Page 423 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

“Tell her I love her.”

“Tell her yourself when you get there.”

“Celie—”

She whips back around. “What?”

I rub my head. “I need space.

“From you.”

The hold music cuts out.

“Thank you for calling FreshSeal customer care, this is Denise. How can I help you today?”

I stumble upright. “Hi, Denise. Yes. Hi.”

Celie groans.

“I’m usin’ your bathroom real quick.”

I drop my head back and close my eyes. “Denise. I got a big problem, you see. I got one FreshSeal square bottom, size medium, and one FreshSeal square lid, size medium, but the lid does not fit onto the bottom⁠—”

My eyes go wide. “Shit. Denise,” I take off into a sprint across the penthouse to my bedroom, then round the corner fast through my closet. “One second, one second, Denise. Celie!” I call out from the other side of the toilet-room door. “Do NOT kill the spider that’s in the corner. He won’t bother you if you don’t bother him!”

“A spider? Where the fuck's the spider?” Celie screams. “No! No, no, no, no—How you gonna leave a spider in here?”

I press my palm to the door. “Celie, please. Leave him alone. He’s lost ‘cause I accidentally walked through his web!”

“You got issues. No, for real.” She flushes and swings open the door, still squeezing her ass back into her yoga pants, blowing by me. “Never peed so fast in my life.”

“Hello?” Denise asks.

“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry,” I take my clip out, rub my head. “The lid doesn’t fit onto the bottom. It seems to have warped after washing.”

“How did you wash it?” Denise asks.

Celie’s whispering she’s leaving

and for me to get professional help.

“Uh… I’m assuming the dishwasher⁠—

“I don’t know. I don’t do the cleaning.”

(That sounded very rich-bitch.

But as Dorothy West once said:

‘I’m a writer. I don’t cook and I don’t clean.’)

“Oh. Unfortunately, our FreshSeal containers are not dishwasher safe.”

I chuckle under my breath. “Yes. That does seem to be unfortunate.” I flip the container, inspecting the bottom. “Please, Denise, tell me. How is one supposed to know that?”

“It’s printed on the box.”

“I don’t have the box.