Chapter 3

THREE

SOPHIE

Cool. So you went to school. UW? You want a purple cookie or something?

Perhaps Sophie’s internal dialogue was not the most mature. Who did Ella think she was, anyway? How hadn’t she changed—at all—from the snotty girl Sophie met when she first started?

She’d seen Ella a smattering of rare times over the years. A holiday party a few years back when she wore an actual gown like some Southern debutante. Once when she rounded the corner at work and Ella was talking with her dad. Last year, as a passenger of George’s chauffeured car. Ella’s face always held a sour smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a slightly scrunched nose like she just smelled something rank but was trying to be polite, and a trailing gaze like she measured the person next to her and declared they weren’t as good. Having received that look many times had sadly not made Sophie immune to it.

The coconut-scented steam filled her small shower space, and the moisture clung to the gray-blue tiles. She scrubbed her skin within an inch of its life with an organic loofah as the irritation from yesterday bubbled up and spilled over. Must be nice to have a daddy who gives you everything. What do dinner conversations around their custom-made, knotty-wood banquet table sound like? “Hey, honey, need a new car? Let’s go to the Mercedes dealership. An education? Here’s my wallet. You need a job? Of course!”

Nepotism at its finest.

And she absolutely refused to acknowledge the soft mouth and sultry dark eyes that she’d forgotten about over the years. Finishing the shower, she toweled off, threw on a tank and underwear, and grabbed her phone.

She needed some best friend relief, stat. Her fingers flew across the screen, and she prayed Maya would respond.

Sophie:

You up?

FaceTime rang within a minute, with her bestie Maya’s tired face and floppy blond ponytail splashed across the screen.

“Why you up so early?” Sophie propped the phone on the edge of the dresser.

“You’re the one who texted me,” Maya whispered as she walked down the hall. “Remi’s still sleeping. But Ben got home at 5:00 a.m. from his hospital shift and I’ve been up since.”

“Ah.” It had been close to a year since Maya found the love of her life, Remi, and a new family member in Remi’s roommate, Ben. But sometimes, Sophie still struggled with the change. She’d never tell Maya, but part of her, buried somewhere deep and low that she didn’t like to acknowledge, was envious. Not of Maya and Remi’s relationship.

Sophie wanted her own Remi.

So many things had shifted over the years. When Sophie met Maya as kids, they’d quickly become as close as twins. Being an only child, with two parents that worked double shifts to pay for their home, she spent more time with Maya’s family than her own.

Everything was fun back then. Easy. Sophie egged Maya on to ditch school, or run barefoot in Lake Sammamish at night, or shove as many grape-flavored pixie sticks in their mouths as possible until the sugar buzzed their brains and limbs. Fits of giggles, popcorn fights, and sidewalk chalk filled their days.

But when Maya’s dad died when they were teenagers, part of Sophie died along with him. Maya’s dad was a sitcom dad—goofy, drove her mom crazy, and loved his kids to his core. He even loved Sophie. He’d ask her about school, marvel at how many books she could read in a month, eat her terrible snack concoctions ( sugar and cinnamon on onion chips, anyone? ).

Sophie’s heart had broken for her friend, and for herself. It seemed so selfish, so ridiculous, for her to mourn a dad the way she did that wasn’t hers—like she was stealing from her friend and simultaneously betraying her own dad.

“What time is class?” Sophie dug into her closet and yanked out a shirt.

“Not till ten.”

Maya started her master’s in nursing at UW last semester, and the morsels of time they previously had together vanished. Sophie liked to blame Maya’s graduate schooling for the fact they never hung out anymore, but in reality, Sophie’s work sucked up almost every free second.

Maya yawned and dug into the refrigerator. “I’m gonna swing by Mom’s house before Harper goes to school and terrorize her a little.”

Sophie tugged a shirt over her head. “Tell them I said hi.”

“Tell them yourself.” Maya raised an eyebrow.

Fine, Sophie deserved that. When Maya left for college in Minnesota after high school, Sophie picked up the sister slack, as Maya called it. And Sophie loved bonding with Harper and Laney. Since she was little, there had always been a hole inside her, and being around them filled it. She loved her parents, of course, but when she was a kid, they worked so many hours and couldn’t always find babysitters, and she spent too much time alone. But with all the hours she’d been putting in these last six months, this last year, these last few years, her second family slipped away.

Sophie dug in her drawer, looking for one of her favorite black skirts with pink gemmed bones and skulls. “How’s Remi?”

“Cranky.” Maya huffed with a grin and poured a glass of juice. “She doesn’t think the new bartender they hired is up to speed.”

“It’s been a week.”

“I know!”

Sophie shimmied the skirt up her legs. “Maybe you’ll go back to slinging drinks.”

“I miss it a lot, actually.” Maya gulped the juice and wiped her lip with the back of her hand. “But nope. Nursing has my full attention. Oh, did I tell you…”

Maya plopped down on the kitchen stool and proceeded to talk about research on some blood-borne something or other, and Sophie tried, she really did, to focus on the foreign words. Her face probably mirrored Ella’s lost expression in the café yesterday. As Maya droned on, Sophie stood in front of the mirror. The shirt looked ridiculous. She ripped it off and tossed it in the corner. She grabbed another. Tossed another.

“So, I asked the professor about apple cider vinegar being an insulin aid, and I read an article—wait. What are you doing?” Maya pulled the phone so close to her face that Sophie could count her eyelashes. “That shirt looked great. Why did you toss it?”

“Not the look I’m going for today.” I’m so full of shit. For the first time in forever, she was self-conscious about the funky thrift-store finds stuffed in her closet. She finally settled on a cropped, off the shoulder sweater and neon pink tank. “So, big news time. Guess what? Malcolm offered for me to go on a cruise.”

