Page 86 of Barefoot Lake

Piper shares a small two-bedroom apartment in the western part of Boston with a girl she met through friends from undergrad. The fifth-floor walk-up is awful and the building, like most in Boston, is ancient, but it’s safe, has good access to the T, and is the perfect location for Piper’s job.

“Do I need to kill him?” Piper asks, taking my bag from me and leading the way back upstairs.

“Huh?”

“You show up with same-day notice, the morning after your date. Do I need to kill him?” she repeats.

I smile because I’m reminded that I’ll have Piper always, no matter what.

“No.”

She looks skeptical.

“Really, no. He’s still perfect. I just really wanted to finish our conversation about your boss.”

She closes the door to her apartment behind us and then turns on me.

“What’s going on?”

I flop on her couch.

“I need to talk to the college and find an apartment. Also, I wanted to see you, so here I am.”

“You don’t sound too excited about coming back to Boston,” she keenly observes.

“I’m not. But here we are.”

Piper squints her eyes at me like she’s trying to see if there’s more to the story. She collapses on the couch next to me, and it seems like I’ve passed her evaluation.

“Do you want to dive right in, or should I order all the fried food I can think of first?”

“Fried food first.” It’s mid-afternoon already, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast back at home. I lean sideways and put my head on her shoulder. Sometimes, you just need to ignore life with your best friend for a while.

I do shoot quick texts to Hannah and Grateful Bob, letting them know I’m in Boston, sorting things out for my return. They both wish me luck and ask for an update once I’m back.

Half an hour later, we’re carrying our take-out haul back up the stairs in Piper’s building while she fills me in on the seemingly endless list of terrible things her boss has done since he started.

“He calls them ‘uniform inspections,’ but we have no uniform! So, he’s just judging our clothes, making snide remarks, and even commenting on peoples’ weight. I don’t know who he’s related to, but only nepotism could be keeping this asshat from getting fired.”

“I mean, it sounds like he’s creating a hostile work environment. Is he even legally allowed to say the crap he says? Have you reported him?”

“There’s no way it’s legal. And I want to, but when Jared tried to a few weeks ago, Bernard somehow twisted everything, so Jared sounded like a lazy piece of crap who was making trouble, and then Bernard literally bullied him until he couldn’t take it anymore and quit.”

“Have you considered quitting?”

I huff as we climb the third flight. I don’t know how Piper can talk while taking these stairs without running out of air. But she just keeps going.

“Every damn day. But I really like this place. Or I did before Bernard came around. It’s so close to here, and I’m getting to know a lot of the people that come in. I don’t want to abandon it and watch assface completely ruin it.”

We finally reach Piper’s floor, and I lean against the wall while she unlocks the door. I need to figure out a cardio routine or something. This is embarrassing. I’m sure the two pounds of mozzarella sticks that I’m carrying will help.

May, Piper’s roommate, is nice but usually does her own thing and is out for the day. She’s been spending most of her time at her new boyfriend’s place lately, so she was totally cool with me staying with Piper for a few days.

The apartment isn’t big enough for a kitchen table, but we cover her TV trays with the many take-out boxes we brought back. Piper queues up Gossip Girl. We still share a Netflix account, so she picks up right where we left off when she visited me at Barefoot Lake. We would never keep watching without the other. We settle into the couch and dive in. At one point, I open my laptop to vaguely scroll through apartment listings and email the head of the English department to set up a meeting, but I slam it shut after barely ten minutes.

Piper and I blissfully avoid reality for the rest of the afternoon, reheating leftovers when we get hungry again, reciting lines along with our show, and shouting in dismay every time Dan shows up on the screen.

Later that night, when we’re sitting on her bed, Piper finally gives me a look that says she’s not letting me hide anymore.