Forty-nine Candles...

I rang the buzzer and waited, praying that she was in. When the door buzzer went off I waved at the cabbie and slipped inside the hallway. I waited there, hidden behind a bush for a couple of minutes until he drove off. Then I snuck back home, promising to call my friend later to explain. Although I was not sure how to explain any of this...to her, to my daughter if she asked what I had gotten up to, or especially to myself.

That was all that consumed my mind as I climbed three flights of stairs to our dingy old apartment. I found the keys at the bottom of my purse just as I told my daughter they would be. I went to open the door but the chain lock was on it. "Hey, what's up?" I asked a bit frighten that something was wrong, that the girls would have the chain on during the day.

"Damn it, Mom. You were going to buzz, remember? Hold on. We ain't ready yet," complained my oldest as I heard hushed whispers and shuffling on the other side of the door.

Then it was thrown open wide and my beautiful jewels stood there smiling. With a lop-sided cake that my youngest had obviously decorated with her unique style in their hands and singing 'Happy Birthday.' Thankfully they had more sense than to try and get forty-nine candles on the poor thing. I burst into tears. I might not have had sex in two years. I might have just made a complete fool of myself with an Adonis. But what more could any woman want than this?