Gemma pounds her fist on the table, making the silverware jump and the glasses rattle. “Fuck that. Seriously, Sadie. Fuck that. Think about how many hours you’ve given these people.Giventhem, because they sure as fuck haven’t paid you for all of them. Not even close. Think about how many dates you turned down and vacations you didn’t take, going into the office sick and never getting enough sleep, and this is how they treat you?”
“I know, Gem. Trust me, I know. But he fired me. What else can I do but find a new job and start at the bottom of the ladder with a whole new company?” I hold up my glass to Nick. “Where the boss will probably hit on me.”
“Should I cheers to that?” Nick warily clinks his glass against mine.
“With your killer résumé, I’m sure you’re going to have plenty of offers.” Harley once again earns her reputation as the optimistic one.
I down the last half of my cocktail before raising my hand like one of Gemma’s students so I can order another. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I turned off my email for the weekend. I’m going to take the next three days and digest and see how I feel.”
“I imagine tomorrow you’re going to feel like puking. A lot.” Nick pushes a glass of water my way.
“That’s the goal.” Spending the day with my head in the toilet seems preferable to spending the day rehashing the ways I must’ve fucked up in order for this to have happened.
Harley takes the water glass and holds it up to me like I’m a toddler, not moving it until I roll my eyes and drink. “You know, taking these three days might actually be a good first step. Maybe your next job should be one that treats you fairly and actually pays you for the work you do.”
“Working all that overtime was my choice.” My defensive hackles rise along with my blood alcohol level, thanks to this very popular topic of conversation. My friends are always on me to work less and live more. Date more, travel more, sleep more. Blah blah blah. But I’ve never been the kind of employee who can say no, assuming if I did I’d be kissing my chances at a promotion goodbye. The promotion I didn’t get anyway, despite never saying no.
And now that she mentions it, I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation or went on an actual date. I’ve always been a pick-up-a-hot-guy-at-a-bar-and-take-him-home-for-one-night kind of girl. Woman.
The three of them exchange a look. Harley cocks her head toward Nick.
“It was only your choice because it was made clear you’d be rewarded with a promotion, Sadie. That doesn’t count as an actualchoice.” Nick delivers this news since he also works in finance and seemingly knows how these things go.
I open my mouth to continue the argument, but Harley holds up a hand to stop me. “We don’t need to have this discussion right now. Tonight’s about celebrating what a badass you are, whether your idiot boss chooses to acknowledge it or not.”
Gemma holds her glass up to the center of the table. “We can say many things about you, Sadie Jane, but the one thing no one can disagree with is that you are one badass bitch.”
Nick meets her glass. “I’m not going to call you a bitch, even as a term of endearment, but you know I think you’re awesome.”
Harley completes their triangle. “We love you.”
I grudgingly hold up my glass, clinking it against theirs. “Can I please get drunk now?”
Two hours later, I throw my arm around Gemma’s shoulders as we stroll down the streets of Brooklyn, looking for a karaoke bar. How cliché can we be? Getting drunk and going to sing karaoke.
Nevertheless, a-karaoke-ing we shall go.
Harley begged off from the extension of our “celebration,” giving us hugs and jumping in a Lyft to head home. I’m 99 percent sure Nick wanted to peace out too, but he knows better than to leave drunk Gemma and Sadie to their own devices. So he follows along behind us, close enough to intervene should one of us fall into moving traffic, but walking far enough away to be able to claim he doesn’t know us.
“I don’t have to go to work tomorrow!” I scream at the top of my lungs, drawing amused glances from the poor souls passing us by.
“Teenagers fucking suck!” Gemma announces to the world as if we weren’t already aware of this information.
At which point, Nick catches up to us, grabbing my arm and pulling the two of us into the next dive bar we see. Which is a dive, but a Park Slope dive, so, you know, still hipster AF. “Gem, might want to chill with yelling how much you hate your job in the neighborhood where you teach.”
“But teenagers suck.” She sticks out her lower lip for half a second before beelining straight to the bar.
Nick sighs. “I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
Sticking my arm through his, I lean my head on his shoulder to comfort him. And keep myself upright. “I know I don’t say this enough, Nicky, but you’re the best. If you were like even a little bit mean, I might like you better. But that’d be bad actually because then I’d probably wanna bang you, and I don’t think I could bang you. Not that you’re not bangable, because you totes are. I just actually really like being your friend, you know?”
Nick gives me a bemused smile and a peck on the top of my head. “I like being your friend too, Sadie. Most of the time.”
We make our way over to Gemma, who has ordered us a round of shots, which we pound before immediately ordering another.
I’m pretty sure I catch Nick giving the bartender some super-secret signal, requesting his shot be water and not tequila, but honestly, who has time to care about that when there’s more drinking to be done?
Shots having been shot, we order some cocktails and find a high-top table tucked in a back corner.
