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“Do you think it’s true?” Sitting on the foot of the bed right behind Billie, Tonya is crouched over, painting thick paste-like bleach onto Billie’s dark roots. She lifts her gaze every now and then to watch the celebs walk the carpet. “That he took out some ribs so that he could—”
“I thought that was Prince who did that,” Kate cuts in before bringing the joint to her glossy lips.
“I don’t know about any of that shit. Getting’ ribs taken out?” Billie puckers her lip with look doubt and disgust. “Don’t know if any docs out there would do that, really.”
Billie forces her shoulders back in a pitiful attempt to stretch. She’s been stuck here sitting on the floor at the end of the bed, at Tonya’s mercy, for about an hour now, and she’s pretty damn sure that Tonya’s just blotting more bleach onto already covered spots.
“But the gerbil thing?” Billie adds. “Lord, I was crushing on that man—until I heard that.”
“Can’t be true,” Kate shakes her head. “Gere is too classy—andno oneshoves a gerbil up their asshole. Weird rumor.”
Billie throws her a lopsided grin. “But Prince getting’ ribs taken out isn’t a weird rumor?”
Kate smirks. “At least there’s good reason for it.”
Billie chokes on a scoff-laugh hybrid. But her fading grin still dances on her lips.
Sincere.
She likes her bestie this way. Old Kate.
Relaxed, weed in hand, MTV on, trash talking and—the Kate she grew up with before she started trying so hard to fit in with Trevor’s Abercrombie & Fitch crew.
Kate just winks back at her then passes the joint over her itching, bleach-covered head to Tonya.
“Watch it,” Billie grumbles, throwing her hands up to protect her head.
“Put this on.” Tonya, with her free hand, rattles a plastic bag in her face. “It’ll process faster if you keep the heat in.”
She snatches it and, finally able to stand up, feels bones and joints in her legs pop as she staggers awkwardly to the tall mirror glued to the closet door. It’s like an awkward kind of pins and needles assaulting her legs as she pulls the bag over her hair, then ties it at the front.
The door swings open—and the smell of hot, buttery popcorn is quick to burst into Grace’s bedroom.
Carmine carries in the tray of hot chocolates and rootbeers, Grace balances two bowls of microwave popcorn and a Blockbuster tape tucked under her arm.
Billie turns and snatches out for a rootbeer float. “What’d you pick?”
Grace makes to answer, her freshly lightened ‘Rachel’ hairdo bouncing like a kid on a trampoline. All volume and class.
And here Billie is with a bag on her head.
Carmine’s the one to say, “I picked!”
Kate rolls her eyes just as Tonya looks at the joint pinched between her fingers and whispers, “I’m gonna need you.”
Billie reaches forward and slides out the tape from under Grace’s arm. Disappointment flickers inside of her for just a beat. But then, all she can feel again, the hollow pit carved out by Preston.
Distract me, distract me, distract me.
“Well,” Billie says and tosses it onto the foot of the bed. “Guess we’re watchin’ a romance.”
Tonya picks up the tape and turns it over to read the title.
Billie adds, “At least it’s not Flubber again.”
“The Wedding Singer,” Tonya reads aloud, not particularly enthused or upset. She considers it a moment before she passes it over to Kate. “Do the honors.”
Her perfectly manicured hand reaches over her shoulder for the tape. “Better already be rewound,” she mutters as she crawls over to the TV.
