What Pretty Girls Are Made Of Read Online Free PDF Page B

answered halfheartedly, nodding into the phone as if she could see me, trying to convince myself to be a rat. I liked feeling like her little confidante, but I felt uneasy about the task.
    I knew how the girls could be, a bit begrudging, sometimes even vengeful to those who betrayed the alliance, and I wanted to stay out of the line of fire. The artists were generally sweet—if you didn’t ask for their help, and if you didn’t ask them to do anything they didn’t want to do. And they didn’t want to do much more than paint faces.
    I would frequently ask for help with packaging or shelf stocking (neither was my job, but they had to get done): “Hey, Carly, can you help me send some packages out this afternoon? Can we put it on the schedule?”
    “Oh, honey, I don’t get commission for that. Sorry. But do you want frozen yogurt? I’m treating today.” Again with the snacks.
    But when it had to do with a little gossip, they were armed, willing, and ready to jump right in. I had Carly look up my aunt Farrah in the computer system—a little recon mission—to see her shopping history at the studio. It appeared that she shopped there two to three times a year, and had an asterisk in her file.
    “What does the star mean, Carly?” I asked. She clicked into the notes section on the screen and I found out all I needed to know.
    “Oh, she’s flagged. This is going to be good—we only flag when the client really deserves it.”
    Attempts returns of product after months of using, bought product on eBay and tried to return at studio for a credit. Watch her around studio. Extremely fussy client when having makeup done. Doesn’t tip. She cray.
    Yep, that sounded like Farrah, all right. “Carly, please, please, if she ever comes into the store, I need to be alerted. And let the girls know that she’s toxic to me. You know how every family seems to have members they don’t speak to? She’s that one in ours. She’s actually stalked me in the past and randomly shows up in my life, so I just need to be on guard.”
    “Creepy, but of course.” Carly said. “We will put her on the store watch list.” I hadn’t learned about that yet, but I would.
    Farrah had always been jealous that my mom had a daughter, something that she would never have, at least not biologically. And word on the street was that her daughters-in-law couldn’t stand her and kept their distance. My family had cut ties with hers more than fifteen years before.
    Farrah started stalking me when I was a freshman in college, though to this day I never figured out how she found my dormitory address and phone number. She would call my dorm room incessantly, politely gabbing with my roommate when I wasn’t there.
    She even flew to Chicago to see my Northwestern production of Our Country’s Good ,suddenly appearing backstage after a performance. After that disturbing, slightly scary, unannounced (and unwelcome) visit, I made sure my Facebook page was private. (How else would she have known about the show?) It was the sociopath at work.
    Her letters and emails would fill my mailboxes. So I put my writing class knowledge to work and sent her a letter.
    Dear Farrah,
    I appreciate your desire to contact me and permeate my life, but I need you to stop. You have hurt my mother beyond repair, and I would never have a relationship with a woman who so cruelly and selfishly tortured my mother: as a child, locking her in a closet next to the hot furnace when you were supposed to be babysitting; as an adult, berating her constantly with a photo of a man who you claim is her biological father. I have no allegiance to you, and I know that you don’t have any to me. You’ll never split or share the bond I have with my mom, so please stop the shenanigans and the manipulation and live your own life.
    Thank you for understanding.
    Best,
    Alison
    I didn’t hear from Farrah for four years after that. But when I moved back to New York City, the stalking resumed. She always