“She’ll be thrilled. Thanks, Knuckles. I’ll see you later.”
I waved him off with a warm smile, my heart full…until I looked at my laptop again, and then I sighed as I sat back in my office chair, another tweet catching my eye.
Boy, their sure wasn’t a lot of love lost between Alma and Mitzy, but it was mostly catty remarks to one another—a lot of back and forth with one word in particular Alma seemed fond of reminding Mitzy belonged to her and her alone.
“Jeff?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed sleepily.
“What in all of creation does GOAT mean?”
Jeff began to laugh so hard, he fell out of his comfy orthopedic bed.
Two hours later, I was still pondering some of the new words I’d learned today. Listen, I tweet for the shop all the time, but I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter or Facebook because it can be a time suck if I’m not careful. However, I can’t say I’ve ever really paid attention to some of the slang so frequently used in the tweets I was reading from Mitzy and the others.
If any of you are still wondering what GOAT means in reference to a person, it’s an acronym for “greatest of all time,” meaning Alma was one of the OGs (original gangsters) of the online makeup world and her tweets to Mitzy were meant to remind her of her place.
Mitzy, in her typical fashion, told Alma to shut it in an epic clapback (which is a sharp return retort), where she reminded Alma the coins she was making solidified how little it meant to be a GOAT. Yep. That’s exactly how she’d said it. Coins. Of which, Mitzy had plenty.
Mitzy had shot to fame rather meteorically, according to her Wiki page, and was now a multimillion-dollar entity. All this after doing only a couple of videos with Alma. Alma apparently felt as though she’d given Mitzy the wide exposure she needed to get where she was in the industry. She’d even called her nemesis a coattail rider.
And so it went. They’d had tons of little spats with each other as far back as two years—which was all I could bear reading before I needed a break.
Standing up and stretching, I rubbed my eyes and decided to check and see if anyone needed lunch. I’d been so ridiculously immersed in online battles, I’d forgotten we still didn’t even know if Mitzy’s death needed investigating.
Coop was in the back of the shop in our break room, where we had a fridge and even a small stove, flipping through some pages of a magazine while she ate her lunch of egg salad and carrot sticks.
She was so forlorn, sitting at our large walnut-stained table, the colorful walls of royal blue and light gray even looked depressed around her. I hated this for her. I hated that someone she’d developed such a connection with was gone, and for the first time, she was dealing with a loss.
My intent was to gauge her temperature and see if she was feeling any better about last night before I asked her what she knew about the disagreements between all these makeup gurus, but she sure didn’t look like she felt any better.
“Hey, Coop,” I said, sitting next to her. “How are you feeling today?”
Her eyes met mine, sans makeup today, which was definitely strange in light of the fact that, since she’d found makeup, she’d worn it every day.
“I think I feel melancholy. Yes. That’s the correct word.”
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “Is that the word you found in the dictionary to use as your word of the day?”
Her lips thinned, her eyes downcast. “It is, and it describes precisely how I’m feeling. I’m quite melancholy over Mitzy’s death. I can’t believe she’s gone. It’s so unfair, Trixie.”
My nod was solemn. “It is, Coopie. She was only twenty-two.”
Pushing her egg salad out of the way, she set the magazine down. “I don’t understand…why her?”
Ah. The age-old question. Why? Why would whoever was running the universe take a young woman, full of life and with so much left to give? If Coop was going to experience her best life, she had to understand that life also had its disappointments, its heartaches, and a bunch of unanswered questions. I hoped I was able to console her through it as she mourned.
I squeezed her hand before I let go with a wistful sigh. “You know what, Coop? I don’t know. I don’t know why Mitzy. I don’t know anything. I wish I did. I’d give you the answer if I had one. I promise, but I don’t. I’d give you the religious answer if I thought it would make things better, but I’m not sure I can share that with you—what I was taught, anyway—and not still have the same questions you have.
“I can only tell you that this is what life is all about, and it’s why we have to appreciate the people around us and tell them how much they mean to us every day. Because contrary to a demon’s life, human lives are short. All we can do, as far as I can see anyway, is be the best people we can be. Be kind, be generous, be honest.”
Coop did something then, something I think I’ll probably always remember because I knew it meant something. I knew she didn’t understand these new feelings coursing through her veins, but I also knew that when she reached out, when she expressed an emotion, it came from her core—from her soul.
Coop leaned forward and slung her arm around my neck, pulling me close to rest her forehead on my shoulder. “I love you, Trixie Lavender.”
My throat began to close up, threatening to choke my words, but I managed to compose myself
