The Chemistry of Love(11)

She hesitated. “The pale green Arwen one?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay, we can just accessorize it to make it look more modern.”

“That’s a lie, and you know I have no accessories.”

“I know!” Catalina said with a groan. “No accessory would help. I was trying to make this better. Hold on, I’m pulling the costume up online. I’d offer you something of mine, but that won’t work.”

She was right—she was a good eight inches shorter than me. It would be like me wearing a Band-Aid around my hips and saying it was a skirt. Maybe I could make something. I glanced over at my sheets, but there was no way. It was this costume or nothing.

“The bell sleeves have to go,” she said. “That’s the part closest to your wrist. I think if you remove the bottom half, the top lacy part that goes to the elbow would be okay.”

“Okay. Hold on.” I tried to rip the two sections of the sleeves apart, but nothing was happening. “I can’t get it! I think they stitched this thing together with titanium.”

“Do you have a seam ripper?”

“Do I seem like the kind of person who would have a seam ripper?” I looked at the clock again. I was running out of time, and this entire thing was stressing me out.

“Find a pair of scissors and cut the thread holding the two pieces together. Do not cut the fabric. That will look terrible.” She said that like she knew the entire thing would be awful and it would be hard to make it much worse than it already was.

I opened the top drawer of my desk and sifted through the heap until I found a pair of scissors. I did as she instructed, and it came undone. “It worked! But the lacy part looks frayed.”

“I’m guessing asking you to hem the edges would send you over the edge?”

“It’s fine. I’ll fix it. It will work. Right?” I was sure she’d be able to hear the desperation in my voice.

“People are probably still going to wonder what’s wrong with you, but it won’t be as bad as if you had the bell sleeves.”

“That’s the spirit!” I said, pushing a pile of clothes off the top of my desk until I found what I was looking for. I grabbed the stapler. “I will take not as bad as it could be. I’ll see you later and let you know how things go with Craig. Who might be my new boyfriend.”

“You still think that’s going to happen?” she asked. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to go up to him, make some small talk, maybe a joke or two, and then I’ll tell him that I quit my job for him and that I like him.”

She gasped. “Do not say you quit your job for him. That’s . . . too much.”

“Technically that’s not the reason I did it.” Right? It had been a noble thing about how I was being treated. It wasn’t about Craig and the nonfraternization rule. Like, at all.

But then why had I just said it? “Don’t you think he’ll find that romantic?”

“I do not. Also, don’t tell him you like him. You have to let him make some moves here.”

He already made moves. He’d asked for a dance and had stood very, very close to me. I decided to ignore her advice. I was going to go with what had worked nine times out of ten in my imagination. The tenth time it was him kissing me as soon as I walked in the room.

Which probably wasn’t going to happen, but I had faith in trying to do what I thought would make me happy.

With the mess I’d made of the rest of my life, I couldn’t think about whether or not things would work out with Craig. They had to.

“Okay,” I said, more to get her off my back than anything else. Catalina could be extremely persistent.

“Have fun. And if that free-range douchebag likes you while you’re wearing that costume, then he’s a better man than I’ve given him credit for. Good luck!”

I threw my phone on the bed and started doing my best to fix the edges of the sleeves. I could do this. I was an actual scientist. I could make a pattern that would hold two edges together.

It turned out to be considerably harder than I’d anticipated, given the lacy material had too many holes, but I did it.

Slipping the costume over my head, I tugged it into place. It was okay-ish. It could have been worse. This wasn’t too bad.

Or maybe my best friend had been right and I really was kind of delusional.

I considered leaving my hair down, but there was a line across the middle from the rubber band I’d used earlier, so I threw it up into a ponytail. I put on a pair of flats and studied my reflection. I turned around and saw the box on my bed, the one with all my stuff from work. It was a brief, ghoulish reminder of how I’d managed to upend my entire life.

Ignoring that sensation, I dug through it to find the prototype mascara and lipstick that Catalina had given me and put them on. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Until it did, when I accidentally poked myself in the eyeball with the mascara wand. Not once but four times.

After I’d done all I could do, I put my glasses back on and headed downstairs. Grandpa was having a conversation with Parrot Hilton, and by the acrid stench hanging in the air, my grandmother had again attempted to make dinner. She’d been doing this for decades now—I wondered at what point she was going to give up and admit defeat.