“Charli! Over here. Charli!”
Janie waved at me from a far corner of the crowded bar at Chowww. It was her birthday, and she insisted we celebrate here. The place was loud, trendy, and expensive, so it was no surprise.
“Hey, girl, happy birthday!” I squeezed her tight and kissed her cheek, wedging myself into the small space next to her and the bar.
She leaned close, raising her voice so I could hear. “Craig is going to stop by, and Haley, Shani, and Bianca are all coming.”
“Well, I get to buy you your first drink. What are you going to have?”
I motioned for the bartender, a sexy brunette with her hair slicked back in a long ponytail and thick eyeliner accentuating her eyes.
“Cucumber martini,” Janie yelled over the black lacquer bar, and I chimed in, “Prosecco.”
When we had our drinks, I clinked the rim of mine to hers. “Cheers.”
Once we’d each had a sip, I yelled over the music, “So, you ready for a great year? Last year in your twenties.”
“You know it.” She twirled around in her tight spot, her eyes taking in everything around her, but I knew what she was doing.
“Stop,” I said.
“Oh, come on. I’m just looking for a few prospects.”
“Do not include me in your list of available women.”
“Why not? You look smoking. Plus, it’s my birthday and I’ll do what I want.” To make her point, she gestured at my black blouse and skinny jeans. “I mean, really, Char. No one wears a tight blouse like that and painted-on dark jeans with stiletto ankle boots if they’re not on the prowl.”
Deflecting, I said, “Speaking of which, you look hot. Love those leather pants.” Janie was in skintight red leather pants and a white frilly blouse. “And look at those shoes!” Preening, she lifted a foot in the air and twisted her ankle from side to side, and I grinned. “They’re definitely perfectly cheetah.”
“What am I going to do with you, girl?” She pinched my cheek and winked. “Perfectly cheetah ... ha! You’ve talked that way since I’ve known you. Probably since birth.”
We sipped at our drinks for a moment while some Euro-synthesized rap-style music blared in the background, the bass vibrating all the way through me.
“Oh, there’s Bianca,” she said. “Don’t tell her we’re going spinning on Sunday. She’ll want to go and then beg to go to a later class, and we’ll never make brunch or seehim.”
“Janie, my love, I don’t think we have to intentionally leave her out. Not to mention, no one wants to go to spinning class before the sun is up on a Sunday.”
Proud of myself, I tried inserting a small life lesson there. Janie was my closest friend, after all, and that was like a marriage. You accepted a person in sickness and health and everything in between—bitchiness included. And she was technically older in years, which I equated with experience.
Janie was an early-to-rise freak—like five o’clock every damn morning. She did more before seven than most people did all day. I’d agreed to go to a spinning class with her on Sunday at six. Apparently the teacher was a god and she had a thing for him.
“Hey there, ladies,” Bianca crooned over the music, air kissing both of us and waving her bracelet-clad arm in the air. Her blond hair was sleek and straight, her makeup pristine complete with red lips, and she wore a wrap dress on her size 2 body.
Suddenly a herd of men surrounded us, offering to buy her a cocktail. She zeroed in on one rich-looking Wall Street type and said, “Sure, a lemon drop,” batting her fake eyelashes the whole time.
Bianca wasn’t my favorite but she was another friend of Janie’s from high school, and I didn’t see her much. She worked for her parents’ jewelry business and sold couples expensive jewels crafted from the rainbow of happiness. The one that follows getting engaged.
Janie and I met in college in upstate New York. I was a junior credits-wise but a freshman age-wise. I couldn’t go to bars or anything, so I’d been sitting in some coffee shop listening to indie rock one evening and Janie had strolled in with her posse, giggling and carefree. She gravitated toward me, probably wanting to fix me and make me happy. That’s Janie. She loves a good fixer-upper project.
We’d been friends ever since, even after I graduated and moved to Manhattan. I was so happy when she moved back after graduating. Now I was a regular fixture in her social life; pretending to love it had become my specialty.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of cocktails, sushi, birthday cake, and dancing. Bianca left with the rich dude, Janie found herself a lawyer—Jewish to boot—and I shared a cab with Shani and Haley back to the Meatpacking District.
Once again, I found myself snuggled up in bed with Lucy on my lap, the heat from her fan the only thing warming my legs.
It had been a week since I’d fired Maggie, but I had my daily e-mail from her begging for her position back. There was an e-mail from one of our junior writers with a fairly interesting pitch on juicing and dating, and how the two mix or don’t. And one more message, which no longer filtered into my spam folder.
FROM:[emailprotected]
