Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“I am not wearing this dress for freaking Nick,” I yell after her. At least not the way she thinks I am.
She does not look back. Mom knows how to make an exit.
“It is really pretty,” Ani says as she sits on my bed. It’s the same daybed my mom bought me at the age of twelve when I insisted on getting rid of the princess canopy bed I’d had since I was five.
It’s one of the only memories I have of my father. He took me to a big-box furniture store in Newark and bought me a big-girl princess bed and we ate dinner at Olive Garden and my mom and dad talked about having another kid and how it would be fun to have a boy, but I wanted a sister.
He died from a heart attack three weeks later.
Sometimes I wonder if she was so upset about that bed because it felt like I was getting rid of a piece of him.
Spending time with Heath has me slightly unsettled. I’m not usually so introspective. I move forward, never looking back.
“So who are you wearing it for?” Ani asks, her tone breezy.
I’m not fooled. My parents might not have been able to have that other kid they’d wanted, but I’d found a sister. Two of them, and I knew them well. “I’m wearing it because I didn’t like the other options. I’ve only got one dress that can pass for a cocktail dress, and it won’t work.”
“You met Heath,” she says, her lips curling up.
The problem with sisters is they end up knowing you, too. “Yes, and now we’re business partners, so you can forget about anything flirty happening between us.”
Besides, the man hadn’t flirted with me at all. He’d been all business. If anything, I would guess he’s slightly afraid of me. He’s interested in my skills and my ability to keep him in cheap food while he works on his precious.
“I’m sorry, what?” Ani sits up straight. “I thought you were helping him with…whatever it is you do.”
I don’t blame her for not knowing. I barely understand what goes into producing a TV show, and I’m cool with that. I will support my sisters-from-other-misters in whatever they want to pursue. “I was, and then I realized he was telling Harper a fib.”
“Heath was lying? About what?”
“He doesn’t need me to fix anything. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be happy to have some help on the coding end, but what that man needs is financing.”
Ani bites her bottom lip, a sure sign she’s anxious. “Oh, Harper’s going to be so upset.”
“Why? He needs money. I need a project. I was lying this morning. I’ve got nothing. Not nothing, but a whole notebook of little ideas. Nothing that’s going to make CeCe drool. He’s got something that could be special.” It just isn’t the thing he thinks he has. That’s a problem I plan to deal with later. “Harper did exactly what she set out to do. She managed to hook up two friends of hers, though not in the way she hoped. Or maybe it’s not what she hoped. Does she like this guy? I know she said she didn’t, but…”
I let the insinuation dangle, watching Ani carefully.
She shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing. “She’s not into Heath that way. She met him. She liked him. He’s into tech. You’re into tech. There you go.”
Not that it matters because I’m serious. I don’t need a boyfriend. Not a real one anyway. If my ex takes one look at me with Heath and misinterprets our relationship, I have no problem with that. It would do him good to think I can find a man.
Even if I can’t. Because I’m not looking for one.
The truth of the matter is I need to walk into that party tonight looking like the woman I want to be. Fake it ’til you make it. Even after you’ve already made it and lost it, so you fake it all over again.
“You weren’t attracted to him at all?” Ani asks. “Are you wearing your hair that way?”
I am a great believer in multitasking. If Anika wants me to talk about my non love life, she can get to work. “Can you do an updo?”
She perks up. She takes any chance she can to make the world a prettier place. “Yes. I think that would be perfect with the dress. Sit.”
I settle in at the vanity with its rhinestones and pink hearts that I hadn’t wanted but my mother insisted I have because she found it at an estate sale for five dollars. Still, over the years it’s become one of those memorable places. I’d sat here and let Anika do my hair for prom. Harper hadn’t gone. Her father had been sick, and her mother needed too much help for her to do something as silly as prom, she’d claimed.