If I hadn’t messed things up, she might have been here with me. The thought made my insides twist. We could have been watching a movie in the basement. Something weird she’d choose and I’d try to get. And she’d make some joke about whatever was happening onscreen, and she’d have that look on her face, and I would throw my arm around her and pull her closer, squeezing her so she’d giggle.
And then . . .
I shook my head back and forth, trying to erase the image. Why was I thinking about that? With Rachel? I was trying to work things out with Emma. That must be it, I must still be screwed up over last night’s fight.
I should send her another text, see if she’d cooled down.
But I didn’t want to. I was always going first with Emma, always begging for forgiveness. Rachel was so different. So one hundred percent herself all the time. She didn’t play the games Emma did. Talking to her didn’t feel like a minefield, it felt fun. Natural.
There was no reason to overthink this. Rachel was a friend, one I wanted to get to know better. That’s why I wanted to make her laugh, and why I wanted to spend more time with her. I’d been the same way with Ollie when we first started hanging out, and I definitely didn’t want to get with him.
That was all there was to it.
I grabbed my phone and tried to figure out something clever to say. Something that would make Rachel smile that way, even if it was only in my head.
chapter thirty-seven
RACHEL
MONDAY, 12:28 P.M.
“Whoa. Nope. Just . . . nope.”
I could see Monique’s grimace over my shoulder in the mirror. She was right; the dress she’d just zipped me into was flat-out hideous. Everywhere I looked was an explosion of tulle—even my boobs looked like chiffony clouds—it barely covered my butt, and the lemon-yellow color made my skin look like I’d contracted some kind of plague.
“Are you ready?” a soft, girlish voice called from outside the dressing-room door. Anastasia worked for the local television affiliate and was running the ground operations while Mary puppet-mastered us all from L.A. The two women couldn’t have been more different. Anastasia was tiny, with wispy blond hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, crisp khaki pants, and a navy polka-dot oxford that had clearly been starched. She was so quiet and unassuming it was hard to believe she was in charge. Especially since the cameraman she’d brought along was even beefier than Eddie. I couldn’t remember this one’s name; apparently never speaking was a cameraman thing.
Mom had excused me from Monday classes, and Monique had strong-armed her parents into a mental health day by promising to bring homework and threatening to skip if they didn’t let her take it. Part of me still wanted to be mad, but I was too grateful to have her there; I told her she was still on my list on the ride over, then dropped it.
Together with the small crew Anastasia had brought, we’d taken over the entire “salon” section of the store, where the dressing rooms were bigger than my bedroom, each with real wooden doors and brocade-covered furniture inside. They emptied out—little tributaries of expensive clothing and ornate moldings—onto a circular ocean of fluffy, spotless cream carpeting, a small dark-wood platform in the center for you to stand on, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors with gilded scrollwork edges on every wall, angled to show you yourself from all sides at once. All the items in this section of the store had price tags with multiple zeroes. Usually you weren’t allowed into these dressing rooms unless you were the kind of person who bought them.
“This is awful,” I said, turning to Monique. It was the eleventh dress I’d tried on so far, none of which I would ever wear. Mary wanted me to put them on one by one, then emerge from the dressing room to “vamp for the camera.” Apparently they were going to edit this part into a montage, then later I’d get back into normal clothes and talk with Laura for the intro, then change again, into a dress that actually looked good—I was starting to doubt that I’d find one—and talk with her again. It would be edited so the montage sort of flowed into it. Luckily, after the first dress—shiny silver, made me look like a beached tuna—it stopped being so nerve-wracking. I didn’t have to talk, or do anything special, I just had to exist. In hideous clothing.
“It’s definitely the worst so far.” Mo’s nose curled up.
“It’s like someone turned Big Bird into a skin suit.”
“I was going to say a disco ball and a yellow pi?ata had a baby, but yours works.”
“I don’t mean to rush you, Rachel, but I want us to stay on schedule,” Anastasia whispered through the door.
“This one’s not a keeper,” I called back. “Let me change?”
“No, come out!” Her voice was a little stronger. “We chose these dresses specifically, so there would be variety.”
I looked at Monique, sitting on the padded piano bench in the corner. She was trying to repress a laugh.
“Go on, Rachel,” she said, giggling a little. “This is what it’s like to be a star!”
I flipped her the finger.
“You’re a terrible sidekick.”
My phone screen lit up on the side table.
(From Kyle): How’s it going? Dare I ask about the sleeve situation?
I couldn’t help but grin.
(To Kyle): This dress is all sleeves. That’s how bad it is.