Smart Girl

by Rachel Hollis

  “But in a totally harmless way,” I argue. “It’s not like any of this will hurt him.”

  She can’t be more than twenty-two, but the look she turns on me then is pure disbelieving matriarch, as if she’s already seen way too much in less than a quarter century.

  “He’s not the one I’m worried about.”

  The statement is foreboding, but I refuse to hear it. I’m only allowing positive thoughts. I’m going to Secret this into being, just like Oprah and Rhonda Byrne say to. I point to the paper in her hands.

  “Let’s make another list. In Sense and Sensibility—”

  “Oh Lord,” she groans.

  I ignore her.

  “In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne Dashwood gets desperately sick after wandering the grounds in her melancholy over the loss of Willoughby. Then Colonel Brandon, dashing hero that he is, rushes off to rescue her. This in turn allows them the necessary alone time to realize they’re in love with each other. What does that tell you?”

  “That travel during the Regency era took four times as long as it should, and without modern medicine even the common cold could kill you.”

  I doff an imaginary cap at her well-placed sarcasm, then carry on in spite of it.

  “No. It tells you that taking care of someone who’s sick makes you feel nurturing and powerful.”

  My eyes must be alight with mad glee, because she knows to ask the follow-up question.

  “And?”

  I pop another bubble.

  “And we need to Google what I can eat to make myself violently ill without inflicting permanent damage!”

  Cas drops her head into both her hands.

  I smile and add a second piece of gum to my mouth.

  “Everything is set for Cora’s bridal shower this weekend,” Landon says around a sip of her hazelnut latte. “Cas is going to meet the rental company there in the morning so we can have a slightly shorter workday.”

  We’ve wandered down to our favorite coffee shop to go over the details of this weekend’s celebrity event. Having an office is amazing, but if we didn’t force ourselves to leave, we would spend whole weeks chained to our desks. I stir a bit more sugar into my cappuccino, which effectively destroys the leaf design the barista must have worked so hard on.

  “So we’ll work a fourteen-hour day instead of a fifteen-hour day?”

  Landon aims a playful smirk my way.

  “It’s been six weeks without a Saturday off. I’ll take whatever perks I can get.”

  I stab a forkful of lemon cake. We ordered it to share, but I’m basically bogarting the whole thing, since she’s too preoccupied checking the timeline.

  “Do you think it should alarm us at all that we’re working, like, a hundred hours a week?”

  She looks down at the plate between us with a frown, then swipes a bite with her fork before answering.

  “I think that we’ve worked a hundred hours a week for a long time. At least now we’re the ones actually making money off of it. And speaking of all the work, did you finish that CAD for Barker-Ash? I’m dying to see what you’re imagining.”

  I actually have finished the design for Liam. In fact, we have a meeting later this afternoon to go over it. But even though Landon has agreed to help me manage this project (since keeping things organized and on time is not my strong suit), I still don’t want her involved just yet. I want Liam to see the design first, and I want us to work alone as long as we can, because it feels more special that way. I look around the crowded café rather than meet her eyes. I’m a pretty terrible liar, and whatever is on my face usually gives me away.

  “Not completely.” It’s sort of the truth. I haven’t figured out the perfect oversize plant for the alcove by the women’s restrooms.

  “Mm-hmm.” She sounds disbelieving. “And have you finished the outline for your insane scheme to win his love in a plotline straight out of a romantic comedy from the nineties?”

  I didn’t know cappuccino foam could actually travel backwards through the trachea until it shoots out my nose in evidence. I grab a napkin off the table in front of me and cough into it a thousand times before I can speak again. Landon looks . . . concerned is the most polite description I can give it.

  “How did you find out?”

  She sighs patiently and pulls a piece of paper out of her events binder.

  “If you want to embark on some nefarious plan, it’s probably best not to leave a copy on the printer-copier we share.” She looks down at the list in her hand with a frown. “‘Jo and Laurie—a reverse Little Women.’ What does that even mean?”

  I eyeball the doc in her hand, noting my list of possible scenarios along with Casidee’s loopy cursive. That particular idea involved a shared hobby and possibly a sibling with some sort of wasting disease—neither of which Liam and I have, so I chose to ignore her question.

  “I didn’t leave it on the printer. I’m guessing that was the handiwork of our former assistant.”

  Landon waves away my comment.

  “She’s not a former anything, and I’m sure she’s only trying to help.”

  I angle my head to study her better.

  “So which is it—you found it on the printer or Casidee is trying to help?”

  Landon suddenly becomes way too interested in the chalkboard with today’s specials. I slam my hand on the table.

  “Snitch!”

  “She’s not a snitch—”

  I cut her sentence off with a look.

  “OK, well, she is a snitch, but only because she’s worried about you. Miko.” She bites her lip nervously. “This plan is kind of crazy. More than kind of—it is really crazy. As in my aunt Judy dropped her basket and had to move into a special home for people who heard voices—that kind of crazy.”

  Ouch.

