Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
CAROLINE
“Just rip it, Care.”
“I’m not going to rip it, it’s a whole clump! I can get it out, you just need to sit still.”
Lyssa sighed, accidentally knocking the nail polish into the sink. Gagging For It Gold bled out over the basin.
Living in a very small space with someone who owned every craft supply under the sun was sometimes cozy ( more space would be wasteful !) and other times suffocating (‘ I’m sick of stepping over yarn to get to the bathroom, Lyssa! We need a path !’).
Our studio apartment was filled to the brim with yarn, paint tubes, half of a torn-apart wicker chair, a broken antique sewing machine, and some calico that was half-dyed. Lyssa called it cluttercore. There wasn’t a lot of room for my stuff, so it was in suitcases under our bunks. Most of my belongings were stage costumes anyway, which made me sad to look at when I couldn’t use them, so it was better they stayed out of sight.
Right now, Lyssa was sitting on the bathroom sink with her feet in the basin, painting her toenails while I picked melted wax out of her hair. She’d seen a video where someone had dyed their hair by wrapping strands around colored crayons and heating them with hair irons, and it seemed easy enough. We didn’t have the right kind of parchment paper though, and the result was a melted mess. For a particularly alarming few seconds, I’d thought we were going to burn down the building.
As a teenager, Lyssa had gone viral for posting the outfits she wore to school. After fashion school, she’d gotten a prestigious internship at a fashion-based media company, but had recently quit that place and was now a full-time social media influencer. Lyss didn’t film me—I didn’t have any social media other than as Summer—so I didn’t have to worry about her videos ruining my fraud, but still. Living with an influencer was…unique.
“A curse on Danilla De’Angerous,” Lyssa grumbled as she rescued the bottle and I mopped up the polish with toilet paper. “With her annoying pastel streaks and her annoying viral content. My content is way better than Dani’s.”
Dani doesn’t have a head full of crayon.
“Dani doesn’t have burned hair,” Lyssa continued, reading my mind. “Dani has gained ten thousand new followers in twenty-four hours. I just need one big viral video so I can pitch new brands for collaborations! I know you think crayon hair is unhinged, Caroline, but it was going to be my ticket.”
I wondered if other influencers’ best friends had conversations like this.
Lyssa eyed me from under a singed strand of hair. “You know what would really help?”
“What?” I asked warily. Last time Lyssa had gotten that look in her eye she’d made me film her doing outfit transitions in Times Square. It was the worst possible place for a video like that and we’d both had an awful time.
Lyssa gripped my shoulders. “There is a time in the affairs of men,” she quoted, “Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune!”
“You know you lose me when you do Shakespeare. ”
“I’m not saying The Tragedy of Julius Ceasar is a road map, but these are the affairs of women! Totally different!”
“Huh?”
“You should go to another party as Teddy!” she cried. “Take me with you this time. I could shoot content or livestream! I wouldn’t film you of course, Miss Viola/Cesario. I wouldn’t ruin the scam. I’d just be like, ‘ Who are you wearing ?’ to all the hot people, like an entertainment reporter. And then I’d tag them in the photos. You know Sonya Barlow, right? She’s big in the art world. Or Greta Winters? She doesn’t have as many followers as Sonya, but if I could get her to post a photo with me, that would work. Or?—”
“I can’t , Lyssa. It’s too risky. I did what Gerard asked, now I’ll get what he promised.”
As soon as he answered his F—Fred Astaire phone.
“And when I have a regular gig, I’ll be good for rent every month.” I tried to cheer her up. “No more IOUs.”
Lyssa waved a Gagging-tipped hand. “Rent is a construct.”
I nearly choked.
Imagine if I told Dad’s accountant that.
“My mom doesn’t need it,” Lyssa continued. “She only makes me pay for this place to punish me for quitting my job. She’s never going to kick me out, Care, and I’m never going to kick you out, so it’s all fine.” She smiled as if it were that easy, and my heart cracked a little bit.
My sweet, infuriating, sheltered, bighearted sort-of sister.
