The rest of dinner had been—gasp—pretty pleasant, leaving me in a dancing-and-humming mood as I showered and dressed for my night with Drew.

From the depths of my closet I dug out a silver halter top and a boring black skirt—a combination quite fitting for me. I finished the look off with a poppy-colored cross-body purse just big enough for the essentials.

I was excited, but I had also gotten myself into a pickle while making this evening’s plans. For a good reason, but still. That pickle had taken on a life of its own, which I now realized was a common problem for me.

So it started because I needed a lie to tell my parents about where I was going tonight. Since they didn’t know we’d lost touch and she was the one ’rent-approved friend who didn’t attend our church, I told my parents I was seeing Genevieve from high school. But then, after I told that lie, I remembered that Genevieve’s mother had a weekly mahjong game with Sienna’s mother, who was one of my mom’s patients, and she had a lot of dental issues. Like Swiss cheese, my mother had once said of her X-rays. And after making the three-degree connection, I worried that the information of where Genevieve spent her New Year’s Eve would get back to my mother, in which case, holy guacamole. So I texted Genevieve for the first time in a year and a half to see where she’d be ringing in the new year. Then obviously that got really awkward and I had to act like I wanted to know because I was hoping to meet up. I did consider asking her to cover for me like old times, but that left behind hard evidence of my lies in the form of a text that could be used against me. So I instead reasoned, It’s easier to just make plans, then take a page out of her book and flake out at the last second. But then my mother happened. She asked me a million questions about Genevieve and Genevieve’s mother and made so many comments about wanting to see photos of what Gen looked like now that I felt backed into a corner. No matter how I tried to spin it, I couldn’t win.

Me: You’re horrible, and you just want to see “whether her baby fat was just fat.”

Her: I said that one time! Why can’t you just get a picture for me? Are you hiding something?