Page 20 of Best Woman

“Black? This is a wedding, not a funeral.” The look on my mom’s face is sour as she looks down at the nail technician working on my toes. “You couldn’t do something a bit happier? Something pretty ?”

I roll my eyes. “I like black. It’s neutral.”

“It reminds me of your goth phase. I’m half expecting to look up and see your hair dyed that awful red color.”

Ah yes, my Hot Topic era. “Don’t worry, I left my spiked collar in New York.”

Mom sighs, relaxing back into her spa chair, her chest bouncing alarmingly from the electric massager. “Thank god for that. Do you have everything you need, though? We could stop at Nordstrom and pick up shoes. And I have jewelry you can wear.”

“I’m fine, Mom. My friend River, the stylist, lent me some stuff.”

“Oh yes, the one with the interesting haircut.” She says “ interesting” like an insult, or at least an accusation. “She’s very cute, have you two ever dated?”

“ They, Mom, River’s pronouns are they and them.”

“Right, sorry.”

“And no, we’ve never dated.” Hand jobs at a rave in 2014 don’t count. “River’s only interested in men anyway.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause. “But it’s not like you…I mean you still…”

I know she’s not trying to be offensive. She’s genuinely curious about the dynamics. It still stings a little. “It’s not just about parts, Mom. River is attracted to masculinity. They’re always sleeping with these adorable himbos,” I explain.

“What’s a himbo?”

I snort. “Aiden, if he had bigger shoulders and a lower IQ.”

“Ah,” she says. “My son is very handsome.”

I know she’s biased because he’s her son, but Aiden is kind of a catch. “Remember how awkward he was as a teenager, though? His Eminem phase?”

She snorts. My phone buzzes with a text from Kim, asking if I want a ride to the welcome dinner tonight.

We’ve been texting on and off since the Cheesecake Factory, ostensibly under the guise of our duties.

Still, the chatter has gradually expanded to random chatter about our lives—and flirty banter.

She’s also checked in a few times since I got to Florida to ask how everything is going, everything clearly meant to stand in for my supposedly problematic family dynamic.

In the few weeks since we’d seen each other, I’d been able to minimize my deceit in my head, assuring myself that it hadn’t been as bad as it was.

But after last night at Ben’s, it all feels so much more insidious.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to pass up the chance to live out my teen fantasy of being picked up for a date by Kim Cameron.

I guiltily check my work email, something I haven’t been doing enough since I touched down.

Technically I took the week off from work for the wedding, but Everett doesn’t really understand things like boundaries and out of office .

There are five emails from him with no subject lines, each containing random questions, requests, and reminders.

start sourcing art for Ira Streit’s fire island house, brief is “tasteful phallic”

what is my social security number again?

remember to book rental car for hamptons next month!

I add these to my running list of work tasks and open the final email.

Jules, I’m thinking it’s finally time for you to work on your own project. Why don’t you do one of the rooms in my new house? Less pressure since it’s not for a client, although we’ll have to be a bit more strict with the budget than usual. Let’s talk more when you’re back next week!

Everett initially hired me as an assistant, and I’ve worked my way up to project manager over the past two years.

He’s always alluded to wanting to properly start training me as an actual designer, but I figured I was too useful to him as a gopher and it would never really happen.

I turn, smiling, to tell my mom about this exciting new career development, but she’s busy chatting on the phone. So much for mother-daughter time.

Later, my toes—black polish and all—are squeezed into a pair of Prada boots Hannah G wore to the Billboard Music Awards.

The rest of me is squeezed into a black leather cocktail dress Hannah G wore to Kristen Stewart’s birthday party, and I’m attempting to squeeze my phone into a Gucci clutch HannahG once chucked at River’s head after a night of too many Negronis.

From what I can see in the bathroom mirror, I look good.

The dress is a bit tight and short, but in a slutty way rather than a desperate one, and I don’t mind looking a little slutty tonight. I have a date, after all. Kind of.

Buzz, buzz. Here.

Speak of the devil. One last poke at my lashes, which have a tendency to droop, and I’m down the stairs and out the door.

“Are you wearing a bra?” Mom, Randy, and the twins are watching TV on the couch.

“What’s a bra?” I ask, rushing out the door. “Don’t wait up!”

Kim Cameron watches me through the windshield of her rental.

