The Friend Read online

  The Friend

  A Short Story

  Mary Jane Clark

  Contents

  The Friend

  An Excerpt from Footprints in the Sand

  Prologue

  Monday

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Jane Clark

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Friend

  Bottled water, shampoo, conditioner, lip balm, moisturizer, dog food. Piper Donovan moved up in the express checkout line and placed her six items on the conveyor belt.

  “What kind of dog do you have?” asked the cashier, scanning a box of canine treats before depositing it in Piper’s reusable shopping tote.

  “A Jack Russell terrier,” answered Piper, smiling. “He’s such an imp. He lives for these Fido Fudgies.”

  When the order was tabulated, Piper slid her debit card through the slot. It didn’t take. She slid it again.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong,” she muttered, concerned that her account balance was even lower than she’d thought. “It’s not working.”

  The young woman held out her hand and Piper gave her the card. The cashier scrutinized it. With stubby, nail-bitten fingers, she tapped numbers onto the register keypad. The transaction went through.

  “Thanks,” said Piper with relief as she took back the card and slipped it into her wallet.

  “No problem,” said the cashier. She watched longingly as Piper picked up the bag and walked away, that blond ponytail swinging behind her.

  As Piper inserted her key in the lock on her parents’ door, she could hear the excited barking coming from the other side. The terrier sprang to greet her as soon as Piper stepped into the front hall. The little dog enthusiastically licked at Piper’s cheek as she bent over to put her packages down.

  “Hey, Emmett,” laughed Piper. “Hey, buddy, did you miss me? I missed you.”

  Piper unwound the scarf from around her neck, unbuttoned her wool coat and kicked off her Uggs while the dog stuck his snout into the shopping tote. His tail wagged furiously.

  “Oh, I know what you want,” said Piper. “Don’t worry, Em. I got them.”

  The terrier stood up on his hind legs, his front paws held out eagerly. Piper opened the box, reached in and plucked out a treat. Emmett snatched it.

  Watching the dog happily chomp, Piper felt a vibration coming from the pocket of her jeans. She took out her iPhone and checked her e-mail. Her heart leapt. Her agent Gabe had gotten her an appointment to audition for another commercial. With the pet food commercial she had just shot, she had high hopes for a magic mailbox-ful of residual checks that would replenish her depleted bank account when the spot started to air. It had been a long dry spell.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Emmett?” Piper asked out loud as she stroked the dog. “If I had two national spots running at the same time? After all these months of booking nothing? That would be huge, buddy.”

  Emmett cocked his head, and Piper was certain that the terrier was happy for her.

  When she got home from work, Splendor went straight to her room and booted up her computer. She logged onto Facebook and, finally, set up an account. While others chattered about Facebook all the time, up until now, Splendor hadn’t seen the point of it. The talk about “friends” made her feel that she wouldn’t really belong on Facebook.

  She paused when it came time to post a profile picture. She didn’t have an image of herself that she liked. Instead, she took a shot of Aggie, her beloved teddy bear, and used that.

  Splendor found Piper Donovan’s page and stared at her profile picture. Smooth, creamy skin; shining green eyes; small, straight nose; a headful of lustrous golden hair. Splendor had seen Piper—tall, thin and glowing—many times at the supermarket. While Splendor watched with admiration and wondered what it would be like to be that pretty, Piper never seemed to notice Splendor. Sure, Piper always said “thank you” and smiled when she took her receipt, but Splendor sensed she might as well be invisible.

  When Piper had handed her card over today, Splendor had even admired her name imprinted in the plastic. It had given her an idea.

  Now, as she scrutinized the Facebook page and relished Piper’s gorgeous professional headshot, Splendor absentmindedly reached for her own face and stroked the acne glaze that covered her cheeks. She learned that Piper lived in the neighboring town of Hillwood, New Jersey, and her birthday was May 22. She was an actress and designed wedding cakes at the Icing on the Cupcake bakery. Splendor wanted to know more, but Piper’s privacy settings prevented that. To get further information, Splendor would have to be accepted as Piper’s friend.

  She was tempted to add a message along with her request for friendship. Something about how much she admired Piper and wished she was like her. But Splendor decided against that. She had learned it was better to keep her thoughts to herself.

  Piper didn’t recognize the name. Someone called Splendor Wilkins was friending her on Facebook.

  People she didn’t know frequently requested Piper’s friendship. Sometimes the individuals were suggested by mutual friends. Sometimes they were fans who had watched Piper during her all-too-short daytime drama stint on A Little Rain Must Fall. Lately, she had gotten requests from people who had admired one of her wedding cakes.

  Which was Splendor Wilkins?

  Piper clicked on the profile picture, instantly enlarging it as Splendor’s own Facebook page came up on the screen. But Splendor hadn’t chosen to share an image of herself. Instead, she’d posted a picture of a pink teddy bear.

