“Good night, Annie.”
The line goes dead and I just sit there for a second, the phone still pressed to my ear, my heart still racing.
“Oh my God! Well?” Cori is staring at me, her chopsticks suspended in mid-air. “That sounded like it went well?”
I set the phone down carefully, like it might explode if I’m not gentle with it. “It was okay, I guess. I got an interview.”
“You got an interview!” Cori actually squeals, grabbing my hand and squeezing it so hard it almost hurts. “Annie! This was meant to be! I felt it the second I saw the ad, I swear to God.”
“It’s not guaranteed I have the job or anything,” I say, but I’m smiling despite myself, this cautious hope blooming in my chest that I’m afraid to acknowledge too directly.
Cori grabs both my shoulders, her red ponytail swinging as she leans in close, her brown eyes bright with excitement, all those freckles dancing across her nose and cheeks. “This shit was destined, I’m telling you. You’re going to walk in there tomorrow and she’s going to love you and he’s going to hire you on the spot and everything’s going to work out.” She grins, wider now. “Plus, maybe he’ll turn out to be hot. That would be a nice bonus.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m laughing. “Even if he is, he’d be my boss. So he would be extremelyoff-limits.”
“Says who?” Cori wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
“Says like, basic professional boundaries? Common sense? The fact that I desperately need this job and can’t afford to screw it up by developing some inappropriate crush on my employer?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I think I used it all up when I moved across the country with hardly any money to my name and no plan.”
“Fair.” Cori laughs and swats at my arm. “God, you know what? You’re going to be amazing at this. I can feel it.”
“You’re a psychopath. Do you know that?”
“I’ve been told.” She’s grinning and I’m laughing too now, this real laugh that feels like it’s coming from somewhere deep in my chest, and for the first time in weeks I feel like maybe, possibly, things might actually be okay.
On the TV, theFriendstheme song starts up again, the opening chords of “I’ll Be There For You” filling the apartment, and Cori settles back against the couch, pulling the container of lo mein into her lap. “Okay, Nanny Girl, you have to watch this. This is the one where Ross finds out he’s having a baby with his lesbian ex-wife. Yes, I watched it without you, but you’re going to love it.”
Chapter 7
ANNIE
I’m standing outside apartment 2B, a petitioner at a gilded gate. My stomach is a colony of frantic moths and every choice that brought me here feels suspect: the sleeveless black shift dress (too casual?), the demure flats (too childish?), the careful application of clear lip gloss (too try-hard?). I’m an actor who has memorized the wrong lines for the wrong play.
The hallway up here is nothing like my building. The carpet is this deep burgundy that looks like it’s actually been vacuumed recently, possibly even shampooed, and the walls are painted a warm cream color without a single crack or water stain in sight. There’s crown molding, and the lighting is soft, coming from these brass sconces that look like they belong in a hotel.
When I arrived, there was a doorman named Stanley who was wearing a uniform and tipped his hat at me and asked who I was here to see. When I told him, he called up to the apartment via intercom to announce me as if I were someone important instead of a desperate twenty-five-year-old who’s running out of money and options. The elevator worked and was clean inside with mirrors that weren’t covered in smudges or scratched with people’s initials.
It’s a building where functioning families seem to live—families with steady incomes and dental plans and living wills.
I got here alone. The solo subway journey—transferring from the 6 to the 1 at 42nd Street, emerging into the crisp, academic air of the Upper West Side—feels like a fragile, hard-won credential. For ten minutes, I loitered in the tastefully appointed lobby, studying a landscape painting to calm my racing heart. It was a small victory, but mine.
To anyone else, taking the subway alone probably seems like nothing. But for me, right now, it feels like proof that maybe I canactuallydo this. Maybe I can figure out how to live in this city. Maybe this interview will go well and I’ll get the job and everything will start falling into place.
Maybe it’s a good omen.
I fish the lip gloss out of my purse—just a clear one, nothing dramatic—and swipe it across my lips again, pressing them together. My bangs are behaving for once, the rest of my hair falling straight and smooth a little past my shoulders instead of doing the weird frizzy thing it’s been doing ever since I got to New York. I’d broken down and bought a hair straightener last week—a decent one from a beauty supply store on Broadway—because this humidity is absolutely kicking my ass and I refused to iron my hair on an ironing board like Cori does. She swears it works just as well and saves money but I watched her do it once and almost had a heart attack thinking she was going to burn the apartment down or catch herself on fire.
Okay. Deep breath.You can do this.
I knock on the door, three quick raps, and then immediately hold my breath like that’s going to help anything. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, that whooshing sound that happens when you’re anxious, and then I hear footsteps. Big, heavy footsteps getting closer and closer by the second.
The door swings open and a man appears. A verytallman. He has to be at least six-three, maybe six-four, and he’s built in that way that suggests he probably played sports in collegebut hasn’t in a while—broad shoulders and muscular, but not Brad Pitt muscular. He’s wearing dark jeans and a cream colored henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and he has dark brown curly hair that’s a little too long. It’s been styled back in a way that would probably be annoyingly attractive if I wasn’t already mentally freaking out.
But it’s his face that makes my brain stop working completely.
