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T H I R T E E N
- Maeve -
I wasn’t nervous till the end of the day when I saw Franny Fitzroy in the bathroom. Her makeup bag was exploded across the counter, and she was changing out of a houndstooth jacket into a frilly silk top that seemed at odds with the chunky gold necklaces dripping from her neck.
"Big plans tonight?" I asked as I washed my hands.
"No," she said. "Just drinks with the girls, but no one hits on me when I've got my ball-busting clothes on."
I turned back towards the mirror and wondered if she had a point. Maybe a pantsuit wasn't the best thing to wear to the bar tonight. Not that I wanted Finn to hit on me. Or did I? It seemed a waste of time to pretend a laid-back musician would ever be interested in someone like me romantically, and yet…we did have chemistry.
Then again, my memory of New Year's Eve was probably fuzzy from the post-traumatic stress of Kurt's rejection. More likely, I was pathetically interpreting Finn’s every smile as a lifeline while he was only being kind.
"What about you?" Franny asked before leaning over the sink to deepen the red of her lips.
I cringed as I watched her deliberately apply lipstick beyond the border of her natural lip line and wondered if I was totally alone in thinking it made her look cheap and desperate. At the same time, I used makeup to boost my confidence, too, so who was I to judge her application methods? At least she knew better than to look fish-lipped at work.
"You have any exciting plans?" she asked. "I heard you're on the rebound."
"Pardon?" I asked, letting one hand drip over the sink as I grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser with the other.
"I heard about you and Kurt splitting up."
"You did?"
She nodded. "Can't say I was surprised."
That makes one of us.
"I always pictured you with someone more…" She blotted her lips on a paper towel.
I held my brows still, so they wouldn't give away how desperate I was for the rest of that sentence.
"Manly."
I cocked my head as I dried my hands.
"No offense."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what? Never mind.” She waved her acrylic nails through the air. “I shouldn't have even mentioned it."
"No, go ahead. I care about your opinion." All of a sudden. And only because I sense you're going to tell me something I want to hear.
"I guess I've always thought you were such a strong woman."
"Thanks," I said, though I didn't feel particularly strong. If she knew me better, she'd discover my confidence was nothing more than Spanx and a fake-it-till-you-make-it mentality.
"Whereas he's not exactly…remarkable, is he?" she asked. "That’s probably unfair of me to say."
"Not at all," I said, grateful to have an ally. Especially because I hadn't told my best friend what happened yet. She was away with her family over New Year’s, and I didn't think she could possibly pity me properly from a sun lounger with an umbrella drink in her hand. "Did you hear how we broke up?" Should I tell her? Gossiping about my personal life in a professional setting was decidedly against my code of ethics, but the women's bathroom was a sacred space, right?
"Yeah. Maybe that's why I don't care much for the guy. Who dumps someone at the company Christmas party?"
My stomach dropped.
"For what it's worth, he totally disgraced himself flirting with that catering girl after you left."
