Page 20 of Minted

And not for me.

By the third day, it was clear she was planning to act like she didn’t even know me. It broke my little heart, and I was also confused. I was so confused that I didn’t even tell my parents. When my birthday party rolled around a month later, I expected her to skip it.

But she showed up, with exactly the present I wanted: a huge art kit.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “I thought we weren’t friends.”

“Why would you think that?” She looked genuinely confused. “I really like you.”

“But you ignore me at school,” I said, even though it felt worse than that. It felt like sometimes she was even mocking me behind my back.

“Oh.” She waved her hand dismissively. “That’s just school. I didn’t realize you were such a dork there. And anyway, it’s too late to fix it now.”

“It’s not too late,” I said. “If we ask Miss Kent, we can trade seats.”

“No.” She frowned. “It’s too late for you—no one likes you. But we’re still friends here, where that kind of thing doesn’t matter.”

That night, I told my mom what was going on, and she stopped inviting their family to our house for any gatherings. I’ve always wondered whether I did the right thing, or whether Harriet was right. Can you really separate your true feelings from your social act? Did I lose a true friend because I couldn’t manage a basic human social function?

I mean, we all put on fronts.

And now, I’m helping Bentley put on the dumbest front of all time. I watch, in awe, as he goes into the dressing room wearing four thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and emerges wearing two hundred.

“That belt is so wrong.” I can’t help laughing.

“Why?” He bends over, trying to see the belt.

“Never mind. It looks alright.” I laugh more. “And those pants.” I intentionally picked the ugliest clothes I could find at first, but I thought he’d filter them out. Instead, he marched out dressed like a British caddy for a pro golfer. Apparently when you don’t shop for yourself, you just dress up in whatever someone hands you, like a living doll.

The worst part is that, even with loud plaid pants and an ugly sweater, Bentley still looks like an ice-cream sundae with extra cherries.

This deal we made seemed like a good idea, but now it feels like I’m just torturing myself. I’ve always known he was too good for me, but now I’m actively involved in setting him up with women who are dozens of leagues ahead of me, and the more time I spend with Bentley, whom I previously only saw at Dave and Seren’s parties, the more I like him.

This could turn out worse than the Harriet debacle if I’m not careful.

While he’s inside trying things on, I check my email to make sure I’m not missing anything critical. I almost scream when I see that I have another inane email from the HR department about the Twinning girls. Our client’s going to be ticked if we can’t set up the details of the holiday campaign in the next two or three days.

I open the email—which is essentially some complaint that the signature on the forms is nothing like the signatures from last year. “Do they think people are robots?” I mutter to myself. “My signature looks different every time.” I click on the attachments, and I suddenly understand their frustration.

The signatures aren’t just different. The signatures are nothing alike. One looks like an adult’s quick scrawl, and one looks like. . .well, it looks like the little girls tried to forge it for some reason. And they didn’t even do a good job. I sigh and fire off a quick reply. I’ll have to go out for a face-to-face visit tomorrow. I’m lucky they’re local.

But then Bentley’s out again, and I’m distracted. Within half an hour, we’ve found some decent options, and while he doesn’t look quite as yummy, he still looks pretty good. “Yes, those pants and those shirts are all interchangeable,” I say. “That’s the good thing about cheap clothes. They’re made to go with most anything.”

“We should get something for you,” Bentley says. “To thank you for helping me.” His eyes widen. “But we don’t have to get something cheap.” He looks around with an expression that makes it clear that to him, Macy’s is like a Goodwill. “We could go to Saks.”

“Bentley.” I wait until he’s looking at me. “I shop here. All the time.”

“Oh.” He shakes his head. “Of course you do.” He cringes. “I need to not say stuff like that, right?”

“People who don’t know you won’t realize you’re a benign snob,” I say. “They might mistake you for a malignant one.”

He laughs. “And I can’t go around being cancerous, can I?”

“It would be better if you didn’t.” I glance at my watch. “Any chance you can drop me off right away?”

“You don’t have time to pick a dress or some shoes?”

Shopping with Bentley? Telling him what size I’m wearing—a twelve with major muffin top or a fourteen—and trying things on while he studies me to see how they look?

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