“The truth is… I had to do what I did for Gabriella. Without her, I would have never gone to college, and I wouldn’t have the life I have now. I would be… I don’t know. Waiting tables in Japan somewhere.”
That struck more of a chord with me than I think she’d intended. Certainly more than she could ever know. Gabriella was to Deja as Neil was to me, minus the romantic entanglement. She’d prevented Deja from making a very big mistake.
However, if Neil had asked me to do something unethical in return…
“You didn’t have to do what you did. It wasn’t right.” I wouldn’t bend on that, no matter how much she apologized.
“I know. It was low. Very low. I started working there with the intention of gathering dirt on Mr. Elwood, and I deserved to be fired when he found out. But once I got to know you, and once I realized how much it was going to hurt you, I stopped. And I never did anything that could have harmed the magazine. It never got that far. But I did harm you.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “I told Gabriella you and he were together.”
My heart dropped.
“I’m really sorry. I know that it affected you negatively, and I know—”
“It didn’t affect me negatively,” I interjected. I didn’t even need to consider whether it had or not. It was just a fact. “The only thing that happened from Gabriella knowing that I was fucking my boss was that she asked me to stop fucking him if I came to work for her.”
“Wait, you weren’t…” The left side of her face squinched up slightly. “Why did you get fired?”
“Neil fired me for knowing about Jake being a mole, too.” I drummed my fingers on the table in the silence that followed. “I mean, like I said, I was fucking my boss. I don’t know how I thought that was a wise career move. I guess we both did some pretty unethical shit in the name of personal relationships.”
She nodded slowly in agreement. “That we did.”
“But for my part, I’m sorry, too.” I wanted desperately to tell myself that what I’d done in ratting out Deja wasn’t nearly as bad as what she’d done spying on me and Neil, but it was almost worse. I didn’t get fired for Deja tattling on me, after all. “Maybe I should have talked to you first, gotten your side of the story, something. Anything other than how it went down.”
“It went down the way it went down because shit happens and when it does, the person who caused it should clean it up. That’s just a fact of life. And Mr. Elwood did get my side of the story, and he wanted to be sympathetic, but he’s running a huge company. I understand why I got fired.” Deja sighed and took a sip of her mojito. “It is what it is. And despite what Holli may have said, he didn’t threaten me by saying I’d never work in New York again. He’d just stated it as a fact. A fact that my bank account can definitely attest to.”
I shifted in my seat a little. I wanted to know—I desperately wanted to know—but I was afraid to ask the question that had been burning in my mind for months. “Do you…do you think Holli will ever forgive me?”
Deja’s pause was like a dagger through my heart. But then she said, “I can’t imagine that she would ever be happy without you. She’s always comparing your friendship to, oh, what’s that boring book about the white girls in Canada? One of them dyes her hair green by mistake?”
“Anne of Green Gables?”
She bumped the side of her fist against the table. “That’s the one. Not being able to remember that is going to be the marriage ender.”
“Probably. Holli loves those books. Although, I’m not sure she’s comparing us so much to the green hair as she is the part where they get drunk on cordial.”
“Well, I was more of an R.L. Stine girl. But I understand the reference when she says you two are kindred spirits.” The pain on Deja’s face looked as though it rivaled mine; she was as torn up about my falling out with Holli as I was. “I know she said some…pretty strong things—”
“She accused me of being with Neil for his money.” I wouldn’t let that one go. “I get enough of that from everybody else. I can’t believe she went to that place.”
“I’m not going to make excuses for her. But can you see why she might be—why anyone who had a suddenly rich best friend—would have been frustrated? This isn’t all about my firing. She was having a hard time watching you go off on your own. Some of that was the money; we were living pretty tight for a bit there, and now more so. I mean, we’ll make it, but there was some jealousy there.” Deja spread her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.
“I think that’s natural. Unfair, but natural. It’s not like I could ask Neil, ‘hey, could you do me a favor and stop being rich?’” Though we received monthly statements from the financial firm that handled our money, I’d never had the courage to look at them. I had no idea how much we really had, and although I knew that wasn’t wise of me, I found our wealth too intimidating. I couldn’t hold it against Holli that she was intimidated as well.
Deja grimaced in sympathy. “I think the biggest problem was that she saw you slipping away. You know I love her, but Holli has this sense that the world revolves around her. That’s one of the things that makes her so magical. But it also means that she can’t handle change very well. Something like this was inevitable; if she pushed you away, she didn’t have to see you drift away.”
“I miss her so much.” Well, there were the tears. I wiped them away on the back of my hand.
“I know you do. She misses you, too. I just hope that her pride…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“There’s been so much change lately. I mean, good changes, too, obviously.” I shook my head and looked over at the photo hanging in the booth. A model styled strikingly to resemble Audrey Hepburn.
“Ugh,” Deja said, and I noticed her studying the print, as well. “I’m sorry, I get that it’s classic, but it is really overdone. If I had a magazine, I vow I would never run some ‘tribute to white Hollywood glamor’ bullshit.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool to race bend some of those images?” I mused. “Black Audrey Hepburn, black Marilyn Monroe.”
“No, Asian Audrey Hepburn,” Deja corrected me. “It’ll remind people how racist Breakfast at Tiffany’s is.”
“Ooh, good one.” I sighed. “Too bad we’re not in charge.”