Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The dress Louisa wants me to wear is out of both my price range and my comfort zone. Neither phenomenon is particularly surprising, I suppose, since I mainly live off tips, and have the comfort zone of about one square foot when it comes to clothing. An added caveat is that I spent most of my savings on my dress for the concert, only to realize rather belatedly that I had nothing presentable to wear to Louisa and Ben's engagement party.

I'm usually much better at planning.

Okay, I'm sometimes much better at planning.

I try to deny Louisa, but she's currently holding the clothes hanger under her chin and making the sad puppy face at me. I'm a sucker for the sad puppy face. Also, it is her party. And shopping with her has brought out the liveliness that I've been missing from her. Her taste is so different from what it used to be, but it's still impeccable, and she has no agenda, no ulterior motives for her time with me. The most she wants from me is to let her pick my dress. Which is refreshing.

I make a last-ditch attempt to resist. "It's way too expensive, Lou. I can't."

"Oh, whatever," she says, dropping the sad puppy face for a more-serious don't-give-me-that-crap look. "I'll pay for it, it's not terrible. Or," she continues, raising her voice over the possibility of my resistance, "we can go Dutch on it, alright? You'd look amazing in this, and I think it's time the world saw that your legs aren't made of denim. What do you think?"

Even paying for half of the dress is too expensive, but I can make that work. It's better than letting her pay for a dress her friend is wearing to her own party. I agree, and Lou claps her hands quietly, doing a small, unobtrusive victory dance as we walk to the cash registers. If it had been a year ago, or even six months ago, she would have flagged down other shoppers to ask their opinion on the dress. She would have made up a song and sung it loudly, accompanied by an impromptu dance routine. She would have told me that the dress made it look like I have tits, and that you can't put a price tag on that. To the outside world, she's not so changed, but she is to me. At least she's happy.

Talking about the wedding, whenever it happens, makes her smile, and so we walk out of the boutique deep in conversation about aspects of the wide world of wedding planning that I have never thought of before, or even considered important. I didn't get that far last time.

I have to talk her out of buying me shoes.

By the time we're eating ice cream from little plastic cups and miniscule plastic spoons, I am footsore and near-broke. The walk back to the shared apartment, which Lou jokingly calls "the house of ill repute," is longer than it seemed heading out. My only consolation in climbing the stairs to the third floor is the last remnant of pistachio ice cream in my cup, and even that runs out before we reach the door.

I am a waitress. I'm paid to stand around all day. What a cruel twist it is that the better part of my days off are relegated to the same kind of activity.

Far from being the loud, active place of my first visit, the apartment seems tranquil and almost empty. The smell of sautéing onions and peppers wafts from the kitchen, but Lou and I head into the living room first, where we find Ben, Harry, and Ahmir playing FIFA on the Playstation and cajoling each other. It occurs to me that the preseason should be starting soon. They look up as we come in, and Ahmir pauses the game. Lou plunks herself down on the couch next to Ben, while I set down the shopping bags. After the last time we spoke, two days ago, I am almost awkward being around Ahmir. But only almost.

Any worry about how to approach him is erased when I look up to see him walking toward me. Ben, Lou, and Harry are deep in debate about why they're not playing themselves in FIFA. When he's next to me, Ahmir seems at a loss for where to put his hands. He settles for his favorite location, his pockets, and looks down at where I'm trying to reset a large bag to keep it from falling over.

"You guys find some good stuff?" he asks, indicating the mountain of shopping we've brought home. I look up at him, and his face is every bit as open and friendly as it usually is. I realize suddenly, shamefully, that I have been giving him little to no credit for days now. I am disgusted that I believed, if only for a second, that he had come here to offer more in the style of our last conversation.

I smile back, rolling my eyes. "Lou found a lot. Some things never change."

My surprise must have registered on my face, because he frowns and steps in a little closer. "Look, Anne, about yesterday—" If I were nineteen, I would have rushed to reassure him. Now I understand the value of letting people say what they need to say. "—about yesterday, I'm sorry. That was a jackass thing to do. I apologize. I had no right to do that."

I stand up straight, but I'm still a good seven inches shorter than he is. "I understand. Just don't let it—"

Now it's he who rushes to reassure me, "It won't happen again. Pinkie swear." He grins boyishly, offering me his pinkie to shake. I laugh, taken off guard, and hold out mine as well, trying to contain my mirth as he shakes pinkies with me in mock solemnity.

Pinkie swears are a serious business.

