My attention was drawn away by another couple of girls who thought they were being sneaky, posing for a selfie while their lens pointed at me. I rolled my eyes under my sunglasses, skin itching. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out in public today. Maybe I should’ve just stayed up high in my apartment, with Squeaky on my lap, where I was safe.
The girls tittered, the sound like the soft camel leather of a Soubry bag ripping down the middle. My hands clenched into fists. It was so hard not to give them the finger, but then that would go viral, and what would people think? Everybody would call me trashy again. One slipup, that was all it took.
“Truly, Pom, you’re so brave,” Persimmon cooed like a pigeon. “So strong. If people were saying about me what they aresaying about you, I’m not sure I’d be strong enough to show my face in public.”
I’d had it. “See, if I were you, I’d definitely feel comfortable going out in public,” I snapped. “Considering nobody knows who you are, and the people who do know you’re a giant bitch.”
Persimmon reared back like I’d slapped her. I might as well have—she wasn’t used to a direct attack like that. She sucked in a great gasp of air, hopefully getting a good lungful of the super-spicy steam coming from the Sudanese place nearby. “What?”
The only way to salvage this situation and not turn it into a huge thing would be to laugh as if I were joking. She’d know I wasn’t, but she’d be able to pretend. Both Kevin and Gabe were watching us with scrunched-up faces, waiting for me to giggle.
I just couldn’t do it. I did keep my face even instead of scowling, though, for the sake of anyone sneaking pictures of me. A photo of me looking angry could be twisted into so many headlines. “I said that you’re kind of a giant bitch,” I said. “You’re mean to me whenever we speak, and I don’t know why, because I’ve never been mean to you.” I paused and considered. “Well, except when you’ve been mean to me first.”
“Pom,” Kevin and Gabe both said at once, then looked at each other uncomfortably. Persimmon, meanwhile, gasped. Her eyes shimmered glossily, little wet drops clinging like tiny diamonds to her lashes. Damn it—she was the kind of person who grew more beautiful when she cried. “Would you excuse me, please? I need… the restroom…”
And she fled. The three of us watched her go. Before Kevin could defend his girlfriend’s honor and Gabe responded to defendmyhonor and they got into a fistfight that would only start rumors that I was pregnant and I didn’t know whose baby it was, I followed. “Excuse me,” I called over my shoulder. I sped off, partially to outrun the horror that was going near a Porta Potty. God, the lengths I was going to for other people these days.
Persimmon had bullied her way to the front of the restroomline, probably because it was hard to refuse a woman who cried like that girl in the fairy tale who wept jewels, so she was just going into a stall as I caught up. Again, before I could think too hard about what I was doing, I shouldered my way in behind her and shut the latch with a clunk.
Thank God for the tiniest of mercies: She’d chosen the accessible stall despite not needing any accommodations, so it was sizably larger than the other choices. Didn’t smell any better, though, and there was a puddle of something indeterminate on the ground in front of the (thankfully closed) toilet lid.
“Pom,” Persimmon gasped, her face shock-white, like she’d just now realized it was me who’d followed her in and not a murderer. “What are you…”
“We need to talk,” I said.
She gasped again, then wrinkled her entire face. “Okay. But you couldn’t wait until I got out?”
“I didn’t want you to be able to make an excuse and run off,” I said, already regretting it. The side of my arm that had brushed the plastic of the door was tingling, like I’d contracted some kind of flesh-eating bacteria.
She swayed a bit. Maybe the bacteria had gone straight for her brain. “If I swear on my one-of-a-kind peacock Birkin that I won’t run off, can we go talk outside?”
Savvy of her to sneak in a reference not only to her one-of-a-kind Birkin (that I obviously didn’t have) but also to the peacocks I hadn’t been able to obtain for my gala. It almost made me reconsider what I wanted to say, but I held firm to my convictions as we burst out of the dank stall into the delicious-smelling air of the market, then moved to the side of the crowd, beside a stall that seemed to be selling some kind of twisty cake on a stick. I added a new conviction to the holdings that I would pick up one of those after this conversation was over and plan something for the bakery that echoed its fun shape, which would attract a lot of attention on social media.
“Look, I’m sorry for saying something mean,” I said. “Of course people know who you are.” Way more people knew who I was, and most of the people who knew her were huge fans of her rock-star father and not her, but I was being nice here. “I was already in a bad mood, and I blew up. I shouldn’t have called you a giant bitch. Twice.”
Somebody walked by holding not only the cake on a stick, but a twisty fried potato on a stick. I looked longingly after them as Persimmon responded. “I’m sorry too. Iwasbeing kind of bitchy.”
Well. That was a step. I didn’t think she’d be inviting me into her cool elite friend group with open arms anytime soon, but at least we could hopefully stop this nasty game playing. “I think we have more in common than not,” I said. “Both of our boyfriends come from humble backgrounds.” God, I hoped this wouldn’t get back to Gabe; he would hate it. “And if you hate me, fine. Hate me. I’m okay with that.” I was bluffing; I wanted everyone in the entire world to love me. “But I don’t hate you. I think you’re pretty cool, actually, and I wanted to be your friend until you started being all mean to me.”
Her lips twitched again, this time a little bit like she was about to scream. “You’re so different.”
“What?”
“I guess we haven’t seen a ton of each other since I stopped partying,” she said. Which was true, not that I hadn’t tried. “The Pom I remember was fun and mean and it was almost a sport for her, or I guess you, to twist your words into the absolute perfect little dagger disguised as a kiss. All you wanted to do was party. Nobody took you seriously. Now all of a sudden you’re here, like, all mature and everything, and nobody knows how to take you.”
I assumed that “nobody” was her.
“It’s like Denise,” Persimmon continued. “She spent all those years being the smiling face by the side of her husband, and now all of a sudden she’s this big charity person? You might be able tobuy the public’s opinion, but you can’t buy yourself into a new friend group.” She muttered something I couldn’t quite catch. “You can’t just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk, for long enough for people to know you won’t get tired and flop on the ground before you get there and tell someone to bring you an ice-cold water.”
She stopped long enough where I figured it was safe to respond. “I don’t think Denise is giving away her fortune to find a new friend group; I think she wants to do good. Like me.” I made myself shrug, because this next part wasn’t so honest. “And if you never think I’m a serious person, then fine. Don’t. But I am, and I will be, and I hope everyone will see that.”
She gazed at me for a moment. “I think they’re starting to,” she said finally. This time, I hoped that “they” was her. “And I should probably apologize too. I know I haven’t been the nicest person. It’s just…” She exhaled deeply. “It tooksolong for people like Libby and Kitty to even speak to me. I still always feel like I’m on thin ice whenever I’m around them. Vienna only won them over once she’d separated from you. I was kind of worried that if you and I were seen as being too chummy, then… well…”
Then she’d be on the outs too. I nodded grimly, totally understanding, even as I didn’t like it. She was new money too. Newer money than me. My grandparents had made ours; hers had come from her parents, and through performing, not respectable means like investments or real estate. So she was on even thinner ice than me or Vienna.
Speaking of Vienna. “That’s a bridge too far,” I said, and she looked confused before I clarified. “Vienna is so good. She’s such a good person. Maybe I deserve the distance, but she doesn’t.”
Her face didn’t change. “Vienna…”
