Fan Art by Sarah Tregay Page B

Holding them both, I notice that Ann Marie is working up a pout. “And,” I tell her, “you look like a superhero princess.”
    “And you need to finish getting dressed,” Mom says. She puts down her phone and helps me into my vest and jacket. I have the clip-on rent-a-tie, but I also bought a real bow tie. Mom sees it and exclaims, “Very classy!”
    “Not that I know how to tie it.” I figured if I couldn’ttie it, I’d wear it loose and pretend it was on purpose. The casual look. To go with my footwear. Converse. Of course.
    “Let me,” she says.
    So I sit on the edge of my bed and watch Mom’s face frown with concentration as her fingers work the loops and knot. At last she smiles, satisfied. Her eyes go a little misty and she kisses my cheek. “You look just like your father.”
    I guess I do, but I haven’t seen him in years, so my memories are faded at the edges.
    “We were your age when we met,” she says. “And he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.”
    I press my hand over hers for a moment. “And Frank?” I ask. Frank isn’t beautiful.
    She shrugs. “Frank’s a good man. But he’s not you father—nothing ever quite compares to the first time you fall in love.”
    I feel a blush creep up my neck. I study the creases on my slacks, the hole in my sock. Some things I just don’t want to know.
    “You know . . .” She changes the topic. “By the time you were born, he’d filled out across the shoulders. His face changed too—lost that boyish look you have.”
    So I wasn’t going to be a beanpole all my life? Good to know.
    But then she switches back to their love life or, well,lack of one after yours truly. “What was I supposed to do with a baby in a third-floor walk-up? In San Jose?”
    I know the rest of the story. She moved back home to live with her mom and work for this amazing architecture firm. My grandfather had just passed away, and my grandmother needed a little more noise around the house. And a baby fixes that. We still live in the same house, a Cape Cod nowhere near Cape Cod. And my grandmother turned into a snowbird, bought a mobile home, and married a retired truck driver named Stan. They come visit every summer when life on the road gets a little too quiet.
    “Jamie, you look so darn grown-up,” Mom says, and pats my knee.
    “Aw, Mom,” I tell her. “Don’t get all nostalgic on me. You need to get some footage of me and my ladies in waiting.”
    She dabs at the corner of her eye with her sleeve.
    After I’ve put on my Chucks and done my hair to a polished, messy perfection, I pose for pictures with the twins in the living room. The doorbell rings.
    “I get,” Elisabeth says, and with boost and a little help with the deadbolt, she does.
    Mason steps inside, wearing a white jacket over black pants and looking a little like he just dropped from heaven.
    I go to open my mouth to say something but find it’s already hanging open.
    He looks down at Elisabeth and the corner of his lips twitch up into a smile. By the time he sees Ann Marie’s getup, it’s an all-out grin.
    “They dressed up for prom,” Mom explains, as if Mason isn’t already well versed in the oddities of life with two-year-olds.
    “Very fancy,” Mason tells the girls. He smiles again as they twirl around to show him their capes. He looks amazing—his black glasses all Buddy-Holly-retro-cool with the white jacket and blue bow tie. His smile is bright and imperfect, but perfect in its own way. He takes Elisabeth’s tiny hands in his and together they spin in a circle.
    He pauses when Ann Marie clamors to join in, but I’m the one who feels dizzy, like my heart isn’t pumping enough oxygen to my brain. Or maybe this is what falling in love feels like? I shake the thought away because I’ll never make it through the night with that idea running laps around my mind. He looks nice , I tell myself, because that is a thought I can deal with. Like Darren Criss.
    Minutes tick by, and I