Chapter 5. Molly
Goddammit, Molly.
It is one thing to be brutally honest about my failings in my own head. But I try not to do it out loud.
At high school reunions.
To an ex-boyfriend who hates me.
What makes it even more excruciating is that Seth knows I’m right. He pities me for it. I can see it on his face.
“Sounds like you’re pretty hard on yourself, Molls,” he says quietly.
But I’m not hard on myself. I’m hard on the people who make the mistake of trying to love me. Because, unfortunately, I know how that ends.
“Marks!” someone yells from across the room.
It’s Alyssa. Thank the universe.
“I’m just gonna go say hello—” I say to Seth, but he’s already waving me off, like we were not just absorbed in each other. Like we were not just debating something more personal than the bullshit of rom-coms.
“Jon and Kevin and I have an appointment with some expensive shellfish,” he says, gesturing to his two childhood best friends, who are standing in line for lobster rolls.
He waves at them. Kevin does a double take at the sight of me next to Seth.
I can’t stand up fast enough.
I weave my way through the crowd over to the bar, where Alyssa is already ordering a San Pellegrino on the rocks with five limes. Her locs are piled on top of her head, giving her five-foot-ten frame an extra six inches of loft, and she’s wearing a floor-length marigold wrap dress that sets off the gold undertones in her dark-brown skin and shows off her baby bump.
“Look at you,” I squeal. I haven’t seen her since before she got pregnant.
She puts a hand to her belly. “I know. Whatever happens, promise me you won’t let me give birth on the dance floor.”
“I don’t know. If you do, I can steal it for a screenplay. Excellent set piece.”
“How are you faring?” she asks in a low voice.
A guy she dated for ten minutes in tenth grade passes and high-fives her. “Go Flamingos!” he yells.
Alyssa was a track star. The pride and joy of our class.
“I’m losing my mind,” I tell her. “Did you see who’s sitting next to me?”
She smirks. “Yes.”
“I’m dying.”
“You look alive and well to me.”
“Well guess what I’m going to do?” I say, flagging down the bartender. “I am going to get stinking drunk.”
It is not difficult to make good on this promise. The tent is flooded with waiters circulating with champagne and, as the night goes on, trays of espresso martinis named—what else?—the Flamingo.
I conveniently skip the entrée to avoid filling my stomach with anything that isn’t booze and, more importantly, to steer clear of Seth. I see him out of the corner of my eye, working the room, hugging nearly everyone he runs into, putting numbers into his phone, dragging people onto the dance floor.
He is so obviously happy that he seems to be singlehandedly lifting the serotonin levels of everyone in the tent.
Except mine.
“Hey!” Dezzie says, marching over to me and Alyssa, who has appointed herself my designated chaperone for the evening.
I’m actually not so drunk that I require adult supervision. My nervous adrenaline overpowers the alcohol. I feel like I’m on illegal stimulants, or at least Schedule II controlled substances.
“Come and dance with me, betches,” Dezzie demands, holding out a hand to each of us.
“I am too preggo to dance,” Alyssa demurs. “My ankles are like watermelons. And I have to call Ryland.”
Alyssa’s husband skipped the reunion to watch their two kids.
Lucky Ryland.
“I cannot dance,” I say. “I simply cannot. For you see”—I point at the dance floor—“Seth is there.”
“They exchanged words, and now she’s a wreck,” Alyssa summarizes on my behalf.
“A wreck,” I emphasize, because I have consumed enough alcohol to lose all sense of proportion.
“Then come dance it out, honey,” Dez says, grabbing my arm.
The DJ is playing hits from when we were teenagers, and it’s a little bit hard to resist dancing to “Baby Got Back,” even though I think it might be canceled. Dez throws her arms up in the air, dancing furiously, and before I know it, I am too. I discover that if I dance hard enough, and close my eyes tight enough, I do not need to worry about Seth Rubenstein.
A slow song comes on, and Rob materializes. “May I steal her?” he asks Dezzie, taking my hand.
Dezzie spins me into her husband’s arms and grabs Alyssa.
“Come on,” she urges her. “You aren’t too pregnant to slow dance with me.”
I put my hands on Rob’s shoulders.
“Having fun?” I ask over the Céline Dion.
“This is a blast,” Rob says. He’s already drunk—he keeps lurching and throwing off my balance—but he’s the infectiously jolly kind of drunk.
“Is it, though?” I ask, over the music.
“Yeah! I love your friends. Did you know Chaz is a professional comedian? He’s gonna get me free tickets for his standup act next time he rolls through the Chi.”
“Lucky you.”
“And that hedge fund guy at our table was telling me he used to be secretly in love with Dezzie and was too shy to talk to her. Isn’t that cute?”
“Yeah! She should leave you for him. He could buy her an island.”
“I know! That’s what I said. Oh, and I met those fun lesbians who live near you in LA.”
“Gloria and Emily?”
“Yeah. And get this—they design film sets for movies.”
“Uh, yeah. I know? Because we’re neighbors? Like you said?”
“And I love Seth,” he shouts, just as the song ends abruptly.
“Shut up,” I hiss.
“What?” he asks with feigned innocence. “He lives in Chicago. We’re going to get a beer when we get back.”
“You know he’s my ex.”
“Yep. All the better.”
“Traitor.”
The DJ taps on the microphone. “And now a request and dedication to the lovely Molly Marks,” he says in that goofy voice all DJs seem to have.
“Oooh,” the crowd yells, every single person in the room knowing I hate any attention, especially the kind that involves dancing.
“Molls,” Rob drawls. “You must have an admirer.”
The iconic opening strains of “It’s Gonna Be Me” by NSYNC blast out over the speakers.
I whirl around to Dez and Alyssa, who are laughing at me.
“Did you do this?” I shout over the music.
They shake their heads innocently. Alyssa gestures at me to turn around.
Seth is standing behind me, mouthing the words to the song.
He bends down on one knee. “May I have this dance, my lady?”
“You didn’t.”
He smiles, tickled with himself. “I had to. I had to.”
This was the opposite of “our” song in high school. I loathed it so much that Seth would blast it in the car to annoy me when I was being a brat. I loathed it so much that he would make me dance to it when I was upset to channel my sadness into rage. I loathed it so much that he serenaded me with it every time we did karaoke, as some perverse mating ritual.
You know. Boyfriend stuff.
Seth grabs my hand and yanks me toward him. “C’mon, Marks. You gotta dance with me. It’s tradition.”
I have no choice but to follow him.
He catches me around the waist and brings me in closer.
“It’s gonna be me,” he bellows into my ear.