My shoulders drooped. “Yeah. Now can Ipleaseeat my mac and cheese and wallow in my despair?”
Rose’s face turned to stone. “No,” she said as sharply as her cat eyeliner, and grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me out of the kitchen and down the hallway to our bedrooms. “C’mon. We are going out. We are forgetting our worries. We are going to conquer this stupid, loud, exhausting city tonight! Or dietrying!”
At the moment, I’d rather have died.
Rose’s closet was full of fashion. It was a runway in our apartment. Beautiful sparkly dresses and soft blouses and pencil skirts with a slitjustlow enough to be work appropriate. Rose took out a short black dress, the one she had been trying to make me wear for at least a month now, and finally her evil plan was coming to fruition.
I shook my head. “No.”
“C’monnnn,” Rose pleaded, presenting the dress to me. “It’ll really make your ass pop.”
“I think you mean my ass will popoutof it.”
“Floreeeeeeence,” she whined.
“Roooose,” I whined back.
She frowned. Narrowed her eyes. And said—
“Catawampus.”
My eyes widened at the word. “Don’t youdare,” I whisper-warned.
“Cat-a-wam-pus,” she enunciated, and there it was. Our emergency word. The word with no arguments. It wasn’t a requestanymore—it was an order. We allowed each other one a year. “You aren’t an old spinster in a tower, and you’ve been acting like it for too long, and honestly? I should’ve done this sooner. If you aren’t making progress on your stupid story—”
“It’s not stupid!”
“—then there’s no use sitting here eating depression mac and cheese and getting drunk alone on Two-Buck Chuck.Cat-a-wam-pus.”
I glared at her. She smirked, crossing her arms over her chest, triumphant.
I threw up my arms. “Fine!Fine. I will only do this if you promise to do the dishes for the next month.”
“Week.”
“Deal.”
We shook on it.
Somehow, I had the feeling that she got the better end of the deal, and my suspicions were confirmed when she said, “Now get naked and put this on. We’re going to get you in trouble tonight and find you some inspiration to kiss.”
“I don’t need trouble to—”
“Naked! Now!” she cried, and pushed me out of her room and into my own and shut me inside. I stared down at the dress in my hands. It wasn’tthatbad. Sure, it was way too short for my liking and it had at least a hundred too many sequins, and it probably cost more than an entire month ofrent, but it wasn’t the gaudiest thing in Rose’s wardrobe. (That went to the rainbow number she broke out every June for the Pride Parade. There were strangers we never saw the rest of the year who recognized her in that dress every single Pride.) The dress wasn’t really my taste, but maybe that’s exactly what I needed.
To forget that I had failed at the one thing I was ever good at. To pretend like tomorrow wasn’t the last day of the best career of my life. To be someone else for a while.
Just for a night.
Someone who didn’t fail.
4
Fated Mates
ROSE WAS LIKEan encyclopedia of the night. She knew exactly what restaurant had the best deconstructed burger, and which warehouses housed the most recent silent rave. (And how to get there.) She knew which cellar jazz bars made the best sidecars and the best diner for 3:00a.m.hangover cures and the cheapest cocktails at the local artisanal bar where the next Franzen lamented about not having the time to pen his Great American Novel. She came from a small town in Indiana, with only a duffel bag and money stuffed into her shoes, and somehow, she’d made New York City her home in a way I never could.
I think it was the stars. I missed the stars too much. Especially the way they looked from the brick steps of my parents’ front porch.