The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare Page B

See you Saturday. Is it a pool party? ’Cause if it is I better call around to the Beehive and get my bush waxed.”
    “Can I come to the Beehive, too?” Scott slapped Cameron’s ass, and Lara looked disgusted.
    “Oh, and hey, I love your new assistant.” Cameron came over and kissed me good-bye. “See you at the party.” Then, as she was about to kiss Lara good-bye, too, she did a double take. “Is your hair virgin?” she asked me.
    God, I wondered, what was it with everyone around here? They were obsessed with sex. And hair. I must have looked puzzled.
    “Virgin. Have you never had your hair colored?” she asked as she took a lock and gazed at it.
    “No, actually. I mean, not really. I once used a plum-colored mousse when I was sixteen, but it was a disaster and my scalp turned pink so—”
    “Oh, honey, that is so exciting.” She was flapping her arms in glee.
    “It is?” I asked. Thinking that she was going to say it was the most beautiful, natural color she’d ever seen and that L’Oréal might want to copy it for a new shade. Bumblefuck Mouse, perhaps.
    “Oh, my God, yes. Billy is going to die for your hair! He loves virgin hair. You have to go to him and say I sent you. This is wild. You’ll look amazing at the party once he works his magic. Tell him Cam thinks honey blond, to make your eyes stand out.” Cameron winked at me and began scrawling Billy’s number on my notepad.
    “Okay, kids, gotta bounce. See you Saturday.” With that she was gone. Ladies and Gentlemen, Cameron has left the building.
    “Elizabeth, I have to do a run to the Coffee Bean for Scott’s three o’clock.” Lara stopped by my desk and avoided eye contact with me. “Will you come help me carry the stuff back?”
    “Sure,” I said. “Shall I put the phones on voice mail?”
    “Oh, yeah, you do that.” She scuffed the toes of her gray suede boots against the carpet as she waited. In fact, if I hadn’t known thatLara was not a creature given to self-doubt or awkwardness, I would have said that she was experiencing both of the above.
    I walked in silence next to Lara as we made our way down the corridor and through the atrium. I wished that I had something to say to her, and that if I did, she might actually want to listen. I hated this cold-shouldering. It had been keeping me awake at night, and yesterday, when I’d talked to my mother on the phone, I had almost broken down and admitted how miserable the whole thing was making me. And that I wanted to come home forever. But I hadn’t. I was too proud and didn’t want my parents to worry.
    When we arrived at the Coffee Bean, the first thing I saw was Jason Blum’s face. He smiled at me and gave a lower-wattage version of the same to Lara. Which was understandable. She did come over as pretty terrifying.
    “Ladies,” Jason greeted us.
    “Hi.” I smiled.
    “We’d love . . . well, I’d love a cappuccino.” Lara turned to me. “Elizabeth?”
    “Oh, I didn’t know we were getting anything for ourselves. Well, I’ll have a soy chai latte,” I said. It was my new favorite, and I suspected it was laced with morphine, because it was highly addictive.
    “Great, oh, and six black coffees and a latte, too,” Lara added. And as Jason got to work, she turned to me, pulled at the gold chain around her neck, and began, “Elizabeth, I’m really sorry.”
    I was unprepared for this, and the froth on my chai latte caught in my throat. I struggled not to cough my lungs out.
    “I was horrible to you about Jake Hudson, and I shouldn’t have been. I know you probably made a completely honest mistake, and I overheard what you said to Courtney the Cunt earlier about him. And even if you hadn’t made a mistake, I shouldn’t have behaved like that. Can you forgive me?” She looked genuinely sheepish. I noticed that Jason was listening intently between blasts of the milk frother.
    “Oh, God, of course I can. I know that you were only trying to get out of