Maya bolted upright. “What? How did you not lead with this? Are you serious? Tell me everything.”

Sophie made her way to the kitchen and propped the phone on the counter. “We landed this new account for Latoure—you know the new Alaska cruise line porting in Seattle? Anyway, they want to immerse the creative team in the cruising experience, so we can create the campaign.”

“Soph, this is huge! A freaking cruise. Are you kidding? You always wanted to go on one.” Maya slammed her hand against her mouth and muffled a screech. “Remember in high school when you signed your parents up for one of those timeshare demos with a promise of a free cruise?”

“Oh God, they were so mad.” She popped bread into the toaster. “They were held hostage in some crappy hotel conference room all afternoon.”

“I remember that! Didn’t we run around the lobby talking in fake accents and try to pretend we were European or something ridiculous?”

“Right!” Sophie giggled at the memory of a very irritated front desk agent who repeatedly asked them where their parents were. “Who knows, maybe I’ll find my soulmate off the coast of the Caribbean during the midnight chocolate buffet.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “Seattle is like the land of lesbian opportunity. Why don’t you try dating here?”

So many reasons. “Seattle might be filled with gays, but right now I feel like I’m only surrounded by dry-erase markers and laptops.” She’d gone on a few dates over the years, but by the time she worked late, logged off, and rushed to meet the person, she was tired and mentally preparing the next day’s agenda. By the first drink, her heartbeat would kick up a notch, worried about after-hours emails, and she’d sneak off to the bathroom to check her phone.

Maya’s lips turned into a frown. “I think you’re working too much.”

“I know.” Sophie’s voice turned soft. “But I have to.”

Maya nodded.

What Sophie loved the most about Maya was that she just inherently got it . Sophie didn’t need to explain her obsession to prove she was right for this job, prove to everyone they didn’t make a mistake, prove she could excel like her co-workers, even without a fancy degree. No need for her to justify the fear of winding up like her parents, who’d have to work until they were eighty just to stay in their run-down, two-bedroom home.

Sophie scraped butter across the toast and crunched into a bite. “Honestly, the cruise is probably not gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I have to project manage and execute a whole new campaign beforehand. You know Devil’s Doughnuts in Fremont and Capitol Hill? It’s for them.” She dusted off the crumbs from her fingers. “But me and the team have to get out social, web, and digital in eight weeks.”

Maya set the phone on the counter and propped her elbows onto the table. “I’m not even going to pretend I understand the difference. They all sound like the internet to me.”

“Well, social is social, like Instagram, Facebook, whatever,” Sophie said. “Web is landing pages and banners on their website, and digital… you know, never mind. The details aren’t important. But it’s nearly impossible to do. The entire team will have to work triple time.”

“I can’t believe they’re making you do this on your own.”

Right now, Sophie actually wished she were doing this on her own. Then she could avoid the chocolate-eyed demon for one more second. “I’m training in a newbie.”

“That’s amazing! You’ve always wanted a trainee.” Maya’s eyes brightened. “You should make them get your coffee and tell them to rub your feet. Bark orders like a boss.”

Sophie grinned but followed it with a groan. “Never gonna happen. It’s George’s daughter.”

Maya’s lip twitched in a grimace. “Oh God, don’t you hate that guy?”

“I don’t hate him as much as, I don’t know… He’s kind of a goober. Sometimes I see snippets that make me think he’s human. And he signed off on my promotion, so… But it’s total crap his daughter is my trainee. Not only is she a rookie, but she only got the job because she’s his daughter.” Sophie stuffed her laptop in her bag and zipped. “It’s going to be like training an infant. She’s a rookie, and they put her in the big leagues, and she is one hundred percent gonna eff up my shit.”

Maya’s head snapped back. “Jesus, whoa. This doesn’t even sound like you. The last time I heard you this heated was when you waited all night to see Dave Matthews and they sold out.”

Sophie exhaled through her nose. Maya was probably right. This ball inside her gut, fiery and icky and gross, wasn’t her. On her way to work, she needed to listen to a podcast of Brené Brown, Simon Sinek, or some meditation guru. “Do you remember me talking about her? Years ago, when I first started?”

“She was kind of a shit, right? Didn’t she sneer at your combat boots? Clearly, she has terrible taste.”

“It wasn’t just my combat boots! It was everything… what I was wearing, how I looked, the fact that I never went to college. You should have seen her face when I broke that devasting news. She didn’t even look me in the eye.” Sophie kneaded a knuckle into the corner of her eye and flashed back to that day. She’d only been at Mahogany and Moon for a week and was desperate to make a good impression. Since she was fourteen, she’d always worked—sweeping at her dad’s mechanic shop, bussing tables at her mom’s diner, summers at the pier cleaning fish guts from the Market. But this was different. This was a real job. A respectable job. And she even had a title!

Then what started as forced conversation took a dark turn, and flew downhill from there. A few snarky comments tossed, glares flung, and the burning pit in Sophie’s stomach accelerating to an inferno degree. When Ella finally left, Sophie ran to the bathroom and cried.

Sophie looked at her watch. Crap. If she didn’t bolt now, she’d miss the metro and hell if she’d let Ella beat her there on day one. “I’ve gotta run. Tell Remi I want a do-over, double or nothing, on our pool match last week.”

“Are you still mad you lost your ten bucks?”

“Yes, yes I am.” Sophie grinned. “Luvs.”

She hung up the phone and zipped up her boots. Day one.

Ella better buckle up. She had no idea what it was like to work in the real world.