It strikes me, for the very first time, how much of a hypocrite I am. I should be promising him the same thing in return. Instead I'm happy to let him be the one to apologize. I promise myself instead that I won't assume something's so just because it hasn't been denied.

Something's better than nothing.

"So what's the dress like for Friday?" he asks, dropping the shake and the faux-serious demeanor. There is suddenly an easy camaraderie between us that wasn't there two minutes ago. I glance down at the bag and back up at him, quirking an eyebrow. He opens his hands wide. "What? I can't be interested?"

"If you're asking for fashion advice, I'm not the person who picked it out," I say, indicating Lou. Harry is watching us intently. "And if you're asking to see it, then you're going to be disappointed. I'm under strict instructions not to reveal it to a living soul until Friday." Lou corroborates my story. It's good to have a girlfriend who has your back.

It strikes me that now is the time. Now could well be the time where I tell Ahmir how I feel. There aren't many people here, we could easily slip off somewhere and I could just tell him. Simple as that. I do need to tell him. That's still true. I need to be proactive. But what is the difference between making up my mind to do something and then doing it? Is there a time limit, after which I am no longer the decided, confident woman I pretend to be? Or can I wait until the time is right, whenever that is? Which is better, slightly aggressive immediacy, or slightly reticent opportunism? And how are we supposed to know?

But no. Now is not the time. Nor is it the place, in the middle of a living room in the middle of the day, where any request for privacy will seem stunted and awkward. I don't want to rush things, even if I am in a hurry. It needs to be right for him as well.

I leave eventually on my own steam. I don't get a phone call, begging me for help. Elliot's seventeen calls since yesterday go unanswered. I don't realize that I'm late for work.

No, I decide when it's time for me to leave, and that's when I leave, after a delicious lunch made by Mr Musgrove himself. The lightness in this house, and with these people, fills me up. Ahmir sits across from me, and his knee brushes against mine. I don't resist the urge to look at him. We look at each other. And then when I decide I need to go, I collect my shopping and go.

I'm a big girl. I make my own decisions.

Now that I remember about the trust fund, it keeps invading my thoughts, unwelcomed and unwarranted. I don't want to always be thinking about money, but something about being a target for that money makes me focus on it. Or, rather, it enters into normal everyday routine. Buying a dress. Renting a movie. Opening the door to my small apartment.

I am happy where I am. I am happy with who I am. If any of that changes, it will be for a better reason than that I can afford better. I tell myself. And the more I tell myself, the fiercer the thought becomes. I can will myself not to be greedy. I will will myself not to be greedy. I am a single woman with no children living and working in the city. How much space do I need? How many outfits do I need?

The word "need" is a strange one. The word, and the meaning behind it. In its depths, it implies necessity, but also sufficiency. I need to eat to live. I need to wear shoes to protect my feet. Simple truths, yes, but also pared down. Vague. It implies that I can subsist on gruel, or wear one single pair of shoes, no matter how big or small, and I should be satisfied. I need.

Want, on the other hand, is a one-syllable word that spans further than the reaches of the universe, and still can't be satisfied. I want a spaceship. I want magical powers. I want to go eat just Mac and Cheese and not get scurvy. It's the rallying call of small children, the "I want it, I don't want it." It's what my sister says looking in the shop window at a beautiful pair of shoes. I want that. Oooh, I waaaant that.

Need is supposed to be a comfort. Or better yet, need is supposed to be noble. When we see something we want, rather than seem spoiled or wasteful, we say "I don't need it." And most of the time, it's true. I want magical powers, but I don't need them. I want that pair of boots, but I don't need them. I have a pair of sneakers. My needs are met. Little do we admit to ourselves that sometimes wants must be answered, because if not, we are feeding ourselves from the little truck garden of need. Which can be a sparse meal indeed. Wants become needs. Become wants. Become needs.

That being said, I do not need the trust fund. In point of fact, I do not even want the trust fund. We've all dreamed of having a million or so dollars at some point, but the fact of the matter is that if I had the ten million dollars I would do exactly as I am doing right now. I don't need fancy cars. I don't want fancy cars. I prefer to walk.

The sheer unimaginable amount of money held in that fund is something to be wondered at. How did my mother manage to earn or save thirty million dollars for us? What once had seemed so natural now seems unfathomable. What did she have to give up in order to give us a chance at the freedom that kind of fortune would provide for us? Was it her own freedom? What did she want? What did she need?

I am struck by how little I now realize that I knew my mother. She never stopped being the mother figure to me. I never learned more than that. I should have asked. She should have told me.

