My sister is hands-free in her minivan. She’s driving my nephew, Riley, to school and my nieces, Lucy and Jan, to daycare while talking me through this fudging crisis.
“I don’t think she’s his girlfriend,” I clarify. “I’ve dealt with girlfriends before. They stick around for three months tops before Dax finds some lame reason why he’s not into them. No, this is worse. I think she’s his best friend.” The words leave a terrible taste in my mouth, one that I’m attempting to rinse away with my second Gemma with a G oat latte of the morning.
“Well, that’s good, then,” Kiersten says, not getting it at all.
I guess in the grand scheme of the plan, it’s good. It’s a lot easier to kiss an unattached Dax than a happily-in-love one, but truth be told, it feels like Dax is cheating on me. It’s irrational, I know. Dax didn’t meet me in this timeline until yesterday. But the idea that he could find another me feels like a karate chop straight to the throat because I don’t think I’d ever be able to find another Dax. And part of me wonders if maybe he’s gotten an upgrade.
“So if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, when are you going to see him again? Make your moves? Seduce him with the famous Wilde sister charm? Wait! Hold your answer for just a second.”
There’s indistinguishable white noise on Kiersten’s side of the line, followed by the sound of a car door opening and closing and my sister’s distant voice yelling, “Have a great day, sweetheart.” Then there’s a second or two of shuffling and an under-the-breath curse word before Kiersten’s voice comes through clearly. “Okay, she’s gone. You can dish. How terrible is this woman? Feel free to swear and use awful language. My car is child-free.”
I blow out a long breath. I wish I could vent right now. Call Sunny all sorts of terrible names to make the nagging ache at the back of my chest go away. But something tells me it wouldn’t help.
“Honestly, Kierst, she’s lovely. So nice. So smart. She’s a legitimately good curler.”
“Well, you’re smart. And you’re also beautiful. Having seen you fail at multiple sports, I’m going to guess you’re a pretty terrible curler. Still, you always look awkwardly adorable when you’re bad at things. It’s endearing.”
I don’t know if I’m caught off guard by her statements or if it’s just taking me a second to process, but I don’t answer her right away.
“Hey,” she says. “You’re quiet. Are you still there?”
I nod, even though it’s stupid because she can’t even see me. “Yeah. I think I just really needed to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, the sisterly bond transcends dimensions.” Her voice softens. “He obviously means a lot to you, so I don’t want to see you fuck it up.”
I don’t want to fuck it up either.
“Okay. I will figure out a way to talk to him. And then come up with some sort of diabolical plan to get him to kiss me. If you have any brilliant ideas, please send them my way.”
There’s a click, click, click of Kiersten’s turn signal. It reminds me of a clock. As if the universe is sending a sign that time’s a-wastin’.
“You say this guy is your best friend,” Kiersten says. “You must know all sorts of things about him. Exploit that. Be the Gemma you know he likes.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing, and it hasn’t exactly been working.
“And if that doesn’t snag him, show him your tits. He’ll kiss you for sure.”
My sister hangs up the phone. I’m not entirely sure if she does it on purpose. She rarely goes through the formality of goodbyes but also often mistakes the radio button for the hang-up one.
I chuck my phone in my purse and walk to the door of Wilde Beauty, where I flip the closed sign to open.
It seems weird to operate this place, seeing as it sort of appeared out of thin air. But I figure it gives me a low-risk way to try out what is essentially my dream job. Skincare is my jam. I know a hell of a lot about it, as I’ve been buying drugstore skincare for Eaton’s Drug Mart for years. Plus, I have a good business head on my shoulders. Running Wilde Beauty should be a cinch.
Narrator: It was not a cinch.
At a quarter to ten, exactly forty-four minutes into my new adventure, a customer enters my shop. Middle-aged white woman, gray shirt, cropped hair.
Her eyes immediately set upon me and narrow. “I’d like to speak to a manager.”
My store is eighty square feet. I don’t know where she thinks I’d be hiding my managerial staff. She scowls when I tell her, “I’d be happy to help you out.”
She produces a bottle of moisturizer. “I don’t like the smell of this. I’m here to return it.”
I know the brand immediately. It’s from a fragrance-free line. So, kind of weird. But okay.
“Not a problem,” I tell her. “I can offer you an exchange or refund. Whatever works best.”
She marches over to the display of the same line of products, picks up a bottle identical to the unacceptable one in my hands, then promptly stomps over to my counter, where she slams it down. I can already sense that I will be calling Kiersten immediately following this interaction.
“Hi, um.” I hold up the returned bottle in my hands. “The product you just picked out is the same one you wanted to return.”
She stares at me like I’m stupid for stating this fact. “Yes, and?”
Deep breath. “Well, if your reason for the return is that you don’t care for the smell, this new one isn’t going to smell any different.”
The roll of her eyes is so exaggerated that I worry her eyeballs will get stuck.
“Well, maybe there’s something wrong with the one I bought. It has probably gone bad.”
I have a jar of this very same cream in a shoebox under the sink in the other timeline. I use it whenever I run out of my favorite stuff. It’s my backup cream and is easily two years old. It smells just fine.
I unscrew the top of the lid. “Let’s see what is going on here.”
Ah. Well, there’s a problem, all right. Just not the problem she described.
“This jar is almost empty.” I hold it out to her in case there’s been some sort of mistake.
She folds her arms across her chest. “So?”
I summon my best customer service voice and try to form kind words, but what comes out is more of a “You can’t return an empty jar.”
She glares at me. “You’re telling me you don’t stand by your products. I even have a receipt.” She tosses a white sheet of paper on the counter.
A brief glance down has me biting my lip to both stifle my laughter and prevent the string of profanities running through my head from making their way out of my mouth.
“You didn’t even buy the cream here.” The receipt is an email from one of those huge online retailers.
She scoffs. “That shouldn’t matter. You sell this product. You should stand behind it.”
I count to ten and then politely tell her to leave. She responds by threatening to ruin me with a bad Tripadvisor review. I tell her no one under forty uses Tripadvisor and to go right ahead.