  Hearing it from my assistant was easy enough to brush aside, but hearing it from my best friend definitely stings. My hair is clinging to my neck defensively, and I push it out of the way along with her worry.

  “It isn’t crazy. It’s inventive and cute and just as good a means to garner attention as anything else.”

  She looks at the paper skeptically.

  “You’ve included transmutation as a viable option. It’s number three on the list!”

  I pop my knuckles.

  “It worked in the Guild Hunter series,” I grumble.

  “Because she was dying!” Oh man, she’s exasperated now. “And she didn’t even actively choose to become an angel; he did it to save her life and—” She cuts herself off and runs her fingers through her perfectly blown-out blonde hair to try to restore order. “My point is—if you like him, why not just go about it like a normal person? Why not ask him out the normal way? Why not invite him on a date or to coffee, or tell him how you feel?”

  These are the same questions Casidee asked me the other day, only I don’t feel as comfortable telling Landon the truth. But the reality is, I know exactly why I’m choosing this route, because I’ve thought about it a million times. In life I strive for honesty, most of all from myself. The honest truth is I know what makes me special, and I’m also glaringly aware of what makes me weird.

  “Because I’m not a normal person. Because I’m not sure what the regular way would be. I’ve had two boyfriends in my whole life, and Liam is utterly different than either one of them. Because I’ve been trying to work up to something for almost a year, and I’m no closer than I was then. Because nobody understood my Game of Thrones costume again this year, because I didn’t have anyone to dress up as Drogo and carry my dragon eggs! Because at least this feels like a real plan. And because this gives me something fun to focus on, instead of the way I feel when I imagine him never seeing me as an option at all.”

  She winces sympathetically. “And how is that?”

  I toy with the button on my sweater
.

  “Invisible. And short on air.” I look her in the eye. “Don’t you get it? I’d rather try with everything I’ve got. I’d rather go down in a giant crap-ball of flames than strike out with something as generic as getting turned down for coffee. He’s my lobster.”

  She’s shaking her head slowly, equal parts horror and sympathy on her face.

  “He can’t be your lobster, Miko. You barely even know him.”

  This is where she’s wrong.

  “I know what I know.”

  She continues to stare at me while the din of the café carries on around us. I stir the remaining foam in my cup round and round until it dissolves into liquid as murky as my thoughts. Her resigned chuckle pulls my attention back up to her.

  “Lord, Max is going to kill us when she finds out.”

  I push my hair out of my eyes and lean across the table towards her.

  “Us?”

  “Well, I can’t very well let you try and pull this off alone, now can I? You might be the greatest designer ever, but your execution is terrible.”

  I can’t believe she’s going to help me, though I probably should have given her more credit; Landon has been my wingman since jump street. I don’t know why I thought she’d let me down now, but I’m so grateful. I thought Casidee was going to be an asset in this whole scheme, but it seems as if she’s so positive something bad is going to happen that she’s making up excuses every time I want to walk through the next steps. I mean, I know the possibility of breaking and entering or securing a horse and carriage in modern-day Los Angeles wasn’t exactly listed in Cas’s job description, but you’d think she’d be excited about the possibility to do something besides make copies and answer the phone. Kids today.

  I take an excited swig of tepid coffee.

  “What do you think I should do first?”

  “First”—she pulls a pen out and starts writing on the list—“you should start with a bit more subtlety—”

  “I’ve had nearly a year of subtlety, Landon. It’s time to go big or—”

  “You are not kicking off this insane plan by making yourself sick, Miko!” Her little blonde eyebrows narrow as she reads my notes for the first plan. “Ipecac syrup is no joke, and if you puke all over him, I doubt even you can bounce back from that.”

  I cross my arms with a huff. She’s right, which is super annoying.

  “So what then?”

  “How about number fourteen?”

  I glance at the line she’s pointing to.

  “A bit subtle if you ask me,” I grumble.

  Her response is deadpan. “Your blouse is the color of a traffic cone. You could do with a little more subtlety.”

  My mother would die a thousand times if she knew I’d read Fifty Shades of Grey. Even if I admitted I read it with my hand covering my mouth in shock, and occasionally I had to hide under my shirt like a turtle because I was totally embarrassed. But regardless of the questionable prose or the unironic use the term inner goddess, no one can deny its contribution to the romance book zeitgeist.

  It’s become an icon in the romance-book world by people much more experienced than I am, so it seemed like I should include it on the list. But really, there is very little I could use from the plot that didn’t involve things way too inappropriate to even contemplate. So the scene that made the list was the interview from the beginning of the book. It really is the first time the hero takes notice of the heroine, if for no other reason than she doesn’t cower and is dressed badly. I’m physically incapable of the latter, but the former I’ve got in spades. This whole scheme is made all the better by the fact that Liam asked me to meet him at his office. Given that the plan was coming together so nicely, I figured if I was going to take this on, I was going to do it right. I spent last night reading that scene over and over, trying to memorize all the questions and nuances. At the last minute I dropped my iPad with the e-book on it into my purse in case I needed it for reference.

