Chapter 1 #2
“Wait. You’re going to do it here? Have you even found out if the caning rumor is true?
Please tell me it’s true.” She clasped her hands in front of her chest, the corner of her mouth lifting in a mischievous grin.
It was her most famous expression. Photographers always asked her to give them one of her famous smirks.
It was her Tyra Banks equivalent of the “smize”.
Cindy Crawford’s mole. Gisele Bündchen’s “horse walk”.
“He never asked me even once, and I found no evidence,” I said, hanging my head in mock shame. “I’ve failed you. I’m sorry.”
“Damn. Well, if it makes you feel any better, my last date was into pegging. While I was still reeling from this revelation, he brought out a small suitcase with a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors.”
“Welp,” I said, eyes wide and blinking as though trying to ward off that bit of information with the sheer force of my lashes. “Trying new things is… fun?”
She shuddered in response.
“What did you do?”
“Suddenly remembered I had an early shoot,” she said and we laughed. That lie worked like a charm every time. “You sure you want to break up with Oliver here?”
“Go big or go home, baby,” I said, and turned on my heel. “And I intend to do both. I’m too old for this shit anymore. Plus, he won’t make a fuss with so many people around.”
“Good point,” she said, then leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Good luck.”
As I suspected, Oliver took the break-up in stride. I was a bit surprised by his easy acceptance and lack of theatrics after all the effort he’d put in to try and woo me. Then again, there were tons of cameras around and a party filled with beautiful women. He’d be okay.
I took my leave, giving the birthday girl an air kiss on her cheek and quietly slipping out a side door. Smiling at my usual driver as he tucked me safely inside the car, I leaned back and let out a long exhale.
“Are we waiting for Mr. Manning, Miss Flynn?”
“We are not, Freddie.”
He nodded his head, closed the door, got in the driver’s seat, and pulled onto the street.
I was in bed an hour later, my ruined Chanel dress hanging over the side of the tub after another go at it with some soap. My text alert went off and with a groan I reached for the phone.
Katya.
When I opened the message I burst out laughing. It was a picture of Oliver making out with one of the newer models on the scene. A pretty Southern gal named Dallas.
“Back to the bottom of the barrel he goes,” Katya said.
“And all is right with the world,” I texted back.
I set the phone down and a moment later it went off again.
“Ditch the party for your pjs yet?” the message read.
Addie. Best friend extraordinaire. She knew me well.
I turned my bedside lamp on and took a selfie of me in my cat pajamas, my face freshly scrubbed, hair fanned out over my pillow. I hit send and waited for it to land to where she was probably in her own bed in Seattle with actual cats lying on her.
The pajamas had been a joke gift from her when I’d turned twenty-nine three months ago. Leading up to the big day, I’d proclaimed over margaritas one night that I was going to happily be a spinster cat lady after I retired from modeling.
“Called it!” she texted back.
I laughed. Adeline Warner had been my best friend since the first day of kindergarten.
We’d taken one look at each other as we stood in line outside Mrs. Jacobson’s class, dressed in matching blue puffer coats, and our fates were sealed.
Besties for life. No one knew me like she did.
No one had seen or heard my growing pains, both emotional and physical, like she had.
And I’d been the one to witness all her transformations, discoveries, failures and wins.
When I grew six painful inches our junior year, leaving me gawky, clumsy, and unable to keep up with my new lankiness, she’d sat for hours in dressing rooms at the mall with me while I’d cried trying to find jeans that didn’t hang off my body.
When she made the cheerleading squad and then forgot her briefs, letting everyone get a glimpse of her strawberry-print underwear at her very first game-day performance, I’d bought us each a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and we ate while she sobbed over the humiliation.
We were together when we opened our acceptance letters to the University of Washington.
I took her out to a fancy dinner a year later when she decided she wanted to be a veterinarian, dropped out of university and applied to a different kind of school.
And when I got scouted for modeling two days into the following school year, she was standing beside me outside Dick’s Burgers, shoving fries in her face and grinning like a loon and nodding, as if she’d always known this day would come.
The juxtaposition of my life now, compared to those early days after high school, never failed to entertain us.
“Ruined a Chanel tonight,” I messaged.
“I don’t want to hear it. I need new tires and that dress probably could’ve paid for that AND new wiper blades.”
“That dress could’ve gotten you a new car,” I said, and promptly received the middle finger emoji in return. “Not that you can’t afford one on your own.”
Addie was the proud owner of the cutest veterinary clinic in West Seattle.
Not that I’d seen many. My mother had been resolutely against having pets when I was a kid.
But I assumed the little yellow house-turned-animal-clinic, with its white picket fence and animal-friendly plants lining the front walk was the most adorable in existence.
And business was thriving thanks to my friend’s combination of medical expertise and holistic approaches.
“Of course I can,” she texted. “The difference is, you smile to afford a new car. I express anal glands.”
“I don’t want to hear any more about your sex life.”
She sent a laughing emoji and then asked, “You dump Double Oh Ding Dong yet?”
Double Oh Ding Dong was her nickname for Oliver. He’d done a movie the year before where he’d played a spy. He’d clearly been going for a James Bond feel, but he didn’t quite get there. It was like watching a door trying to order a martini.
“Done and dusted this very night.”
“Amen to that. Now get some sleep. I can see your under-eye bags from here.” The last bit was a direct quote from my mother when I was a mere seventeen years old.
This time I sent her the middle finger emoji, said goodnight, turned off my phone, and went to sleep.