Page 36 of Strictly Pretend

She checks her watch. “It’s five already. Shouldn’t you be at home getting ready?”

“I told him to pick me up from here.” It felt weird, having him pick me up from my apartment. Like this was more than a business arrangement. “I don’t know him,” I tell her. “I’m not giving him my address.”

She laughs. “You’re going to be sharing a room with this guy at the wedding.” Rita wiggles her eyebrows. “And maybe more than that.”

“I’m not sharing any more than that,” I tell her.

“Hmmm.” She lifts a brow. “And you do know him. You’ve been talking to him every night for a week.”

“That was homework,” I say. “Like studying for a history exam. Just because you know the details of somebody’s life doesn’t mean you knowthem.”

“If you know a man’s favorite food and his favorite sexual position you’re halfway there.”

My smile wavers. “I know what food he likes.”

“But you know his favorite sexual position, right?” Rita asks. “I mean, if you were really his girlfriend you’d definitely know. And you’d know the sound he makes when he…” she trails off. “You don’t know that either?”

“Why would I need to know that?” I ask her. “I’m not going to be having a polite conversation with a guest and then throw in, ‘oh, Brooks brays like a donkey when he comes.’”

She laughs. “Of course you won’t. But I’m serious, honey. You need to show you’re intimate with him. It won’t work if you don’t.”

“Intimate? Like I should sleep with him?”

She blinks. And then I blink. For a minute the silence between us is so loaded I can feel the weight of it on my shoulders. Finally, she breaks it.

“Noooo.” She shakes her head. “But there’s intimacy and then there’sintimacy. The questions you two have been asking each other? They’re not intimate. Sure, you know his favorite color and that he likes burgers or whatever.”

“Sushi,” I correct her and she smiles.

“Okay, sushi. But do you know the face he makes when he eats a good California roll?”

“No.”

She presses her lips together. “He’s right. You need to do this face to face.”

I widen my eyes at her. “We are. That’s why I need a dress.”

She turns her back to me and walks over to a rack, sliding through the dresses until she lets out a triumphant sound.

“This is the one,” she says. “The one for tonight, I mean. I have my eye on a completely different one for the wedding. Well, three actually. You’re there for four days, right?”

“Including the days we travel, yes.” And I’m dreading every single moment of it. Why did I agree to this? I could be at home, eating my body weight in vanilla ice cream.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” She claps her hands together. “I love playing fairy godmother.” She carries the dress over to me and ushers me to the changing room. “Put that on. Then I’ll do your makeup.”

“I can do my own makeup,” I shout back through the curtain.

But of course she doesn’t let me. And an hour later I’m all dressed and made up and standing in front of the book shop, waiting for Brooks to arrive.

“Hey honey.”

I jump at the sound of my grandpa’s voice. “What are you doing here?” I ask him. “I thought you went home an hour ago.”

“I was going to. But then I picked up a copy of Dickens and kind of got lost.” He looks sheepish. “That’s a pretty dress. You going out somewhere?”

“I’m just…” I take a deep breath, trying to figure out how to lie without it coming back on me. But before I can say anything else, a sleek gray sports car pulls into the space in front of us and Brooks climbs out.

“Oh,” Grandpa says, a smile pulling at his lips. “Are you two going out together?”

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