The kitchen clock ticks, someone laughs in the hallway, and the world keeps spinning like I didn’t just agree to rearrange my entire emotional life for a storyline I wrote myself. There’s a pause on the line, the kind that hums with everything my friends aren’t saying.
Tiff breaks it first, her voice soft but pointed, the way she talks when she’s trying to make me look at something I’d rather not see. “What’s he like when there are no cameras?”
It’s like I’m back at my mom’s house months ago, the kiss that I can still feel on my lips, the way he said my name like I had to hear it to remember who I was. I see him in the office with his hands balled into fists at his side and his jaw set, ready to stand in front of me and take the hit if it meant I didn’t have to.
“He is… a lot.” I press the heel of my hand against my chest like I can push the answer back down. “Loud. Charming. He jokes when he’s scared. He is more careful with me than he is with anything else. He is inexperienced at pretending he doesn’t care.”
“Why did I picture his mouth when you said inexperienced?” Maria sighs a low, filthy sigh.
“Because you areferal.”
“Correct.”
Tiff does not let me escape the question. “And you? What are you like with him?”
I walk to the window and rest my forehead on the cool glass. “I am a professional. I am good at my job.”
“That is not you as a person. That’s a performance.”
“Performance buys me time,” I respond, turning from the glass and sitting back down at the table. “I can’t talk about what this is to me because it isn’t allowed to be anything. So, this is what I will talk about: the plan.”
“The plan,” Maria repeats.
“Yes. Schedule. Wardrobe. Talking points. Approved angles. Crisis contingencies. I can hold that in both hands and carry it without dropping the rest of my life.”
“What if you didn’t have to carry it alone?” Tiff’s breath rustles the line.
“I do. That’s the part everyone forgets when they tell me I am strong. The reason I am strong is because I do it alone.” I close my eyes and see his, warm and stubborn. “He offered to carry the parts that belong to him. He said he’d take the noise, the blowback, the line in front of me.”
“And?” Maria prompts gently.
“And I told him no because I know what happens when women let men carry anything for them at work. The story changes even when the facts do not.”
“Do you hear the way you talk about yourself?” Tiff says softly.
“I talk the way the world taught me to survive.”
There’s a beat of heavy silence full of things I’m not ready to say. My throat tightens because a part of me remembers exactly where I learned this tone. The last internship I had, which taught me how quickly admiration could turn into ammunition.
I don’t elaborate. I’m not ready to, and they know better than to press.
“Okay,” Maria says briskly. “Send me photos of every dress in your closet and the store you will drive to if you decide none of those are acceptable. I will curate the perfect outfit, and Tiff will approve.”
“I am not driving to a store at ten o’clock,” I say, laughing despite myself.
“Then you will try on the options you have while we watch. I’m prepared to give live feedback in the language of thirst.”
“And I will translate it into respectable feedback.” Tiff laughs.
I do not want to do any of it, but I’ll do all of it because there’s a specific relief that comes from being bossed around by people who want nothing from me but my happiness.
I switch us from speaker to FaceTime, so they can see me and not just hear the panic in my voice. The next twenty minutes are a montage that would be funny if I weren’t so close to crying. I step into anemerald satin dress my mom bought me a few years ago and nearly twist an ankle. I try on something navy that I found hiding in the back of my closet with a neckline that feels like a secret. I put on a standard little black dress, and both groan before demanding that I take it off because it looks like I’m about to give a eulogy. I land back in the emerald dress and pair it with a simple gold necklace my grandmother left me, the one that sits at the hollow of my throat like a comma.
“Bingo,” Maria says with her palm pressed to her heart.
“Turn,” Tiff instructs. “Hair down. Minimal earrings. Which shoes?”
“Gold strap,” I say, sliding them on and standing still so they can imagine the photos.
