“You’ll make it work,” Erika said optimistically.
“A change of scenery will do you good,” Jasmine said, hauling me to my feet. “Come help me pack up my decorating kit. Even if you’re going to live in a refrigerator box, you should still make it look cute!”
* * *
Erika’s apartmentwas smaller than Parker’s master suite, and my friend was renting a tiny room in the flat.
“I have an inflatable mattress,” she said, pulling it out and turning on the hand pump while Jasmine shook out sheets, pillows, and a wooden picture frame.
“Do you want a corgi or”—she held up another photo, an image of the three of us at college during a freak snowstorm—“a picture of the greatest people you will ever meet?”
“Can I have both?”
“By the magic of TV”—she pulled out another picture frame—“you can!”
“Did you ever find a forever home for Puff?” I asked, desperate to talk about anything other than Parker and the horrible mistake I’d made.
“No.” Jasmine sighed. “Maybe when you win the lottery, you can find a house in Harrogate, and you can take him.”
“As if that’s ever going to happen,” I said dejectedly.
“You’ll find something.” Erika patted my hand.
I wasn’t so sure.
Erika’s roommates were out of town, so after the very quick decorating job, the three of us sat in the tiny living-room-slash-kitchen drinking wine and eating pizza, Chinese food, and an entire lemon chess pie that Jasmine had made and brought with us to New York City.
“I guess I need to resign,” I said sadly, taking another gulp of wine. “This is the shortest job I’ve ever held. I can’t even put it on my LinkedIn page.”
“Have a dumpling,” Jasmine said. “I’ll write the email. You shouldn’t drunk-write a resignation letter.”
“Really? You mean I shouldn’t put in it how my boss is a creepy freaking liar and uses hapless virgins to play some sick game?”
“We definitely shouldn’t put that. It’s unprofessional.”
I sniffed. “What if I made a mistake? Maybe I should go talk to Parker.”
“You heard what Meg said—the police are investigating. They wouldn’t bother unless there was something there.” Jasmine patted my hand.
“Forget Parker. There are other jobs in the city and other fish in the sea. You have to get back out there. When you find your one true love, this will be a funny story you two tell at dinner parties,” Erika insisted. She took my phone, opening Tinder. “Let see what options we have in Manhattan.” She scrolled through the profiles.
“How about this one! If you squint, he kind of looks like Henry Cavill.”
I peered at the screen. “I don’t know if I’ve had enough wine to want to test that theory,” I said.
The phone rang, startling me, and I promptly dropped it in my wine glass.
“Crap! I can’t afford a new phone right now,” I said, fishing it out.
“Hello!” I yelled as I frantically dabbed the wine off. “This is Sadie.”
“Good evening, this is Barbara,” a stern voice said on the other line. “I was at the café when you were almost kidnapped. Nasty business.”
Crap.
“Yes, well, sometimes these things happen.”
“Do they? I can’t say that I’ve ever been kidnapped, though I did go to a party once a number of years ago in Greenwich Village during which we enacted a kidnapping-themed sexual role play.”
