I throw my hands up in the air sometimes [BE11], Maggie!

[8 June, 2012; 10:23 PM]

Jane had only actually been a mother for a bit under four months, but she was already at that 'I have trouble leaving my child with someone else' phase. Granted, the baby-sitter they'd gotten was spectacular and came highly recommended. Still, though! Scott'd had to take Jane's phone away to keep her from calling every five minutes to check on Evie and the baby-sitter. That was her baby, though, so how could she not be a little bit worried? She couldn't, that's how. Neither of them even danced! Why had they come to this dumb event, anyway?!

Then Jane saw her husband in his suit, and she remembered. Really, Scott in anything made Jane get a little giggly. When she was younger, she'd never understood what people in books meant when they'd described people as 'intoxicating,' but now... she did. Jane had actually never been drunk or even tipsy, but Scott just had that effect on her. She was in love for the first time. It had been almost two years since they'd gotten married, and he still took her breath away sometimes. It was... ridiculous, really. The crazy part, in Jane's opinion, was that he was just as in love with her as she was with him, and still was, almost two years later. She leaned up on her tip-toes (even in her ginormous heels) and kissed his cheek before excusing herself to get something to drink.

Every now and again, it was still surreal, being as 'respectable' as she was now. She had a husband and a kid and was on her way to a degree and she had a job. She was, like, a real grown-up lady now, too, which was weird. She could do things like make-up and walk in heels! She was nothing like the angry, troubled girl she'd been before she'd gotten married and had Evie. Even so, there was always a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights feeling whenever she ran into someone who'd known her before. For example, when the firefighter's daughter who'd always shown Jane an unusual amount of kindness literally ran into her, Jane couldn't help but feel a little bit sixteen again. She was not sixteen anymore, though. She was older and more settled, and she wasn't the constant receiver of everyone's anger and everyone's aggression.

"Are you okay?" Jane said, helping the taller woman to right herself. (Everyone was taller than Jane. It was a truth universally acknowledged.) She offered a little smile. "I'm glad I'm not the only one who's still a little wobbly in these things," she said, gesturing to both of their shoes. Jane was actually amazed that she hadn't fallen over yet. Well... she hadn't really let go of Scott's arm since they'd gotten there, which probably helped. She was just proud of him. She wanted to show him off to everyone all the time ever. "It's, er, Maggie, right?" Growing up in a town as small as Evergreen, it was impossible not to at least know the names of everyone around your age.

Maggie watched as one of the bartenders mixed her a drink, tapping her foot to the music that was playing throughout Evergreen’s town hall. She realized that being married to a bartender made her a lot more critical of what she was drinking. There were times JD would start experimenting at home and use her as his test dummy. Some drinks turned out to be really good and others… were just bad. She didn’t have the best tolerance for alcohol but she wasn’t a lightweight either. Speaking of her husband, she hadn’t seen him for the last half hour. Her sisters had got hold of her and dragged her out onto the dance floor before she could even protest. There was one thing she enjoyed about being home and that was reconnecting with Katie and Beth.

She eventually had to take a break from all the dancing and give her feet a rest. The heels that she was wearing were sky high and incredibly uncomfortable. Pain was beauty, though. Or was it fashion was pain? She couldn’t remember but the client from work that helped her pick out her outfit for the night kept repeating it to her over and over. She looked around at the other dresses that the women of Evergreen had picked out. She could swear that she saw the same dress in at least three different colors but every woman wore it differently. It was amazing how one could bring personality into their outfit. She never understood where all of these women found these amazing dresses. Did they spend the whole year looking or was it last minute like hers? She waited until the Monday before the Gala to finally bring herself to start looking. She was really lucky to find something that she fell in love with instantly.

She gave her drink a quick stir before taking a good sip from it. It wasn’t too bad. Not as good as her husband’s, of course. She turned and scanned the crowd for him. He was freakishly tall so he shouldn’t have been that hard to spot. She caught a glimpse of him briefly and an instantaneous smile appeared on her face. She started to squeeze through the crowd, her eyes fixed on his handsome face. She was less than ten feet away when she bumped hard into someone, "Oh my god! I am so sorry!" She checked the girl’s dress, "I hope that I didn’t spill anything on you." She looked at her drink and saw that it was still pretty full. Oh, thank goodness. She would have felt terrible if she ruined someone’s dress on such an important night.

Maggie finally got a good look at the girl’s face and her brain started to crank. Her face was so familiar. Everyone in Evergreen was familiar but there was something about this girl. "Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I love your shoes! They’re so cute." She smiled, tucking some loose hairs behind her ear. Then it clicked. She knew this girl from high school. She was so tiny then and quiet, so so quiet. Maggie remembered trying to talk to her and it taking a long time for the girl to open up. She later found out that her father was a drunk and she couldn’t help but feel terrible for her. She had problems with her own father but he was a good dad. "That’s me. It’s Jane, right? I remember you. From high school? I think you might have been in my sister’s class." Katie might have even been the one to tell Maggie about Jane’s dad. It was so long ago. The last she heard Jane had joined the Vow and gotten married.