The boots give my hips a swing they don’t usually have, and my hair is loose around my shoulders, bangs sleek above my kohl-lined eyes, the dress short enough to show how long and pale my legs are.

I’m hoping the look is more Debbie Harry and less Warped Tour.

“Hi,” Kim says once I’ve climbed into her Honda Civic. “You look great.”

“So do you.” And she does. Kim’s style leaned more boho in high school, but always with a masculine edge, something she’s leaning much more into these days.

She’s devastatingly sexy in a fitted gray suit, kept casual by the tank top underneath and what must be pounds of silver jewelry and black eyeliner.

If we were an early 2000s couple being splashed on Perez Hilton, she’d be the Samantha Ronson to my Lindsay Lohan. I wonder if she’d be down to role-play…

“How was your flight?” I know she just got in a few hours ago and yet is remarkably unrumpled.

“Not bad. You ready for tonight?”

“Ready to chitchat with dozens of people I last saw ten years and one gender ago? Oh, absolutely. Are you ready?”

“I’ve never been great at small talk,” she says, eyes on the road but occasionally shooting a look my way. At my legs, specifically. Nice. “And Rachel and I were always the kind of friends who were only friends with each other, never fully integrated into our respective social circles.”

“Y’all were roommates in college, right?”

“Yeah, freshman year. We shared a bedroom. I walked in the first day and Rachel was already there. All of her food in the fridge was in color-coordinated Tupperware labeled with her name. I didn’t know people did that in real life.”

“I’m pretty sure she still does that. Aiden told me he took some leftovers to work for lunch once and she drove to his office to get them back.” We both laugh.

“She’s a lot, yeah. She knows what she wants and doesn’t take no for an answer.

She kind of just…decided we were going to be best friends and all of a sudden, we were.

The first time I brought a girl back to our room, Rachel almost seemed disappointed I wasn’t harboring some giant crush on her .

Then she told the girl Ugly Betty was on in forty-five minutes, so she’d better get me off quick. ”

I guffaw, gleefully horrified. “She did not!”

“What can I say, I’ve always had a thing for Vanessa Williams.”

“Well obviously,” I say.

It makes sense, in a way. Rachel was raised with the kind of privilege that leads to exacting standards and zero filter.

The first time Aiden brought her over for Hanukkah, she’d thanked my mom for having her and assured her that if she added a bit of matzoh meal to her latkes, they’d be much more crispy.

“Don’t worry, Dana,” she’d reassured her on her way out the door, “in a few years Aiden and I will be hosting and all you’ll have to do is bring the wine! ”

“What a bitch,” Mom said once they were gone. “I give it six months.”

Look how that turned out. And honestly, Rachel’s latkes are superior.

Soon we’re parking in front of Boca’s closest approximation of a hip bar. “You really do look great,” Kim says as I check my lipstick. “Your legs in that dress…”

“It’s too much, right? I’m wearing a pop star’s castoffs and he”—I point toward a man entering the bar—“is wearing those cargo pants that zip off at the knee.”

Kim looks up from my legs, which I most certainly don’t mind her noticing. She can notice them for as long as she likes. “Nah, you’re going to be the hottest girl in there.” She says it so casually, but my heart still speeds up.

Pitbull is playing inside the bar, which is pretty much exactly what I expected.

We’re ushered into a large private room, something that wouldn’t be possible in New York, where square footage is in short supply.

Kim grabs my hand, our rings clinking together.

The moment we cross the threshold, an earsplitting shriek, comparable to the sound the Ringwraiths make in Lord of the Rings, rends the air.

Poor Pitbull, you’ll never overpower a Jewish bride days out from her wedding.

Rachel rushes over, wearing an honest-to-god Hervé Léger bandage dress as if it’s 2012 and she’s the bottle girl.

Her normally curly hair is blown straight, whipping behind her like the flag of some country where the national flower is Daisy by Marc Jacobs and the currency is Lululemon gift cards.

She’s startlingly pretty, a natural beauty enhanced by expertly applied makeup and, I’m fairly certain, a nose job.

She’s in fantastic shape and has no problem sprinting across a crowded room in six-inch heels, and even at a distance, you can tell that this is her night, her week, her wedding.

She’s as gorgeous as she is terrifying, and then she’s right there in front of us, pulling Kim close and shrieking her name.

She’d probably cry if it wouldn’t ruin her eyeliner, but she also may have had her tear ducts removed in high school when she did her nose.