one
The champagne hit me first.No, wait. It was probably the espresso martini Gina had made, the one she swore she’d perfected as she shook together leftover salted-caramel vodka and pumpkin spice liqueur.
I regretted it the second it touched my tongue.
Because the worst part?
It actually tasted good.
Maybe it was the cup she had put it in that threw me off. It was a commemorative Metropolitan Museum of Art mug, chipped on one side—the kind they sold in the gift shop for twenty bucks, but Gina had claimed was a badge of honor. She’d earned it on her last day as a summer intern, one of only six picked from hundreds.
Of course, she also left with a shiny new line for her résumé and a summer full of existential dread about her future. That part had been free.
Now, two master’s degrees later—hers in art history slash museum studies and mine in writing with a concentration in both creative nonfiction and technical communication forbalance—we’d managed to delay the inevitable adulthood just long enough for the real world to feel like a complete ambush.
But we were doing it. Somehow. Oddly, together.
In a stroke of chaotic timing that felt weirdly cinematic, we were living out the very dream we had scribbled into notebook margins when we were thirteen. We were two best friends, grown up and living in the city, chasing creative careers and sharing a too-small apartment with questionable plumbing. We even had our own “quirky neighbor” subplot in the form of Gina’s older brother crashing with us semi-permanently.
It wasn’t glamorous. But it was ours.
Gina was thriving. At least, she was faking it really well. Which, in her opinion, was the same thing. She had a job at a gallery that had real-name artists and catered parties and clients who said things like “provocative space” and “new, emergent voices” with completely straight faces and she pretended to know what they meant.
Somehow, she made it work. She said she wouldn’t settle for anything beneath her. And she didn’t.
Meanwhile, I was ready to settle for anyone who could spell my name correctly on a job rejection email. Even if they didn’t, I could make it work.
I’d sent out dozens—hundreds?—of résumés. Most of the listings were for glorified office assistants. I was ready to be answering phones, managing calendars, and replenishing the stapler supplies as needed. Though most of them said they required at least a master’s degree, which seemed, well …
“Beneath you,”Gina had insisted.
I ignored her words, however well meaning.
It was temporary. I was just paying bills while I chased my real dream. Writing.
Unfortunately, writing turned out to be the most elusive dream of all. More improbable than Gina’strust-fund babyfantasy. At least that’d had a road map.
Writing was sending emails into the void. Pitching articles no one asked for to editors who never responded. I’d tried celebrity gossip pieces I didn’t care about. Listicles about table settings for holiday dinners with color-coordinated napkins no one used. I’d missed the Thanksgiving content window entirely. Those pitches went out the second Halloween candy went on clearance. Not to mention Christmas.
That left me with Easter.
Did people even read articles about Easter?
I tried to remember the last time I’d celebrated it.
What surfaced was a hazy scene from childhood. There were pastel eggs hidden under patchy lawn grass, sunlight cutting through the slats of a bent chain-link fence. My father, round in the middle, stood in a polo shirt, laughing. My mother crouched barefoot on painted toes, tight curls haloing her face as she clapped and cheered.
“One more, Bri-Bri! Find one more, baby!”
I held that memory in one hand and the espresso martini in the other, sipping cautiously and trying not to grimace at the aftertaste. Sharp. Like burnt sugar.
Gina had called the night an “apartment-warming,” but really, it was an excuse to drink. We’d been in the place three months already.
When I’d told her that, she’d pivoted immediately looking for another, much better reason. “Fine, Friendsgiving.”
Her version of a friend-focused Thanksgiving featured a bowl of microwave popcorn, a plate of bodega cookies, and at least six bottles of wine, brought by guests who thought a housewarming gift meant cheap pinot.
We were well stocked until New Year’s. Unless our third roommate got to it first.
