The Friend

The Friend

A Short Story

Mary Jane Clark

Contents

The
Friend

B
ottled
water, shampoo, conditioner, lip balm, moisturizer, dog food. Piper Donovan
moved up in the express checkout line and placed her six items on the conveyor
belt.

“What kind of dog do you have?” asked the cashier,
scanning a box of canine treats before depositing it in Piper’s reusable
shopping tote.

“A Jack Russell terrier,” answered Piper, smiling.
“He’s such an imp. He lives for these Fido Fudgies.”

When the order was tabulated, Piper slid her debit
card through the slot. It didn’t take. She slid it again.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she muttered,
concerned that her account balance was even lower than she’d thought. “It’s not
working.”

The young woman held out her hand and Piper gave
her the card. The cashier scrutinized it. With stubby, nail-bitten fingers, she
tapped numbers onto the register keypad. The transaction went through.

“Thanks,” said Piper with relief as she took back
the card and slipped it into her wallet.

“No problem,” said the cashier. She watched
longingly as Piper picked up the bag and walked away, that blond ponytail
swinging behind her.

A
s
Piper inserted her key in the lock on her parents’ door, she could hear the
excited barking coming from the other side. The terrier sprang to greet her as
soon as Piper stepped into the front hall. The little dog enthusiastically
licked at Piper’s cheek as she bent over to put her packages down.

“Hey, Emmett,” laughed Piper. “Hey, buddy, did you
miss me? I missed you.”

Piper unwound the scarf from around her neck,
unbuttoned her wool coat and kicked off her Uggs while the dog stuck his snout
into the shopping tote. His tail wagged furiously.

“Oh, I know what you want,” said Piper. “Don’t
worry, Em. I got them.”

The terrier stood up on his hind legs, his front
paws held out eagerly. Piper opened the box, reached in and plucked out a treat.
Emmett snatched it.

Watching the dog happily chomp, Piper felt a
vibration coming from the pocket of her jeans. She took out her iPhone and
checked her e-mail. Her heart leapt. Her agent Gabe had gotten her an
appointment to audition for another commercial. With the pet food commercial she
had just shot, she had high hopes for a magic mailbox-ful of residual checks
that would replenish her depleted bank account when the spot started to air. It
had been a long dry spell.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Emmett?” Piper
asked out loud as she stroked the dog. “If I had two national spots running at
the same time? After all these months of booking nothing? That would be huge,
buddy.”

Emmett cocked his head, and Piper was certain that
the terrier was happy for her.

W
hen
she got home from work, Splendor went straight to her room and booted up her
computer. She logged onto Facebook and, finally, set up an account. While others
chattered about Facebook all the time, up until now, Splendor hadn’t seen the
point of it. The talk about “friends” made her feel that she wouldn’t really
belong on Facebook.

She paused when it came time to post a profile
picture. She didn’t have an image of herself that she liked. Instead, she took a
shot of Aggie, her beloved teddy bear, and used that.

Splendor found Piper Donovan’s page and stared at
her profile picture. Smooth, creamy skin; shining green eyes; small, straight
nose; a headful of lustrous golden hair. Splendor had seen Piper—tall, thin and
glowing—many times at the supermarket. While Splendor watched with admiration
and wondered what it would be like to be that pretty, Piper never seemed to
notice Splendor. Sure, Piper always said “thank you” and smiled when she took
her receipt, but Splendor sensed she might as well be invisible.

When Piper had handed her card over today, Splendor
had even admired her name imprinted in the plastic. It had given her an
idea.

Now, as she scrutinized the Facebook page and
relished Piper’s gorgeous professional headshot, Splendor absentmindedly reached
for her own face and stroked the acne glaze that covered her cheeks. She learned
that Piper lived in the neighboring town of Hillwood, New Jersey, and her
birthday was May 22. She was an actress and designed wedding cakes at the Icing
on the Cupcake bakery. Splendor wanted to know more, but Piper’s privacy
settings prevented that. To get further information, Splendor would have to be
accepted as Piper’s friend.

