I wondered if Nia had told her what I’d done. I didn’t entirely understand their relationship, but I somehow understood that was not something they’d talk about. I’d drafted an apology text but deleted it. There were no words I could say to fix this.
“What’re you gonna do now?”
Janine coughed into her fist. “I’m retiring.” But then she cracked a smile. “I’m starting a publishing imprint, of course.”
“Really?! What’re you naming it?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll need some help.” She looked at me, and I got the message.
I straightened against the bench. “Like, like, an editor?”
“Have you edited anything before?”
“No.”
“Think smaller.”
“Like an assistant editor?”
She pinched her fingers.
I frowned. “Like an editorial assistant?”
“Yes! Or even just a regular assistant.”
That sounded awful.
She patted my hand. “Oh, don’t make that face. Think about it, that’s all. How’s your writing coming along?”
“It’s not.”
She laughed. “It will, trust me, at the absolute stupidest moment, it will reveal itself to you.”
Her cat poked its head out of her bag like it’d been drugged and stuffed there, stretching its slinky body into my lap.
“She remembers me?”
“No, dear. She just likes the color yellow.”
I looked down at my yellow top. Sure enough, the cat rammed its furry head into my chest as if to get closer to the yellow on it.
Chapter 76
The skin care store was in Georgetown: a minimalist millennial-pink jewelry box, skylight illuminating a wide staircase leading to a “pink skies ahead” arrivals and departures sign that flickered a new aphorism every few minutes. I’d been working there for a little over a week, mostly cleaning or standing around with an iPad. Instead of talking about food I talked about makeup, but my role was effectively the same.
Every so often, when no one was paying attention, I brought the brand’s flagship milky-looking perfume to my nose like a forlorn loser. If I closed my eyes, it was like Nia was there. I did this once during a lull on the showroom floor. When I opened my eyes, a girl with long blond braids was aggressively flipping through the oversized hoodies on the rack in the corner. My stomach lurched. I thought, there are a million girls with box braids in this city—it’s not her.
I went over as if carried on a conveyor belt. “Hi.”
Milan turned, but her expression didn’t change when she saw me. “Oh, hey.”
She never responded to my message. “Are you… are you mad at me?”
She searched the room the way people did to appear preoccupied. Her eyes, when they did finally find me, seemed to by accident. “Ryen told me…”
“Told you?”
“What happened.”
