Gwen could recall a couple of slow motion moments in her life. There was that snowball in the face in third grade. In high school, the moment her braces came off, and she thought all her self-esteem issues would leave in the blind of a straight white smile. There'd been the last time she'd seen Max when she still thought he'd come back to her. There was the moment the doctor lifted Missy up and said, it's a girl. And there was her mother's fall.

She watched Ellen's upper half go backward, her expression a surprising one of hilarity, then her lower torso followed, somewhat horizontal as her feet flew up, and Gwen could see the bottoms of what should have been pretty grippy walking shoes.

The band was too loud for her to hear the crash on the other side of the table, but she heard the alarm of disaster in her head. She ran the rest of the way around the table, Max unnoticed beside her. She kneeled beside her mother, who lay with her eyes closed, so peaceful, too peaceful. "Mom! Mom!"

Ellen opened her eyes, smiled. "Gwennie," and reached out her hand for a lift.

Max moved in front of her and picked Ellen up very carefully under her armpits.

Gwen heard a moan then, loud enough to be heard over the music. Beneath her mother Hayden sprawled, his nose gushing blood. Gwen and a couple of fraternity brothers got him to his feet. She gave him a handful of napkins to staunch the flood, and he mumbled something that sounded like I'm okay, which was good. Then my nobe, my nobe is boken, which was bad. She turned to Max. "We've got to get him to the hospital."

"And your mother," Max had Ellen's arm over his shoulders, her right foot lifted in the air, already swollen to twice its normal size. It looked so painful, and she'd thought Hayden had taken the entire brunt of the fall.

Max seemed to sense her panic and smiled. "TV room, emergency room, I'm good either way."

Gwen shook her head. "I'm afraid you are."

Chapter Thirteen.

First you eat with your eyes.

The waiting room had to be scarier than any haunted house on Halloween. The lights may be bright and the staff might be pretty normal, but it was a creep fest. Gwen couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't among the patients. The guy that had a plastic ax in his head and a real gash on his finger ought to at least remove the portion of blood that was fake. It was very disconcerting.

But the happy costumes were the worst. The joyful evening of fun that inspired a man to put on a blue Papa Smurf suit should not end in a neck brace. The entire place was a pessimist's dream. Did your mom tell you not to run with scissors? Look over there. No helmet when you ride your motorcycle? Too bad, you have to pull back the curtain on room four. Happy Halloween.

It didn't help her any to watch her mother's ankle continue to swell. Hayden's nose had slowed from a gush to a trickle, but it looked like Ellen had really done something that Hayden's face hadn't prevented. And, she had to admit, the dynamics of all of them there was also adding to the tension.

Sitting next to Hayden, Missy ignored her and ignored Max, despite the introduction of he's an old friend from college. She only talked to her grandmother and Hayden until a nurse wheeled him back for x-rays. Gwen wanted to take his place and just lay down for a few quiet moments. The desire to escape the pain and suffering of others may have cemented her fate as a bad person. She'd dirty danced in front of her daughter with a man missing bits of hind-end toga. She let her mother attend a fraternity party in a child's Halloween costume. And currently she was thinking more about her own escape than either her mother's ankle or Hayden's nose.

Missy had gotten the poor boy an ice pack when she hadn't even thought of it. Gauze, yes. Maybe a towel. But the only ice had gone on grandma's ankle, lot of good that had done her.

"Mrs. Ciarrochi?" A nurse with tired eyes, who was also clearly not enjoying the holiday, motioned them to follow her. Gwen stood to help her mom get into a wheelchair, took the handles, and was half-way back to the exam room when it dawned on her she was leaving Max alone with Missy. Happy this-can't-end-well Halloween.

Max watched Gwen disappear down the long hallway with her mother and braced himself for the silence with Missy. Maybe he could get her to say something. "I really enjoyed your singing. You're very good."

She smiled in acknowledgement.

