Free Wallflower In Bloom by Claire Cook Page B

online order placed, was huge. I mean, staggeringly huge. I knew. I was the one who was in charge of them all. I was the one who wrote the newsletters and e-blasts, who posted on Tag’s behalf on Facebook, who tweeted his twinkling tweets on Twitter till my fingers practically bled. I mean, you could look at it that they were essentially my lists. Didn’t I deserve to benefit from my own hard work?
    He might not realize it right away, but Tag would even want this for me. He’d want me to be happy. He’d want me to spread my wings and soar. He’d want me to dance again. And it would be great PR for Tag, right? Plus this way no one would have to see how he danced. And by the time the next Steve Moretti walked in on me, I’d not only be fit and fabulous. I’d. Be. Famous.
    I emptied the blender into my glass. In the end, it wasn’t all that different from all the other messages I wrote for him:
     
Galactic greetings and the sunniest of salutations, my friends .
Allow me to introduce you to my dearest sister Deirdre . Almost from birth, we knew she was the family dancer. Such grace. Such talent. Such soul. But for years, far too many years, she put it all aside to support me in my dream. Our dream, my friends. And now an opportunity presents itself for all of us to join together and bestow our own gift on this most deserving recipient. Please use the link below to cast your vote for my sister Deirdre and make her lifelong Dancing With the Stars dream come true. And our message to her and to ourselves will be: Let go of the past and go let the future in .
    Peace in, peace out ,
Tag
    By the time I pushed Send I knew I was at the perfectly perfect beginning of the rosiest chapter of my life. I was so freakin’ happy I was practically floating. I closed one eye so I could pick up the remote on my bedside table. I clicked around on it until I managed to find the right button to turn on my iPod player.
    Bonnie Raitt broke into a bluesy “Let’s give them something to talk about.”
    “I hear you, Bonnie,” I said, my voice in my ears sounding like an old forty-five played at 33 rpm. “And I’m pretty sure we just did it.”

 
    It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog .
    —M ARK T WAIN
    T wo miniature Russian guys were lodged in my head, doing that famous Russian squat dance with tiny steel-toe boots against the back of my eyeballs. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert, and my stomach completely understood how Mount Vesuvius felt just before it erupted.
    I opened one eye carefully. The little bedside clock read 6:03. Judging by the sunshine pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling window and the French doors, that would be a.m. If only I had a remote control for the curtains I hadn’t bothered to close. This daylight thing was killing me.
    I’d woken up around midnight. I’d practically crawled my way into the bathroom to pee and then wash down either four or five Advil with as much water as I could swallow. After all that exertion, I found myself craving a snack. I made it halfway down the stairs, then pictured myself falling to the bottom only to be found when the smell of my mangled and decomposed body alerted Tag’s lawn guys. I bumped the rest of the way down the stairs on my butt like a drunken toddler.
    When I got to the kitchen I poured a glass of cow’s milk and went right for the Devil Dogs. Tag ordered them by the caseload: sixteen Devil Dogs to the economy box, twelve boxes to the case. They’d been his favorite since we were kids.
    Growing up, Saturday was allowance day, and the four of us would walk the mile to Marshbury Center and stock up at the A&P. I’d preferred the round shape and crisp chocolate shell of Ring Dings. Joanie Baloney always went for the cellophane-wrapped three-packs of Sarah Lawton Chocolate Chip cookies at the register. Colleen would save most of her money for magazines like Tiger Beat and buy one paltry roll of Necco Wafers and