us."
Gwen stopped in the hallway when she spotted her bag propped against the door. He'd been there.
Missy walked to the door and waved her over. "You gotta see this."
"No. No, I don't."
"Oh, yeah, you do."
Gwen took the remaining steps down the hall. There, on the floor in front of her bag, Max had left a dozen peppercinis, their waxy yellow skins still shiny and pickly damp. They were arranged to spell out one word. Sorry. "Bastard."
Missy nodded. "Bastard."
Goddamn him if it wasn't the most charming thing any man had ever done for her. Maybe she needed a wider range of male acquaintances, but she was pretty sure it really was that quirky and sweet.
"Austin would have never done anything that great."
Gwen shook her head. "Bastard."
"Austin wouldn't know a peppercini from a pepperoni."
Gwen tried to breathe deeply and stop her head from racing around in contradictory directions. It was sweet and charming, and that was his problem, his problem that became her problem, twice. He’d ditched her once in a crisis and ditched her again for his beautiful French chef. What the hell was wrong with her? Was she still wearing that kick me sign from third grade?
Missy sighed. "And Austin would never be able to spell sorry."
Gwen snorted, tried not to laugh, but Missy started to giggle, and they both laughed until Missy doubled over and Gwen put her back against the wall and slid down to the floor, the peppercinis kicked into a new arrangement on her way down.
Across the hall, a door opened, and Annie peeked out. "Everything okay?" She reluctantly stepped into the hallway, eyeing Gwen laughing into her knees and Missy, bent over with her head against the door.
Gwen waved toward the peppercinis but couldn't talk, so Annie studied them. "It looks like a message."
She leaned closer and pointed to the first pile. "That looks like an S and then, I don't know, a P... Must be from Guy. It looks Norwegian."
Gwen hooted in renewed laughter and tried not to wet herself.
Cinderella, the poor girl, suffered in story after story, movie after movie. Never once in a remake had she been given a break. Gwen reached into the large bowl of popcorn balanced in her lap. Cinderella would always find herself left home when the step-mother and inferior step-sisters headed to the ball.
"Cinderella, huh?" Annie took a fistful just before Missy's hand reached in from the other side.
It felt right to be between the two of them, enjoying the common ground of butter and romance. "It's not just any Cinderella. It has Bernadette Peters."
"Who's Bernadette Peters?"
Missy leaned around Gwen to help Annie catch up. "And Whitney Houston."
"Who's that?"
Missy shrugged like she didn’t really know either, and Gwen considered that Bernadette Peters had been a long shot, and Whitney Houston probably equally obscure for anyone born after the eighties. But surely Annie would have heard of... "Brandy?"
Annie glanced at her water bottle.
Gwen laughed. "She’s Cinderella in this one."
"Oh." Annie went back to the popcorn. "We were only allowed to watch PBS."
"This one’s more PBS than the other versions. A little bit feminist even." Gwen hit play, and they watched Whitney belt it out over the opening credits. She’d return later to trick out Cinderella’s coach, the curly tendrils of pumpkin vine turned to gold but still keeping an organic beauty.
Missy had said something the first time she’d seen the movie, something so child sweet. It was in the saddest part before the fairy godmother came... "Missy, do you remember when you saw the part where everyone leaves for the ball and Cinderella is crying? And you said, you were little, you said, momma, why doesn’t she ride her bike?"
Missy laughed. "Really, I said that?"
"Yep."
"Well, I was adorable."
Annie leaned forward to see Missy over the bowl of popcorn. "And wise."
Missy smiled. "I was." Gwen felt Missy tap her ribs with her elbow. "I forgot that for a while. But I remember now."
"We’ll all try to remember." Gwen elbowed Annie like a game of tag and waited for her to respond.
Annie's eyes widened as she got it. She grinned. "I’ll remember too." She seemed to think about it for a moment. "I can still like Guy right?"
"Of course," Gwen turned up the volume as the dreamy prince appeared in his opening scene and all three sighed. "We're not dead."
"You are so dead."
Max, his back to Gwen, continued to toss the salad. It was Caesar. The bastard.
"You give me back my mother."
"Nope."
"You can't keep her."
"Can and will."
"She's not your mother.