I poked around in the refrigerator looking for juice and found a Dr. Pepper. I can't
drink anything with caffeine in it after 6 p.m. or by 1 a.m. I'll still be staring at the
ceiling wishing for sleep, but I was in need and it was right there ... available.
“Dang,” I muttered, holding the frosty can in my hand, wanting it bad, but knowing
the price I would pay. “To heck with it,” I said, popping the top, “you only live once.”
“Way to walk on the wild side, Mom,” Jillian said, and snickered.
It ordinarily takes me a good 15 minutes after waking up to be able to make any
semblance of sense, so I stared at the mess trying to come up with a logical reason
for such a thing to happen. Since the air conditioning vent rarely puts out gale force
winds, I immediately eliminated this possibility. I also couldn't imagine one of the girls
rummaging through the trash and leaving such a mess, any more than I could imagine
a burglar breaking in and expecting to find something of value in the kitchen trash can
“You haven't seen anything, watch this!” she replied enthusiastically. She was wearing
a dark T-shirt and using the tail, she dipped up a generous amount of water that was
filled with what appeared to tiny fireflies. I gasped aloud as I gazed at the twinkling
lights against the dark fabric. It was as though she was holding the night sky in the tail
of her T-shirt.
“Look at them all,” I breathed, “it's like being only a few feet from heaven!”
“Rub your hands together and put it in your hair and just kind of,” she waved her
hands around her face, making it look easy, “put it the way you want it.”
“With this?” I stared at the paltry amount of mousse.
“Yeah, that's plenty, trust me.”
I did as instructed, still optimistic. The end result was a frenetic wave in the front of
my hair that reminded me of the famous Cameron Diaz scene in “There's something
about Mary.”
