The Better Half

Chapter One

October 2006

"What color did she say her dress was?"

"She said dark blue," Nate replied to his mom, Lisa.

"But like a navy dark blue or a light dark blue?"

Nate shrugged his shoulders in the mirror as his mom fixed the collar of the black dress shirt he buttoned. Despite knowing his homecoming dance date most of his life, he couldn't stop his palms from sweating.

"Can she text you a picture of her dress?" Lisa asked as she looked over the ties on his bed.

"What? No, it's fine. Just pick one."

She chewed her bottom lip while comparing the colors and patterns and then held them up to see which shade of blue would match his corsage.

"Maybe one of your brothers has a different tie," she spoke out loud, mostly to herself.

That night would be Nate's first and last high school dance and Lisa didn't want to regret any decisions made for it. That was why she allowed her newly turned seventeen-year-old son to drive her husband's Audi. It was also why she was hosting an after-Homecoming party in their detached garage. Of course, she would never permit any of that for her other two boys, but they also weren't about to move out of her house before graduating high school. Ryan and Josh had already moved out of their shared apartment two months ago and were settling in Los Angeles before Nate were to join them. Lisa concluded that allowing this to happen would either the best decision she would make or the worst.

Nate finally made the decision for her and grabbed a deep blue tie with tiny black dots on it. He knew Alex wouldn't care whether his tie matched her dress. He knew her well enough to know that the only thing she would worry about was what shoes she'd wear.

"This tie is fine. Can we just get going? We are going to be late."

Alex Palmer's house was down the hill from Nate's in their quiet suburb alongside a forest reservation in New Jersey. From where they were situated, the towns around them were stacked on top of each other. The winding hills and parks helped to break up the area and congestion.

The two-block downhill walk between the houses was a route Nate knew well enough. It was so close that it took longer to drive the distance in between than to walk. Since he was taking Alex to the dance, he had to drive the short distance with his mom.

Alex stood in front of her mirror. Her right knuckle rested against her lips as she studied the several pairs of heels in front of her. For each pair of shoes, she determined how long it would take before she got blisters. Many of them had never been worn since she preferred any other kind of shoe. Some were also her sister's heels. Danielle was three years older than Alex but they both had the same light brown hair, brown eyes, and oval face that made people think they were twins. Danielle was in her second year of college and only came home when she ran out of money for food or needed to do laundry.

Alex spent the day letting Danielle curl and spray her hair until it couldn't move. With her hand still rested against her face and continuing to study the shoes, she began humming a song absent-minded. The strong smell of hair spray wafting in the air reminded Alex of when she sang it in the early afternoon. Danielle and Alex had sat at the kitchen table with a mirror and several eye shadow palettes between them. The soft bristles on Danielle's makeup brushes tickled her eyes.

"Let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink...put you to bed when you've had too much to drink..."

"Oh my God, Alex. Please stop singing that song!"

"Oh, sorry," Alex said, quickly shutting her mouth.

Danielle sat back in the chair; the eye shadow brush wedged between her fingers. "You've had that song stuck in your head for a week now. You are starting to make me hate that movie."