Here’s what I know.
There are two kinds of people in this world. The Abraham Lincolns think mercy bears rich fruit. They send up the white flag during unwinnable struggles and comfort their enemies after the battle.
But there’s another kind of person. The kind for whom surrender is never an option. We can’t retreat. And there’s never enough sacrifice or revenge to satisfy us.
December is shaping up to be the shittiest month of all time.
Not only will I be celebrating the thirtieth straight day of having Lean Cuisine Thai-Style Chicken Spring Rolls for lunch, I’m also staring in the face of hell weekend. The Friday night I make my presentation to Jameson Butterfield and the following evening when Tommy escorts Butterfield’s daughter to the holiday dance.
Yes. Tommy’s still going to the dance. I asked her and it wouldn’t be right not to go, he says. I’ll tell her I can’t see her anymore right after the dance, he says. He doesn’t bother to clarify whether he likes her or me, and I’m too afraid of the answer to ask.
I guess there’s some kind of possibility that things could work out right. Lightning could strike and leave me with a killer idea to present to Butterfield in addition to burning off my eyebrows. Tommy’s going to kick Kennes to the curb. These things could happen.
In theory.
It’s Saturday, one week before the dance. I’m sitting in my usual chair at the NutriNation meeting, sandwiched in between Rickelle and Kimberly. Amanda has written Keep Going on a whiteboard at the front of the room.
“What are some reasons we might want to quit our weight loss plan?” Amanda asks.
Because we’d rather go back to our old lives of occasionally feeling full after a meal and watching TV instead of running our asses off? Because maybe the world should judge us by our character and not the size of our bodies?
I mention that I’ve been eating the same thing for lunch for almost a month.
“Okay. Monotony. That’s a reason,” she agrees.
This leads to a long discussion about changing up my diet. Could I eat an apple instead of an orange? Could I pack a sandwich instead of a Lean Cuisine? What about string cheese for protein? Have I considered low-cal English muffins?
After the meeting breaks, Rickelle taps me on the arm. “You want some advice?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Variety isn’t for everyone. Some people need to have a plan and stay with it. If I were you, I’d stick with those spring rolls. Even if you have to choke them down.”
She tightens the laces on her running shoes and gets up to leave. I know she’s right. Because there are two kinds of people in the world.
Back at home, I stare at Kennes’s dress, which I have been hand-beading in every spare second I’ve got. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to sew, didn’t love to make clothes. But I hate this dress. I hate working on it. I hate the idea of it.
The reason the dress even exists at all is because of Grandma. Because Grandma keeps coming by and giving me this look that says, Take the high road, Cookie. She keeps reminding me of all the times Tommy’s saved my butt. Also because Grandma gave me the silk and beads to make the thing with.
Two weeks ago, Kennes hit my desk and dropped a stack of pictures of French couture gowns that probably cost $20,000 each and had teams of seamstresses working around the clock to perfect them. Since then, she’s been ordering me around like I’m a combination of the mice from the Cinderella cartoon and the Keebler Elves. She wanted the most expensive materials, and when I asked where I was supposed to get the stuff from, she said, “I’m sure you’ll figure that out.”
Lucky for her, Grandma coughed up the crepe de chine.
The dress design is the kind of thing that I’ve never been able to wear. With its Madame Grès–style, side-pleated panels, it’s a dress I’d see on the rack and understand was only for the super thin. The kind of people who have bodies that fabric hangs from with ease and who never worry about their cleavage popping out of their bodices.
There are two kinds of people in this world. The Kennes Butterfields and Me.
But what if there were only one kind of person? What if the world gave everyone the same opportunity to look and feel beautiful?
Suddenly, I have an idea, and a plan to present it to Butterfield.
Things will work out.
Again, in theory.
I get the Clothing teacher, Mrs. Vargas, to count my presentation for SoScottsdale as an assignment so I can work on it at school. It winds up being fun. There’s a girl in class who’s really good with graphic design who helps me with a logo. Another girl, Jennifer, shows me how to do a passable job in PowerPoint. By the end of the week, the presentation is pretty good. I’m ready.
After school on Friday, I drive over to the SoScottsdale office. My phone buzzes constantly with text messages from Kennes.
Bring my dress.
Did you make a matching clutch?
What’s the Wi-Fi password?
Stop for crackers.
It’s this last thing that makes me late.
I hit the Safeway. There’s nine million kinds of crackers and I choose Cheez-It crackers and saltines. That’s what passes for fine dining in my house.
