“You’re on speaker,” I tell her.
“Oh.” Her whole voice changes. “Hey, Lily!”
“Hey, Zea.”
“Are you okay? Did he do something dumb? Because I told him not to sign anything.”
Lily’s eyes fly to mine. I look at the ceiling.
“Zea,” I groan.
“What? I was a witness for common sense.”
Lily sits back and laughs, and the sound loosens something in my chest.
“That’s not why we called,” I say.
Lily takes over. “Javonte thought you might be interested in a part-time job helping with Lit with Lily. Emails, social media, supplies, setup, things like that. We’d need to talk to your mom, and school would come first, but I wanted to see if you’d be interested in an interview.”
The line goes quiet. For once, Zea has nothing to say.
Then she screams.
I pull the phone away from my ear.
“Yes!” she yells. “Yes, yes, yes. I’m interested. I already have ideas. First of all, your TikTok needs more behind-the-scenes content. People love setup videos.”
Lily covers her mouth, laughing.
“And can my title be Creative Operations Manager?” Zea asks.
“No,” Lily and I say at the same time.
Zea sighs. “Lit with Lily Assistant?”
“That works,” Lily says.
“Can I add something after assistant?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
“That means yes later.”
“It means we’ll discuss it,” Lily says, but she’s smiling.
They talk for another minute before Lily promises to set up a real conversation. When we hang up, she looks lighter than she has since the studio. Not fixed. Not all the way okay. But lighter.
I set my phone down. “That was the first useful thing I’ve done all week.”
“It was useful.”
“I’m sorry it took me messing up to ask the right question.”
She runs her fingers over the edge of her notebook. “Me too.”
That hurts, but I don’t argue with it.
“I don’t want to lose you over this,” I say.
