Young Adulting - Christina Benjamin Page 0,13

like I didn’t belong because I didn’t have the right clothes, the right hair, the right attitude, the right last name…

It had taken a toll. It had worn on me more than I’d realized, I guess. But today, with one stroke of good luck, I felt like a new person. The old me was back, baby, and she was ready to take on the world.

Kendal poked her head out of my walk-in closet sized bedroom, a measuring tape looped around her neck and pins sticking out of her mouth. She’d replaced her contacts with cute, cat-eye framed glasses that I rarely saw and her brows were drawn together in annoyance. “Make your phone stop,” she ordered, somehow managing to speak the words clearly despite the pins.

“Oh, my parents!” Crap. I’d totally forgotten about our Friday night call. We had scheduled calls several times a week so my mom could ascertain that I hadn’t been murdered and my dad could bug me once again about finances and my plans for next semester.

I’d forgotten to call an hour ago which meant...I gave Carolina a pleading look. “My mom’s gonna think I’m dead in a ditch if I don’t answer.”

She scowled at me but relented with a sigh, removing the curling iron and stepping back so I could scramble off the stool in our kitchen and make a beeline for my room.

Sure enough, my phone was on the bed where I’d tossed it and I picked it up with a breathless, “Hello?”

“Oh thank heavens!” My mom shouted this so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “You’re alive!”

Kendal, who was working some magic on a dress while sitting in my desk chair, just arched her brows in surprise. Yeah, my mom had been that loud.

I turned my back on Kendal, who had no doubt heard my mom’s paranoia loud and clear. “Of course I’m alive. Sorry I forgot to call,” I added in a rush, guilt nagging at me as I looked in the mirror to see a face I didn’t recognize and a head of hair that was part frizzy disaster and part perfection.

I grinned at my reflection.

Tonight was going to be so great. Colin was the perfect non-date. He knew this was only business and he had the connections to be able to introduce me around.

Networking. That’s what this business was all about, and while I’d slacked in that department up until now, I was about to make up for it with a vengeance.

“...and even Fallon is worried,” my mom was saying.

My grin fell at the mention of my best friend’s name. Crap. I’d totally forgotten to text her back. I’d meant to tease her a bit with my silence but I hadn’t meant to ignore her outright.

I lifted a hand to rub my eyes and stopped myself just in time.

Becca and Ashley would kill me if they came home from picking up our takeout dinner to find I’d smudged their eyeliner and smeared the eyeshadow.

I dropped my hand. “I’ll call Fallon this weekend,” I said, although a part of me was wondering how they knew. “Did you call her?”

“When we didn’t hear from you?” my mom snapped. “Of course we did. I was worried you were in a ditch somewhere or…”

She kept talking, but I held the phone away from my ear. I was so not in the mood to hear about my mother’s weird fears right now. Not when I was about to have the kind of Hollywood evening I’d been dreaming about since I was eight years old and watched my first Oscars ceremony.

True, tonight wasn’t the Oscars, but it was close. It was a step in that direction. And one day, if I played my cards right, I’d be getting dressed up like I was tonight and waiting for my limo to arrive so I could accept my award.

My wistful sigh must have alerted my mom to the fact that I wasn’t paying attention because she finally, mercifully stopped with the lecture.

I was kind of wishing she’d keep going when my father took her silence as his cue to start in. “So, you’re still on target to start Ohio State in January, right?”

My mouth instantly went dry. I swallowed the surge of guilt that was now becoming a regular part of these calls. “Mmmhmm,” I murmured.

I did have every intention of going to Ohio State next semester...but only if I didn’t get the job with the studio.

And even then, only if they didn’t