When I show up, Kennes says, “You’re late,” and takes the bag of crackers from me. We go into the kitchen, where she opens the bag and scowls. “For future reference, when someone asks you to bring crackers to a party, they generally mean Carr’s Table Water Crackers.”
She pours the Cheez-Its into a crystal bowl, and I will admit, they do look sort of silly displayed that way. She leaves me standing there alone.
From the conference room, I hear a male voice say, “Interesting snack selection, Kennes. Very bourgeois.”
“I asked one of the interns to pick up the snacks. You know what they say. Good help is so hard to find,” Kennes says.
There’s light laughter, and I recognize Marlene’s voice.
Kennes, Marlene and Jameson Butterfield are all in the conference room, laughing at the crackers I had to buy with my Donutville tips.
It’s too much.
Kennes pokes her head back into the kitchen. “We’re ready for you, Cookie.”
I run my thumb over the flash drive Jennifer gave to me.
I’m cold and calm and ready to make my last stand.
“I don’t have anything ready,” I say.
Her mask of mean condescension vanishes. She’s scared and nervous. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Well, like you said. Good help is so hard to find.”
Kennes follows me to my desk. We pass the conference room, where Marlene’s pleasant smile disappears as I pass by and don’t enter. A handsome man in a gray Caraceni suit rises from his seat and leans into the doorway. I assume this is Butterfield and he’s taking an interest in the situation with his daughter.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brittany and Shelby with their mouths hanging open as I stuff the few personal items I keep in my desk into my bag.
“Cookie Vonn! Cookie Vonn,” Kennes sputters, “if you walk out that door, you’re fired. I hope you know that. Fired.”
“You can’t fire me. I quit. Please consider this my resignation. Effective immediately. I’d rather have a job cleaning truck-stop restrooms after the chili cook-off than spend one more minute in the same office with you.”
Kennes continues to tail me into the parking lot. And Butterfield follows her. I’m a little worried at first. It’s one thing to go up against a know-nothing, snobby brat, but I don’t want to fight a tech tycoon. I don’t have a plan if he decides to intervene.
But he doesn’t. He lights a cigarette and steps into the shadows of one of the strip mall’s pillars, watching the scene unfold like he’s discovered some bizarre foreign film that he can’t understand but can’t look away from.
I’m several paces ahead of Kennes. She catches up as I unlock the car door and shouts, “Fine. Just give me the dress and go.”
Despite the fact that I know she can see the garment bag hanging in the back of my Corolla, I say, “There is no dress.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Her eyes have widened to a bizarre degree.
I open my car door and toss my bag on the passenger seat. “There. Is. No. Dress. For. You.” A sound that’s part snort and part laugh escapes my lips. I’m on the verge of completely cracking up. Kennes looks like something from a cartoon. I half expect steam to blow out of her ears.
“It’s right there! We had a deal. You agreed to make it. Give it to me, or our next conversation will be with my father’s attorney.”
As I land on the seat and stick the keys in the ignition, I call back, “I’d relish that meeting, Kennes. Because this is America, not North Korea. We have labor laws here. A state and federal minimum wage. I’d love to watch you say, for the record, that you ordered an unpaid intern to slave away as a seamstress at night using materials you refused to pay for. Tell me when that meeting is so I can be there. I’ll clear my fucking calendar for that one, for sure.”
“The term sore loser doesn’t even describe what’s happening here. I’ve got Tommy and SoScottsdale. I’m the one in the spotlight, and you can’t stand it,” she says.
The little snothead is standing behind my car. Like she can fix everything if she keeps me from leaving.
I get out and stalk toward her, and she flinches. There’s one wild moment where I think I might actually grab her by the hair and body-slam her onto the asphalt. But I don’t. I stop a few feet from her.
“You don’t have anything I want. You took the best guy on the planet, who lived to study stars and had something to contribute to the world, and infected him with your vapid disease. And now he’s out stealing to pay for your caviar cocktails and Carr’s Water Table Crackers. You took this blog and made it worse. You take good people like Brittany and Shelby and make them wish they hadn’t gotten out of bed in the morning. You ruin everything you touch. Everything is shit the instant you show up.”
In my periphery, I see Jameson Butterfield, puffing on his cigarette. He approaches my beat-up car, eyeing it like an exhibit in an oddball museum. His suit is cut exactly right. His pocket square is neatly folded. His shoes perfectly shined. I’m scared for the first time. This is a guy that worries the FBI.
Butterfield doesn’t reach out to comfort his daughter and instead says, “You should consider what you’re about to do here, Miss Vonn. You’ve clearly got talent and I’ve got the resources to make sure your abilities are seen by the right people.”
