“Oh my god, and that beard? I bet he’s devastated, and this is his way of acting out,” Mia started. She began preening herself in the mirror, fluffing her already perfect hair.
“Harry was fine. It’s just, ugh, Melanie??”
“I know, it’s like, we get it, you went to law school, woo-hoo.”
“Well, I mean, making partner is pretty impressive.”
“Anyone can be a lawyer, Cierra,” Mia said nonchalantly. With scrunched eyebrows, Cierra wasn’t fully following her friend’s claims, but Mia went on. “Making a killer saffron risotto isimpressive. Interacting with fashion execs and start-up founders isimpressive.”
Cierra exhaled. She appreciated what her friend was doing, but she didn’t want to be like this, resorting to finding “flaws” just to prop herself up. She was getting too old for that.
“He upgraded.” Cierra said quietly. “Got a better version.” This grabbed Mia’s attention, causing her to turn around with a concerned look.
“Huh?Betterversion? Oh, babe.” She gave Cierra a hug and smoothed her hair. “Why would you say something like that?”
Cierra recalled Harry’s tone of disappointment every year they couldn’t upgrade to the apartment they wanted. The contrast of Melanie’s bone-straight hair to Cierra’s wild mane. Even herlookwas more orderly.
The youngest female partner the firm has ever had.
Wannabe Instagram chef.
“I don’t know. She’sher, and I’m . . . maybe I just wasn’t good enough.” There, she’d said it. The words that had been eating away at her on and off for months.
Maybe I just wasn’t good enough.
Mia rubbed her shoulders and looked her friend in the eyes. “Cee, I don’t know when you started thinking this about yourself, but we have got to get you out of it. I’m gonna give you a reality check, okay? Ready?”
“No.”
“You are Cierra motherfucking Brooks. Okay? You graduated in the top ten percent of your class and not only had a killer start as a Product, um . . .”
“Manager.”
“Right. But then you had the guts to follow your passion! Like, no one does that. Everyone else is so scared of . . . Oh, what if this, what if that? But you just did it, and you’re amazing at cooking, too.”
Cierra smiled.
“And I’ve never told you this because it’s like, kind of lame, but I’ve always been a little jealous of you.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Swear to God.”
Cierra squinted her eyes. “Why? What could you possibly be jealous of?”
“Listen, I know what people see when they look at me. I’m not like you, I don’t have any talents.”
“Mia, you have—”
“Devastatingly good looks and an irresistible personality?” At this, Mia donned a grin and Cierra rolled her eyes, but at least it made her laugh a little.
Mia’s round eyes glistened like shimmering blue water under the fluorescent bathroom lights. “Listen, when you were living with me, seeing you working so hard, it made me think . . . maybe I should be more like her. Just . . .” She composed herself. “I don’t want to hear you talking about my best friend like that ever again, okay?”
Cierra nodded. “Okay.”
“Now let’s get back out there,” Mia declared, grabbing her bag. “I need to go whoop everyone’s ass in bowling.”
CHAPTER TEN
