“Well, what?” I sipped my coffee. It tasted weak and slid unpleasantly down to my stomach. I placed the mug down on the coffee table.
“I was worried about you.”
“Yeah, you already said that. I’m fine.”
“Ms. Saunders isn’t talking about what happened. Why did you get fired?”
I paused for a moment while I came up with something that sounded logical. “She didn’t like the job I was doing. She fired me. End of story.”
Amy exhaled deeply and her usual bright, shiny smile returned to her face. “I knew it had to be something like that. You would not believe what everyone is saying about you.”
“What are they saying?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to know. Really. But I’d stay clear from Sally in accounting, if you catch my drift.”
I didn’t, but decided to let it go. I didn’t want to catch any drift that had to do with “Skanky Sally.”
“Okay, so you got fired because Saunders is a bitch.”
“Essentially.”
“That still doesn’t explain where you’ve been since yesterday and why you haven’t returned any of my calls. Don’t you know it’s rude to just disappear when people are worried about you?”
“Sorry, I… I’ve been around. But I’ve just been a little too upset to pick up the phone. I guess I’ve been feeling sorry for myself.”
She drank her coffee but didn’t comment on the weak taste. Maybe it was just my taste buds that were faulty this morning.
She squinted at me. “You look different.”
“I do?” My hand went immediately to my hair.
“Yeah.” She leaned closer. “Actually, you look amazing.”
My eyebrows went up at that. “Amazing? And that’s different than normal? Gee, thanks.”
She waved her hand. “You know what I mean. It’s like you’re glowing, or something. That zit you had on your cheek yesterday has cleared up already. And”—she leaned even closer—“you’re not wearing any makeup, but you don’t look like hell.”
I backed away from her. “I guess I must have had a really good sleep.”
Her eyes widened. She stood up so suddenly that her coffee mug jerked and a little of the warm liquid splashed on me. “I think I know what it is.”
“What what is?”
“Why you look so good. I can’t believe it, Sarah. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Her bottom Up wobbled. “We’re supposed to be best friends, aren’t we?”
I felt what little color there was still in my cheeks drain away. How could she have figured it out so easily? She was nice enough, but not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. At least, not usually.
“I’m sure it’s not what you think,” I said quickly.
“There’s no other explanation for it. Disappearing for a whole day, not returning my phone calls. Looking so different.”
She grabbed her purse and began shuffling through the contents. I stared at her with disbelief. Good God, she’d figured out I was a vampire and was hunting around in her bag for a weapon. I didn’t want to fight for my life against my best friend. That would really put a damper on our trip to Mexico. Not good. Not good at all.
She stopped searching and looked at me, her eyes even wider than before. “You are, aren’t you?”
Maybe I should just admit it. Get everything out in the open. Or maybe not. Denial was a wonderful thing.
I stood up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I got ready to tackle her, but all she ended up pulling out of her purse was her pressed powder. She held the compact loosely in her hand and sat back down on the sofa.
“You’re in love,” she informed me. “And you don’t even want to tell me about it. I’m so incredibly hurt.”
“I’m in… in love?”
“Who’s the guy? Oh wait, I’m sure that’s too much information for me, isn’t it?”
I was so relieved that I almost fainted. She thought I’d disappeared for a day and looked great because some guy had swept me off my feet. Which, thinking back to the fall from the bridge with Thierry, wasn’t all that far off. I sat back down beside her as she inspected herself in the small mirror and powdered her nose. “There’s no guy. I’m serious. If there was, you know you’d be the very first person I’d tell. I promise that I’m still pathetically single.”
She studied me for a moment. “For real?”
“The realest.”
She closed the compact and put it back in her purse. “If you say so, then I guess I believe you.”
“I say so.”
She grinned at me. “Then we definitely need to go to the mall today to celebrate your liberation from that dead-end job. What do you say?”
That sounded like a plan. I wanted to get out, didn’t particularly matter where. After the night I’d just had, the apartment felt very claustrophobic to me.
I dressed quickly in jeans and a comfy dark blue sweatshirt with a little picture of Tweety Bird on the front. Then I slipped into my leather jacket and grabbed my purse, all in under ten minutes. Had to be some kind of a record.
The Eaton Centre was four subway stops away and accessible by the PATH. I found the skylights in the mall to be painfully bright, so I left my sunglasses on the whole time. Amy thought I was trying to be incognito in case we saw anyone from the office. I was just trying not to go blind. Luckily, it was starting to cloud over. The weather report called for snow by the end of the day. I watched Amy rack up her credit on a pair of diamond stud earrings. I was so jealous. If I still had a job, I might have done the same thing, but now I had to be budget girl. Had to make my money last—well, until the end of time.
We grabbed lunch in the food court. I still wasn’t hungry, but I got Mexican, anyhow. Burritos with sour cream and refried beans. Diet Coke on the side. One of my favorites. But, after the first bite, it tasted so bland, and sat so heavily in my stomach, that I pushed it away.
Amy watched me absently play with my food while she chomped away on her cheeseburger and fries. Then she put the sandwich down and covered it with a paper napkin.
“You’re right,” she said. “We shouldn’t be eating this crap. Way too many calories.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone approach our table and sit down next to me. It was a crowded food court, but I didn’t think we should have to share our booth without even being asked first. Some people were so rude.
I turned around to face whoever it was, and a gasp caught in my throat.
It was Quinn.