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Then there was Charlie—always warm and friendly; she smiled lots and gave hard hugs and loved tromping through the woods. Charlie was my age and got what it was like to be the baby in a social sphere where everyone was older than you. She was happy to disappear into imaginative worlds and be faery queens, brave maiden warriors, to make soup from flowers, leaves, and mud, to befriend baby birds and adopt the family of bunnies that demolished my mom’s vegetable garden at the A-frame, our family’s getaway home that became a refuge for Charlie, too.
Charlie has always been so good to me. Knowing what she’s been through, how she’s learned to cope and live in a way that makes her happy, I could never ask her to go through anything that made her miserable like she was when she was in the spotlight as a kid.
I think Charlie knows this, that I didn’t ask for her help, even in the ways she could, because I’m trying to shield her from what it would expose her to. When I told her what I was doing, she didn’t disapprove of my plan to put myself out there a little more, get noticed and take the chance to change my image. But she definitely disapproved of my plan involving Sebastian.
“Listen,” she says, jogging up to me, breathing heavily. My mind’s been spinning in place, but Charlie and I’ve been running, sending long, hard one-touch passes to each other across the field. “Fact is, I don’t trust that guy. That’s all there is to it. He is—”
“Despicable,” I finish for her. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me, Charlie, and I’ve told you I’m aware of his reputation. That’s why I’m doing this with him.”
Her scowl returns as she squints up at me. “I know you’re leaning on him because you don’t feel like you can lean on me, and I hate that—”
“Charlie—”
“No, listen. I also selfishly appreciate it. I am not ready to put myself in the spaces you want to be in right now, and you and I are secure enough in our friendship that we can both own our boundaries as well as honor each other’s. I know you don’t resent me for not being able to do this for you. You’ve just outsourced.”
I bite my lip. “I really do think he’s a good outsource.”
“Oh, on paper, heck yes. But the thing you have to be careful of is not to count on him for anything beyond that. People like Seb Gauthier don’t change, Ziggy. Ask me how I know.” She lifts her eyebrows. “My parents are self-absorbed, self-destructive, and reliable for one thing: their unreliability. Sebastian’s cut from that same cloth.”
I swallow the question that’s burning in my throat—How does she know that? How and when can anyone decide they have a fundamental read on a person’s character, let alone know that character is immutable?
I don’t ask Charlie those questions, because it’s territory we don’t venture into. It would come dangerously close to sounding like I question her view on incredibly difficult parts of her past. I can’t do that. So I’m quiet, waiting for what comes next.
“I can’t go out with you,” Charlie says, wiping sweat from her forehead, eyes narrowed against the sun. “But I can certainly help make sure you aren’t ‘an unknown redhead’ for much longer.”
I frown down at her. “How?”
Charlie smiles, slow and just about as close to wicked as I think she’ll ever come. “Come home with me after practice. We’ll let Gigi work her magic.”
Charlie’s got me covered, all right, but just barely, if we’re going by the dress she hooked me up with. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, specifically the dress’s hem, which is dangerously close to revealing everything. “If I so much as sneeze,” I tell her and Gigi, “I’m going to flash the whole place.”
Gigi chuckles as she plucks a pin from between her teeth and slips it along the hem of the dark-green dress that she raided from her closet. “Wardrobe malfunctions are great publicity.”
I wrinkle my nose. “How?”
Charlie stands behind me, arms folded across her chest as she watches Gigi work. “You know what they say. No such thing as bad publicity.”
“I’m no expert, but I think there is absolutely bad publicity, and it would definitely be bad publicity if my first identifying moment in a major news outlet was exposing myself.”
Gigi sits back on her heels, head tipped as she examines the hem and its precarious location at the edge of my butt cheeks. “Okay, maybe you’re right. This is a little short. I’ll take it down.”
A sigh of relief leaves me as she starts to take out pins and lowers the hem.
“So,” Charlie says, walking around to face me. “Let’s recap and talk strategy.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“First of all, this is your move, your moment. Remember that. You took charge, and this Friday is your night. The charity event’s after-party is the perfect sweet spot for being a little naughty but still classy.”
“Kudos to Seb for coming through with that on such short notice,” Gigi says.
Charlie glares at Gigi, but it’s tinged with affection and lacks heat. “Of course he came through. Parties like that are brimming with hypocrites like him and a dime a dozen. Rich people wearing expensive clothes, pretending they give a shit about people who aren’t rich and can’t afford expensive clothes, after donating a paltry amount of their wealth to a cause, when, if all those fancy fools simply donated the money they spent on their clothes for these events and after-parties, the very issues they raise money for would be eradicated.”
“That’s…bleak,” I mutter.
Gigi snorts. “Welcome to the life of the rich and famous.”
I was surprised Seb came through so quickly after I texted him, with the news he had an event that would work this coming Friday. But now it sounds like maybe that was silly, to be surprised, given how prevalent Charlie and Gigi said these sorts of functions are.
