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If my boss finds out about this, I’ll be fired.
She pauses for a moment, giving me a nasty look.
At least if he fires me, I won’t have to deal with people like this anymore.
This job at Floreale Beauty was supposed to be a stepping stone to my career as a freelance makeup artist. I planned to get a couple of years of experience doing makeovers before going out on my own. But … life happened, and I’m somehow still here—dealing with customers who think they know more about makeup than I do.
My thoughts are disrupted by the sudden motion of the angry customer flinging the lipstick at me. It flies through the air, narrowly missing my face. I’m frozen in shock, unable to process what just happened as she turns on her heels and storms out, stomping as she goes.
Carol approaches me, laughing. “What’d you do that for, Emmy?”
“I don’t know. A slow day?” I laugh.
“That was funny, I’ll give you that, but don’t let Mr. Doyle catch you. He’ll go ballistic if he finds out that you ran a customer out of his beauty store,” she whispers.
“Come on. She wasn’t gonna buy anything anyway. She spent the last hour swatching every lipstick in this store—she was obviously just bored and looking for a fight.” I shrug.
Buzz. Buzz.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, catching my attention.
I take it out carefully—so Mr. Doyle doesn’t see me—and swipe it open, instantly smiling at the sight of my childhood best friend’s name.
Evan: How’s your day going, Dolly? Has Mr. Doyle been giving you a hard time?
Evan: I’m swamped over here. There was an accident on the highway and a bunch of kids came into the emergency room with concussions. But … anyway. Just wanted to check in on you. Have a great day!
Evan and I have always been close, but now that Larisa and Jo are in serious relationships, we’ve gotten even closer. And his text messages are sometimes the only thing keeping me afloat during my boring working hours at Floreale.
I quickly and discreetly type my responses.
Me: Everything is fine and boring as always here. Thanks for checking in. So sad to hear about the accident. Are the kids okay?
Me: I’m sure you swooped in like the superhero doctor that you are and made them all better!
I add a few emojis and send Evan my replies, knowing it’ll probably be a while until he can answer me again.
“Why does he call you ‘Dolly’?”
I almost jump out of my skin when I hear Carol’s voice from behind.
Wow. Was she really reading my messages over my shoulder?
I turn around and stare into her face, not exactly knowing how to react to this realization. The best thing to do would be to call her out over how inappropriate that was, but Carol’s a nice girl—she probably didn’t mean anything by it.
Plus, she’s the only one at work I get along with. I don’t need to alienate her.
“Umm … it’s a long story…” I reply, clutching the phone to my chest as if I’m holding Evan himself. Somehow, I don’t want to share the messages between us any more than I want to share him.
And definitely not with Carol.
“Oh, come on, tell me!” she begs. “Besides, what else are we gonna do around here all day? We have nothing but time!”
Carol’s right, but … I still feel a little weird opening up to her about Evan.
We walk together toward the back of the store where the woman caused havoc in the lipstick aisle. As we start to clean up and rearrange the lipsticks by brand and shade, I finally tell Carol what’s behind the little nickname that Evan has for me.
“It’s funny, you know? Well, maybe not funny ha-ha. But funny for us. For me. Anyway, it started back in high school.”
