If I can see what she’s looking at, it should be okay.
I think.
“No texting.” I hand over my device. Kira instantly clicks into YouTube and begins to scroll the Shorts—something I’ve never explored because I’m ancient and I prefer forty-five-minute makeup tutorials.
My algorithm’s about to be fucked.
And sure enough, less than a minute into her YouTube adventure, I hear my little phone speaker emitting a chain of expletives.
“What? I know the F-word,” she says, no nonsense.
I have a vision of Nick and Kira chatting about their day, digging into bowls of mac and cheese, Kira casually dropping the wordfuckinto the conversation and then informing him that she picked it up from me while I was playing the role of responsible adult.
“No,” I say, improvising. “You onlythinkyou know the F-word. It’s a fake. Only grown-ups know the real one.”
“That’s not true,” she says.
But I can tell that’s she’s not totally sure. I’ll take the win.
“My mom’s name is Nora,” Kira says, again demonstratingher skill at swerving between topics. She grabs for the bag of chips we haven’t opened yet.
“I know. I like that name.” I want to be super careful to have nothing but glowing things to say about her mom.
“She’s pretty. For a mom.”
“Definitely,” I say, having never seen a single photo of her.
“Did you know that she works at a bank?”
“I don’t think I knew that,” I reply. Which is true. Which makes me wonder how much Ishouldknow about her. And whether Iwantto know about her.
“She has a really important job. She’s, like…the boss of a lot of people and she goes around to different banks and tells everyone what they need to do.”
“That sounds fun.” I’m doing my best not to add anything substantive to this conversation that could be held againstme.
“She has her own office.”
I nod, knowing that I will never in my life have my own office. Although…
“Technically Ilivein an office,” I say, adding a friendly little chuckle.
“What?” Kira says.
“The office in my mom’s apartment. That’s where I sleep.” As I explain this, I realize that this sounds both bad and confusing.
Kira narrows her eyes, apparently activating investigative mode. “Wait, what’s your job?”
Fuckkkk, I’m getting this from a kid now? Okay, okay, strategize.
“Well, I study art.” I scan the crowd for Nick.
Her eyes narrow even further. “Study, like…you go to school?”
“Right now, I’m trying to go back to school so I can keep studying art.”
“So you don’t have a job?”
I sigh in my head and, unfortunately, physically as well. I want to cry.
