“Good morning,” she said. “Not going to the cafe?”
I shook my head. “Brunch at home with my roommate!”
“Smells great. Do we have everything we need?”
“I’m making French toast. We have fresh fruits, bacon, eggs, honey. All good.”
“Orange juice?” she asked.
“Check.”
“Champagne?”
I frowned. “No champagne, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not brunch without mimosas,” she said. “I’ll run to the store. Do we need anything else?”
I turned in circles, opened the refrigerator and took another look inside. “No, we’re all set.”
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Her timing was perfect: twenty minutes on the dot. And in that time, I’d set the table on the balcony and had prepared all the food—too much food, perhaps. I was in the habit of getting carried away with the cooking when I was excited. And I was definitely very excited that morning.
Holly poured the orange juice and champagne, and we raised our glasses. “To Gwen and Holly,” she said, “may their lives be easy and their men hard.”
We clinked glasses. We drank and ate, drank some more and ate some more.
“So have you made any progress with your trust concerns?” asked Holly.
I chuckled. “Trust concerns is a generous way of putting it.”
“Let me rephrase that then. Have you made any progress regarding your raging jealousy and paranoia-fueled anxiety issues with your Marines?”
“That’s more like it,” I said. “And yes, I’m happy to report, I have, in fact, made progress.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Do tell.”
“Well, they are heading off on a six-month deployment.”
She frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. It’s actually a good thing. We can have fun. And when they leave, well, that’s my ‘out’.”
She furrowed her brow. “Do you want out?”
“I don’t know, honestly. But that’s the good thing about their deployment, I don’t have a choice.”
“And not having a choice is a good thing? I don’t follow.”
“It will give me time to think. You know. We can have fun for the next few weeks, and then they’ll be gone, and I’ll have time to put things in perspective.”
Holly didn’t look convinced.
“Look,” I said in my matter of fact tone of voice, “I don’t know if I want a relationship; I don’t know if I can handle a relationship—with nine guys no less. This way, I won’t be able to rush into anything; I won’t be able to open my heart; I won’t be able to get too attached. It’s perfect.”
Holly didn’t look any the more convinced. “I hope you’re right.”
“What? You don’t see the logic?”
“Oh, I see the logic,” she said, “But I know you. And I know it will take more than a little thing like a military conflict and a six-month deployment to keep you from opening your heart and getting attached.”
“I’ll be fine.” I finished my mimosa and poured us two more. “Not to change the subject,” I said, “but I’m dying to see the costumes you’ve picked out for us.”
Holly wagged a finger in the air. “No, you’re dying to see the costumes I’ve made for us.”
“I stand corrected. When do I get to see them?”
“As soon as you decide which one you want,” she said. “You can choose between fire and ice.”
“Hmm, so if I pick one, you’re going to wear the other?”
She nodded.
“Then why don’t you pick?”
She wagged a finger in the air. “It doesn’t work like that. You decide. But don’t worry, both costumes are sexy.”
I smiled. “I think you should be fire.”
She winked at me. “Good choice.”
After the big brunch and several mimosas, I needed to take a nap. Unfortunately, I did not wake from the nap calm and rested; I woke anxious and nervous.
But Holly’s presentation of our costumes helped calm me down.
Holly, as fire, wrapped herself in tight strips of glimmering yellow, orange and red silk. She sprayed her hair yellow and orange and tied it in a bun atop her head with strands of hair falling in a cascade along the sides of her mask, a shimmering metallic red cut in the shape of a flame.
“Hot, hot, hot!” I applauded as she turned and paraded her outfit for me in our living room.
She walked over to the bags on the couch. “And now for something cool, cool, cool.”
My costume, ice, was of a similar design: tight strips of soft blue, silver and white silk hugged my body. She sprayed my hair white and soft-blue, tied it in a bun for me and pulled strands to fall over the mask. It looked as if there was real ice encrusted in the mask. I was worried it would melt. Holly laughed and said that it was cured rubber. “You’re not going to melt. But you are going to melt some hearts.”
We took a taxi to the ball held at an estate on the edge of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. This was going to be an all-night affair. There was no turning back.