Her text glows up at me.
SYLVIE: Hey stranger. You working tonight?
I thumb back.
ME: Unfortunately, capitalism insists.
Her reply is instant.
SYLVIE: Come have a drink with me after. I’m at the Belvedere bar.
I look down at my uniform.
At my cart.
At the streak of detergent on my sleeve.
A drink. With Sylvie.
Like normal women. Women who have group chats and inside jokes, not industrial-strength cleaners and audiobook smut.
Women who own more than one going-out outfit and don’t consider dry shampoo a personality trait.
ME: I’m working.
SYLVIE: Meet me at midnight. One drink. Please? I miss you.
That word hooks me.
Please.
Sylvie doesn’t say please unless she means it.
I should say no. I’m tired. I’m broke. The only makeup in my bag is a half-dead lip gloss and a mascara that smells like mold and bad decisions.
Instead, I type:
ME: One drink.
ME: But if this turns into one of your “fun spontaneous adventures,” I’m haunting you first.
SYLVIE: Worth it.
ME: Not comforting.
ME: Also, I’m wearing my emergency black dress.
SYLVIE: A hot one?
ME: Hot and wrinkled. Your lucky night.
By midnight, my shift is done, my cart is parked, and I’m under the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the employee bathroom, trying to look less like a cautionary workplace poster and more like a woman who leaves her apartment sometimes.
I take the fastest shower of my life and change into the black dress I keep folded in my locker for emergencies.
I leave my hair down.
That alone feels reckless.
