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I’d been looking forward to our beach trip next month in June. I was actually…
God, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about losing my virginity to that jerk!
“Sweetie, he’s an asshole.”
I nodded, but couldn’t keep myself from crying. “And he cheated on me and kicked me to the curb. What does that say about me? That I’m just the girl he calls because he’s bored on Saturday? Face it; I’m not anything. I can’t even get an internship. I can barely make ends meet. Of course Kevin wasn’t happy. He was always pressuring me.”
Tammy narrowed her eyes. “First of all, that’s his problem and not yours if he can’t freaking wait. Second, if I ever see him again, I’m going to beat him to death with a shovel. Besides, you’re not the loser here. He’s the giant douchebag for thinking he could pull this crap on you. Hell, you should tell your sorority president and get Ashley kicked out. She violated the sisters before misters rule big time.”
“They don’t care. I get to be in there as a charity case. I like some of the other girls, but a lot just treat me like the poor girl pariah. I stay cause of the few who are nice, but also, I figured I needed to make connections, you know? If you put in a resume and they know you were in the same sorority it helps. I need any leg up I can think of.”
Tammy nodded and stood. Her long legs took giant strides across our living room as she paced. “Then why don’t you ever take what I’m offering?”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “My dad. You know all about his business empire. I offered last February to help get you a job interview with him. I, okay, might have asked him about it already a few times. He changes the subject, and I never nailed him hard into letting you have an interview because I was afraid to overstep too much.”
I laughed, a giggle snort that was the first bit of r
elief I’d had all day. “Tammy, you always overstep. It’s what you live for.”
“You’ve always been so stubborn about trying to make things on your own!”
I stalled, trying to pick my next words carefully. Of course, I was about standing on my own. When you came from where I did, you couldn’t rely on anyone else. I cared about Tammy, she was the closest I had to a sister in the world, but at the end of the day, people would disappoint you. It’d happened to me over and over again. Besides, maybe part of it was pride, but I wanted to make it on my own. It felt like cheating if, after all the resumes and interviews I’d gone on so far looking for an internship, I couldn’t get one on my own.
“I don’t want you to feel obligated,” I said.
“I wouldn’t. You’re my friend, and you’ve saved my ass on every term paper I’ve had to do for three years. It’s not a burden or you using my connections or any of that. I’m offering.”
I sighed and picked at my cuticles. “But I don’t… I’d feel like I owed you. I’d feel like even if it’s the best job in the world—”
Tammy winked at me, apparently undeterred. “Well, I’m not trying to oversell it. You’ll be getting coffee and working on layouts late at night with everyone else.”
“That’s what I do now at the student paper.”
“And this one would be for Swagger. It’s one of the top fashion magazines out there and a pretty good-sized crown jewel in Daddy’s empire. Please, I wouldn’t have passed Modern Civilizations or Shakespearean Lit without you helping me brainstorm my term papers. I owe you.”
I sighed. If I didn’t get an internship this summer, I was going to be hurting badly. My work study job would stop in a few weeks, and although Tammy had the rent covered, I would still be struggling to buy things like food or metro cards. It wasn’t even that I distrusted Tammy. No. I couldn’t quite trust myself. It felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. If I jumped off and started trusting people again for the stuff I really needed after so long on my own, maybe I’d never stop. Maybe I’d find myself in a world again where I couldn’t quite stand on my own two feet. It had almost killed me before.
I didn’t want to go back.
But I didn’t want to starve all summer either. I wasn’t even sure what I had left in savings outside of what I’d squirreled away for fall’s tuition. Even with an instant noodle diet, I’d be feeling pretty desperate. Besides, the last place I’d interviewed with technically hadn’t gotten back to me, but it had been six weeks since that interview. I wasn’t exactly holding my breath for any big breaks there either.
Tammy paused and frowned. “I’m not trying to hone your life. I mean, if anything… I’m paying you back. You don’t feel like I’m forcing everything on you, do you? Like I’m flaunting my connections?”
I stood up and placed my hands on my hips. “It’s me I don’t trust. I always promised myself that I wouldn’t do something with nepotism; that I would get there the honest way.”
“Like I said, you’re getting coffee and being an editorial assistant, not writing front page pieces with huge bylines. Besides, I can get you the interview with Daddy. He’s the one who makes the final decisions. Even if I get you in today, he will make that call. It’s still all up to you to impress him.”
“Yeah, but…” I stopped and gaped at her. “What did you just say?”
“Um, that you could impress him today.”
“When? It’s already noon.” I glanced at the clock by the kitchen.
“Well, Dad and I have lunch scheduled at one. We get a cab, and we can book over there. I can do Thai with Daddy any time, but you can’t just get your chance to interview whenever.”
I ran a hand through my hair, which was at least washed since I’d been trying to look nice for the surprise birthday morning with Kevin. Still, I’d just had the worst shock of my life. My sneakers still had cake crumbs packed in the treads, and the last thing I felt up to was walking into the interview of a lifetime at one of the biggest publishers on the planet when I could barely think straight.