“I don’t want you to have to cover me, Lyssa.” My never-give-up gene was also known as the unable-to-accept-help one. It was kind of a Kiwi thing, and kind of a me thing, and it ruined my life all the time. A real New Yorker would leap at the chance of discounted rent. I should. But I couldn’t.
“You’re a sweetheart,” I continued, “and you know I always help with your career, but I don’t want to do anything that would risk this blowing up in my face. Two times was all Gerard asked for. I’ve already sent some of Gerard’s money to Mike and Dad, and with this next payment I’ll be able to cover a few months’ rent in advance. With those things sorted, I don’t need to feel so awful for being here, chasing dreams instead of working in the café from five to three every day like a good little Holliday.”
“Okay, okay.” Lyssa tugged the comb out of my hand so she could tackle the wax herself. “I’m sorry, I forgot about the café thing. I understand why you don’t want to risk that. Now that I think about it, it’s lucky you’ve gotten away with this for as long as you have without anyone suspecting anything.”
My eyes slid away, and I picked at a clump of wax on the basin.
Lyssa’s eyes narrowed. “Care Bear.”
I focused harder on the wax.
“ Caroline. ”
“Chase Sanford knows.” I confessed.
“The uptight blogger?”
“Well, as it turns out, he’s not so uptight.”
Lyssa leaned back to look at me properly. “You like him.”
I started to protest, but Lyssa raised her skeptical eyebrow. The one she used when blogs said chambray was trending again.
“OK, yes. I do. He’s handsome and decent, and underneath all that goodness he has a deliciously dirty mouth. He makes me want to tease him until he cracks, in the hope he’ll snap and tell me off in a fun way. And he’s on the same page as me, Lyssa, I know he is. Chase Sanford is not the prude everyone thinks he is.” I rubbed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What am I going to do?” I moaned. “This is awful. For as long as I’ve been in New York, I didn’t have time to date. I barely had enough time for sex! But it was fine because I was focused on burlesque. Dating would have only been a distraction.” I looked back at Lyss. “It’s cruel that now I’ve finally met a man I really like, it’s impossible for anything to happen between us because I was literally paid to screw him over.”
Lyssa let out a low whistle. “That’s heavy, Care Bear. ”
“Caroline,” I corrected. But she’d gone into the kitchen, and I heard her making two mugs of Yorkshire tea.
My phone started buzzing on the bathroom vanity. Unknown Number came up on the screen, but the number was, in fact, extremely known to me. I hit decline and waited, knowing he would leave a voicemail. He always did.
I waited until Lyssa came back and passed me a mug to hit play, putting it on speaker so she could hear.
1 new voicemail. Unknown number.
“Listen, Floss.”
“Floss,” Lyssa repeated, her eyebrows raised.
“I’ve realized I’ve been coming at this wrong. Things with Joe and I have been a bit rocky. He, um. We—we’re not on the same page. On anything. So, I decided I’m going to have my brother and the girl he’s seeing over for an intimate cocktail party to show him that I don’t care about his old relationships, only the new, and it doesn’t matter that he’s moving way too fast.”
“Is that you? Does he mean you?”
I shushed her.
“The truth is, last time Joe and I spoke, I, uh, made everything between us worse. Please come to my house tomorrow for a small cocktail event to celebrate Joe and his partner Jemima. I’d like you to be there—so Joe can see that I don’t cast judgment on him. And because… I’d like you to be there. Please.” [Call ended].
I was a tough cookie, I liked to think. Pleading and wheedling never would have worked on me, that wouldn’t have been enough to make me jeopardize my new-but-precarious good financial standing. But he’d said he wanted me .
Which meant he liked me.
Sort of.
“What are you going to do?” Lyssa asked.
I heaved a sigh. “Charge your good camera, Lyss.”
She shrieked and threw her arms around me, promising to be cool and noninvasive in her influencing.
Maybe it would all work out and everyone would get exactly what they wanted with no hard feelings, drama, or scandal.
Maybe.