night with Slade?”
It was a simple, beautiful top. Too bad it was wasted on such a terrible hookup.
“I made it.”
“You made it?”
“I came up with the adjustable neckline design, sourced the fabric, and sewed it myself,” Drea said with pride.
“You did?” I had no idea Drea knew her way around a sewing machine.
“It wasn’t really my style, but I knew it would work on someone else,” she added. “And that someone was you.”
I was legitimately impressed by her ability to create a look for someone other than herself or the typical Bellarosa customer.
“You’re really talented!”
“I know I am!” Drea replied unapologetically. “But I need to be smart about it. Strategic. Like, a lot of talented designers get screwed over and lose their labels by making bad deals. So I really want to study the business of fashion merchandising and management and do it right. I want to be a global luxury brand. And there’s no better school for it than FIT!”
I was blown away. This was the closest Drea had ever come to her own plan.
“Does Gia know?”
“No!” Drea cried. “Leaving her would be the ultimate betrayal. That’s why I can’t ask her for any help with tuition or anything else. I have to do this on my own.”
“You don’t have to do it on your own,” I said. “I can help you fill out your application and guide you through the financial aid process and find scholarships…”
Drea covered her ears. “See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you!”
“This is exactly why you should have told me!” I countered. “I excel at this kind of thing! Troy never would have been accepted to Columbia if I hadn’t edited his application essay!”
By “edited,” I meant “totally rewritten.” Before me, Troy’s personal statement was merely a list of his academic and extracurricular accomplishments in paragraph form. After me, Troy was a future MBA with a soul whose family had suffered great financial and emotional losses in the 1987 stock market crash, who saw himself ushering in a new wave of compassionate money managers dedicated to bridging the income gap and bringing prosperity back to Wall Street and Main Street and blah blah blah blah. His first draft was authentic Troy. My rewrite was an idealized version I wanted him to be. It was utter bullshit and the admissions office totally lapped it up. And for two years, I suppose I did too. At the time, I believed such a flagrant breach of academic integrity was thoroughly justified in service of the plan. Regrettably, I was wrong. So, so, so wrong.
Had Drea just presented me with the ideal opportunity to make it right?
“Let’s play to our strengths! You help me with my revenge makeover, and I’ll get you into FIT!”
I extended my hand. And after a moment’s hesitation, Drea did the same.
“Deal!”
As we shook on it, I flashed back to the first day of Miss Miscelli’s fifth grade. The new girl slid into the seat right in front of me. She wasn’t from Pineville. Just moved here from Toms River, the next town over. But she supposedly spent nearly every weekend with her cousins on Staten Island, an outer borough but close, so close, close enough to where I really wanted to be, needed to be, would be someday. Whispers enveloped her, but I was too mesmerized to listen. Her hair was the biggest I’d ever seen, teased higher than the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers combined. I couldn’t see the blackboard, and I didn’t care. I stared so hard, she felt it like a poke in her exposed shoulder. She spun around, bold in her dress code–breaking tank top.
“So, yeah, I’m Drea, by the way.”
She said it as if we’d already started a conversation, as if Miss Miscelli hadn’t already warned the chattering classroom to keep eyes and ears open and mouths shut, as if she wanted to know who I was too. The air between us was sweetened by minty gum she was chewing—loudly—but not for long. It too was against the rules.
“I’m Cassie.”
Just like that, we were unlikely best friends. And maybe, it occurred to me now, we still were.
29
EDGY AND EFFORTLESS
With only two hours between the end of my shift and the start of my transactional non-date with Troy, I braced myself for a head-to-toe application of the full contents of Bellarosa’s beauty supply closet. Instead, Drea set herself down in my office throne and encouraged me to take the far less regal chair on