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1
GRACE
There areplenty of great reasons to be frantically searching the drugstore aisles on a Friday night: A sudden Rocky Road craving… A last-minute face mask emergency… XXL condoms for a night of wild pleasure. But it says a lot about the sorry state of my life that those delicious, decadent pleasures are most definitelynoton my list tonight.
“Removes grease,” I mutter, perusing the tiny letters on the back of the pet shampoo bottle. “Mud. But what aboutglitter?”
There’s a barking noise, and I look over to find the glitter-bombed beast shedding tiny twinkles all the way down the haircare aisle.
“We’ll fix it, buddy,” I promise, checking another bottle. “We have to, before your parents see you like this.”
Something tells me that my employers won’t be thrilled to find their prized poodle looking like a crazed My Little Pony. Apparently, the kids next door decided that a puppy makeover was part of their homeschooling experience, and it’s down to me to fix this mess. And all messes, in general. Such is the life of a personal assistant slash general dogsbody.
Pun sadly intended.
“Are you sure you don’t like the purple?” I muse, desperately searching the bottles. “It’s very cute on you.”
I get a growl in reply. “I guess that’s a ‘no’.”
The poodle’s name is Henri, pronounced as the FrenchAwn-ree. My bosses, the Bassingers, love their annual trip to Paris—pronounced, of course,Pair-ee. They both work in banking jobs I do not understand, but I know they have very long hours and absolutely unfathomable amounts of money. I once looked up the property records for their Upper West Side townhouse. They paid four million dollars, twenty-five years ago. They were twenty-eight years old at the time.
I, meanwhile, am spending my twenty-eighth year in the Pet section of a Duane Reade drugstore, with zero husband, real estate, or pets to my name. I do have a Ficus tree, though, which is an achievement, considering how many basil plants I’ve cruelly murdered in my time.
“All right, bud,” I tell Henri, grabbing two bottles at random. “Let’s go.” I’m tugging him toward checkout, considering an extra-large bag of popcorn for my sins, when out of the corner of my eye, I spot a girl with glossy brown hair. She sweeps it back while studying a shelf of products.
I freeze in place because I know that hair swish, even though I haven’t seen it for a year.
Nadia, AKA my ex-best friend.
AAKA, the ex-best friend who started dating my ex-boyfriend one week after he dumped me.
AAAKA, you can guess how all those exes came to be.
My blood runs cold, seeing her again. Not to mention exactlywhereI’m seeing her: coming out of the sexual health section.
Oh God—is she pregnant?
Nope! I breathe a massive sigh of relief when I see that she’s actually holding a giant box of condoms. For all the sex she’s having with my ex-boyfriend.
Is that any better?
I gulp. A small part of me wants to warn her:By your second year together, he’ll get lazy in bed.Enjoy!But Nadia doesn’t deserve a warning. Seeing as, you know, she didn’t bother warning me about her plans to steal my man and detonate our friendship, all in one impressively competent swoop.
Nadia turns, and I leap behind a spinning display of greeting cards—but not fast enough. She sees me, and her face quickly goes through the three reactions of running into your ex-best friend: shock, horror, then finally pretend happiness.
“Oh my gosh, Grace!” she exclaims. “Hi! So funny meeting you here.”
“Oh my gosh!” I mimic. She’s in a perfectly tailored, dove gray suit, while my yoga pants have a smear of glitter across the hip. My heart sinks. Of course, the one time I bump into her, I’m looking like a walking laundry basket.
“Howareyou?” she coos. It’s as sugary and fake as wad of bubble gum.
“Fine,” I lie brightly. “How are you?”
Nadia looks great, which means me cursing her name every night for a month after the break-up has had exactly zero effect.
I’m not a perfect person, okay? Some betrayals deserve a couple of face boils, minimum.
“I’m so good!” Nadia trills. “Work is nutty, but it’s so worth it—and such a relief to finallydosomething after so much school.”
