Page 35 of Eye Candy

“Ziegfeld Girl is sad. You didn’t warn me it was sad.” [Call ended].

CHAPTER 16

CAROLINE

“Just rip it, Care.”

“I’m not going to rip it, it’s a whole clump! I can get it out, you just need to sit still.”

Lyssa sighed, accidentally knocking the nail polish into the sink. Gagging For It Gold bled out over the basin.

Living in a very small space with someone who owned every craft supply under the sun was sometimes cozy (more space would be wasteful!) and other times suffocating (‘I’m sick of stepping over yarn to get to the bathroom, Lyssa! We need a path!’).

Our studio apartment was filled to the brim with yarn, paint tubes, half of a torn-apart wicker chair, a broken antique sewing machine, and some calico that was half-dyed. Lyssa called it cluttercore. There wasn’t a lot of room for my stuff, so it was in suitcases under our bunks. Most of my belongings were stage costumes anyway, which made me sad to look at when I couldn’t use them, so it was better they stayed out of sight.

Right now, Lyssa was sitting on the bathroom sink with her feet in the basin, painting her toenails while I picked melted waxout of her hair. She’d seen a video where someone had dyed their hair by wrapping strands around colored crayons and heating them with hair irons, and it seemed easy enough. We didn’t have the right kind of parchment paper though, and the result was a melted mess. For a particularly alarming few seconds, I’d thought we were going to burn down the building.

As a teenager, Lyssa had gone viral for posting the outfits she wore to school. After fashion school, she’d gotten a prestigious internship at a fashion-based media company, but had recently quit that place and was now a full-time social media influencer. Lyss didn’t film me—I didn’t have any social media other than as Summer—so I didn’t have to worry about her videos ruining my fraud, but still. Living with an influencer was…unique.

“A curse on Danilla De’Angerous,” Lyssa grumbled as she rescued the bottle and I mopped up the polish with toilet paper. “With her annoying pastel streaks and her annoying viral content. My content is way better than Dani’s.”

Dani doesn’t have a head full of crayon.

“Dani doesn’t have burned hair,” Lyssa continued, reading my mind. “Dani has gained ten thousand new followers in twenty-four hours. I just need one big viral video so I can pitch new brands for collaborations! I know you think crayon hair is unhinged, Caroline, but it was going to be my ticket.”

I wondered if other influencers’ best friends had conversations like this.

Lyssa eyed me from under a singed strand of hair. “You know what would really help?”

“What?” I asked warily. Last time Lyssa had gotten that look in her eye she’d made me film her doing outfit transitions in Times Square. It was the worst possible place for a video like that and we’d both had an awful time.

Lyssa gripped my shoulders. “There is a time in the affairs of men,” she quoted, “Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune!”

“You know you lose me when you do Shakespeare.”

“I’m not sayingThe Tragedy of Julius Ceasaris a road map, but these are the affairs of women! Totally different!”

“Huh?”

“You should go to another party as Teddy!” she cried. “Take me with you this time. I could shoot content or livestream! I wouldn’t filmyouof course, Miss Viola/Cesario. I wouldn’t ruin the scam. I’d just be like, ‘Who are you wearing?’ to all the hot people, like an entertainment reporter. And then I’d tag them in the photos. You know Sonya Barlow, right? She’s big in the art world. Or Greta Winters? She doesn’t have as many followers as Sonya, but if I could get her to post a photo with me, that would work. Or?—”

“Ican’t, Lyssa. It’s too risky. I did what Gerard asked, now I’ll get what he promised.”

As soon as he answered his F—Fred Astaire phone.

“And when I have a regular gig, I’ll be good for rent every month.” I tried to cheer her up. “No more IOUs.”

Lyssa waved a Gagging-tipped hand. “Rent is a construct.”

I nearly choked.

Imagine if I told Dad’s accountant that.

“My mom doesn’t need it,” Lyssa continued. “She only makes me pay for this place to punish me for quitting my job. She’s never going to kick me out, Care, and I’m never going to kickyouout, so it’s all fine.” She smiled as if it were that easy, and my heart cracked a little bit.

My sweet, infuriating, sheltered, bighearted sort-of sister.

“I don’t want you to have to cover me, Lyssa.” My never-give-up gene was also known as the unable-to-accept-help one. It was kind of a Kiwi thing, and kind of amething, and it ruined my life all the time. A real New Yorker would leap at the chance of discounted rent. I should. But I couldn’t.

---