Page 78 of Play Nice

I shrug. “She’ll get over it. Besides, you know I’m not wrong.”

“Yeah, but you don’t say that.” I hate when Veronica gets all high and mighty. She moved to New York from South Carolina with nothing but good looks and a box set of Sex and the City DVDs. She found a lawyer boyfriend who will soon be her husband, who will buy her a nice house in the suburbs, and after the wedding and the move, once the house is furnished, she’ll realize she needs to pivot her content, so she’ll start having babies, who will hopefully be cute enough to post.

Why is everyone so predictable?

“You should call her tomorrow and say you’re sorry,” Kaleigh says. “Avoid more drama.”

“Why do I have to apologize for being right?” I ask.

The two of them exchange a look.

“If my friends don’t want to side with me, I’m sure the general public will,” I say, smiling as I make my veiled threat.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kaleigh says. She fakes a yawn. “You know, I’m getting tired.”

Coincidentally, Veronica is, too.

They say a quick goodbye and hurry out. I just broke an unspoken rule of influencer etiquette, and now they’re uneasy. We don’t sabotage; we support. If I were to publicly call out SLIP, what about Shine Inc.? Where do they source their diamonds? Did Veronica ever ask? And what about the face-tuning? What about the Photoshop? What about the lie of the lives we sell?

I don’t fully consider myself an influencer, since I have a career as a stylist. But I’ve done sponsorships. We all play in the same shallow, dirty sandbox.

I think about Austin at the nursing home. Doing something good with his life. Selfless. And where did that get him? His mom’s basement.

I think I miss him. Which makes me hate him.

He’s not good because he can’t be good. Because no one’s good. Not Dad. Probably not even Tommy.

I crawl out of Scorpio and start to wander. I want food but I’m not hungry, or I’m hungry but don’t want food. I’m thirsty. I’m tired. I don’t want to sleep. I want drugs. I want to scream. I want to go home. I want to be at the house, at Edgewood, staring at that frowning face. I want to stare for so long that it smiles back at me.

“Look who it is,” I hear. I turn around, and there’s someone familiar. Handsome. Right on time. Ethan. “My Lower East Side Cinderella.”

I curtsy. “Maybe you could help me. I seem to have lost my slipper.”

He approaches, breaking off from his group of drunken bros. “Last time I saw you, you were kicking me out of a car.”

“What poor manners,” I say. “Let me make it up to you.”

He laughs. “Yeah, uh, I’m not falling for that again.”

“For what?” I ask, hailing a lucky cab. I open the door. “Are you coming?”

“You don’t respond to me. Not one text.”

“I’m very busy,” I say. “The meter’s running. Time is money, Ethan. You know that better than anyone.”

“If you kick me out again, I swear…” he trails off. He signals back to his boys, then follows me into the cab.

I give the driver my address, then inch closer to Ethan as he buckles his seat belt.

“Such a Boy Scout,” I say, stroking his leg.

He looks me over, his eyes landing on my neck. He reaches out and lifts my snake charm.

“Did you get this at Veronica’s party?”

“I did,” I say. “Along with a lifetime supply of glitter.”

“I was washing it out of my hair for weeks,” he says.