There was an awkward pause I rushed to fill.
“When I was in the shower, I kind of thought of hurting myself,” I said. Now I was crying quietly, covering my mouth so she wouldn’t hear.
“Jesus, let’s call someone,” Maren said. “Who could we call? Like a best friend. A cousin? I don’t think you should be alone right now. You can share the contact with me and I can call for you,” she rattled on. The more I tried not to cry, the more my chest pumped like a machine.
“Do you think maybe you could come over?” I asked.
“Sure,” Maren said, sounding surprised. “Of course I can.”
“I’ll give you my address.”
“I have your address. I sent you a postcard from my vacation, remember?”
She slept all night in my bed.
* * *
...
“I met Maren right before my dad died,” I was telling Evan at the mixer. “And the two of us, we just realized how hard it is for women to take care of themselves sometimes and we thought about what we could create to make self-care more—”
“More of a given, less of a luxury,” Maren said.
“Yes, and but still with that luxury feeling,” I added. Maren was the one who taught me yes and.
“Luxury,” Evan said. “I dig it. My girlfriend—well, I guess she’s my ex-girlfriend now—got me into Kiehl’s beard grooming oil and now . . .”
“Now it’s your ritual,” I said, zooming in on the word ex.
Maren grabbed my shoulders and I was so startled, I dropped my cigarette. “That’s it!” she said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But that’s it; that’s the name.” She grabbed her phone from her tote bag and opened her notes app. “R-I-C-H-U-A-L, get it?”
I’d never seen Maren look so happy about anything before. I wrapped my arms around her waist, which was cinched with five different leather belts, and smiled at Evan while he took our picture.
“The founders,” he said. “I’ll tag you.”
“Wait,” I said, “can I see it before you post?”
“I’m searching right now to see if I can buy the domain,” Maren said.
Snow White was walking in my direction, smiling. Maybe she recognized my costume and now understood the coat was mine. Maybe I wouldn’t need to say anything at all.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“No worries,” I said. “You didn’t know.”
“Excuse me,” she said again, and I realized she wasn’t smiling at me at all. She was smiling at Evan.
“Rachelle Tanaka,” Snow White said, holding out a hand.
“Hey,” Evan said. “Have we met before?”
“No, I just recognized you from your Twitter profile. I’m @TanakaTabata. I think we follow each other?”
“It’s available!” Maren said.
“These are my friends,” Evan said, “Maren and Devin. They’re cofounders of a startup that’s empowering women to take the time to add some luxury back into their self-care routines.”
“That’s incredible,” Rachelle said. She was wearing the most beautiful black-green eyelashes. “Have you been following Carlotta Krause-Steubenfeld? She is doing something similar, but with gels.”
“Gels?” I asked.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you haven’t heard of her! Let’s exchange info, I’d love to introduce you. I think you’re working in a very similar space. Very similar. It’s a space where she’s really dominating. Carlotta is amazing.”
Everyone had their phones out now, so I got mine out, too, and sent an email to Rachelle so she would have my contact info.
“I’m texting her right now,” Rachelle said. “What did you say the name was?”
“Richual,” Maren said. “Richual, R-I-C-H, dot com. We’re doing a redesign right now, so she won’t be able to see much yet on the homepage.”
I opened my calorie-counter app and entered the four ounces of wine and three grapes. Then I opened Instagram and saw that Evan had already posted the photo and it was from my bad side, where my underbite was worse. It was too late to redo.
“I can’t believe this is where we’re meeting, of all places,” Rachelle said to Evan. “I saw on social that you’re into counting macros. Can I steal you for a few minutes to tell you about what I’m working on?”
“Ladies, I’ll catch up with you later. Let’s get a lunch on the books. Sugarfish?”
“I love Sugarfish,” I said, but it was too late. He was already gone.
“Well, that was productive,” Maren said. “Should we go eat some real food?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Please will you go get my fur? There’s a human tampon sitting on it.”
“So tell her to get off.”
“Please, Furiosa,” I said. I thought I might start crying so I laughed instead, so hard I doubled over, shaking.
Maren
My mom and dad never married. It wouldn’t even be accurate to say that he left her because they were never really together. I was their John Lennon meme: the life that happened when they were making other plans.
Steve already had a wife. I wanted to know all about this other family (a girl, a boy, another girl just a few months younger than I was) and what they looked like (braces, Little League uniform, freckles) so I could compare myself in the mirror. A couple of times, when we stopped by their house so my mom could pick something up, I saw a pale face watching through the blinds of an upstairs window. By my estimation, they inhabited a castle. Our house could have fit in the garage.
Did the face in the window mean they thought about us as much as I thought about them? I believed the haunting should be mutual.
If I wanted to, I could see my dad every day. All I had to do was turn on Channel 7 before school and there he was, delivering the news. “Wake up with Steve and Stacey, starting at five thirty,” the promos said. I inherited his broad forehead, his thick brow, the dismissive expression he gave Stacey if she flubbed one of her lines on the prompter. I was the kid in class who wouldn’t hesitate to correct the teacher, even if it got me in trouble. I memorized the date of every field trip, the correct spelling of Principal Szalkowski’s name, the rule on tank top strap width. Not the prettiest in school portraits, or the best runner in PE, or the girl you could trust to keep your secrets. I was the know-it-all.