Page 80 of Road Queens
“There’s no ‘we,’” Cassandra replied. “Amanda and Sidney and I are talking fashion. You’re just sort of standing there looking confused.”
That is delightful.“Ha!”
“If you won’t tell me about your first client, tell me about your next one. Or the tenth one. Anything!” Beane begged.
“Shaddup,” Sidney said absently. Then, to Cassandra: “You’re right to love Velez and wrong to love Abloh. His dresses are weird.”
“You like Velez’s weird dresses but not Abloh’s?” Amanda cried. Beane had asked the important question but wouldn’t understand the answer: the three of them often discussed fashion when faced with obstacles. Some women joined book clubs; some bitched over beetroot pesto with goat cheese pizza; the three of them plotted while they lamented the fact that Beverly Feldman didn’t have a store within fifteen hundred miles.
Much more fun to debate the pros and cons of Abloh’s unsightly holographic duffel bag than wonder when Cassandra was going to be indicted for murder. And for some reason, coming up with lists like “Worst shoes in the history of footgear” and “Ugliest trench coats of 2023” often helped them solve the problem they had shelved. Must’ve been a left brain / right brain thing.
“No, you donotlike Velez’s weird dresses over Abloh’s,” Amanda decided. “It makes no sense.”
Sidney smacked her hand on the counter. “Abloh made dresses out of Gore-Tex! I’m not paying twelve hundred dollars to look like a sexy-ass Michelin Man.”
“Better that than apocalypse chic,” she retorted. “Velez does good drape, I’ll grant you that. But all her dresses look like she cut fabric while blindfolded, then threw it into a washing machine with a bunch of razors. Her 2022 collection was a parade of disaster.”
“Too harsh!” Cass insisted.
“Not harsh enough! One dress was essentially a volleyball net. Avolleyball net, Cassandra. And not a nice one. A garbage net that was so torn up, college kids stuck it in storage and forgot about it.”
“But the corset dress—”
Amanda groaned. “Oh, Cass, you’re killing me. Corsets? Again? In this century? There’s nothing innovative about going back a hundred years. Next, we’ll be up to our butts in bustles and beehives.”
“Could be worse,” Dave Conner, faithful guardian of Amanda’s Hole, said sotto voce to Beane.
“Jesus,” Beane replied with a flinch. “I forgot you were here. You really do blend in.”
“So they tell me. Like I said, could be worse.” Dave nodded in the trio’s direction. “They could be arguing about Crocs versus UGGs. So many pencils thrown that day. Y’know, it’s amazing she hasn’t put anyone’s eye out.”
“Okay, this could go on for hours—”
“Excellent! I’ve missed it,” Cassandra admitted.
“—but we’re just gonna have to agree to decide I’m right and you two are idiots. So now what? Beane? Any suggestions? And don’t say Cass should turn herself in,” Sidney warned.
Cass had wandered behind the counter to freshen her cup of coffee. Unlike Sidney, Cassandra did not turn hers into dessert. “Since we’re back on that, quick question. You and/or Amanda didn’t kill Jonny Frank, right? Just so I can check that box?”
Amanda stuck out her tongue. “Hilarious. And no, we didn’t. I mean I didn’t. I can’t speak for Sidney. It’s not like I watch her every minute.”
“Fuck yourself sideways, Amanda. I wouldn’t have shot him and dumped him. I would have cut off his face and fed it to him. But who has that kind of time?”
Cass looked around at their small group. “So now what?”
Excellent question. “We don’t have any leads,” Amanda admitted. “How could we? We’re not investigating; we’ve been over that and over that. But sitting around hoping Cass doesn’t get arrested isn’t an option either. And it’s not like we can start Operation Starfish again.”
“Whoa!” Cass almost spilled her coffee. “Who even said restarting our fucked-up Underground Railroad was on the agenda?”
“Nobody,” Amanda admitted.
“I can’t advocate vigilantism,” Beane said, “but you ladies performed a valuable service. You saved my sister from Debbie Frank’s and Wanda Garner’s fates. If you wanted to—I mean, I could help you. If you decided to take up the work again. There are ways to help without breaking quite so many laws.”
“We’re getting waaaaay ahead of ourselves,” Amanda warned.
“And who’s Wanda Garner?” Sidney asked.
“Frank’s first wife,” Cassandra and Beane said in unison.