He knew she would meet the rules of politeness. Gwen would have taught her that, but there was a bit of a smirk. She wouldn't be easily melted with a compliment. Fair enough. He just needed something better since they could be sitting there for a while. He tried to remember everything he could about his one cousin's daughters. His trips home to see his mom had been brief, and he hated to admit, sporadic. There'd always been something, an assignment, a working vacation. He'd wandered around too much to even think home was a place, let alone one to return to, but his cousin Angie had tried to keep in touch.

He could recall a few things about stages of development from her two girls. Toddler years seemed great for visitors and bad for parents. Elementary seemed comprised of a series of stable years where moods were good, but body parts erratic. In the annual Christmas letter, the school photos revealed their noses were oversized, then the jaw, or head in general. By middle school some of that had evened out, but Angie's upbeat writing couldn't hide the fact that moods didn't fare as well.

But eighteen. One of her girls was near that, one still a bit younger. And the last time he'd seen them, the day of his mother's funeral, eighteen had seemed very, very grown up to him. Maybe he could approach Missy that way. "Listen, I know that this is a weird time for your mom. For you. Your grandma just fell off a table doing karaoke."

He waited. Nothing.

"I'd like to tell you there's nothing going on between your mother and me. There's not at the moment." He laughed. "'Cause we're in a hospital."

He waited. More nothing. He made a drum motion anyway. "Pah-dum."

Missy turned to him, expressionless, but it was a start. "Honestly, I don't have any idea what's going on or not going on and neither does your mother. I'm sorry because it would be good to be clear. I'd like that. She'd like that. You'd like that."

Missy studied him without blinking. She was a very tough crowd.

"I don't want to do hurt your mom. That I know. I don't know that I won't. I'm even more imperfect than your average person who would say they're not perfect. I did hurt her a long time ago, a lot, and I owe it to her to be less of an idiot at forty. I'm not, but I owe it to her. And, well, and I'll try. No matter what. Really."

He should go. He should just go and not just from this girl who was Gwen's and wonderful, he knew, underneath all the hostility and general meanness he'd seen her demonstrate toward her mother. He should go from Gwen too. He didn't have any business, any at all, bumping up against her life.

Gwen appeared in the lobby, wild-eyed and breathing heavily, and he shot out of his chair and took her hands, looking into her face to offer calm. "What is it?"

"It's a really bad sprain."

"A really bad sprain?" He looked at her closely, what was he missing?

Missy stood at his shoulder. "Is she okay? It's just a sprain?"

"A really bad sprain. No cast. It's soft tissue damage! Soft tissue damage!"

"Mom? It's a sprain. People get those all the time."

"And they take even longer to heal than a break, especially when you're older like grandma." She turned to him with panic in her eyes. "She lives alone. She's going to need help, and I live in a dorm room!" She seemed to get lost in emergency planning in her head and talked mostly to herself. "I'll have to go back home and stay with her. And my classes..."

"She should stay with Max." Missy nudged him forward.

He watched Gwen's eyes widen in surprise. She'd been pale since her mother had fallen. He knew what it was like to watch that happen, what it was like to see the woman who had raised you suddenly need you. He felt Missy's hand on his shoulder, saw her other hand on Gwen's. She squeezed his. "I think it's a great idea. Don't you, Mom? Thank you, Max."

"Really?" Gwen turned to Missy.

He wasn't the kind of guy people thought of for eldercare. No one dropped any orphans on his doorstep in baskets either or even asked to borrow a cup of sugar. He'd never been the go-to person for caretaking or stability. But he had, in the end, been there for his mother and hadn't he stayed in Belmar to try stability out? He studied Missy. She obviously loved her grandmother. Was she really going to leave her in his care? "Really?"

"Absolutely." Missy smiled so beautifully he was momentarily stunned. There was the girl that was Gwen's.

Gwen seemed confused, and Missy gave her a little push back to the exam room. He watched Gwen, who was more than a little stunned, make her way back to tell Ellen the news.

