The Muse by Suzie Carr Page B

a princess in waiting by the side of the buffet table. Eva looked up at me, then back down. My breath stopped short halfway up my throat.
    “That food smells heavenly, doesn’t it?” Doreen asked. “Let’s get some.”
    I wanted to run back to the car. She’d cause a scene if I attempted. I struggled to maintain direction as she pushed me closer to where Eva stood. I massaged my glossed lips together, worrying I had overdone them. “Doreen,” I said, pulling at her dress like a five-year-old. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
    She looked down at me. “You don’t look so good.” She cradled my shoulder with her hand.
    I looked back over at Eva. She had scooped eggs onto a small plate for Emily, the eccentric girl in customer service who wore her hair in pigtails most days. They laughed together over something. Eva’s whole face blossomed, her cheeks rising up like sweet plums. Emily tapped her upper arm, lingered on Eva’s toned bicep for a moment too long, and then walked away. Eva continued to smile after her. Jealousy ripped through me – jealousy over a life I’d never experience.
    I could never make Eva Handel laugh and smile like that. “I need to go now.” I shoved off back to the entrance, back to where Katie stood like a martyr. I rushed past her. “Everything okay?” she asked, her words drowning in exaggerated sweetness.
    I waved her off and ran past her to the bathroom.
    # #
    I managed to weave enough activity into my weekend to keep me from poking into Twitter. I went grocery shopping, washed my sheets, cleaned out my garbage disposal, walked my neighbor’s dog, hosed down the wooden steps of the condo, and went to visit my grandmother in the nursing home, where I got roped into playing several songs on the piano. The patients were easy to please and didn’t cause me too much discomfort. They wouldn’t laugh at me or kick my shins as they passed me by on route to get their meds or have their adult diapers changed. They certainly wouldn’t set my parents’ backyard shed on fire for kicks or spray paint obscenities about me on the front door. No, that kind of shit only happened to me when I did stupid things like proclaim how badly I wanted to screw my best friend Barbara over and over again under the canopy of stars in my parents’ backyard hammock.
    By the time I hit the bed on Sunday night, I obsessed about my faults a little less and about the whole meeting ordeal and focused more on how much fun I had that day at the nursing home. A few people smiled because of me that day and that jolted me with some much needed joy. Before dosing off, I sealed in a mental note that I would have to do this more often. My heart lightened as a result.
    I dreamt of Eva’s chocolate brown hair that night. It wrapped around my fingers so easily as I twirled it and stared into her deep, delicious eyes. I woke up caressing my pillow, oddly turned on. I rose out of bed and staggered off to the kitchen for some coffee. The computer teased me from the counter.
    I didn’t want to see her message back because I knew in my most intelligent way that regardless if she flirted back with me or not, I could never face her. So, what would be the point? Why torture myself?
    I poured myself a cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully, gazing over at the laptop waiting for a good enough reason not to sit in front of it and just see if she had responded to my last flirt. “Oh, the hell with it.” I rounded the counter, plopped down on the stool and logged in for the ride.
    Her message dangled in front of me like a prism, all sparkly and glistening. “I tried Old Bay again. I’m still not a fan.”
    I couldn’t help myself. I typed back right away. “I must make you a fan.”
    A moment later, she responded. “I’m a fan. Just not of Old Bay.”
    “A fan of what?”
    “Of you. Of your words. Of the way your words entice me.”
    I hugged myself. “Thank you. It’s what I do. I write.”
    “Like a published