She was tempted to add a message along with her
request for friendship. Something about how much she admired Piper and wished
she was like her. But Splendor decided against that. She had learned it was
better to keep her thoughts to herself.

P
iper
didn’t recognize the name. Someone called Splendor Wilkins was friending her on
Facebook.

People she didn’t know frequently requested Piper’s
friendship. Sometimes the individuals were suggested by mutual friends.
Sometimes they were fans who had watched Piper during her all-too-short daytime
drama stint on
A Little Rain Must Fall.
Lately, she
had gotten requests from people who had admired one of her wedding cakes.

Which was Splendor Wilkins?

Piper clicked on the profile picture, instantly
enlarging it as Splendor’s own Facebook page came up on the screen. But Splendor
hadn’t chosen to share an image of herself. Instead, she’d posted a picture of a
pink teddy bear.

There was none of the standard information about
where she lived, where she had gone to school or what she did for a living.
She’d only disclosed her birthday and that she was a female.

Shrugging, Piper pressed the accept icon. Someone
who’d choose an image of a stuffed animal seemed harmless. Besides, Piper knew
enough never to put information on Facebook that she wasn’t all right with the
whole world knowing. There was no problem with adding somebody else she didn’t
recognize to her list of friends. Piper had nothing to hide.

A
s
soon as she awoke, Splendor checked Facebook and was delighted to see that Piper
Donovan had accepted her as a friend. She spent the next half hour clicking
around, fascinated, as she learned more about Piper’s life. Piper had posted
several pictures of a little white dog with floppy ears and a big brown patch
around his left eye. The captions underneath revealed his name was Emmett.

Splendor smiled as she viewed a short video clip of
the dog in which he did a flip when enticed by a treat at the Icing on the
Cupcake bakery. It was a short, sweet commercial for the shop. She watched it
several more times.

Emmett reminded her of the canine in
My Dog Skip
, a movie she’d seen over and over as a
kid. She’d identified with the isolated little boy in the story whose life
improved immensely when he got a dog. Suddenly, he had a loyal companion and
best friend. He wasn’t lonely anymore.

Again and again, Splendor had begged her mother to
let her get a puppy of her own. Her mother refused. She said that she had enough
to do taking care of Splendor.

There were many more photos. Piper with two smiling
middle-aged people who Splendor assumed were her parents. Several showed Piper
next to a handsome man with a blindingly white smile, a man who was clearly her
boyfriend. There was one of Piper holding a piping bag poised over a tiered
cake. Splendor’s favorite showed Piper wearing a gorgeous white evening dress
and a diamond bracelet, her hair coiffed to perfection. The caption under that
one read “Fairy tale moment on the set of
A Little Rain
Must Fall
.”

Splendor ached to have Piper Donovan’s life.

Shifting her gaze to the
LIKES
section, Splendor
recognized many of the local places and businesses that Piper acknowledged. The
Icing on the Cupcake bakery, Sunrise Salutation Yoga Studio, Pompilio’s
restaurant, Shaw’s Books, Hillwood Dog Park and The Best Little Hair House.

Knowing that she was going to get her paycheck
later that day, Splendor picked up her phone and made an appointment to have her
hair done.

“A
ll
right, thanks for coming in,” the casting director said without looking up from
his sheet. His eyes were already scanning his list for the name of the next
actress.

Piper forced a smile as she left the audition room.
“There goes that one,” she thought. Another commercial wasn’t going to happen.
At least not this time. The audition hadn’t gone well at all. She’d gone too
fast, stumbled, asked to start over, but had gotten flustered. Her second take
wasn’t much better than the first. Her delivery of the copy she’d been asked to
prepare had been stilted and wooden. As many auditions as she’d been on, who
knew why some of them still didn’t go well?

Well, there would be others. Lately, getting
auditions hadn’t been the problem. Booking was. There was the enormous
competition of so many actors vying for the same part. The subjectivity involved
was also overwhelming. First, the casting director had to think you could be
right for the role. Once you made it past that gatekeeper, the director’s vision
still had to be met, and, with commercials, the advertising execs had the final
say. She couldn’t begin to count the auditions she’d gone on only to leave
deflated because she sensed she wasn’t what they had in mind.