  There was none of the standard information about where she lived, where she had gone to school or what she did for a living. She’d only disclosed her birthday and that she was a female.

  Shrugging, Piper pressed the accept icon. Someone who’d choose an image of a stuffed animal seemed harmless. Besides, Piper knew enough never to put information on Facebook that she wasn’t all right with the whole world knowing. There was no problem with adding somebody else she didn’t recognize to her list of friends. Piper had nothing to hide.

  As soon as she awoke, Splendor checked Facebook and was delighted to see that Piper Donovan had accepted her as a friend. She spent the next half hour clicking around, fascinated, as she learned more about Piper’s life. Piper had posted several pictures of a little white dog with floppy ears and a big brown patch around his left eye. The captions underneath revealed his name was Emmett.

  Splendor smiled as she viewed a short video clip of the dog in which he did a flip when enticed by a treat at the Icing on the Cupcake bakery. It was a short, sweet commercial for the shop. She watched it several more times.

  Emmett reminded her of the canine in My Dog Skip, a movie she’d seen over and over as a kid. She’d identified with the isolated little boy in the story whose life improved immensely when he got a dog. Suddenly, he had a loyal companion and best friend. He wasn’t lonely anymore.

  Again and again, Splendor had begged her mother to let her get a puppy of her own. Her mother refused. She said that she had enough to do taking care of Splendor.

  There were many more photos. Piper with two smiling middle-aged people w
ho Splendor assumed were her parents. Several showed Piper next to a handsome man with a blindingly white smile, a man who was clearly her boyfriend. There was one of Piper holding a piping bag poised over a tiered cake. Splendor’s favorite showed Piper wearing a gorgeous white evening dress and a diamond bracelet, her hair coiffed to perfection. The caption under that one read “Fairy tale moment on the set of A Little Rain Must Fall.”

  Splendor ached to have Piper Donovan’s life.

  Shifting her gaze to the LIKES section, Splendor recognized many of the local places and businesses that Piper acknowledged. The Icing on the Cupcake bakery, Sunrise Salutation Yoga Studio, Pompilio’s restaurant, Shaw’s Books, Hillwood Dog Park and The Best Little Hair House.

  Knowing that she was going to get her paycheck later that day, Splendor picked up her phone and made an appointment to have her hair done.

  “All right, thanks for coming in,” the casting director said without looking up from his sheet. His eyes were already scanning his list for the name of the next actress.

  Piper forced a smile as she left the audition room. “There goes that one,” she thought. Another commercial wasn’t going to happen. At least not this time. The audition hadn’t gone well at all. She’d gone too fast, stumbled, asked to start over, but had gotten flustered. Her second take wasn’t much better than the first. Her delivery of the copy she’d been asked to prepare had been stilted and wooden. As many auditions as she’d been on, who knew why some of them still didn’t go well?

  Well, there would be others. Lately, getting auditions hadn’t been the problem. Booking was. There was the enormous competition of so many actors vying for the same part. The subjectivity involved was also overwhelming. First, the casting director had to think you could be right for the role. Once you made it past that gatekeeper, the director’s vision still had to be met, and, with commercials, the advertising execs had the final say. She couldn’t begin to count the auditions she’d gone on only to leave deflated because she sensed she wasn’t what they had in mind.

  Why did she continue to put herself through this?

  She had two choices. Keep planting seeds in the hope that some would grow—or quit. When she presented herself with those alternatives, Piper still found the answer inevitable. She had to keep going and trust that eventually something would give.

  While she walked to the Port Authority terminal, Piper fought to shake off her frustration. As the biting wind whipped at her face while she crossed Forty-Second Street, tears came to her eyes. Settling into her seat on the bus headed back to New Jersey, Piper was comforted by the thought of her parents and the home waiting for her in suburban Hillwood. Though she sometimes felt uncomfortable about being twenty-seven years old and living with her mother and father, this was one of those moments when she was reminded of how consoling it was to have people who loved and bolstered her when things weren’t going her way. Piper felt sorry for people who didn’t have that support.

  Finishing her shift at the supermarket, Splendor took off her smock and went over to the grocery store’s bakery section. She selected a box of cookies from the half-price display, paid for them and then headed to the parking lot. She trudged across the slushy macadam, got into her salt-caked blue Toyota and turned the key in the ignition of the old car. While she waited for the heater to kick on, Splendor opened her package and began to munch. The cookies were slightly stale but they still tasted good.

  She was trying to save money where she could. Splendor knew she was going to have to budget carefully if she was to be more like Piper Donovan. A dollar or two off here and there would add up. Whatever the cost, she was going to find the funds to pursue her goal.

