Chapter 76
The skin care store was in Georgetown: a minimalist millennial-pink jewelry box, skylight illuminating a wide staircase leading to a “pink skies ahead” arrivals and departures sign that flickered a new aphorism every few minutes.
I’d been working there for a little over a week, mostly cleaning or standing around with an iPad.
Instead of talking about food I talked about makeup, but my role was effectively the same.
Every so often, when no one was paying attention, I brought the brand’s flagship milky-looking perfume to my nose like a forlorn loser.
If I closed my eyes, it was like Nia was there.
I did this once during a lull on the showroom floor.
When I opened my eyes, a girl with long blond braids was aggressively flipping through the oversized hoodies on the rack in the corner.
My stomach lurched. I thought, there are a million girls with box braids in this city—it’s not her.
I went over as if carried on a conveyor belt. “Hi.”
Milan turned, but her expression didn’t change when she saw me. “Oh, hey.”
She never responded to my message. “Are you… are you mad at me?”
She searched the room the way people did to appear preoccupied. Her eyes, when they did finally find me, seemed to by accident. “Ryen told me…”
“Told you?”
“What happened.”
Shoppers glided obviously around us. So many girlfriends, comparing lip tints, yapping in a new-age Valley girl lilt, sporting pink paper bags.
My hand choked the sample bottle. “What did he tell you?”
“Everything.”
He’d told her that I came on to him, that I said, Milan doesn’t have to know.
The ground felt unstable. I thought I was going to fall. “And you believe that?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It sounds like you.”
Her words moved through me like a stake moving through someone’s chest.
She tucked a loose braid behind her ear. That’s when I saw it, the glimmer of stone on her finger latched to a thin gold band. I thought of Gentileschi’s fingers crushed at her trial.
She followed my gaze. “I didn’t tell you ’cause I knew you wouldn’t be happy.”
The man in the stairwell was going to be someone’s husband.
“Congratulations,” I said.
Perhaps remembering all the dizzy times we spent together—in our dorm watching rom-coms, eating doughnuts—before men broke down the door of our lives, she said softly, “How are you coping? I mean with Jay having a new girlfriend?”
I didn’t know Jay had a new girlfriend. I hadn’t spoken to him, hadn’t checked his Instagram, only looked through old pictures on my laptop, tears slipping over the hill of my nose, blubbering about heartbreak on the phone to my mom, who said in so many words she saw this coming.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“Oh. Well. I’m sure it’s not serious. You were always the love of his life.”
She let me take her ring finger in my hand, perhaps hoping I’d admire it.
Instead, I pressed my thumb into the diamond’s edges until it made a deep, painful impression on my skin.
I couldn’t tell if she was angry with me or if she pitied me too much for anger.
For the first time, I didn’t see a way back to her or anyone else. I didn’t see a way forward either.
In the end, all I managed to say was “Let me know if you wanna buy anything. I’ll ring you up on the iPad.”
Saying nothing, she slipped her hand from mine, a scarf falling from a table, slow enough that I might’ve caught it.