Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay

finally asked.
    “Updating my wall.”
    “Why?”
    “Sam, I’ve got over a thousand friends on Facebook. Do you know how much maintaining that takes? There’s an art to doing it well. Not that you’d care.” She waved her hand airily at me.
    “ ‘There’s a meanness in all the arts. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.’ ”
    “Nicely done.”
    I knew she’d recognize Mr. Darcy.
    She looked up and shrugged. “Don’t be so sensitive. I wasn’t being mean. I simply meant you should put more thought into the space above your bed.”
    “You were being a snob.”
    “Forget it. I thought we could have a conversation.”
    “A conversation? As far as I can tell, you came to myapartment, insulted me, and are playing on your phone. What are you even doing here?” I was mad. I had thought we were friends, had hoped we were friends, but now I felt taken in—by an Emma.
    Ashley tossed her phone across the couch. “You’ve got this wall around you. Figuratively speaking. Or is it literal?” Ashley tried to laugh, but tears came out instead. She quickly swiped them and glanced at me.
    Did she hope I wouldn’t notice? She dropped her gaze and mumbled, “What does it matter?” Then the tears started to fall—really plop down her cheeks.
    I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to be all Elinor Dashwood—and Ashley did seem a bit Marianne-ish. Another part of me just wanted to kick her out. I was still angry, but I stayed quiet. I sat on the couch next to her.
    Ashley blubbered on. “It’s like you’re the only one who’s clever and the only one who’s been hurt. I don’t even know who hurt you. I don’t know anything about you. You don’t let me in. Like when that guy hit you? Where’d you go?” She paused and then, thankfully, continued without waiting for a reply. “You don’t act like a friend, Sam. I could use a friend. A real one.”
    I could too, Ashley.
    “You don’t take me seriously,” she said. “No one does. My parents don’t. Will doesn’t.” She rolled against the pillows and swiped the back of her hand across her nose.
    “Will?”
    “Never mind. He’s just a silly boy. He’s not the point. Can’t we be friends, Sam? Real friends?”
    The moment felt like my tae kwon do conversation withHannah. I don’t mean to make people feel distant and unseen, but I do. And I do want friends—that’s new for me. They never mattered before. Life was a job. But now I think friendships make it more worthwhile. What’s the cost of real friendship?
    Ashley sucked in a deep breath. “I have a wall too, Sam. The clothes, the shoes, the hair products. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a good, strong wall.” More tears dripped from her nose. “And tonight my mother placed another brick in it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Mother sent me a blouse. I texted a picture of me in it to thank her, and here’s what I got in reply.” Ashley picked up her phone and read the text. “‘Clearly you need an appointment at Sania’s. Go there straight from the airport Wednesday.’”
    Ashley looked up. “I can’t even go home for Thanksgiving without a cleanup.”
    “Who’s Sania?”
    “It’s a brow bar on 56th and 5th.” Ashley sniffed.
    I laughed. “A brow bar?”
    She frowned at me, so I rushed on. “No, that’s what you don’t get, Ashley. I’m serious. What’s a brow bar?”
    “Eyebrows. Shaping, waxing, threading. Not that you need it.” She squinted at me. “You just need tweezing.”
    And there she hit it: my biggest insecurity. Eyebrows like Oscar the Grouch. I reached up to cover them. She pushed my hand away.
    “They’re pretty, Sam. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “They’re horrible.”
    “Get me tweezers.”
    “What?”
    “Just do it. It’ll give me something to do. And trust me, Iknow how to do this. Maybe it’s all I’m good for.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand again and sat up.
    Speechless, I started for the