Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
She paused in her baking to face me. “I mean... yeah, that would be great, but how would that work?”
“I want to build a community—a real one. With rent-free units, food pantries with fresh produce, tutors for wherever you are in your education, job assistance, language programs, on-site and free daycare, on-call doctors and psychiatrists, affordable medical care and prescriptions at a heavy discount, and community shuttles that’ll get everyone around town for free.
“All of that, but no curfews that lock someone out into the cold just because the buses stopped running and they had to walk three miles from work. No stuffing thirty people into a tiny room with ten bunk beds. No living on canned food and ramen because it’s too hard and expensive to source fresh, organic fruits and vegetables.”
“All of that sounds amazing, Sarah, but how would you fund this paradise?”
“Annnd that’s where the dream stops,” I sang, slumping over the metal surface. “The money to make it happen. Maybe if I were more like Sue was, I could figure out how to take my dream from fantasy to reality. She was the creative one. She was the persuasive one. She was the ruthless one who could forge ahead without considering anyone else’s thoughts or opinions. She was the one who could turn an idea into a successful business.”
“Successful business?” Courtney picked up her tray of strawberry cheesecake cookies and carried them to the oven. “What are you talking about?”
“SueNation.” I started picking up the whisk, mixing bowl, and cookie scoops. “She told me all about how she and her business were the headliners at last year’s Lantana Street Fair. Took great pleasure in telling me about it, now that I mention it.”
A strange noise sounded behind me.
I dropped the scoops in the sink, spinning to blink at a doubled-over, wheezing, knee-slapping, guffawing Courtney.
“She told you... she was... headliner!? Aha!” she cried, almost toppling into the oven. “Hera help her, Sarah, your sister wasn’t just a liar. She was deranged! How can anyone sane rewrite history like that with a straight face!”
“Uhh...” I blinked. “What?”
“My love, SueNation was a bust. A disaster. A complete catastrophe!”
“Come again?”
“Oh my gods, come here. You have to sit down for this.” Grabbing my hand, she led me back out to the café floor. “Okay, so get this,” she whispered like we were back in our gossipy high-school-girl days. “After you disappeared, I didn’t know how to find you or find out if you were okay, so I followed Sue on socials hoping eventually she’d drop a clue about you.” She snorted. “And then I kept following her, because I just couldn’t look away from that train wreck.
“It pretty much all started after your sister graduated from Columbia-Southern—”
I held up a hand. “Wait, what? Columbia-Southern?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Is that what they’re calling Columbia U now?”
It was her turn to blink at me. “Columbia University? No, they’re still calling that Columbia U. But Columbia-Southern Community College where your sister graduated is sometimes called Columbia-South.”
“Oh. My. Goodness.” I couldn’t have been more blown away than if Sue walked in right then, sniffed, glared at me, and snapped that it wasn’t a big deal that she lied about where she went to college. “She didn’t get into the Ivy League.”
Court snorted. “If she did, she made the wrong damn choice on admissions acceptance day.”
“Okay,” I cried, blowing back in my seat. “So, Sue attending and graduating from Columbia University—lie.”
“Lie,” Courtney confirmed. “The only thing those two colleges have in common is they’re both in New York. What wasn’t a lie was Sue’s big, fat, trust fund. After graduating, she tried to launch her influencer career by backpacking all over the world, and flaunting all her favorite tips, tricks, products, and sex adventures as a solo polyamorous female traveler. She was dating Alex, Rhodes, and Micah during all this, but non-exclusively.
“Things were going pretty well by this point,” she admitted. “Her followers seemed to really love her whole independent, sex-positive, Asian-women-centered brand. But—”
“I felt that but coming in my soul.”
She laughed. “But then it all went wrong. One day, a video taken by a café customer hit the internet, and it went viral within the hour. It showed another customer clearly bumping into the waitress and making her spill her tray. The problem was... that whole tray of frozen ice mocha lattes spilled on Sue.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, no is right! Sue flipped the fuck out. She jumped up, screaming and ranting at the woman—who was apologizing profusely,” she cried. “Sue picked up her cup of coffee—her scalding, hot coffee!—flung it at the waitress’s face, and called her a stupid, Black bitch.”
My jaw dropped, eyes popping wider than the Yellowstone caldera. “Tell me you’re joking. Please, tell me she didn’t do or say that.”
“I wish I was joking, babe. When I tell you your twin sissy was dragged across the internet superhighway, I’m putting it lightly. And you know she did not handle it gracefully.”