The Decoy Girlfriend(25)
“You can come in, you know!” Mandi shouts through the flung-open front door.
“Uh, Mandi?”
A very large, very woolly-looking dog has just bounded into the foyer, blocking the door. It barks twice, daring Freya to come closer. Is it a friendly bark? A warning bark? She has zero clue.
The dog studies her, head inquisitively cocked to the side. At least she think it’s looking at her; it’s hard to tell when its wiry eyebrows are falling into its eyes. Its coat is a lovely milk chocolate–cinnamon color, carrying through to the whiskery, shaggy mustache and beard.
They stare off as Mandi flits about inside, doing god alone knows what, leaving Freya to deal with this behemoth of a dog. Whose eyes she can’t even see. Plonked in front of her like a hairy barrier.
Freya swallows. She didn’t grow up with dogs. That’s not to say she’s scared of them. She just has a healthy appreciation for their size and teeth. That is absolutely rational in a situation like this one.
Mandi cranes her neck out and takes in the scene. “Hen’s friendly. Just give him a firm no and push his face away if you don’t like licks.”
Freya’s jaw almost drops.
Putting her hand anywhere near his mouth is the last thing she’s going to do. If this dog’s wet tongue wants to lick her to death, she will simply sit back and let it.
Freya chooses to focus on the least terrifying thing Mandi just said. “You named him Hen?”
“That’s Sir Hen to you.”
“You expect me to believe that this dog is in any way a chicken?”
Mandi’s laugh is a silvering tinkle. “It’s short for Henry, and yes, while he’s a wonderful watchdog, he’s actually a huge softie at heart, so get our cute little derriere in here now.”
There she goes with our again. Freya cautiously inches forward, cringing when Henry gets too close. He pokes his nose against her thigh, nuzzling her through the fabric. In return, Freya tries not to do anything that could be construed as a threat, like moving. Or breathing.
Mandi’s perched on a pale pink sofa in the living room, a tall glass of soda in hand. There’s another waiting on a coaster on the modern center table.
Except for the sofa, all the other furniture is the same bright white as the walls. There’s nothing homey about the kitchen tucked behind her, all recessed lighting, white marble counters, and sleek white cabinetry that blends into the background, elongating the dimensions of the space. It’s an expensive apartment with nothing out of place, much like Mandi herself, but that’s where the similarities end. Devoid of charm and warmth, there’s nothing to indicate that the actress actually lives here.
“You’ve helped yourself to everything else, so I half expected you to look right at home here,” Mandi says after Freya sits down opposite her. “But you don’t.”
“Neither do you,” Freya counters, taking a sip of her drink. Diet Pepsi, ice cold and crisp.
A micro expression of surprise crosses Mandi’s face. “The only thing in this whole sterile apartment I got to pick was the sofa. Didn’t even get a say in the neighborhood, but that’s the price for ‘moving up in the world,’ I guess.”
It explains why the whole place looks like a showroom, but why would the Mandi Roy do anything she didn’t want to do?
Freya isn’t sure how to respond to Mandi’s weird honesty, so she just takes another tentative sip, keeping one eye on Henry and the other on her trembling hand. The last thing she needs is to dribble on a sofa that probably costs half her book advance.
She still doesn’t understand why she’s sitting in Mandi Roy’s apartment like they’re friends, and Mandi doesn’t seem to be in any rush to tell her. Maybe she wants to watch Freya squirm.
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?” Freya finally asks when it becomes abundantly clear that Mandi isn’t going to break the silence. “Why you’re not threatening to turn me in?”
“Do you want me to do that?” Mandi sounds genuinely curious.
“No, of course not!” Freya blurts out. “I just don’t get why you don’t want to.”
Mandi sets her half-empty glass down on the table with a hard clink. “Okay. Cards on the table. I’ve had all of last night and part of this morning to scroll through thousands of my tagged photos. And I had about a million thoughts, most of them not so flattering about you, but the one that stuck out the most was, Damn. This girl is good. So yes, I was testing you.”
Freya coughs on the Diet Pepsi. Her eyes sting a bit by the time her throat clears.
“I get asked for selfies so often that they all bleed together,” Mandi continues. “Even so, it was tough to separate the pics that were me and the ones that were you. You nailed my look. Even our voices are kind of similar. I bet underneath it all we could pass for sisters, if not twins.”
Freya flushes at the compliment. She’d done her homework: When she started to rely on being Mandi more often, she had scrolled Mandi’s Instagram to see what affordable brands she favored and watched Mandi’s old Vogue “Get Ready with Me” YouTube video to perfect the makeup. She knew all the products Mandi used and the way she applied them, and the way in which she spoke—cultured and confident, never cocky. Mandi’s every word was thoughtfully considered. Her elegance, on the other hand, was unmistakably her own and not easily imitated. Which wasn’t an issue, since the people who mistook Freya for Mandi were never inner circle; club and restaurant interactions were quick and impersonal.