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behave.
    Yeah . . . really proud.
    I roll over onto my back and stare up into the darkness. Ghost dots flicker and fade in front of me. I’ve never been more wide-awake. Proud. Proud . Next, I’m going to be telling myself that these aren’t the droids I’m looking for. More darkness. More silence. You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em . Great. Now I’ve got Kenny Rogers stuck in my head. Alone. Cold. Dumped. And humming Kenny Rogers.
    I whip my covers off and walk over to my computer. I scroll through old e-mails, finding the one from Jill that I’m looking for.
    Frannie: Okay, so just in case—here’s all of Jeremy Hannon’s information. I can see it now: an outdoor wedding with dragonflies and strings of lights. Maybe that one song can be the first song you dance to? The one he was talking about on that mix? Talk soon . . .
    Writing down Jeremy’s e-mail and cell number, I have to laugh. I seriously doubt my wedding song is going to be by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jill.
    To e-mail or to call, that is the question. It’s a bit late to call. And an e-mail—I don’t know. It seems a bit formal. I’ll split the difference. I’ll text. It’s what all the crazy kids are doing these days, right? As I take my iPhone off the nightstand, unplugging it from its charger, I am fully aware that I am taking the chicken’s way out. Texting is for booty calls and . . . wait . Am I making a booty call right now? No. Seriously, no. I’m making a late-night request for . . . I believe I’m making a booty call with no booty. I just want someone to talk to. Someone who’ll keep me from singing Kenny Rogers. Ugh, that’s even worse.
    I hold my iPhone in my hand and curl my legs underneath me. Summer is waning and a slight chill has found its way into my apartment.
    I type in Jeremy’s phone number and then begin the tedious process of crafting the perfect text. This could take days. It has to be one part breezy, one part sexy and once again, as far from the real me as is humanly possible. I finally come up with:
    Hey there! Frannie here from the BBQ at Jill and Martin’s . . . Jill had mentioned you wanted a copy of that mix I brought?
    Then what? Do I ask him what his mailing address is? It’s a wonder I’ve gotten one date ever . My fingers hover over the keypad. Minutes pass.
    Let me know!
    Before I can think better of it I hit send. And then I wait. I start to tidy up a bit. Clothes in the hamper. Do a couple of dishes, mostly bowls due to my obsession with shredded wheat. I walk through my apartment absently dusting shelves lined with framed family photos: cross-country road trips in wood-paneled station wagons, Christmas mornings with pink bicycles (I held on to a belief in Santa Claus way past what is customary). School plays where my role as “Chorus member” won parental rave reviews, splashing around in swimming pools with zinc oxide spread generously on my nose. I study the photos closely as I try to ignore the silence of my dormant iPhone. I see my childhood through my parents’ eyes. To them, I was a happy baby, a rambunctious child and a scholarly adolescent. My phases, not unlike the moon’s, melted and dissolved seamlessly into one another.
    The childhood I remember, strangely not depicted in these framed photographs, is a bit bumpier. As my coltish enthusiasm became an annoyance to teachers, my need for their approval reached epic proportions. I began swallowing that enthusiasm—now defined as “hyperactivity” or, in Ryan’s words, “intensity”—and replaced it with a zeal for schoolwork akin to an obsessive-compulsive’s need to open and shut a door three times before exiting. Not surprisingly, the other kids didn’t applaud my new role as teacher’s pet. The adolescent art of apathy eluded me. I was labeled an oddity and given a nickname that haunts me to this day: the Notorious Frannie Peed. I’ve done everything I can to leave Frannie Peed in the past, but she’s a worthy