For hours, I failed to stay focused on reconciling Bellarosa’s bank statement. All I could think about was Sam Goody. How had I survived seventeen years without his luscious mouth…? How could I last another week…?
So, it was a relief when Drea came bursting through the office, mid-scheme. I didn’t have to put up the pretense of working anymore.
“Gia’s in a meeting! We need to get started before she gets back!”
“Get started on what?”
“On what?” she asked incredulously. “On getting me into FIT!”
“Right, yes, of course,” I said, refocusing.
She sat attentively in front of my desk, pen uncapped, yellow legal pad flipped to a blank page, ready to take notes.
“Okay,” I improvised. “Let’s assess the pros and cons of your applicant profile.”
Drea’s pen hovered over the first line.
“Okaaaaaay.”
“Nothing too complicated,” I said as reassuringly as possible. “Just the basics of your academic history.”
The basics, as it turned out, were even worse than I imagined.
PRO
CONS
I sighed. This should not have come as any surprise to me. And yet, I was still stunned by the lack of just about anything colleges seek in a candidate. I knew Drea wasn’t a dummy. But there was very little for her to demonstrate otherwise to admissions officers. And no “rewrite” of mine could ever change that. Drea’s prospects were bleak. I’d overestimated my abilities. I’d promised the impossible. I did not see a fat envelope from FIT in Drea’s future.
Drea was watching me expectantly, waiting for the expert guidance I’d literally guaranteed her. There was no way to get out of this without hurting her feelings …
Or was there?
“Do you have the application?”
“No.”
There it was. My out.
“Well, we can’t really get started without it,” I said, hoping Drea couldn’t detect the relief in my voice. “That’s the only way of knowing exactly what FIT is looking for.”
“Of course.” Drea nodded in complete agreement. “I should have thought of that.”
“Contact the school and ask them to send you an application and a course catalog,” I said, “and we’ll go from there.”
This was a brilliant first step. Getting the application required actual effort on her part, and I doubted Drea’s ability to follow through. And even if she did complete this task, it would take a few weeks for the materials to arrive in the mail. I’d be gone by then. By mid-September I had no doubt Drea would have already moved on too. No harm, no foul.
“You really think I can get in?”
Her voice was the most vulnerable I’d ever heard it. I’d never seen Drea so eager for my approval. For anyone’s approval. There was only one right answer. And it was a lie.
“Yes.”
Then Drea’s eyes twitched, and I wondered if both sets of fake lashes had gone rogue simultaneously. Only when rivers of black mascara started running down her cheeks did I grasp what was happening.
Drea Bellarosa was crying.
Correction: She was ugly crying. If Drea’s laughter sounded like a genocide of waterfowl, her crying …
“WAHWAHWHWHWHWAHHHHHHHHNNNNNK.”
… was a mega multispecies mass extinction event.
I was so stunned by her raw show of emotion that I didn’t have the wherewithal to respond with common decency.
“Gimme some tissues, already! Or do you want me snotting all over the merchandise?”
I rushed over with the box of Kleenex. She took a tissue with one hand, and my own hand in the other.
“No one has ever helped me like this.” Drea dabbed her eyes. “Seriously, Cassie. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Most days I wasn’t fully convinced Drea even liked me.
“I am?”
Drea honked into the tissue.
“Don’t go getting a big head about it,” she said. “I’m really shitty at picking best friends.”
I couldn’t tell if she was mocking herself—or me—until she cracked a slight smile.
“That was a joke.”
“Oh,” I replied. “Ha-ha.”
Her smile faded.
“Girls don’t like me, but you did,” she said. “Until I gave you reasons not to.”
This was the first time Drea had ever directly referred to our elementary school friendship. I sat beside her on the couch, wondering. Waiting. Did Drea want to talk about it? Did Drea want to dredge up the middle school drama that led to us not speaking to each other for more than five years? Did Drea want to apologize for abruptly deciding in seventh grade that I was neither hot nor cool enough to associate with anymore? Did Drea want to express regret for choosing dozens of boys over the one girl who liked her for who she was?
Drea did not.
She opened up a mirrored compact and gagged at her reflection instead.
“Ugh. Tammy Faye Bakker.” She groaned. “I didn’t know this was gonna be a waterproof mascara kind of day.”
Whatever had triggered Drea’s moment of vulnerability, it was over now.
I followed her into the staff bathroom, which was spotlessly clean but small and strictly utilitarian by Gia’s design. Unlike the boutique and the back office, the bathroom was utterly lacking in Bellarosian frills and flourishes because Gia wanted her employees to get back to work. From the drop ceiling to the linoleum floor and the nondescript toilet/vanity/sink set in between, this was a bathroom that discouraged socializing.
I watched Drea wipe away the surface layer of runny mascara with a tissue. Then I continued to watch her at the sink as she swiped away the next layers of bronzer and concealer and foundation. And I watched as she used an astringent-soaked cotton ball to scrub away the most stubborn layers, the stay-put liners for lips and eyes.
“Ugh.”
I watched Drea grimace at the face she was born with.
It was not an exaggeration to say Drea was four inches short of a Cosmo cover. And she knew it too. It was why she never, ever, ever wore flats. She nearly failed gym for violating the athletic department dress code. If she hadn’t designed and customized a wedge-heeled sneaker, she wouldn’t have gotten enough credits to graduate high school.
No, she was not FIT material. But I wasn’t going to be the one to break it to her.
Not now.
Not ever.