Instead of answering my question, Troy promenaded the perimeter of the office, evaluating the merchandise as if he owned the place.
“I didn’t have to find her.” He thumbed the ruffle on a blouse. All of Troy’s nervousness from our last meeting was gone. “She’s my boss at America’s Best Cookie…”
Troy worked for the granddaughter all summer? That didn’t make any sense unless …
She was back. Just when I thought she’d ghosted for good.
Zoe.
The granddaughter was Zoe.
Of course the granddaughter was Zoe.
Only nepotism could explain why a phantasmagoric vigilante could rise up the ranks at such an assertively patriotic food court franchise.
“So, Zoe just gave it to you?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said sourly. “There were some conditions involved.”
“What kind of conditions?”
“Well, let’s just say that I’m on ABC janitorial duty for the rest of the summer.”
I bet Zoe would’ve just given the doll to me if I had a chance to ask. But the thought of her making Troy do all the grossest dirty work pleased me.
“So, are you going to let me have it or what?”
“I too have conditions.”
Then he laughed like a mustache-twirling villain. Too bad what little facial hair Troy managed to grow only came in sparse, translucent patches.
“Just tell me what you want so I can get back to work.”
“I want,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “a second chance.”
I don’t know what was crazier: thinking he deserved a second chance or bribing me into giving him one.
“How do I know you’ve even got the right doll?”
“I’ve got the right doll.”
“But how do I know for sure?”
“You don’t trust me, Cassandra?”
Before I knew what was happening, a stapler flew out of my hands and struck the wall three inches above Troy’s head.
“Cassandra! What the hell?”
“I trusted you not to cheat on me with a homicidal hamster in acid wash Z. Cavariccis,” I said icily. “And stop calling me Cassandra.”
He was panting, petrified. I dismissed him with a flick of my pinky.
“You can go now.”
And when I thought he’d finally run away with his tail between his legs, he demonstrated why he was so hard to get rid of.
“Bellarosa.”
At first I didn’t understand why he said it. Until I did.
“The doll’s name. That’s why you want it.” His confidence wavered. “Right?”
Rey Ajedrez, Lustig Zeit, Pieds D’Abord, Silva Mundi, En Tatws Ugain.
And now …
Bella Rosa.
A shadow of concern passed over his face. Had he just said more than he should have? I summoned everything I’d learned about manipulation and persuasion by observing Drea at work.
“Of course it is.”
One sunny smile was all it took for Troy’s cloud of self-doubt to disappear. My ex was no longer worried that he’d accidentally revealed the very information I was seeking.
When, in fact, that’s exactly what he had just done.
“One date in exchange for the doll and the birth certificate,” I told him. “Deal?”
He smiled.
“One date is all I need.”
28
BIG DREAMS
I could hardly wait for Troy to exit the store before sharing the news with Drea. She was at the front counter with the latest issue of Cosmo, a reward for selling two thousand dollars’ worth of Frontier Hooker bridesmaid dresses. It was the first real break she’d had all week.
“It’s here!” I didn’t mean to shout, but I couldn’t help myself. “The clue!”
“What do you mean it’s here?”
“Bella Rosa!” I shouted. “The next clue is hidden in the boutique!”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What are you two girls going on about?” Gia asked.
We locked eyes and replied in unison.
“Nothing!”
Then we conspicuously raced to the back office for privacy.
“How do you know?” Drea demanded to know.
“Troy told me.”
Drea stuck out her tongue. “What’s that loser got to do with our treasure?”
I relayed the whole story, from the trespassing and hostage-taking, to bribery and attempted aggravated assault with a stapler.
“The next clue was here! The whole time!” She spun around wildly. “It could be anywhere! But we can’t just go around prying up floorboards and looking for hidden compartments in walls. Ma will kill me.”
I did not disagree.
“We won’t have to,” I said. “I’m getting the map.”
“How?” Drea asked in a way that implied she already knew the answer.
“I agreed to go on a date with him.”
“Agreed” wasn’t the right word. Negotiated the terms of a date-like transaction was more accurate: one thirty-minute food court dinner for one Bella Rosa Cabbage Patch Doll with full documentation.
“No!”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.” She was practically begging. “Let me go in your place.”
I wished I could send Drea instead. I was repulsed by the idea of even pretending to give Troy a second chance. And in public! If I managed to make it through an entire Panda Express veggie combo plate without puking all over him, there was always a chance he’d renege on the deal.
“You have to be the very best version of you,” Drea insisted as if reading my mind. “I’ll put together a look that will make him never, ever forget what he’s missing out on.”
“Okay, I’m willing to make this sacrifice,” I told her. “But there’s one thing I want to know: Why is the treasure hunt important to you?”
Drea shifted her weight from one stiletto to the other, and back again. Then she sighed in surrender.
“Maybe,” she confessed in a hushed voice, “you aren’t the only one with big dreams of New York City.”
“What?”
“Maybe I’ve always dreamed of attending the Fashion Institute of Technology. Maybe I’ve always dreamed of designing my own clothing line and selling it in my own stores.”
There were no maybes about it. These dreams were too precious for posters above the bed. And I couldn’t have been more surprised.
