"Oh jesus, there are two of you now." Slade shakes his head, rolls his eyes and stomps back into the kitchen, but I swear the corner of his mouth twitches as he goes by.
"Why am I not surprised?" I laugh. "Although I think you're making that up, the part about a name-picking session. Clearly, you brought the birdafteryou came up with the name. You didn't just go out and buy a bird and then name it."
Brick sighs. "Okay okay. That may be how it happened."
Devon comes rushing into the room. She gives the bird a weird look but clearly there's something more pressing than asking about Polly Cule.
"Well, it looks like we'veofficially made it!" she says, breathless.
"Why do you say that?" I quirk a brow.
"Good girl! Good girl!" Polly Cule suddenly shrieks.
Devon stops for a second, gives him side eye, then shrugs. She's just as used to Brick's shenanigans now as I am. "We got our first bad review on our clothing line…" her voice trails off.
"What kind of review?" I ask. "You seem disappointed."
"Well, there are a few of them. And we got a few one stars."
"Our collection hasn't even come out yet! How are people reviewing it? Nobody has even had a chance to see it, except for people who came to our little fashion show."
"I know! 'What the fuck did I just wear?' it says." Devon frowns.
"How bizarre! Who would write that?" Slade quirks a brow. "Me?"
"People will write anything for attention online these days," sighs Angel. "Aria said something similar happened to her with the restaurant. Said her salad had too much salad in it or something."
"Oh really?" Devon's eyes grow wide. "I want to check out her page."
"Jesus, it's full of one stars," she says.
"What do they say?" I ask, confused. "Her restaurant has only been officially open a few days."
"One star. Deducted four because there was a guest sitting near me that reminded me of the whole Scandoval situation."
"And that's her fault how exactly? What's she supposed to do… ban men with mustaches?" Slade stops. "Not that I know what that phrase means." He turns bright red.
Devon continues. "Another one star: 'Reminding myself to come back and eat here later.'"
"Huh?" I scrunch up my nose. "Make that make sense."
"Here's another: 'Loved it! Would recommend to everyone!'"
"And that's a one star??" I furrow my brow. Just when my life was starting to make more sense…
"Yeah, I guess that person has a reverse scale." Devon shrugs.
An idea strikes me. "Okay now doSkyler's surf school!"
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Devon's eyes meet mine.
"Yes!" I pull out my phone. "Two stars. Expected to come out of 60 minute surfing lesson with the skills of Kelly Slater." I roll my eyes and continue. "One star. When I called about the lesson, he had the audacity to say I should be able to swim first. Can one not surf with water wings?"
Devon taps away at her phone. "Here's another one: I like my surfing instructors to say less and show off more. This was the most terrible surfing lesson I've ever had. I don't like the way he explained things in the lesson. I really wanted to like it but I just couldn't make it through, and ended the lesson early. I don't know.. someone else might like it, I suppose."
I laugh. "Wow. And the moral of the story is?"
"Never go online and read the reviews," Devon laughs too. "Some of them are brutal, and many are just unhinged and they're not helping anybody. They're not going to help us build a better clothing line—our actual customers who like our products will do that. Our teams and our focus groups. And the reviews will most certainly be there if and when you decide to read them. No need to force the issue now."