a new twist—enormous, cartoon-like buttons. His innovative design suddenly looked like a Copacabana dance costume on steroids.
June didn’t have the guts to tell Victor the aquamarine piece was hideous, probably because she was so desperate to get him off the couch and creating again. Carly knew that June was going to push her to do it, and she would have to do it. It wasn’t just her opinion—she’d snapped a picture and run it by a fashion blogger she’d become friendly with while Victor and June were arguing. She’d sent the picture to Carlos, asking for the strictest confidentiality and a simple question: Reaction?
Girl, ugh, was his response. Hard pass.
“Seriously, Victor, why don’t you take a little time off? Go to the skate park and try not to think about fashion.”
“That’s impossible,” he’d muttered. “I can’t not think about fashion.” And then he’d rolled up to sitting, looked at Carly, and said, “But I can’t think about it right now. I feel sick.” He got up and went into the bathroom.
There was no talking to Victor. Carly left there and went to Mia’s, hoping for a glass of wine and a sympathetic ear so she could vent about Victor. But Mia had shooed her out the door because Will had come home last night.
“Where are the kids?”
“With Grandma,” Mia said, pushing Carly to the exit. “I mean the responsible Grandma, and not our mother, who has not been heard from in two days. You should call her.”
“But I . . .”
“Bye, Carly!” Mia had said cheerfully, and her tall, handsome husband waved at her from the living room.
So Carly had gone home to Sad Bax without a glass of wine and none at home. While Baxter lay at her feet, Carly went through her finances to see how long she could hang on in her little house. She figured she could cover five full months of rent and bills. Had it not been for the impulsive purchase of the Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag from her favorite online consignment shop, she might have squeaked out six. Either way, she had about three months to either get a job in New York or bring in at least another client. Something.
She was going to need help if she didn’t get something really soon.
She checked the status of the applications she’d submitted for jobs in New York. Two positions—one at a fashion website start-up, the other as an assistant to the digital marketing department head at Bergdorf Goodman—had been filled. Another application was for a position that was still open, and another application was “in process.” Whatever that meant.
Carly had to get up the nerve to check Couture. She thought she shouldn’t even bother, and expected to see big red X’s drawn through her application status, signed personally by Ramona McNeil. But amazingly, both applications were listed as “pending.” Well then. Carly had listened to enough episodes of Big Girl Panties to interpret that as a good sign—it meant she wasn’t yet out of the running. At least in theory.
She spent the rest of Saturday scouring the job listings on ZipRecruiter, Monster, Indeed, and Glassdoor. She submitted two applications at two different companies for copywriter positions. Copywriting was not her favorite thing, but the jobs were in New York, and they paid enough to at least allow her to perhaps rent a room from someone.
After that, she turned on her TV and scrolled through the listings. She hadn’t watched TV in so long that she didn’t know what she was looking for. She landed on an episode of Below Deck, but even the idea of gliding around the Mediterranean on a luxury yacht couldn’t keep the restlessness from her. She turned off the TV and tried to sleep, but really just thrashed around on her bed, kicking her feet and pummeling her fists into a pillow that said Love Yourself and the Rest Will Follow—an impulse buy after hearing one of Megan’s podcasts.
Carly was not one to participate in pity parties. She really wasn’t. But sometimes she had to wonder why this was happening to her. She’d done everything right. She’d gotten good grades in school, had gotten a good job, and had worked hard. She’d been a decent daughter, a better sister. She didn’t do drugs or drink much. She’d done everything right. It was not supposed to be this way. She was supposed to have it all by now, not be worrying about how to pay her rent.
She groaned and rolled over