“What’s real? The bitterness is, and has always been, real. What I asked you to do? It may have been Ken’s idea, but the idea of getting even the smallest bit of revenge on Blake gave me great joy even if I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which you would actually succeed.”
“Let me guess: You were going to stiff me on payment?”
“No, no. I mean, that was Ken’s suggestion, but he only wanted me to keep tabs on you. I reasoned that I’d be happy to pay you if you somehow managed to get the job done.”
“And then I showed you the video.”
“I could’ve died when I realized Ken wasn’t even following my husband. When it came time to serve papers, I saw that you were more reliable than Ken, which, honestly, I should’ve known. Jackie recommended him, and I shouldn’t have trusted her either, bless her heart.”
“But you did report back to him on what I was doing?”
She winced. “At first. I told him you were going to do something for Denise and covertly sent him a picture of the flamingos, but I didn’t tell him anything after that, I swear.”
Interesting. Ken had been happy to let me believe Trista had been on his side all along.
Of course, my BS detector was irrevocably broken, so what did I know? Too bad there was no extended warranty for women’s intuition.
We sat there in the sun, sweating. I couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t offered me anything to drink.
“Well, I wash my hands of anything and everything having to do with the Malone family,” I said as I stood. “And for the record, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.”
“Disappointed?”
“Yes, I think I took one job for a guy. The rest were all for women. Sure, I did it because I needed the money, but I envisioned Little Miss Petty as a way for women to help each other, and here you were spying on me the entire time.”
“Not the entire time. And it was just a favor for a friend.”
“A friend? So you and Ken are buddies?”
“Fine for a friend of a friend.”
“And you knew he’d cheated on me, right? You still wanted to help your friend after that?”
She looked away. “I guess I wasn’t putting two and two together. He didn’t mention that you were his girlfriend, just his former business partner.”
“Left the girlfriend part out, did he?”
“That’s why you said you’d been traded in for a younger model. I should’ve seen that.”
“Exactly. I trusted you. I commiserated with you. I did a silly job for you, yes, but when you called, I answered. Speaking of, why the heck did you call me when the FBI raided your house? Why not call Ken?”
“Because I knew you were competent. And you already knew about Blake, so it wouldn’t be as embarrassing as calling one of my other friends.”
“‘Other friends,’ huh?” I chuckled a little. “So you’d started to think of me as a friend, too? I considered you one. Not necessarily someoneI had all that much in common with, but someone I wanted to help. But friends don’t spy on friends. Friends don’t team up with the ex of a friend.”
“But we weren’t friends then, and I didn’t know he was the ex!”
“But you knew about the business part. You could’ve told me.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me!”
I leaned back. “I probably would’ve believed you. You forget, I knew Ken far better than you did.”
“Well, I didn’t know I could trustyou, now did I?” she snapped.
And that was the crux of the problem.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you, either, but I did. And, yes, I needed the money. Yes, the whole thing is probably ridiculous, but it’s also ridiculous that I’ll end up paying twice as much for my student loans as I borrowed. It’s farcical that I had to put a car loan in my partner’s name because my father ruined my credit. Ludicrous that same partner would then refuse to give me the title even though I made the payments. Shameful that I put so much work into his business and our house, but I don’t get jack because we weren’t officially married. But also crazytownbananapants that your husband can clean out all your joint accounts even though youaremarried. I could go on, but I won’t. What I’m trying to say is that this world wants us to think we’re in a competition for male attention, but, really, we need to stick together. I trusted you.”