  The Best Little Hair House was on Hillwood’s main thoroughfare. As Splendor parked out front, she noticed Pompilio’s restaurant across the street. She shivered involuntarily as she imagined Piper striding into both establishments, happy and self assured. Splendor wanted to be like that.

  While she sat in the waiting area of the beauty parlor, Splendor flipped through a few magazines, hoping to find a picture of someone with a haircut and color like Piper’s. She found a few that were similar, but not quite as good. Piper’s was perfect.

  “Splendor?” A young, attractive woman stood in front of Splendor, beckoning her to enter the rear of the salon. “I’m Kym. Come on in.”

  Splendor sat down in the styling chair and looked in the mirror as Kym draped a giant nylon cape around her.

  “What are we doing today?” asked Kym as she ran her fingers through Splendor’s dark, tangled locks.

  “I want to go lighter,” said Splendor. “And I want a better cut.”

  “Okay,” said Kym as she studied Splendor’s skin tone. “I think going a shade or two lighter will brighten things up for you nicely. It will give your face a lift.”

  Splendor hesitated. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking of just a little lighter. I want to be blond. Really blond.”

  The hairstylist’s mouth turned down a bit. “All right,” she said. “Let’s look at the color chart.”

  Immediately, Splendor pointed to a platinum swatch. “Here’s the one I want,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” asked Kym. “That is going to be a drastic change. Sometimes, people like to go lighter by degrees. Are you sure you don’t want to do this gradually?”

  “I’m sure,” said Splendor.

  Forty-five minutes later, after the color had been applied and set and the residue shampooed away, Splendor was back in the styling chair and ready for her haircut. She tried to describe exactly what she wanted. The puzzled expression on Kym’s face made Splendor concerned that she wasn’t making herself clear.

  “I know someone else who gets her hair done here,” said Splendor. “I like her hairstyle.”

  “Who is it?” asked Kym.

  “Piper Donovan. Can you cut my hair like hers?”

  Warm, sweet air enveloped Piper when she walked through the door of the Icing on the Cupcake bakery. She was relieved to see that, for a change, there were no customers. Her mother was polishing a glass display case.

  “How did it go?” asked Terri Donovan.

  Piper shrugged her shoulders. “Ugh. Kill me now.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” said Terri, putting down the polishing cloth and walking around the counter. She gave her daughter a long, firm hug.

  “That’s all right,” said Piper, as their embrace ended. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “I know you will,” said Terri, adjusting the net around her curly, blond-tinted hair. “Want something to eat?”

  Piper scanned the bakery cases. “Have any of those low-fat whole wheat blueberry muffins?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Terri, pointing in the direction of a tray. “I’m glad you suggested that we start making those, but they haven’t really caught on yet with the customers.”

  Piper dug her phone from her pocket. “I’m going to take a picture of them and put it up on our Facebook page.”

  When she parked her car in front of the rundown ranch-style house, Splendor checked her image in the rearview mirror. The stylist had succeeded in cutting and blowing out her hair so that it looked almost like Piper’s. Splendor already felt better, but she knew she still had a long way to go.

  She glanced down guiltily at the container on the passenger’s seat. There had been two dozen peanut butter cookies in that box when she’d bought it just two days before. There were only t
hree left now. If she wanted to look like Piper, she had to slim down and tone up. She had to cut out the sugar and fat. Splendor had made a vow to start dieting as soon as she finished this box. She devoured the last cookies before she got out of the car.

  Her mother was lying in her faded nightgown on the living room couch, smoking a cigarette and watching television. An open bag of potato chips lay on the floor beside her, along with a couple of crushed soda cans. She didn’t even glance up.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Her mother grunted.

  “Mom?”

  “Wait, Splendor,” her mother hissed with annoyance. “Can’t you see I’m watching something?”

  “I just wanted to show you, Mom. I got my hair done.”

  Splendor’s mother turned to look at her daughter. The frown on her face deepened and she shook her head in disgust.

  “Who do you think you are, Splendor? You look ridiculous with that glamorous hairstyle when the rest of you looks the way you do. I should have never called you Splendor,” she yelled. “Mess. That would have been a better name.”

  The heat rose in Splendor’s face. She turned and ran down the hall to her room. Throwing herself on the unmade twin bed, she began to cry. As much as her mother’s comments stung, it hurt more that her mother made no attempt to follow her and smooth things over.

  Listening to the sound of the television continuing to blare in the living room, Splendor hugged her precious Aggie and felt humiliated. She lay on her bed and stared at the cracked ceiling. Gradually, her embarrassment turned to anger at herself. How stupid could she be? Why did she persist in looking to her mother for approval? When was she going to learn that her mother was never going to praise her? Sometimes, Splendor really felt that her mother’s only pleasure was running her own daughter down.