“God, will you shut up?”
The words fell out of Astrid’s mouth before she could think better of it. The woman’s eyes went wide, perfect winged eyeliner arching upward, her raspberry red mouth falling open in a little O.
Claire cleared her throat and tugged on Astrid’s arm, but Astrid waved her off. Goddammit, she was going to get up on her own, preserve what dignity she had left. Passersby on their way to work or out for coffee stared at her, all of them probably thanking the gods or whoever that their mornings weren’t going as badly as that poor lady with the ruined dress and scraped-up palms.
She hobbled to her feet, the woman rising with her and twisting her hands together, wincing as Astrid whipped off her broken shoe and inspected the ruined heel.
“I’m really—”
“Sorry, yes, I got that,” Astrid said. “But your sorry isn’t going to fix my dress or my shoe right now, is it?”
The woman tucked her hair behind one ear, revealing several piercings lining the delicate shell. “Um. No, I guess not.”
Something that felt like despair, as irrational as it might be, flushed Astrid’s cheeks and clouded into her chest. This one thing. That’s all she wanted, this one morning to go perfectly, but no, this disaster of a woman with her cute hair and her nose ring had to come barreling into her life at the worst possible moment, obliterating any chances at perfection. Her fingertips felt tingly, her stomach cramped with nerves, and her words flowed forth in a panoply of venom and annoyance.
“How could you possibly not have seen me?” Astrid said.
“I—”
“I was right there, in ivory no less.” Astrid fluttered her hands down her now decidedly not ivory dress. “I’m practically glowing.”
The woman frowned. “Look, I—”
“Oh, forget it,” Astrid said. “You’ve already ruined everything.” She dug her phone out of her bag, tapped into her contacts, and shoved it in the woman’s face. “Just put your number in here so I can send you the bill.”
“Oh shit,” Iris muttered.
“The bill?” the woman asked.
“Run away,” Iris whispered at her, but the woman just blinked at both of them.
“The dry cleaning bill,” Astrid said, still holding out her phone.
“Sweetie,” Claire said, “do we really need—”
“Yes, Claire, we do,” Astrid said. She was still breathing hard, her eyes never leaving this walking hurricane who couldn’t seem to pass through a door without causing mayhem.
The woman finally took the phone, looking down at it while she tapped in her number, her slender throat working around a swallow. When she was finished, she handed the phone back to Astrid and started picking up the now empty coffee cups and drink carrier, dumping them all into a large trash can near Wake Up’s entrance.
Then she walked away without another word.
Astrid stared after her as she hurried about half a block down the sidewalk. She stopped at a mint green pickup truck that had most certainly seen better days, and all but threw herself inside, peeling out of the parking space with a squeal of rubber, engine rumbling as she drove north and out of sight.
“Well,” Delilah said.
“Yeah,” Iris said.
Claire just reached out and squeezed Astrid’s hand, which jolted Astrid back into what was actually happening.
She looked down at her dress, the coffee drying to a dull brown, her shoe dangling from her fingers. Fresh horror filled her up, but now, it wasn’t from her ruined outfit, her destroyed perfect morning on the most important day of her professional life. No, she was Astrid Goddamn Parker. She could fix all that.
What she couldn’t fix was the fact that she’d just ripped a complete stranger a new one over some spilled coffee, a fact that settled over her now like tar, thick and sticky and foul.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Claire said, trying to pull Astrid toward Wake Up, but Astrid wouldn’t budge.
“I sounded just like my mother,” she said quietly. She swallowed hard, regret a knot in her throat, and looked at each of her friends in turn, then let her gaze stop on Delilah. “Didn’t I?”
“No, of course not,” Claire said.
“I mean, what is just like, when you think about it?” Iris said.
“Yeah, you really did,” Delilah said.
“Babe,” Claire said, swatting her girlfriend’s arm.
“What? She asked,” Delilah said.
Astrid rubbed her forehead. There was a time when sounding exactly like Isabel Parker-Green would’ve been a good thing, a goal, an empowered way to manage the world at large. Astrid’s mother was poised, perfectly put together, elegant and educated and refined.
And the coldest, most unfeeling woman Astrid had ever known. Astrid often feared her mother’s overinvolvement in her life would have severe repercussions, Isabel’s essence seeping into her daughter’s blood and bones, becoming part of her in a way that Astrid had no control over. And here was the proof—when shit went down, Astrid Parker was entitled, arrogant, and an all-around bitch.
“Shit,” she said, squeezing her temples between her thumb and forefinger. “I threatened her with a dry cleaning bill, for god’s sake. I need to apologize.”
“I think that ship has sailed,” Delilah said, waving toward where the burned-rubber smoke from the woman’s tires still drifted through the air.
“You’ll probably never see her again, if it makes you feel any better,” Iris said. “I didn’t recognize her. I would’ve remembered someone that hot.”
“Iris, Jesus Christ,” Claire said.
“Oh, come on, she was empirically gorgeous,” Iris said. “Did you see the overalls? The hair? Total queer core.”
Delilah laughed and even Claire cracked a smile at that. Astrid just felt a dull sense of loneliness she couldn’t explain. She’d been experiencing it more and more lately when she was around her friends, like they all understood something fundamental about life and love she couldn’t seem to grasp.
“We all have bad days,” Claire went on. “I’m sure she gets that.”
“You are too pure for this world, Claire Sutherland,” Iris said.
Claire rolled her eyes while Delilah grinned and pressed a kiss to her girlfriend’s head. The whole scene caused Astrid’s stomach to roil even more—the PDA, Claire’s constant positivity, Iris’s snark. The only one who gave it to her straight anymore was Delilah, and Astrid couldn’t bear to look her in the eye right now, not after going all Isabel Parker-Green.