Like the wine she claims to drink, Rarity is an acquired taste.
Spend only a few hours or days or weeks with her, and you’d think she’s just a spoiled drama queen who breathes perfume instead of air. Look deep enough though, and you’ll find a kind, sharp-witted, and generous girl with a brilliantly bright future ahead of her.
But tonight, it’s hard to see past those first impressions. She, Twilight, and I are twenty minutes deep into an Advanced Statistics study session, and her groaning has already gotten us shushed twice by the librarian. Right now, she’s slumped in her chair, head in her hands, as Twilight reads out a question about least-squares regression lines.
“Look at this chart,” Twilight says, helpfully holding the sheet up for Rarity even though her eyes are closed. “It gives us the weight and wingspan of thirteen representative seagulls. Firstly: What does this regression line imply about the correlation between the two stats?”
Rarity doesn’t look up. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Come on,” I say, slapping my hand on the table and drawing glares from the library guests. I lean in close to hiss at Rarity, “You’re not even trying. How are we supposed to help you figure this out if you’re just gonna whine the whole time?”
“I’m not whining,” Rarity says, shooting me a rancid glance. “I’m just finding it difficult to think under this barrage of bird-based hypotheticals! Ugh, math was so much easier in freshman year.”
I return her glower with one of my own. “You mean Algebra I?”
“Back when things made sense.” Rarity pouts at her worksheet. “I just don’t see the use of all this! Shouldn’t we be preparing for the real world? When in my real world will I be measuring seagulls?”
“That’s not really the point,” Twilight says. She’s looking at Rarity’s blank worksheet and wringing her hands. “This problem is just an example to demonstrate the underlying theory and practice of statistics-based data collection. You can change the variables to extrapolate it to all sorts of situations, like measuring the radial velocity and rotation period of a binary star, or, famously in the work of Dr. Broth, bacteria growth against temperature—”
“That’s all very good, darling,” Rarity says, making Twilight stutter to a stop and making me sharpen my glare. “But it’s just more hypotheticals! What about the real world, hm?”
Twilight winces at that last syllable. “Right. Sorry.”
Between Rarity’s ‘woe is me’ schtick and Twilight’s jelly spine, I can feel a headache festering behind my eyes. Old urges to tell them both off are boiling in my throat—
No. We’re doing high school math. I don’t need to go full she-demon and lose my cool.
I take in a deep, centering breath — thank you, Princess Twilight, for teaching me this — and release, dousing all my fire with it. Even with the migraine, I try my best to tap into my improv skills and come up with a line that’ll hook even Rarity’s skeptical mug.
“What about a graph that tracks customer age against dresses bought?” I ask, flashing Rarity my most sugary smile.
Both Rarity and Twilight look at me blankly. “Come again, dear?”
“Think about it. You’re always talking about how you want to open your own clothing store. And so much of that job is statistics!” I take Rarity’s worksheet and motion to the seagull graph. “You have to track who buys what, and when. You’ve got to look at daily foot traffic, seasonality, your biggest customer bases.”
“Most people,” Twilight softly starts, making both our gazes snap to her. She stalls for a second, but then continues, louder, “Most people think that the majority of handbags are sold around Christmas. But you told me that’s wrong, didn’t you?”
“It is wrong,” Rarity says, rolling her eyes but shifting up in her chair. “Most handbags are bought and sold in late Spring, when tax refunds come in.”
“And how do you know that?” I ask.
Rarity blinks at me. “I read a graph in Hashtag Girlboss Quarterly, tracking sales over a year.”
Twilight beams. “That’s statistics!”
Silent, eyes narrowed, Rarity flips back-and-forth to scan our matching grins for any sign of betrayal. But with Rarity quieter now than she’s been all night, I’m so happy I could scream. And Twilight, my genius little improv partner, is shining as bright as Celestia’s sun.
So, finding no trace of doubt on our faces, Rarity purses her lips and picks up her worksheet. “When you put it like that, this makes a lot more sense! It’s just late capitalist high fashion theory redesigned for burgeoning biologists.”
Twilight and I share a glance — I mouth “What?” at her and she just shrugs — but before Rarity can notice I lay my hand on hers and say, “You’ve got it.”
“Alright.” Rarity picks up her purple glitter pen and scribbles her name at the top. “Give me a moment, and I’m sure I’ll have this worked out.”
Once Rarity puts her head down, I silently pump my fist. Then, as if I’m hanging with Rainbow Dash, I shoot my arm up to offer Twilight a high-five.
She looks at my hand for a second, face blank.
Heat washes over me and I’m about to pull out, but then Twilight smiles and high-fives me back. The clap of our palms echoes through the library.
The head librarian leaps out from behind a stack of books and shushes us.
Twilight and I recoil into our chairs. “Sorry!” she whispers.