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She sits up in her chair, leaning forward and mashing her palms on the desk. For a few seconds, she seems to examine the back of her perfect hands, her perfect nails, her beautiful, long bones. I can feel her plotting, planning. Strategizing. After a little while, she lifts her head and squints at me.
“Bella, I'm going to need you to go on a date.”
My mouth pops open with a tiny, surprised noise. Pop.
“Wait, what?”
“And then write about it.”
My heart starts beating faster.
“But I thought —”
She looks at me, pressing her lips together hard. “Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Now's not the time.”
I take a deep breath. I can tell she's got a lot going on and is probably not one hundred percent focused on my needs or my life at this moment. That tells me I need to move very carefully through this conversation.
“You’re telling me now's not the time for me to get back to personal journalism? Essays? Pieces that... mean something?” Even that last is a bit too far. A little too accusatory.
She nods tensely. “It's not forever. I promise.”
I swallow over what feels like a sudden swelling in the back of my mouth. “But, Hannah, we talked about this, right? That mascara piece has almost a hundred and thirty thousand shares on it, right? I mean, did you see?”
“Oh, I saw it! And congratulations!” she says enthusiastically. I swell under her praise. It really is a good number, I know she knows that.
But her expression immediately changes. She holds her hand up, like she's balancing a fact in her empty palm. “See, that's why you are the perfect person for this. You have unmatched reach. People listen to you. When you do this piece, it'll really have an impact for us.”
I feel a gri
m smile forming on my lips. I really thought my popularity numbers were going to get me out of this fairly humiliating job, not bury me deeper in it. I feel so stupid.
“I don't know if I really want to do this anymore. I think that I would be so much better for you if I went back to writing, you know, the deeper stuff. I mean anybody could do —”
“No,” she interrupts me, almost coldly.
I feel like I’m not really the first thing on her mind. Not the real me — not the childhood friend. I’m just a soldier in her battle, a piece on her gameboard.
“It's got to be you,” she continues. “I just… I can’t think of anybody else that is even in the league. You’re perfect. Only you, Bella. You know what I mean?”
“Not really?”
I feel my face getting hot. Disappointment is sloshing through me, filling me like a sloppily poured beverage. Something sour. Something served at the wrong temperature.
She sees it too. I see her shoulders slump a little bit and she softens. She stands up and comes around to the front of her desk, dropping into the chair next to me and slapping me lightly on the knee.
“You’re sweet,” she begins again, more gently.
“What are you talking about? You want me to go out on a date because I’m sweet?”
She nods, waiting for me to get the drift. What does sweetness have to do with —
“Wait a second,” I groan, putting it together. “You want me to go on a date because I’m a… because…”
“Because you won’t fuck him, yes,” she nods emphatically.
“Jesus, Hannah. That’s a little cynical.”
Hearing her say fuck especially in this context puts me on edge. I may be a virgin, but I have a pretty open way of speaking compared to her. It’s my “trucker mouth,” as my grandma used to say. But if she’s talking like this, she must be unusually frustrated. Still my virginity should be off-limits. She doesn’t own me.
