The Salvation

"You know that perfume you mixed for me? I've been wearing it a lot lately-Daniel really likes it. And I just realized I ran out, and I really wanted to wear it tonight." Maria's mom looked at her hopefully. "He's picking me up in a few minutes."

"There isn't enough time to make a new batch," Maria answered. There really wasn't time, and even if there was, Maria wasn't sure how she felt about helping her mom snag a guy. She'd given up any fantasy of her parents getting back together, but still.

"Oh, okay. Never mind." Maria's mom nervously touched her hair, which Maria noticed was styled in a slightly different way. Tonight's really important to her, she realized.

"Wait," Maria said as her mother turned to leave. "I can get you something close. Sit," she instructed, patting the spot on the bed next to her. Her mother sat with a relieved smile.

Maria plucked two vials of essential oil off her bedside table. She took one of her mothers hands and flipped it palm up, then placed a few drops from each vial on her wrist and rubbed them in. A subcutaneous tremor ran through her mother's arm. Mom's nervous, Maria noticed. She rubbed a little harder, hoping to ease the tension from the muscles, but the quiver kept right on quivering.

"Thanks," Maria's mom said as Maria started working on the other wrist. "I just want to be… perfect." She touched her hair again self-consciously, then gave her midriff-bared by Maria's sweater-a hard poke. "Not that that's even possible."

I know the symptoms, Maria thought. Not only does Mom really, really like this guy, she's not sure how he feels about her. And she's worried that there is some significance, some he-doesn't-really-really-like-me-back significance, to five dates with no-

Maria stopped herself. She extremely did not want to go there.

"I think you look beautiful," she told her mother. "And you smell good, too."

The doorbell rang, and her mother lurched to her feet. "That's him!" She bolted toward the bedroom door.

"Mom!" Maria called, and her mother spun around to face her. "If he doesn't, um…" She decided to start over. "If he doesn't appreciate you, it's his loss."

"Aw, that's so sweet." Maria's mom rushed back over and gave her a fast, lilac-and-vanilla-infused hug, then bolted out of the room.

Maria flopped back down into the nest of pillows on her bed.

"Okay, self, you take that advice, too," she muttered. "It's Michael's loss." She clicked the pause button again, and the movie started back up. A minute later she was entranced.

She was so completely immersed in the world of the movie that she practically flew off the bed when she heard her window slide open nearly an hour later.

"You scared me," she snapped, her heart pounding as Michael climbed into her room.

"It's not like it's the first time I've come in this way," he answered.

"Not lately." It came out sounding a lot more accusatory than she'd intended it to. Well, so what? It was the truth, wasn't it?

"What're you watching?" Michael asked. He took a step toward the bed, then veered off, grabbed the chair next to her dresser, and plopped down on it.

"Um, nothing. Nothing! I wasn't really watching anything. It was just background noise." Oh, God, where was the remote? What had she done with the remote? She sca

"Looking for this?" Michael picked the remote off the floor but, being Michael, didn't hand it to her.

Maria lunged for the TV set, fumbling for the power button. She had to turn it off.

"Starman," Michael said. Too late. Maria glanced over her shoulder and saw him holding the plastic video rental box. "So you go out and rent stuff for background noise?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah, sometimes. Stupid, huh? That's me. Stupid," Maria babbled. She found the power button, hit it, and returned to the bed, sitting cross-legged and looking everywhere but at Michael.

He used the remote to click the TV back on. "Let's watch the rest. I've never seen it."

It will just be worse if I shut it off again, Maria thought. Not that it's not already totally obvious that I didn't want him to see what I was watching, which of course is why he now has to see it.

Michael stretched his legs out in front of him. Maria ordered herself not to check out the nice fit of his jeans. Of course, she didn't obey herself. "So what's happened so far?" he asked.

Ah, yes. Let's go for the maximum humiliation possible here, Maria thought.

"Well, that guy-" She nodded toward Jeff Bridges, who was in the middle of bringing a dead deer back to life. "He's the starman. His spaceship crash-landed, and he took on the form of Karen Allen's husband by using DNA from hair from a photo album. You know how some people save locks of hair?"

Maybe if Maria swamped Michael with details, he'd miss the fact that he'd caught her mooning over a movie that was a love story between an alien guy and a human girl.

"Anyway, he has to get back to his mother ship or he'll die, and some government people are chasing them, and a guy from SETI, too, who is basically decent. The starman, he really likes apple pie, and he just learned to drive. At first he thought a yellow light meant go very fast because he learned by watching Karen-I mean Je

"I'm up to speed," Michael said, cutting her off.

"Good," Maria answered. She scooted back a little farther so she could lean against the headboard and focused her eyes on the TV screen. She'd thought she'd have to pretend that she was having no problem watching it with him, but the story sucked her back in, and she didn't have to fake it after all.

When the movie got to the part where Je

Maria tried to stop the tears before they began rolling down her face, but she couldn't. Je

"Repeat after me. Movie. Reality. Movie. Reality," Michael said sarcastically.

She nodded and locked her teeth together, but she couldn't stop a muffled keening sound from escaping her. It was so sad.

Michael threw a box of Kleenex in her direction. "I've got to go," he told her.

Big surprise.

Maria wiped off her face and blew her nose hard.

"Wait," she commanded. She used another Kleenex on her face, sure it was already all blotchy. It was so unfair that she couldn't cry like Karen Allen, who looked beautiful and pale and tragic as her tears flowed.

"What?" Michael asked impatiently, getting to his feet and jamming his hands in his back pockets.

"Yesterday it sounded like Trevor expected you to go back home with him. So are you?"

She hadn't pla

"Are you?" she repeated when he hesitated.

"I'm thinking about it," Michael answered.

And he was out of there, leaving Maria heartbroken and speechless.