Missy turned to him, and he saw a bit of her father's calculation. It was a good mix, he had to admit, even though it wouldn't be to his advantage. She smiled again. "My mother taught me that if I'm not sure about a boy, it's wiser to have a chaperone."

Ah. It wasn't safety Missy had seen in him, it was danger. That too was fair. Still, she was smirking again, and he needed to be clear. "This isn't a game between us, Missy."

"You're right. But if it were, I'd be winning."

For however long it took to heal, he was going to have Ellen in his bed, and she was not the Ciarrochi he had in mind. He sighed. "If it were, you'd be winning."

Gwen walked out of Max's bedroom. "She's sleeping now." They'd had to move out a few boxes and make up the bed, but the room would work. She didn't even want to think about how long it needed to work. She had six weeks of school left in the semester and needed every one of them for the cooking program.

Max patted the spot next to him on the couch. "Isn't that what the couple says just before they have crazy sex in front of the fireplace?"

"Very romantic." She put her hands on her toga hips and that motion alone made her even more tired.

"I did say fireplace. I think crackling birch logs and a glass of wine make the whole two people naked and sweaty and really, really having a good time very romantic. Don't you?"

She stared at the empty fireplace, tried to imagine how great the heat and comfort of it would be.

He seemed to sense that she was softening. "I don't have any firewood, but you just point to your least favorite piece of furniture, and I will chop it with my hands."

"You'd do that?"

"I'm a guy. My kind invented fire and chopping wood and kung fu probably, at least the film versions of it."

She slumped beside him on the couch, side by side in wrinkled sheets, his crown gone, hers hanging off the back of her head. She pulled it the rest of the way off, and he put his arm around her so she could relax into the warmth of him degree by degree. She felt her neck muscles release, her shoulders loosen, felt her head heavy against his shoulder. She mumbled, "Thank you for taking in my mom."

"Hmmm. I'm sure when the pain meds wear off, she'll be more inclined to wear clothes."

"She got pretty cold on the ride home."

"Her status as a wholesome teenage pop star may be ruined forever."

"Mmmmm." She tucked her feet up under her and leaned more against him until he put a pillow on his lap, and she swung her legs around, and slid onto her side, still trying to keep her eyes open.

"Gwen."

She yawned, gave up, and let her eyes close. She'd get up in just a minute, go home, and try to talk to Missy. She just needed...

"Gwen, I've been wanting to talk to you. And now seems like a good time. You're relaxed. I'm relaxed." He heard her snore softly. "You're asleep."

He reached around and dragged his grandmother's quilt off the end of the couch and over her. "I could say anything and technically have said it, but you wouldn't have heard it, so it might not count."

He felt her shift slightly and tuck one hand under her face, one under the pillow. He stopped breathing when the back of her hand rested against his tunic bulge. "Gwen, maybe you could just move your hand. It's, uh, not really in a place that's helping me any."

She sighed, snored again.

"Okay, then maybe you could move it around a little. I'm just suggesting." He tried to relax, close his eyes, but he wasn't going to be able to do anything but sit up... "And talk to myself until you wake up fully clothed, and Ellen wakes up in nothing but her underwear."

He considered that he hadn't been eighteen in a long time, but in one quick move, an eighteen-year-old had successfully given him a chaperone. He'd just met Missy, and already she was completely kicking his ass.

Gwen's Journal - November 21st, 1989 Sunday I always thought that being really just dying to have sex was a guy thing. It seemed like it was.

I didn't ever hear a girl say she'd die if she didn't get any after the football game or a high school guy complain that he was having too much of it. Seriously.

So, I'm starting to think something's wrong with me. The way I just want to be with Max. Jason is always in the room. Molly, who seemed like a good roommate because she was around a lot, is around a lot!

And then, he's brilliant, Max said that when he was in high school...

Gwen's life - the night before...

