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But Bee is right about one thing: Rose would have wanted me to celebrate.
She was all about birthdays. I was the one who got all shy about making myself the center of attention, but Rose looked forward to hers. “I’m officially accepting presents,” she’d announce when the calendar flipped to June. “It’s my birthday month, bitches!”
I’m tugging at the hem of a pretty white wraparound dress with a halter neckline when Bee bursts back in. “Ah, perfect choice! I couldn’t have picked better myself.”
I drop the garment like it burned me. “I was just looking at it.”
“Nope.” She breezes past me and plucks the dress from the rack. “You’re wearing it tonight.”
I sigh tiredly. “Bee…”
I’ve never seen her look so determined. “I’m not playing today, Wren. You don’t get to sit around and mope all day. I know I’m a poor stand-in, but I consider myself an understudy for your sister. I’m just doing what she would have wanted for you today.”
“I’d like to point out that you never actually met my sister.”
She waves that bit of logic away. “Details,” she demurs, flinging the dress at me. “Now, put that on. How do you feel about letting me do your makeup? You love it? Great. I’m excited, too.”
“Um, I wasn’t planning on wearing makeup.”
Her back is to me, but I can still hear her snort. “Think again.” She bends down and frees a pair of black stilettos from the bottom rack of my open shoe display. “This pair will go amazing with your dress.”
I squint at the heels with uncertainty. “Don’t you think this is all a little… over the top?”
“There is no such thing. Now, go shower. I need a clean face before I apply your makeup.”
I end up spending five minutes staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror while the shower heats up behind me. I look the exact same way I did the day I found out about Rose and Jared’s accident. My cheeks are blotchy, my eyes puffy, my nose red, and dried tear tracks that look like scars run up and down my face.
A nightmare, in other words.
Thankfully, the rinse helps me look decidedly less nightmarish. I can’t quite get rid of the puffiness in my eyes or the blotchiness on my cheeks, but by the time Bee’s done with me, I actually look quite good.
“There. Don’t you feel better now?” Bee proclaims, wielding her makeup brush up like a battle ax.
I nod shyly. The truth is I actually do feel better. Somewhere between the blush pink lipstick and the cat eye eyeliner, I even start to look forward to a night out.
That lasts all of about ten minutes.
It goes up in smoke the very moment that Bee and I walk to the foyer to find Dmitri standing there in a crisp suit. Navy blue, pinstripes, Hugo Boss. He wears it on Tuesdays more often than not. It makes his eyes shine.
He’s murmuring in a low voice to someone on the phone with his back to us. I freeze and clutch Bee’s arm. “He’s coming with us?” I hiss in her ear.
“Consider him more of an ATM than anything else tonight. Her smile is angelically innocent—or devilishly mischievous, depending on how you look at it. “We’re going to the Rainbow Room, honey. Order whatever you want. He’s paying.”
That’s funny—because right now, it feels like I’m the one who’s going to have to pay.
40
WREN
“Ah, The Rainbow Room,” Bee sighs fondly as she gazes around. “So many memories.”
The place is a kaleidoscope of pockets of shadow intermingled between splashes of colored lights burning coolly in bronze sconces set on the walls. A jazz band plays from a stage in the far corner, partially hidden by a latticework of dark green plants. Waiters buzz back and forth in crisp black uniforms, and couples fill every nook and cranny, whispering to each other intimately over the jet-black tabletops festooned with cocktails and burning trails of smoke.
Almost exclusively couples, actually. We might be the only trio in the place. I feel like the thirdest wheel that’s ever third-wheeled, but neither Dmitri nor Bee bat an eye.
“Memories?” I ask distractedly.
I get Bee asking—or, given her mood, bullying—Dmitri into coming tonight. But why on earth would he say yes?