“But you love what you do!” I objected. “Bellarosa Boutique is your life!”
“I’m damn good at what I do,” Drea replied. “But that doesn’t mean I love it. And that definitely doesn’t mean my life is Bellarosa Boutique. I’ve got bigger ambitions than the mall.”
Her words came out in a rush now, as if she’d been keeping this secret for a very a long time and couldn’t hold it in for a single second more.
“You remember the silk-ribbon chemise you liked so much?”
“The one I wore that night with Slade?”
It was a simple, beautiful top. Too bad it was wasted on such a terrible hookup.
“I made it.”
“You made it?”
“I came up with the adjustable neckline design, sourced the fabric, and sewed it myself,” Drea said with pride.
“You did?” I had no idea Drea knew her way around a sewing machine.
“It wasn’t really my style, but I knew it would work on someone else,” she added. “And that someone was you.”
I was legitimately impressed by her ability to create a look for someone other than herself or the typical Bellarosa customer.
“You’re really talented!”
“I know I am!” Drea replied unapologetically. “But I need to be smart about it. Strategic. Like, a lot of talented designers get screwed over and lose their labels by making bad deals. So I really w
ant to study the business of fashion merchandising and management and do it right. I want to be a global luxury brand. And there’s no better school for it than FIT!”
I was blown away. This was the closest Drea had ever come to her own plan.
“Does Gia know?”
“No!” Drea cried. “Leaving her would be the ultimate betrayal. That’s why I can’t ask her for any help with tuition or anything else. I have to do this on my own.”
“You don’t have to do it on your own,” I said. “I can help you fill out your application and guide you through the financial aid process and find scholarships…”
Drea covered her ears. “See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you!”
“This is exactly why you should have told me!” I countered. “I excel at this kind of thing! Troy never would have been accepted to Columbia if I hadn’t edited his application essay!”
By “edited,” I meant “totally rewritten.” Before me, Troy’s personal statement was merely a list of his academic and extracurricular accomplishments in paragraph form. After me, Troy was a future MBA with a soul whose family had suffered great financial and emotional losses in the 1987 stock market crash, who saw himself ushering in a new wave of compassionate money managers dedicated to bridging the income gap and bringing prosperity back to Wall Street and Main Street and blah blah blah blah. His first draft was authentic Troy. My rewrite was an idealized version I wanted him to be. It was utter bullshit and the admissions office totally lapped it up. And for two years, I suppose I did too. At the time, I believed such a flagrant breach of academic integrity was thoroughly justified in service of the plan. Regrettably, I was wrong. So, so, so wrong.
Had Drea just presented me with the ideal opportunity to make it right?
“Let’s play to our strengths! You help me with my revenge makeover, and I’ll get you into FIT!”
I extended my hand. And after a moment’s hesitation, Drea did the same.
“Deal!”
As we shook on it, I flashed back to the first day of Miss Miscelli’s fifth grade. The new girl slid into the seat right in front of me. She wasn’t from Pineville. Just moved here from Toms River, the next town over. But she supposedly spent nearly every weekend with her cousins on Staten Island, an outer borough but close, so close, close enough to where I really wanted to be, needed to be, would be someday. Whispers enveloped her, but I was too mesmerized to listen. Her hair was the biggest I’d ever seen, teased higher than the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers combined. I couldn’t see the blackboard, and I didn’t care. I stared so hard, she felt it like a poke in her exposed shoulder. She spun around, bold in her dress code–breaking tank top.
“So, yeah, I’m Drea, by the way.”
She said it as if we’d already started a conversation, as if Miss Miscelli hadn’t already warned the chattering classroom to keep eyes and ears open and mouths shut, as if she wanted to know who I was too. The air between us was sweetened by minty gum she was chewing—loudly—but not for long. It too was against the rules.
“I’m Cassie.”
Just like that, we were unlikely best friends. And maybe, it occurred to me now, we still were.
29
EDGY AND EFFORTLESS
With only two hours between the end of my shift and the start of my transactional non-date with Troy, I braced myself for a head-to-toe application of the full contents of Bellarosa’s beauty supply closet. Instead, Drea set herself down in my office throne and encouraged me to take the far less regal chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Let’s have a chat.”
“A chat?” I pointed to the clock. “We don’t have time for a chat!”
Drea sighed heavily. “All the best revenge makeovers start with a conversation.”
“What’s to discuss? Make me hot!”
Drea shushed me with the jangly flick of her bangled wrist.
“Play to our strengths,” she said. “Remember?”
I reluctantly sat.
“What did Troy dislike most about your appearance?”
I was sure I’d misheard her.
“What did he dislike? What kind of revenge makeover is this?” I asked. “The goal here is turning Troy on, not turning him off!”
“Is that the goal?”
I considered Drea’s question. I didn’t want Troy to want me. I wanted him to regret not wanting me. Two very different objectives.
“Did he ever tell you not to dress or look a certain way?” Drea pressed.
Troy disliked when I cut my hair above my chin because it was “too severe.”
Troy disliked when I bought thrift-store denim because it was “too funky.”