This moment in my life, these past few weeks, are something I could have talked to her about. I suddenly, futilely, want her opinion, her counsel, her reassurance. I want to drink tea with her in my miniscule living room and I want her to tell me stories about her own lives, her own loves. I want her to be there to distract me, and comfort me, and teach me a little about where I come from. About how I was raised. And, like a small child, I want her to hug me, and stroke me hair, and rock me to sleep in her lap, singing something softly under her breath. I want that so much that I think I would give anything for it.

But I don't need it. These past few months, which have been the most confusing I have ever lived, with the largest potential for terrible hurt, have proved that I don't need to be coddled. I don't need anyone else's opinion on what I want, or anyone else's counsel. I don't need to hear someone else say that I'm doing the right thing to know it's true. I don't need my mother.

That doesn't stop the wanting.

Neither, really, do I need Ahmir. I have lived the majority of my life without him, and up until two weeks ago I was ready to continue doing so. I don't need him to survive the way I need water or food or clothing. I don't need him like I need rain to fall or the sun to shine or the wind to blow. But need is a very shallow, very cold thing. It doesn't stop the wanting.

I want him. I want him in my life, I want to see him every day, and have him smile at me, at me, every day until the day that I die. I want him like I want good food, or good weather, or happy days, or warm sweaters, because he is part of the order of things that enrich my life, which make it interesting, make it worth living. I enjoy my life better when he's there. I savor it, I relish it, more than I would without him. He is not necessary to my survival, but he is the deeply desired enrichment of that survival. If I don't have him, I probably won't die. But I probably won't live, either.

I don't need him. I want him. How much better that is.

I have always wanted a staircase moment. I don't know what it is about staircases, but every teen movie has a shot of a pretty girl walking down staircase to the astonishment of her reticent but highly-romantic crush. For the most part, I have been able to avoid adherence to teen movie clichés, but for some reason the staircase moment holds on. Maybe it's the look of wonder on the boy's face. Maybe it's the happiness on her face, just coming out of the requisite makeover, in which her glasses and ponytail are removed to highly dramatized effect. I'm not sure.

In real life, however, staircase moments are hard to come by. I had entertained, for maybe two minutes, the fantasy of walking down the staircase to the main dance floor of the hall where the engagement party is taking place, and turning heads. I had imagined Ahmir's mouth dropping open in astonishment at my regality. For a moment. Everything seems likely when you're alone, putting makeup on in front of a mirror.

I arrive early to the party, and find the place in a dither. Chairs haven't been covered yet because the caterer was held up by outrageous traffic in the O'Hara Tunnel. The bar needs to be set up. Boxes unpacked. Lou herself is unpacking the wineglasses, placing them upside-down, as per the caterer's instructions, on the counter behind the bar. She looks up and sees me reaching out to offer to take a similar box from one of the waiters, and surprises me by barking, "Anne! What do you think you're doing?"

I pause, flustered. "Helping."

"Oh, no, not in that dress you're not. You'll get it stained or wrinkled or something."

I look down at myself, swathed in body-hugging peach silk, the crossover sweetheart neckline edged in a fine row of tiny lace. Ridiculous dress. "I'm not just going to stand around while you unpack things for your own party," I insist.

"Nope. Step away." She shoos me away, much as I did to Ahmir and Rochelle only a few days ago. I understand now how annoying that must have been, though I can't say I really regret doing it. I'm about to say something along the lines of the sheer folly of her wanting to keep me pristine over her wanting to be ready for her guests in time, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see Charles standing next to me, offering me his exquisite suit jacket. I smile a thanks up at him and take it while he rolls up his shirt sleeves and helps the caterer move a large silver chafing dish to the exact right spot on the buffet table, the science of which escapes me even as I watch. I pull on the jacket, making an exaggerated show of buttoning it up for Lou's benefit. It's enormous, and I have to fight the urge to push up the sleeves, Miami Vice-style, in order to use my hands. I set myself only the tasks least likely to drag Charles' sleeves in something messy.

Which is why, when Ahmir, Harry, and Nikki arrive, I am wearing a man's voluminous suit jacket and putting out table settings. Staircase moment it is not. Ahmir quirks an amused eyebrow at my wardrobe, and I shrug, laying yet another tiny dessert spoon above yet another set of plates. The sets that they've chosen are a white with small black leaves decorating one side of the rim. I'm almost certain that there is a poem to correspond to these plates.

He approaches me, hands yet again in his pockets, his stride long in his polished shoes. The suit that he's wearing is a charcoal grey in light-weight wool that somehow manages to make his skin glow. He radiates. His tie is simple, black, with one thin, meandering grey stripe. The smile that he shoots me is almost enough to knock me over.