  I can’t believe it was Landon who realized number fourteen on my list made a much better option than number one. Sometimes I get so caught up on the way something might look that I don’t take the time to ask myself whether or not it’s in any way realistic. It’s one of my fatal flaws.

  “Stella, are you kidding me?” I demand playfully as Liam’s fifty-something assistant opens the door to his office for me. “You have to try coconut oil. It works for everything. It makes your hair shiny, your hands smooth. Sometimes I drink a spoonful just to counterbalance the quantity of gummy bears I eat in the course of a week.”

  She smiles sweetly.

  “I absolutely will, Miss Jin. Thank you for the tip.”

  “Oh, and I hope Frank feels better soon. I’ve heard plantar fasciitis is super painful.”

  She thanks me again and closes the glass door behind her as she leaves.

  If the confusion on his face is anything to go by, Liam has been watching the whole exchange from his desk.

  “Do you two know each other?”

  “Stella and me? No. I mean yes—we do now. We just met on the walk over from the lobby.”

  “You got all of that in a three-minute walk from reception?”

  I’m fairly certain the answer is obvious, so I just shrug and take a seat in the chair in front of his desk. Today my outfit says classy, sassy, noticeable. He’s wearing a tailored black suit and a crisp white shirt. The formality of his clothing is in direct opposition to that golden Viking hair that brushes against his collar every time he turns his head.

  He nods at the skinny gray tie I added just before I walked out the door this morning—it’s so Christian Grey of me.

  “Business attire?”

  I flash a grin.

  “Something like that.”

  An exposed brick wall lines one side of the room, and the floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk look out over Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills. The wall that faces the hallway is made entirely of glass so you can see into the other executive offices along the corridor. The other wall was once white, but now its twelve-feet-high by however-many-feet-wide expanse is filled with graphics. Not framed images or posters, but actual drawings done right on the wall in bold black ink. I get up from my chair to look at it more closely. It’s a collection of hundreds of small pictures, words, or graphics that share no commonality other than the style they’re drawn in. It’s a mismatch of imagery and feelings that is no less powerful for appearing to be cartoons at first glance. Apparently Charlie isn’t the only member of the family who collects art.

  “Is this Goodman?”

  When he doesn’t answer, I turn around to ask again. He’s sitting on the front side of his desk, studying me, though I have no idea when he moved closer.

  “I did it again?”

  He nods. “Now that I know you’re not having a stroke when you zone out like that, it’s actually really interesting to observe.” He gestures to the mural beside me. “I carried on for several minutes about his process and how long it took him to draw it out. When you started to trace the rain cloud with your fingers, I realized that you weren’t actually listening. It is Timothy Goodman, though. Good on you for recognizing his work.”

  I tuck my hair behind one ear and walk back over to my seat.

  “My creative crush on him knows no bounds. Have you seen his Instagram account?”

  His brow furrows, and he shakes his head.

  “Well, trust me—if you followed him, you’d understand.”

  He walks around to his chair and takes a seat himself.

  “So do you have the design on your Mac, or do you need—”

  “Actually, I was hoping I could ask you some questions before we begin.”

  I wonder if he means to look at me so intensely or if I’m imagining it. Now that I’m about to actually try this out, I feel nervous. I reach into my bag
and grab my iPad; it’s a digital security blanket.

  He raises a questioning eyebrow. I open up my iPad and punch in my code. Immediately my Kindle app opens right to the page I need.

  “To design your space, I need to get a better feel for, well, you.”

  This is a total fabrication. I’ve already designed the restaurant based on the space, but he doesn’t need to know that.

  He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. The movement makes his biceps tense like they’re ready to attack. I wish they would.

  He clears his throat. I look down at the iPad and ask the first question.

  “Right. Um, to what do you owe your success?”

  “And this is . . . ?” He lets his words trail off in a question.

  “Part of my creative process.”

  OK, it’s not. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be part of my creative process going forward.

  “My success?”

  “Yes, to what do you owe it?”

  “Who says I’m successful?”

  I can’t tell if he’s trying to engage in some kind of a debate or being deliberately obtuse. I make a point of looking slowly around his stylish office inside his multimillion-dollar headquarters in Beverly Hills.

  “Um, Forbes?”

  He rubs the back of his neck. The gesture looks surprisingly uncomfortable.

  “Shouldn’t you ask, to whom do I owe my success?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s easier to become successful if you have a father who’s worth millions to begin with.”

  It might have come across as self-deprecating if it weren’t for his tone. I’m a little thrown off. In the book, the question is answered with total unwavering confidence. I never expected any other kind of reply. I tilt my head to study him better. He’s not serious about the secret to success, right? He can’t possibly believe his father is the only reason he’s made it this far. I scan the page of the book for another question that might be a follow-up, and when I don’t find anything that makes sense, I just respond honestly.

  “I know for a fact you’ve worked just as hard, if not harder, than anyone else to get where you are. I’ve never seen anyone so driven to succeed.”