Troy disliked when I got my ears double pierced because it was “too punk.”
Troy disliked when I pinned a Planned Parenthood button to my backpack because it was “too radical.”
So, I grew my hair down to my shoulder blades. Shopped at the Gap. Let the holes in my ears close. Tossed the pins. I told myself these were superficial compromises essential for keeping the peace in our relationship and the plan alive. But as I sat across from Drea and answered her questions, I realized how wrong I’d been. Troy’s dislikes were about so much more than ridding controversial items from my wardrobe. They were about removing controversial ideas from my brain. I wondered how Troy would have rewritten my personal statement if I’d given him the chance.
I was finally starting to see where Drea was going with this.
“You want to make me as dislikable as possible?”
“Not exactly.” Drea shook her head before making a vital correction. “I want to make you into the girl you should have been all along.”
I’d assumed Drea would transform me into a big-haired, spandexed Bellarosa clone. But this strategy was so much smarter. And unexpected.
It was only appropriate for us to begin the revenge makeover journey at Spencer Gifts, the one-stop shop for invisible ink pens and penis ice-cube trays. To accommodate its diverse customer base, it also sold buttons in a full range of offensiveness, from not at all (DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY!) to sort of (FBI: FEDERAL BOOBIE INSPECTOR) to very, very offensive (BUSH/QUALE ’92). Drea got us a deal on ten pins for $2.50, all in the “too radical” category.
We followed that up with a quick stop at the Piercing Pagoda. I watched Drea barter like a pro with Vicki, aka The Girl Who Called Me Toothy and Would Not Get Her Dream Homecoming Dress at Bellarosa Boutique, Gawddammit. If she re-pierced the second holes in my ears for free, Drea would put her back on Bellarosa’s list and make her blue velvet dreams come true. Vicki agreed without hesitation. By the end of our surprisingly painless transaction, she not only believed the true story about what happened with Slade that night on Bellarosa’s couch, but was determined to tell as many people as possible when she went down to party in the Cabbage Patch that night.
“Now, where can we get our hands on some vintage jeans?” Drea asked out loud.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a thrift store to be found within 900,0000 square feet. Recycled goods and clothing undercut the newer-is-better capitalist propaganda that kept the mall in business. But I had a good idea where I could find pre-worn denim—I just had to summon enough courage to get it.
“I believe in you,” Drea said encouragingly as we approached Fun Tyme Arcade. “I’m here for backup if you need me.”
I found my mark with his head inside an open pinball machine, looking a lot like a mechanic tinkering with a car engine.
“Heyyyy.”
I greeted Sonny Sexton like we were old friends. He looked up from the wiry innards with confusion, quickly followed by interest.
“Heyyyy…” He pointed a screwdriver at me. “Mono Bitch.”
He was wearing the jean jacket. It was just as I remembered it: frayed at the collar and faded at the elbows, with a grimy patina resulting from continuous wear and few washings over many, many years. It was superbly gross, and I had to have it.
“I wan
t that jacket.”
“You want…” Sonny Sexton pressed the screwdriver to the pocket covering his heart. “This jacket?”
“Yep,” I said.
Sonny Sexton smiled wolfishly. My, what big teeth you have … I thought.
“What will you give me in return?”
He wasn’t at all interested in hearing why I wanted his jacket. It was as if he were routinely interrupted at work by random girls requesting articles of clothing right off his back, you know, like this was just a mildly bothersome consequence of being Sonny Sexton. Unlike Vicki, I didn’t know what to barter this time around. I mean, I knew what he wanted from me. He’d made that abundantly clear in our first conversation. But my virtue was not on the table, the pinball machine, the Skee-Ball ramp, or anywhere else Sonny Sexton was rumored to have scored with gamer groupies defenseless to his scuzzy charms.
So I took a chance on the one thing Sonny Sexton and I had in common: We had a reason to be annoyed with Troy.
“What if I told you your jacket is part of a plan to get back at someone who did us both wrong?”
“Not Helen!” He clutched his chest in terror.
“No! Not Helen! I know better than to mess with Helen.”
He pressed two wires together inside the pinball machine. A bell rang.
Ding! Ding!
“Cookie Boy?”
“Cookie Boy.”
Ding! Ding!
Thirty seconds later I was walking out of the arcade wearing Sonny Sexton’s denim jacket, leaving a cloud of knock-off cologne and skunk weed in my wake. I promised I’d return the garment tomorrow in precisely the same scummy condition I had received it.
“The student has become the master!” marveled Drea.
We had to hustle now. I only had about forty-five minutes before my date-like transaction and one crucial destination left on my make-under journey: Casino Full Service Beauty Salon. I’d never been there before, but it met Drea’s standards which was a good enough endorsement for me. I was encouraged by the sign in the window that said walk-ins were welcome. I was less encouraged by the looks of the receptionist.
“Trust me,” Drea insisted.
With her frosted, feathered hair and baby-blue eye shadow, she looked like her style evolution had stopped sometime between the end of disco and the start of the Reagan administration. Maybe that’s why she was a receptionist and not a stylist, I reasoned to myself.
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