“Oh,” said Phoebe, sliding her phone back into her pocket. “She hired you because of me. Benna sent the internship offer, and of course she’s the one who had final say. But she’s been trying to give me more responsibility this year—it’ll look good on college applications—and one of the things she let me do was look over the other internship applications. I made my recommendation on who I thought would be the best fit for the position.”

“Why me?”

“Because you seemed qualified and like you’d be invested in the work,” Phoebe said. “I’m not trying to burst your bubble, Celia, but this isn’t exactly the West End. It wasn’t like it was the most competitive applicant pool.”

“But I can’t even sew,” I said. “My portfolio was like… feeble.”

“Strong disagree. Those flamingo Halloween costumes had heart,” Phoebe said. “Besides, I can teach people to use a sewing machine. But you can’t teach people to care.”

I felt myself blush with pride. It was the sort of compliment I wanted to text to Touch and Ros right away—though, as soon as I thought of Ros, I thought of Jess Orlando in her plant kingdom, punching all the customers she didn’t like. It occurred to me then that Phoebe, as a local, might be a useful resource in the Jess Orlando department. I took a sip of my sparkling lemonade and worked up the courage to do some digging.

“Uh, Phoebe,” I said. “Can I ask you something totally unrelated to costumes?”

“Is this about Ros? I’m still disappointed it didn’t go my way.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “They tend to have that effect on people.”

“It’s fine.” Phoebe sighed and flipped her hair dramatically, which made me laugh, as was her intention.

“It’s actually not about Ros,” I said. “I was just wondering—what did you mean the other day when you said Jess Orlando was an asshole?”

Phoebe’s face fell. “Ah, man. I feel bad for saying that.”

“She’s not an asshole?” Already, I didn’t like where this was headed. I wanted to hear that Jess was a monster worse than Godzilla, and under no circumstances should she be dating my friend. But Phoebe was taking a different tack than she had that day in the street.