Read Here I Go Again: A Novel for Free Online Page B

business.
    “Don’t you mean ‘Books Fatty’?”
    Uh-oh.
    “If you’re talking to me, you must mean ‘Books Fatty,’ because that’s certainly what you called me twenty years ago.” Brooks narrows her eyes and languidly leans back onto the sink. She’s all slender angles and catlike grace now. Which I don’t love.
    The public relations business is all about damage control. Clearly this person thinks I did her wrong in high school, so I’m going to learn from Dr. Premenstrual and spin this to my advantage. I place my hand on her (bony) shoulder so I come across extra sincere. “Did I? I’m so sorry. You know how girls can be. We were, like, bears or something, stalking an injured elk. You can’t blame us; it was just our nature, and elk are delicious and stuff. But come on! That was so long ago and no one remembers! Surely you’ve gotten over it. I mean, look at you! You’re all tall and thin and perfectly highlighted! You have a show on television! And is that an Herve Leger bandage dress I spy? Amazeballs!”
    Brooks pulls a fresh pack of cigarettes and a fancy gold lighter out of her clutch. “Oh, sure, of course. I’m so over it, because clearly no one bears the scars from high school.”
    I sigh in relief. “Whew! I’m glad you’re being cool about it. You know Amy? Dr. Amy Childs? Is she on the rag or what? She couldn’t get past some nonsense from twenty years ago and she threw a drink on me!”
    “That’s practically criminal,” she coolly observes.
    “I know, right?” Brooks seems plenty softened up, so I begin to pitch her. I tell her all the proactive things LissCom can do in terms of her social media presence, and she nods appreciatively the whole time I’m talking. Brooks is actually so amenable that I feel really confident that I’ve gotten through to her and I go in for a soft close.
    “I would love to do business with you,” she tells me, turning my business card over in her hand. “There’s just one thing I need.”
    She bought it! Woo-hoo! Town house, here I come! But I try to maintain a poker face and reply, “Of course! Just name it.” I’m already mentally moving my desk out of the garage and into some hip space down in the South Loop or River North. The next time I need a file, I’m not going to have to navigate around a pile of old cross-country skis and golf clubs to reach the drawer!
    Brooks takes a long, thoughtful drag on her Virginia Slim. “I need for you to go back in time and change the past. I need you to have not relentlessly bullied me. Like the time on the class trip when you stole my suitcase and showed the guys the size of my underwear? And you flew them out the window because you said they were as big as a flag and you made everyone salute? That needs to have never happened. I need to have not been tormented. I need to have not gone home every day and cried into a half gallon of strawberry Breyers. I need to have not been so ostracized that I didn’t spend every waking minute in the library, because I knew that was the one place you wouldn’t go. Can you do that for me? Can you change history? If so, we have a deal.”
    I sputter, “Are you deaf? I just apologized!”
    Brooks takes my card and uses her shiny lighter to set it on fire. When it’s halfway burned, she drops it in the sink, where it curls and disappears into a pile of smoking ash. “Twenty years too late, bitch. You’re twenty years too late.”
    When I exit the bathroom, I run smack into Duke and his date, who’s a dead ringer for a younger version of Sofia Vergara. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the heart with a really pointy boot.
    I need a drink.
    Correction: I need many, many, many drinks.

CHAPTER FOUR
    McFly Girl
    I try to open my eyes but it’s virtually impossible.
    Whether that’s because of the hangover or due to false lashes cementing my eyes shut is yet to be determined.
    I sit up and manage to peel them open, and only then do I catch a glimpse of my surroundings.