God, even in my dreams that asshole knows how to make me come harder than anyone in my entire—
“Don’t you have the big TV thingie today?” Becky asks, a moue of concern on her face. “You mentioned it last night. Before our impromptu cursing of He Who Shall Not Be Named and everything he did to you.”
It’s coming back to me, slowly. Becky insisting that since it was a full moon, we should stick our heads off of my fire escape and howl at the moon, demanding it curse Lark Anderson with bad sex for a decade, in retribution for him hurting me.
My face flushes bright red. God, I hope none of the neighbors heard the details.
Then I process the rest of her sentence. TV interview. On the Right Now Show. With Jackie Shells, international supermodel, who thanks to some convincing from Sheryl—and a heap of samples of the makeup from me—has just recently agreed to become the face of my makeup brand.
Sorry. Our makeup brand.
And that’s in… I check the clock over my stove top, heart pounding. Less than two hours. “Shit.” I practically race toward the bedroom.
Becky watches me go with a smirk. “Relax,” she calls over the sounds of me tearing through my closet for the outfit I have all planned out, but which I’d forgotten to actually lay out last night. Because I hadn’t been planning on getting roaring drunk. I hadn’t planned on being so distracted all this week that I forgot about the most important interview I’ll probably ever have in my entire life.
“The Right Now studio’s only a twenty minute drive from here,” Becky calls into the bedroom. “I’ll drive you. I’m just parked downstairs.”
“I was going to get there early and run through prep questions,” I exclaim. “I was going to talk to Sheryl for like an hour beforehand. Fuck!” I realize the skirt I wanted to wear is crumpled up in the laundry hamper.
Becky knocks at the door jam. “Can I help?”
I let out a sigh and hold up the pressed blouse I think will look good with my skin tone on television, in mute supplication.
“Need to match this?” she asks, and I nod, knowing that I look even more pitiful right now than I did last night. Becky takes the blouse from my hands. “Go eat your croissant, ok? There’s coffee too, it’s on the counter. I’ll handle this.”
Mutely, I follow her advice and make a beeline into the living room. The sun’s already peering through my curtains. I overslept by a long shot. But Becky’s right. The studio is nearby. And they’ll want to do all my makeup themselves anyway, so at least I don’t have to worry about that part of the morning routine.
I open the box of pastries and dig into the chocolate croissant, pausing only for desperate gulps of coffee. By the time I finish both, the worst of the hangover has worn off, chased away by the miracle of caffeine and sugar mingled sprinkled with adrenaline.
I’ve just about convinced myself that I can handle this after all—I can nail this interview, seal my place as one of the big up-and-coming names to watch in the makeup world, and impress Jackie Shells to boot—when my phone pings with a new message. It’s from Sheryl. No doubt asking me what time I’m getting to the studio, since if I know her, she’s already there obsessively early, walking her way through prep.
It is from Sheryl. But it’s not the message I’m expecting. Not by a long shot.
Sorry to do this at the last moment, she writes, but something’s come up. Urgent board meeting for another corporation that I can’t miss. Don’t worry, though. You’ll have plenty of support at the interview. I’ll be sending Lark in my place.
She follows this with a thumbs up and a smiling emoji. As if that’s supposed to calm the sudden explosion of nerves in my gut.
Great. So on top of everything else—on top of all the pressure I’m already under… I have to deal with walking onto the live TV set today and seeing the man who just broke my heart.
12
Cassidy
Becky drops me off outside the studio with a long hug, a smacking kiss on the cheek, and a resounding, “Go knock ‘em dead, tiger.”
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to say break a leg for stuff like this,” I reply, clambering out of her car to slam the door behind me.
“I thought that was for stage actors,” she protests, and I shrug, laughing a little as I wave her away from the curb. Then I turn to face the music solo.
My stomach is a riot of nerves. Worse than it’s maybe ever been in my life, and I used to head up the debate team and speak in public all the time in college. Normally I’m confident, poised—especially when I’m talking about a subject I know so well. And what could I know more about than my own product line, the makeup I’ve been dreaming about bringing to the world for years, and which I’m finally succeeding at making?