“I do have neck rolls and my bottom teeth are crooked. Even if I lost weight, I wouldn’t lose this. My mom is microscopic and she has hot dog–neck too.” In a quiet, frighteningly unMaggie-like voice she says, “Maybe I should stop.”
“No,” I say, not caring that my voice shakes, because it captures her attention completely. “Don’t let them get to you and make you think things about yourself that you know aren’t true. Promise me.” I lean over and wrap both my arms around my friend. “You are so good and you love this. Don’t let a few awful people take this from you.”
That’s easier to say than to do. I still can’t escape the anonymous things people said about my family and me online.
It’s horrible, the way words can scar.
Maggie’s arm lifts from my back to wipe her cheek and I let her go, moving to grab a pack of tissues from her vanity and bringing them back to her. She takes them with a small smile.
“These are blotting papers.”
“So blot,” I tell her.
She gets up and exchanges the blotting papers for an actual mini tissue pack from her desk drawer, holding them up to show me the difference.
“I thought you said you could use tissues for blotting.”
“You can.” She sits next to me again. “The papers are just better at keeping your makeup intact, but a tissue can work too. You can even use toilet paper in a pinch if you separate the ply.” She starts to demonstrate with the tissue like she’s blotting excess oil instead of drying tears, but her hands slow halfway through.
“See,” I say, lifting another tissue to her cheek. “You’re good at this. I thought toilet paper was only ever good for wiping your nose or your tush.”
Maggie tries to smile at me; I know she does. “I thought it would be different here, you know? I’d leave all the mean people behind. I thought a smaller town meant smaller problems, nicer people, but it’s not better. Look at you—half the town resents you for breaking up with the grandson of the custard queen.”
Guilt smothers my anger toward the faceless trolls. Because of her friendship with me, we aren’t much better than shut-ins. We almost never go out; it’s always her house, or very rarely mine. I think about the friends she might have made at Keller’s Creamery if not for me, Tara and Dawn at least, and how I’ve been persuading her not to apply for the job at Polar Ice Rink right away. Not because she’d hate it like I tried to convince her, but because I wasn’t willing to risk that the people who work there would tell her the truth about my family and me.
When Maggie gets off the bed again, I pick up the phone, delete the last mean comment on Maggie’s video and make a note to go back through her older videos to purge any others I find, and then I look up to where my friend is cuing up the movie. Because I’m so late we only have time to watch one, and of course she picked the one that features a figure skater, just for me.
She glances at her phone in my hand when she rejoins me at the head of her bed. With reluctance, she takes it from me and proceeds to set it on the far side, like almost-but-not-quite-falling-off-the-edge-of-her-nightstand far, before offering me a Red Vine. “Thanks, Brooke.”
My throat tightens. Helping her tonight is so little compared to what I’ve taken from her.
The movie starts and the promised ice rink fills the screen. There’s even a clear shot of a Zamboni in one of the early scenes. A shiny new resurfacer that’s a far cry from Bertha’s decrepit form, but I don’t have to look at Maggie to know her eyes are looking at it instead of the meet-cute taking place in front of it.
“How badly do you want to drive Bertha?” I ask her. It’s a rhetorical question, but Maggie pauses the movie and turns her whole body toward me, holding very still while answering.
“Right now it’s up there with winning the NYX FACE Awards.” Basically the Oscars of online makeup videos. She really,reallywants to work at Polar Ice Rink.
“It’s not a great job,” I tell her, knowing I can’t talk her out of it, but self-preservation making me try one last time all the same.
“But you’ll be there.”
“And Jeff is awful.”
“But I’ll get to drive Bertha.”
“And clean toilets.”
“We’ll see.” Maggie grins.
I suppress a tremor, truly afraid that my next words might lead to the end of our friendship. “My coworkers—” I stop, unsure how to even say what I need to say. I’m not worried she’ll seek out Jeff any more than strictly necessary, but the others? Elena? My stomach is one giant block of ice and dread, because what can I say?I’ll help you get the job but you have to promise not to have a meaningful conversation with any of the other employees?I try again, with no clearer idea how to end this sentence. “My coworkers—”
“Yeah, let’s talk about them. There’s Jeff the walking skid mark, Elena the shrew who hired you then turned you over to Jeff the walking skid mark, that other guy who drives Bertha when you aren’t there and leaves her dented and smelling like Cheetos, the concession girls who I have personally witnessed use the bathroom without washing their hands. Am I missing anyone? No? Brooke, I’m not planning on wasting my time on any of them.”
My relief would have buckled my knees had I been standing. I turn to my friend and take in the faint mascara smears on her cheeks as her eyes soften.
“Is that what this has been about? Do you honestly think I’d befriend the people who try day in and day out to ruin the thing you love most in the world? Well, besides me.”
I want to cry with how much I love her and how little I deserve her, but there have been enough tears that night. My smile is a little shaky but my eyes are dry. “You’re going to want to quit within a week.”
