The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,32
road!” Heat flushed to my ears and cheeks. “He’s this guy I work with. I bum rides off him sometimes.”
“I need more details. Is he tall? Hot? Does he have good hair?”
What if I preferred short, roly-poly guys with prematurely receding hairlines? “He’s cute, I guess. Pretty smart and corny funny. Ambitious to a fault. We’re just friends.” The more I talked about Nate, the hotter my face got. Like space-shuttle-entering-Earth’s-atmosphere hot.
She glanced at me at the stoplight. “Girl, you’re so red, you look like you’re sunburned. There’s no way he’s just a friend.”
Mom used to complain about menopause hot flashes. Was it anything like this? Raina rolled down our windows, and the cool air hit my face, relieving me of my full-body heat flush. She shot me a smile as the light turned green.
Raina had full-blown Kate ESP. In eighth grade, she somehow knew when I first got my period and gifted me Advil, a heating pad, and some Fran’s chocolates. If we didn’t get the roles we wanted in the junior high school play, she and I would go share a hot fudge sundae with extra cherries. Last year, Raina was glued by my side when Mom died and eased up contact after the funeral. She checked in to see if I was ready to hang out again, a lot at first, and then only about once a month after that. She hadn’t abandoned me. Quite the opposite actually. She was giving me the space I needed because she is such a good friend.
“Okay, I’m clearly making you feel uncomfortable, so let’s talk about something else.” She turned the corner and bumped the curb. “Stupid turn radius. Did you try out for My Fair Lady? I didn’t even bother because I cahn’t do the accent.” She said the last part in the world’s worst Cockney accent ever.
“I’m Eliza Doolittle’s understudy.” I sighed. “They’re letting me be the lead on Saturday night, to let the primary Eliza rest her voice.”
“That’s good, though! You get lead role for a night! Want me to take care of her, so you can be Eliza all nights?” Raina spoke in a horrible fake New York (or maybe Jersey) accent, punching her fist into her palm.
I laughed. “I really appreciate the offer, but no thanks.”
“Just let me know. That’s what friends are for!” Still going with the fake New York–Jersey accent.
In my reflection in the car window, I straightened my shirt collar. “I can’t believe you dragged me out of the house to go skating. Is that what friends are for?”
“It’s better than you sitting alone at home, right? And I have no idea who is throwing this party, by the way. Someone at school told me about it.”
She was probably right. I’d gotten so used to solitude I forgot what socialization was like. At school, I stared at the clock, willing time to go faster, hightailing out of there as soon as the end-of-day bell rang. No activities other than theater and my new escape room job. I used to have more friends and go to parties. But then my life went to shit, and then my number one life companion became Jeeves. Welcome to Hermitville, population: me. Jeeves didn’t count in the census, him not being human and all.
I was destined to become one of those sad people you heard about who were eaten by their starving pet cats when they died. But I didn’t even have a cat. That’s how alone I was.
I smiled weakly. “Thanks for dragging me out of the house.” Thanks for throwing me an inner-tube floatie before I drowned in loneliness.
“No problem.” She pulled into the crowded lot and found a spot. “Let’s check out this shitty party.” Raina pulled a ponytail holder from her purse and dangled it in her pursed lips. With a few swift hair swipes, she pulled the band from her mouth and formed a perfect high pony with her dark, wavy hair. No brush. Zero effort. I’d die to have hair like that.
She passed me some ultra-shine lip gloss. “Here.” A discreet signal that I needed a cosmetic tune-up before she’d be seen with me in public. I obliged.