her shoulders. Looking at Marie brought it all back, the horrid insecurity of adolescence, and Jane thanked God she never had to go through it again.
“Tenth,” Marie answered.
“We were in tenth last year.”
“Yeah, everyone picks on the tenth-graders.”
Marie nodded. “They throw tenth-graders in Dumpsters.”
“We don’t.
At least not the girls.”
“If we were at your school, we’d look out for you,” one of the twins said, impressing Jane with his gallantry. They were really nice young gentlemen, and their parents had raised them right and should be proud. “Tenth blows,” he added.
Maybe not. Maybe someone should inform him that he shouldn’t talk like that in front of girls.
“Yeah, it blows,” Marie agreed. “I can’t wait till next year.”
Okay, maybe Jane was just getting old. And she supposed, that when you got right down to it, saying something blew was the same as saying it sucked.
The more the teens talked, the more Marie seemed to relax. They talked about where they went to school, what sports they played, and what music they liked. All of them agreed that the jazz band playing at the opposite side of the room was lame.