Blank Slate Kate

Chapter 7

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Hannah looks back and forth between me and Jake then grins when we both nod. "Great, thanks. I haven't shown anyone and I'm so excited about it. I'll go print it."

She disappears into her bedroom and Jake calls after her, "I didn't think you were serious about starting your own business."

She sticks her head out as the printer begins to grind. "Really? I thought it was obvious. I give everyone I meet fashion consultations, I've even helped random women in stores, and..." She gestures at her bookshelf, which I notice holds tons of books on marketing and sales and business planning. "I bought half of those with you."

Jake just shrugs. While I like Jake, as a friend and maybe as something more, I've come to realize that he's not a noticing kind of guy. I wore Hannah's clothes for a full two days before he saw I had new outfits. I'm lucky he noticed me at the bar and took care of me.

Hannah looks disappointed but just says, "Well, I'm becoming a fashion consultant. And I'll show you how in a minute."

"I think you'll do a great job," I say, and she smiles at me before going to get the printout.

I do think she will. When Jake and I went shopping that afternoon I used the advice she'd given me as we assembled outfits to buy a purple sweater and dark blue jeans that really make me look good. She's got a great eye for color and shapes.

We've hung out at least once a week over the six weeks since we met, and I've come to like her despite our rough start. I suppose she was right to be worried about her friend taking up with some random girl he met drunk and clueless at a bar, and especially right when it's pretty obvious to me now that she has a crush on Jake. He, unsurprisingly, doesn't seem to have noticed, but I have. She smiles at him, touches his arm when she talks, sits a little close on the couch.

In short, she treats him the same way I do.

She comes out with her business plan in her hand and gives us each several sheets of paper, then settles onto her beanbag chair with her own copy. "Okay, let me know what you think. I put a ton of time into it but it's hard to see my own mistakes. Tell me if you think it'll work."

I'm not sure I can help much, but I owe her so I begin working through the plan anyhow.

Halfway through the first paragraph, I notice she's expecting seventy percent of her clients to refer their friends, which seems high. The next sentence has unrealistic hopes for returns on advertising. Not wanting to throw little things at her as I go, I say, "Can I make notes on this copy?"

She blinks. "Is it that bad?"

"Not at all. I just figured I'd tell you everything at the end."

She doesn't look soothed by this but gets me a pen.

Jake is finished the three-page document by the time I reach the end of the first page. "Looks good to me, Hannah. Maybe I should be your first customer. Get myself some style."

I look up and smile, but it freezes on my face when she laughs and tugs at his omnipresent Hogs t-shirt, letting her fingers brush his arm as she does. "I don't take hopeless cases, and anyone with as much sports-related clothing as you is probably hopeless." She has every right to flirt with him, of course, but I don't have to like it.

They banter back and forth, teasing each other about useless consultants and slovenly men, but I return my focus to the plan and soon don't even notice them. The core is good but there's so much wrong with the details. I scribble corrections and suggestions in the margins and even on the back of a sheet, and I'm on the last page when Hannah says, "God, Kate, are you writing a novel?"