Page 3 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

“I—”

“I was right there, inivoryno less.” Astrid fluttered her hands down her currentlynotivory 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, her slender throat bobbing in a hard swallow as she tapped in her number. When she was finished, she handed the phone back to Astrid and bent to pick 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 the woman 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 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 isjust 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 over-involvement 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.”