“The dates are the important part,” she reiterates now. “The rest is noise.”

“Absolutely,” I assure her. “But reading it is a great way to prepare, see what you’ve ‘already discussed’ and take it from there.”

I watch intently as she reads our chat from this morning.

She doesn’t bat an eye at Andrew’s gross interruption.

My reaction to him is what sticks in her craw.

“Zoey! You said you weren’t going to be a grammar bitch.”

What—but—Jude was into it. He agreed with me. He likes this grammar bitch!

“Sorry, it’s just . . . if someone doesn’t care enough to write a good sentence, especially for the first impression—”

“You’re supposed to be acting like me, and I wouldn’t have cared. No one expects DMs to be Shakespeare.”

“Yup. You’re right,” I say in clipped tones. “If you don’t think I represented you well, or it’s not something you want to deal with, we can always cancel on Jude—”

“Hell no, have you seen his picture?”

“I have.” I nod gravely.

“Sex on a stick. Irish, too, right?”

“Scottish.”

“Either way. Me like-y what me see-y.”

And what you “read-y” is pure gold, but oh well. She flips to the next page like she’s stuck reading a thesis and her torment will never end. She’s bored.

“Dial down ‘the blabby blabby,’ ” I summarize through gritted teeth. “Got it.” But if it had been YOU “blabby-blabbing,” you might not have scored a date in the first place, so maybe a little gratitude is in order, eh, DuchessB?

“It’s all good. But hopefully he won’t have to message you again—hopefully I can take it from here. Nice job getting me this far, though, seriously. He’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

The operative word being “looking.” She certainly hasn’t absorbed much from his words.

Bree’s eyes widen at what she sees at the end of the last page, and her kindness dissolves, as if it’s been thrown in acid. “Why did you tell him I’d do the hair? That’ll take at least an hour.”

“Oh. Well, I can help, and he’s not expecting you until six thirty, so we have time—”

“You know what it looks like, right?”

“Kind of . . .”

Bree tosses the papers to the floor and yanks out her phone. Huffs some more and pulls up an endless array of Google Images of Mary, circa 1985.

“See? It’s a big commitment.”

Oh God. How could I have forgotten?

It’s not a cute side braid or a sexy, ribboned twist. It’s a pointed, one-and-a-half-foot triangle, made entirely out of hair, protruding from the back of her head like a traffic cone.