Cassie [Today 1:37 PM]
I heard it was your birthday
A grin broke across Erin’s face. She dipped her chin to her chest and her thumbs flew over her phone.
Erin [1:37 PM]
It might be…
An ellipsis, like she was trying to be cute or coy or something. As though she could pull off coy after texting back the same minute.
“Who the hell are you texting?”
Erin dropped her phone. She managed to kick it—with her shin, not her foot—before it landed in the tub, and it clattered across the floor instead, chased by a wave of water. The nail tech sighed.
“Sorry!” Erin winced. “Sorry.”
He handed her the phone before reaching for a towel.
“I’d like to amend my question,” Rachel said. “Who thefuckare you texting?”
Erin’s face was probably the color of the nail polish she’d picked out. “My hairdresser texted to wish me a happy birthday.”
“I’m sorry, do you want to fuck your hairdresser?”
Erin glanced down at the nail tech, whose eyebrows were raised as he finished wiping up the water she’d splashed everywhere.
“You know women talk about worse shit here,” Rachel said, waving her hand like it didn’t matter who heard her discussing Erin’s sex life. “Out with it.”
“There’s nothing to be out with,” Erin said. “I’d just rather not you start rumors about me and Abbey at the nail salon.”
“We are excellent secret keepers, thank you,” the woman working on Rachel’s nails said. “We don’t gossip.”
Erin wondered what they’d think if she’d told Rachel the truth.
“I’m sure we are far from the only people who would deserve it,” she said. “Anyway, I do not want to fuck my hairdresser. She was being rude about covering gray hairs as I get older.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you looked like a blushing schoolgirl.”
Rachel never left anything alone in her entire life.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Rach. I mean, I did respond, ‘oh fuck you,’ but I didn’t mean it literally.”
When had Erin become so good at making up an alibi? Her phone buzzed in her hand with another text. She kept looking at Rachel, who appeared to be analyzing her face for signs of deceit.
“Let me see your phone.”
“Oh my God. No. I am not humoring you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.”
“You should’ve seen your face!” Rachel crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “If we weren’t getting pedicures right now, I would get that phone from you.”
Erin believed her. Rachel could be tenacious.
“I’m glad we’re getting pedicures then,” Erin said, refusing to engage. “I’m going to go back to enjoying mine now. It’d be great if, for my birthday, you could stop being annoying.”