This is the moment Kennes picks to burst into tears. She gives me this look. Like a wounded animal. It’s galling, really. She set out to ruin my life, and now I’m supposed to commiserate with her? But she does get her ass back onto the sidewalk.
Her father takes one last puff of his cigarette, hands me his business card and follows Kennes back to the office.
I get into the car and pull onto Hayden Road. In the rearview mirror, I see the two of them standing in front of the office window. Butterfield doesn’t look at his daughter, who stands there with mascara running down her face.
He watches me as I drive away.
For a sliver of a second, I feel bad for Kennes. Like I ought to introduce her jackass dad to my mom. I crumple up Butterfield’s business card and toss it out the window.
For an instant, I wonder if I’ve gone too far.
And I feel like shit for littering.
But those feelings don’t last.
Tommy shows up at Grandma’s an hour later.
Grandma is asleep, but I’m at the kitchen table. I’m sort of expecting him. It seems kind of clear to me where things are headed.
He takes a seat in one of the vinyl-covered chairs and stares at the old gas stove instead of me. “You told her I’m stealing so I can take her on dates?”
Kennes Butterfield is ruining my life, and this is what’s concerning him. His reputation. That she might think less of him.
“You are stealing to take her on dates.”
He grunts in frustration. “It wasn’t your place to tell her that.”
I shake my head at him. “No. Apparently, it’s my place to get arrested for the theft and cover for you. I have my court appearance next week. That’s my place.”
Oh yeah. I need to add Court Date to my to-do list for Hell Month.
“I already told you, I’m sorry.”
The table shakes as I pound my fist on it. He looks me in the face for the first time. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be the way you used to be.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
He turns away again. “I need you to give me the dress, Cookie.”
I can’t even believe what I’m hearing.
“Please?”
“No,” I say in a cold, dark tone.
“You already did what you set out to do. You made her look stupid in front of Marlene. You humiliated her in front of her father. Give her the dress. It’s the least you can do,” he says.
“The least I can do? Why? Because life’s been so tough on her that now she’s entitled to order me around like I’m her slave and make me produce her clothing on my own time with my own money? What’s her problem, Tommy? Maybe the nanny didn’t wipe her ass with organic alcohol-free wipes fast enough? Or her Citizen Kane daddy gave her a black pony when she wanted a white one?”
He puts his hands up defensively. “She’s just like you, Cookie. She’s a nice person trying to do her best—”
My blood pressure is reaching levels that are probably considered medically unsafe. “Kennes Butterfield is a bitch who takes everything that’s been handed to her on a silver platter and uses it as an excuse to take advantage of people and shit on everyone else’s feelings. If you think I’m like her, get the hell out and don’t come back.”
“Cookie.” He’s pleading with me. “Calm down. Please. Just give me the dress.”
“You want the goddamn dress?”
Without waiting for an answer, I stomp into my room and return with the garment bag. I hate this dress. I hate the design. I hated the process of making it. I know I shouldn’t ruin Grandma’s silk but...
Tommy reaches out to take the garment bag from me but I walk past him. I approach the coffeepot that waits on the kitchen counter, full of the cold remains from Grandma’s breakfast. Tommy’s mouth falls open in horror as I unzip the garment bag and pour the liquid inside.
It’s silent in the kitchen except for the tapping sound of cold coffee as it drips down the dress and pools up inside the plastic bag.
Grandma’s door swings open and she enters the kitchen with her hair set tight in pink foam curlers. I doubt anyone would be able to sleep through my loudmouth ranting. She sees everything. Tommy. Me. The coffeepot. The dress.
Tommy leaves through the side door. His truck starts a few seconds later.
Grandma’s mouth is pressed into a thin, white line. “Was that really necessary?”
Yes. Yes, it was.
“You’ve got mail,” she says, pointing to a stack of papers on one end of the table. I can tell that her arthritis is bothering her as she hobbles over to the coffeepot, taking pains to avoid putting weight on her right foot.
Great. Now I’ve ousted my arthritic grandma from her bed.
“Could be good news,” she says. She puts on a new pot of coffee. As the machine starts to gurgle, I pick up the mail.
On top there is a large envelope from Parsons.
The letter reads, “Congratulations! On behalf of the Admissions Committee, you have been offered a place at Parsons The New School for Design.” There’s a bunch more paperwork in the envelope. Grandma grins at me while I leaf through it.
Page two tells the whole story. It’s labeled “Financial Aid Award Notification.” Underneath the header, “Expected Financial Aid,” there’s a big fat zero.
Grandma’s still smiling. But it’s over.
My dream of going to Parsons is dead.