I feel, strangely, like I'm in middle school again. At least right now. I like this man. I love this man. And I am reasonably assured of his feelings for me. Again, I'm only surmising. At yet, somehow, we haven't managed to get things together. I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him. But he does not belong to me, any more than I belong to him.

"Need help?" He says, stopping about a chair and a half away from me. I shrug again, feeling ridiculous in the suit jacket, then gesture with my free hand to the plastic container of spoons in the other one. "Oh, about all I can get, really." Spoon puns spring to mind. I refrain.

He does not. "You want me to spoon with you?" His smile is wicked, and I feel a blush rising up, sending heat to my face and shivers down my spine. I'm about to answer when there's a crash from the kitchen, followed by a volley of expressive curses from Adam, who, like Charles, has taken off his jacket, although his is currently residing over the back of a chair. "Cap! Get over here!" he calls, gesturing grandiosely.

I look back at Ahmir. He has his eyes raised up to the ceiling in exasperation, then pulls them back down to look at me. I smile ruefully, indicating with my head that he should help them out. He shrugs, and takes off wordlessly, loping easily to the other side of the room in less than five seconds.

I love watching him run. Does that make me dirty?

The first of the guests arrive just as Team USA has gotten everything under control. The food doesn't need to be ready for another hour, and the hors d'oeurves circling the growing crowd are universally popular.

I track Charles down to hand him back his jacket, and Lou cat calls me as I reveal the dress underneath. I shake my head at her, only to look away into Ahmir's eyes. He's watching me with a small smile on his face, and as he catches my gaze, the smile widens. I want to tell him right now. But the party has started, and it's too late.

I keep forgetting that the Musgroves are a family of the same tony genre as mine. Their attitudes are so different, but so many of the people they know are the same as the people my family knows. I find myself shying away from many of the two hundred faces in the hall, but as the only Elliot (for at least two hours before my father, Elizabeth, and Hope decide to show up after all), I can't escape to the refuge of anonymity as I normally would. I find myself, much to my own horror, schmoozing.

When the dinner bell finally rings, much to my relief, I find my spot at one of the head two tables. I catch only a glance at Ahmir, as I am seated with my back facing him, but he looks exhausted, as if he's just run ten miles. I suppose an internationally famous athlete is even more at risk of schmoozing than a little nobody with a once-important last name.

After the dinner, which was suitably expensive, there is to be dancing. This touch, I know, is Lou's. I doubt Ben enjoys dancing very much. I spend time watching them over dinner, trying not to look like I'm watching them. Because that would be creepy.

I generally think of myself as open-minded. Usually until I come up against something I don't like for a reason I can't explain. I don't like how soon Ben has forgotten about Phoebe, even if I never knew her. I don't like it at all. But how can I argue with love? How can I ask Ben to be in pain when there is something and someone who can take that pain away? Love is a gift. It's a gift. This is what I tell myself. I am happy for them, so happy for their happiness.

But I don't understand.

Lou stands up, holding out a hand to Ben, who takes it only slightly reluctantly. Well. She's not the only one who's changed. The band plays something festive, but it's not something I recognize. We sit and watch them dance, almost as if this is their wedding. The bride and groom take the floor. There are worse comparisons to be made. Less fitting. Then more people are standing up, more people are dancing. I feel, very strongly, the fact that Ahmir is behind me. I want to turn and look. I want to turn and look. I will turn and look.

I make to turn, but Mary stops me. She's wearing a dark purple sheath dress and looks lovely and collected. She points a perfectly manicured finger at the entrance staircase, and murmurs, "Look who decided to show up," before winking, winking, at me.

I turn to look, too. Elliot is standing at the bottom of the staircase, leaning casually against the banner, for all the world as if he has the right to be there. I have to fight the thunderous frown that appears on my forehead. There's no point. Yelling at him won't get me anywhere.

I stand up, turning to place my napkin on the table and push in my chair, and I look over my shoulder for a split second, the way I had been intending to before. Ahmir is looking at me, but not the way I had been hoping he would. He's not angry or judgmental, but the expressionlessness of his face is worse. He accepts that Elliot is here, and if Elliot is here after all, that must mean something. That could mean something.

There's not much you can do about suspicion. No matter how hard you try.

That does it. That does it. There will be no more of this ludicrous misunderstanding, nor this pathetic sham of a friendship. I right myself, and take a breath.

I have work to do.