Windows really did steam up.

Right after they'd parked in the empty lot of some self-storage rental place, Max had shut off the engine and their kisses had generated enough heat in the cooling car to blanket the glass in fog. He'd pulled her through the gap in the front seats, and they fell in a tangle of legs and arms onto the freezing plastic bench seat in back. She shivered, still fully clothed, and wondered how anybody parked without freezing to death, but being with Max was so amazing it was worth hypothermia. She just hoped she was no longer a virgin when they found her corpse.

And Max, sweet and thoughtful, had a blanket, a homemade quilt he grabbed from the hatchback. Even in the dim of the storage place's security light, she could see the cotton squares of green polka dots and yellow paisley swirls. She was going to have intercourse beneath a Nana's Christmas gift to her beloved grandson. As he tucked it around them, it felt somehow wrong to want him to rip off her clothes when Nana's hand had so lovingly-- He slipped his hand under her shirt, cold but heating her at the same time. He pushed aside the cotton of one bra cup and brushed his fingers over her nipple, and she felt a shudder rush through her. Hell, even nanas had sex, at least enough to have kids and become nanas. She struggled up, lifted her sweater over her head, and took off her bra. She could hear Max's breathing, shallow and a little raspy. She just smiled. God, he was so good looking, and she, Gwen Ciarrochi, was driving him crazy. She unhooked her pants, the zipper loud in the small car, like an exclamation, like an invitation.

He seemed to regain his focus and tore off his shirt, trying to beat her at getting naked first. She laughed, pulled him closer with an arm around his neck, and felt him fall against her, kicking the last leg of his pants onto the floor. Then he seemed to remember something and pulled back.

She felt the cool air rush along her body and goosebumps streak down her limbs.

He fished in the pocket of his pants and held up a condom.

"Congratulations." She grinned at him. "You have the winning ticket."

He sighed. "God knows I do." He just looked at her and the light mood changed. "Are you sure, Gwen?"

She loved him right then. She'd been falling in love with him, the long slide from one look to another, a conversation, a laugh shared, but she arrived fully at it in that moment, and she couldn't speak.

"Say yes. Say yes. Say yes." He whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

She held out her hands, and he came to her. He lay fully on her, heavy and solid. She knew she'd think later about the exotic differences of their bodies and let the image of his smooth chest flower in her head. But it was the moment, the moment she'd thought of, worried about, and longed for to distraction.

Max positioned himself, and she was so glad he knew how, his hard insistence right where she needed him to be. She'd thought it was a one thrust sort of thing to have him inside her, but Max just eased in like he wasn't knocking at a door so much as finessing in a bit at a time until it just slid open. She slid open. She felt it, the fullness of him, and knew why it meant so much to let someone inside you. And why... she felt Max slide out and in again... why it was... he slid nearly out, and she gripped his tight butt to urge him in again... so popular.

Tension built in her and then, unexpectedly, she felt spasms deep inside that took her breath away and made her cry out. She felt him grip her shoulders so hard that, for a second, she thought he'd fold her in half. He growled and then collapsed on her, and she sighed into his hair. "Wow."

He mumbled something she wasn't able to translate, and it pleased her that she'd driven him past English.

A beam of light flashed in the driver's side window, and Max scrambled for his pants. She sat up, confused, and he tossed the quilt over her head and shot to the front seat just before the tap on the window. She heard the key turn, the window motor down, and Max's serious voice. "Officer."

She tried not to hyperventilate under the quilt.

"License. Registration. Got a call about a security concern here at the storage facility."

"Is this a storage facility?" She heard Max open and close the jockey box. "I was just using the parking lot to turn around in. Headin' back to campus."

There was a long pause. Gwen pictured the policeman reading Max's driver's license, seeing his bare chest in the November night, arresting him.

The officer cleared his throat. "Local talent?"

Local talent? Gwen couldn't imagine what that was about.

"Yes, sir, she is."