The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(49)

I want to. I want to know why she’s here. I want her to trust me enough to tell me.

I want to be worthy of that trust.

Gigi’s methods might be heavy handed, but she’s right. We’re not good people. We do terrible things.

I can’t make my family be better, but I can make myself be better.

“Mom, I need to call my assistant and reply to a text quick, and then how about we get coffee?”

“Forget the coffee, darling. Mommy needs a vodka.”

She flips her phone around so I can see it, and oh my God again.

That’s me.

In full color.

Being dragged to shore by Teague last week.

On the Post’s website.

Forget the vodka.

I need a complete and total new life.





Chapter 16


Phoebe


What’s the word for when you’re hiding from one task you don’t want to do by pretending to do algebra homework that looks like it’s written in Greek?

There has to be some language that has a word for that. Like that German grief bacon word.

I’d look it up as I’m procrastinating on my algebra homework Friday afternoon, except Anna—Anya, dammit, still working on that—steadfastly refuses to give me the Wi-Fi password here in Café Nirvana, which is probably for the best, even if I don’t want to admit it.

The internet has not been kind to me.

At all.

Is there a word in any language that means the feeling one has when she realizes she has no idea who she is or what she wants, but she should definitely not ask that question of the internet when the people who love to see her fail are talking all about all the ways in which she’s failed spectacularly?

Mental note: look up that word tomorrow.

Or maybe I’ll invent it.

Excellent plan, Phoebe. Your legacy shall be new, complicated words that will be so much clunkier in English than they would be in any other language.

Now, what’s my favorite letter?

I gaze out the window, eyes roaming over the ivy-covered half–Ferris wheel across the square as if it can answer my questions, instead of doing homework or heading back to the high school to help dig up the floor in the gymnasium, since it’s apparently rotted and needs to be replaced before a visiting paparazzo breaks into the school through the basement, gets scared by Tickled Pink Floyd’s ghost, and crashes through the subfloor and into the slimy, wet mess left when the other day’s fix on the water heater didn’t work.

Everything in this town is falling down.

I keep hearing whispers about increasing tourism, but tourism for what?

A ghost town?

The closed high school’s a disaster, and it’s not like anyone else will move in when we’re done. Or want to visit a memorial to my grandmother. The half-done Ferris wheel has been reclaimed by nature. The shops all need a fresh coat of paint, especially the empty ones. There’s a gaping empty hole in the square where there used to be a fountain, and I heard whispers that people are hoping we’ll find the original golden gates from the Pink Gold film when we finally clean out the rest of the junk in the high school.

It’s like this town is what my family would’ve been if my great-grandfather hadn’t mortgaged his house to the hilt when Remington Lightly’s first product—intended to be a new kind of linen paper for poets, scientists, and businessmen—failed on the market, leading to a complete rebranding campaign that launched a new kind of toilet paper instead.

Yep.

We got rich on accidental toilet paper in a big gamble that paid off.

Yet here we are, looking down our noses at people who work hard every day in the shadow of what could’ve been, because their big gamble didn’t pay off.

And what am I gambling?

Nothing.

Nothing.

I live well because my great-grandfather accidentally invented a better kind of toilet paper a century ago. But I won’t leave anything behind. The world won’t be talking about my contributions, my successes, my legacy, or anything else when I’m gone.

Not at this rate.

“You know, most people get their homework done by putting the pencil on the paper and doing the work.”

Even if I didn’t recognize Bridget’s voice, I’d recognize the speech pattern.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree with that one.

I grip my coffee cup and lift my gaze slowly until she’s had to wait for my attention. Old habits and all. Plus, I’d do the same to her father.

It’s half the fun. “Can I help you?”

She tilts her head and studies me with her brown eyes flickering over my face. “Is that supposed to be an intimidation tactic? You shouldn’t try so hard. Just paint your lips and nails bloodred and wear a few more of those suits like you did when you first got here, and you manage it naturally. Actually, maybe if you did that, your homework would’ve bowed to your demands and done itself by now . . .”

Anya makes a noise that’s most likely a stifled laugh behind the bakery counter. “Bridget. Don’t talk to adults like that.”

“Even Phoebe?”

There’s that noise again. “Yes, even Phoebe.”

Bridget rolls her eyes.

Anya’s face twists like she’s trying not to laugh, and she goes back to restocking those Café Nirvana tumblers that are crazy effective at keeping coffee hot. I took three of them with me this morning, and the last one was still piping when I finally opened it after lunch.