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Saturday Night (October 1989)

Melissa grunted and slammed her round hairbrush onto the vanity top.

“Bangs, stand UP!” she gritted through clenched teeth.  Brian would pick her up soon for their first date – her first date ever.  Forbidden to date before her sixteenth birthday, she celebrated that milestone two weeks ago.  Now, finally, she could go to the movies with Brian!

The thought made her squeal.

With new determination, Melissa spritzed her bangs with more hairspray, pulled them up with the round brush and blasted them with the hairdryer on high heat.  After a full minute, she turned off the dryer and set it on the counter.  She halted when she heard her mom’s laughter.  She listened harder.  A male voice….Brian.

“No!  This can’t be happening.”  In a panic, she yanked the brush from her bangs and smoothed the frizzies.  She colored her lips fuchsia and cringed when she heard Brian laugh.  She swiped blush across her cheeks.  Her mom’s muffled voice again, then more laughter from both of them.  Her stomach sank.  Have to go.  NOW.

She flung the bathroom door open and sprinted down the hallway, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw her mom sitting next to Brian on the sofa, a photo album spread across their laps.

Horrified, Melissa stood mute, and unable to move.

“And look at this one.  It’s one of my favorites.  Isn’t that bottom lip just adorable?”  Mom gushed.  “She was cranky that day and my, can that girl pout!”

Brian laughed.  He laughed.

That night, Melissa learned her mom could not keep childhood pictures in confidence.

Years later, Melissa found and displayed her earliest photography attempts; the vintage “just woke up” pictures of her mom peppered her Facebook wall.

It turned out that confidence betrayal was a hereditary trait.

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This is my first entry in the Week Twenty-Four Trifecta Writing Challenge.  The instructions:  write a 33-word to 133-word story using “confidence” with the following definition:

Confidence (noun):

a: a relation of trust or intimacy <took his friend into his confidence>

b : reliance on another’s discretion <their story was told in strictest confidence>

c : support especially in a legislative body <vote of confidence>

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