“Feeling protective, are we?” she said, mocking her. “Will you lighten up? This is how this Hollywood shit works. You think people get together ’cause they really care about each other?”
“Um, yeah.”
“And how would you know? I bet you’re still a virgin.” Dru really needed to lay off the junior high–level insults, but it didn’t matter. Amanda wasn’t giving her a single thing she wanted.
“I know because I know what Sam is looking for and it’s not you.”
“I—” Dru stared at her, looking at her face very carefully. Amanda could hear her own teeth grinding with rage. “No way. No. Are you dating Sam Pleasant?”
Amanda swallowed again, forcing herself not to blurt out the truth. She owed herself,and Sam, better than for Dru to be the first person they told outside of his family.
“You’re serious? You’re Sam Pleasant’s girlfriend. Sam Pleasant, one of these hottest guys on Earth, is dating you. Like on purpose, not to fulfill some sick promise to a witch.”
“Yes and you don’t have to say shit like that to me.”
“Oh yes. I do. How long has this been going on? And how dare you hold out on me?” A look of disgust swept over Dru’s features as she suddenly looked Amanda up and down. “You haven’t had sex with him, have you?”
Amanda ground her teeth together, refusing to answer again. “That is none of your business.”
“Oh my—what the fuck?” Dru let out a screech of laughter. “Okay. Okay. If he’ll fuck you, I’m sure he’ll fuck me. Hell. I don’t see why he wouldn’t marry me. At least he could take me places and not die of embarrassment. But I’m not sure if I want your sloppy seconds. Yuck.” Dru shook her body with a dramatic shudder.
“Are you done?”
“Oh no. I’m just—”
“I don’t care. I quit.” Amanda grabbed her purse and stormed to the door.
“Oh, you adorable dumbass. You really think this is going to work out. Guys like him sleep with girls like you behind closed doors all the time. What, you think he’s going to marry you or something?”
“Who knows, but he’s not going to be anywhere near you,” she called back over her shoulder.
“Okay, Amanda.” Dru laughed. “Have a nice life, boo-boo. I’ll have a new assistant by noon tomorrow. When he’s finished with you, you’ll have no man. And no job. Good luck!”
Amanda walked even faster, wishing she could slam Dru’s soft-close door behind her.
Chapter 20
Amanda squeezed her eyes closed. The sun had been up for hours. And so had she. On her way home, she’d been such a nervous wreck, actually shaking as she tried to drive back down the hill to her place, that she’d pulled over and called her mom. It took some work to get the words out through her hysterics, but she’d told her mom everything that had happened. She’d had to go back to several different beginnings, just to answer her mom’s questions.
The fact that she’d been keeping so much about Dru and the way she acted from her parents for so many years just made things worse. Her parents had no idea Dru was such a dick. They had a sense that she was somewhat of a diva, but Amanda had never let on how many times Dru had made her cry. How many times she’d put her in the middle of horrible situations with her cruel behavior. She’d never told them just how trapped she felt.
Her mom managed to talk her down enough so she could drive home, but as soon as she stepped inside her little bungalow, she paused and looked around, thinking of the day she’d moved in, sure it would be temporary because one day she’d be a television writer and she’d be able to own a place that actually faced the street and how that definitely wasn’t going to happen. She’d be lucky if she could afford to keep this place for the rest of the year. Silly dreams like affordable, curbside housing and a job she enjoyed were so far out of her reach. When the weight of that pathetic feeling crashed down on her it brought the tears back with it.
She’d spent most of the night crying, but when she’d dozed off, she’d had horrible dreams about screaming matches with a certain television actress and working her old high school job inside a Circuit City. Her eyes hurt like hell and she’d need at least a gallon of water to replenish all the tears she’d shed. It would probably help soothe her throat after all the loud out-and-out sobbing she’d done before a pounding headache begged her to calm down, at least a little so she could sleep.
Deep down she knew her position with Dru hadn’t been sustainable. There were people who stayed on as lifelong assistants, but they worked for people who were kind and paid them enough to do crazy stuff like get married and have children of their own. Dru didn’t want Amanda to have a future. Dru didn’t even want Amanda to have friends, or the slightest shred of happiness. Still she never expected their end to go down the way it had. She never expected to quit in such a spectacularly stupid fashion. No, she’d been right to quit. The things Dru had said, the things Dru wanted from Sam and his family, there was no way Amanda could sit by and encourage that to happen. She sure as hell wasn’t going to hand her own boyfriend off to another woman like a used baseball glove.
The screwed-up things Dru had said to her about how ridiculous she was to think that Sam would really be with her, out in the open, loving—or at least liking—her for the world to see, had hurt. It hurt a lot. She knew then that while Dru was in part a result of shitty parenting, Dru was an adult now and Dru made a lot of adult decisions to treat others like shit. Sticking by her signaled that Amanda was willing to overlook her behavior. No, it was an affirmation that she supported her behavior. The way Dru spoke to her wasn’t shocking. It was textbook Dru Anastasia.
Over time she’d actually gotten worse. She’d been a brat when Amanda started working for her. She’d escalated to full on dickhead and Amanda couldn’t stick around and cheer her on. She tried to picture what it would be like to show up to work day after day with Dru knowing that she and Sam were an item. Dru would do her best to continue to torture her about the impossibility of them as a couple. The impossibility of Sam seeing her as not only an equal, but an object of his affection and desire.
She was right to quit, but maybe she should have given her two weeks’ notice. Maybe a month so she could at least start looking for another job. And at least part of Dru’s parting prophecy was true. She was out of work. And worse, she couldn’t get in touch with Sam. A fight with her former employer wasn’t reason enough to put in a 9-1-1 call to Bali, but still. She wanted to tell him what had happened. She wanted to let him know that Dru was now one of the handful of people who knew about them.
Dru wasn’t exactly a gossip. She was more of a shit talker who only talked shit when it was to her own personal benefit. Would the news that her former personal assistant was dating Sam Pleasant somehow be to Dru’s advantage? Amanda wasn’t sure. She could anticipate Dru’s needs and her moods, but the inner workings of her brain were still very confusing and unsettling to her. Also, fuck Dru.
Amanda rolled over again and buried her face in her pillow. She’d forgotten to wrap her braids and her scalp was starting to hurt from the tight bun fighting to stay twirled up on the top of her head. She had to get out of bed. Her mom was right. Things would be okay. And if things weren’t okay, then she would move home. She was lucky to have parents who loved her so much, parents who would support whatever decision she made next. Hopefully, her next move wouldn’t be so impulsive.
The sound of her phone ringing had Amanda peeling her face off her pillow. It was her mom’s ringtone.