“That’s because you don’t like anything that’s not covered in cheese or salsa or ketchup,” she snaps back.
Meanwhile, I am stuffing my face with udon noodles while my mind races in circles around everything that happened at work today.
“We are here because Ashlyn loves sushi,” Alice points out, her chopsticks hovering over the sushi boat while she hunts for the next piece she wants.
“True,” Troy says. “We always get sushi when Ashlyn has something she wants to talk to us about. Ashlyn. What do you want to talk about?”
I look up and find both of them looking at me. “I’m fine not talking about me,” I tell them as I slurp up a noodle.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?” My friend Demi walks up and takes a seat at the table next to me. She immediately pours herself a cup of saki and reaches for chopsticks.
“You came at the right time,” Alice says. “Ashlyn was just about to tell us about her life.”
I shoot Alice a look to kill, and she pretends not to see.
“Who says I want to talk about my life?” I ask. “Just because I nearly lost my job after a paparazzi shoot gone wrong, only to have a supermodel show up at my cubicle demanding I be his girlfriend doesn’t mean I asked you guys to come out with me just to talk about it. Maybe I just really wanted sushi.”
“Wait, you almost lost your job?” Demi asks. She knows nothing. Yet.
“Wait. Zane Calloway asked you to be his girlfriend?” Alice asks.
“Okay, we’re going to need more saki,” Demi says, waving down the server. And once again, I am basking in that aforementioned limelight I had no intention of setting foot in. I didn’t even bring any sunscreen.
“Listen,” Troy says. “Men are known for being uninterested in the gossip you lovely ladies indulge in, but even I want to hear what happened when you and Zane talked today.”
“Hold up,” Demi says as she pours herself more saki, pounds it, and then pops a piece of the dragon roll in her mouth. “I need to know everything. Start at the beginning.”
Oh god. Here we go.
“Well, it all started when Ashlyn here got assigned a job snapping photos of Zane Calloway in his swim shorts,” Alice says, and that’s when I cut in.
“Can we give her the short version, please?” I beg.
“And skip all the juicy details?” Troy asks.
“The SparkNotes are fine,” Demi smiles, shooting me a wink. Demi is my best friend. While Alice and Troy are great friends too, they’re work friends. Demi and I go back to seventh grade. She was popular. I was not. But after a bunch of the cheerleaders made fun of her for only having A cups, I let her borrow a push-up bra. She eventually told them off, and we were best friends from then on out.
“So Ashlyn got a job taking photos of Zane Calloway from the gardenias in his backyard,” Troy goes on.
“They were rose bushes,” I correct him.
“I always confuse the two,” Troy says.
“How?” Alice asks. “They’re nothing alike.”
I realize that even the SparkNotes of the story of my life have too many rabbit holes, and I decide to take over.
“I army-crawled through his yard and climbed on top of a pergola for a better shot, only to fall through the rafters into his hot tub. He took me inside, banged up my camera, banged me, and then sent me on my merry way. Problematically, I wasn’t theonly photographer lurking in the shrubbery and now there are photos plastered all over the internet of us together and unless I agree to be Zane Calloway’s girlfriend to save his image and boost his rank in the model world, he’s going to call the cops and turn me in for trespassing. Can someone pass the saki?”
“Call the cops?” Troy asks.
“Turn you in for trespassing?!” Alice tacks on.
“Be his girlfriend?” Demi muses, handing me the saki bottle.
“Okay, you need to explain what’s going on,” Alice cuts back in. “And not the short version.”
“That’s it,” I say. “That’s what he wanted when he came to Sigma today. He wanted to ask if I’d be his girlfriend because apparently, he and his boss think it would be good for his image after everything that happened. Something about a model who isn’t afraid of commitment having an edge. And you know what the craziest part is? Deborah is on board!” I say, shaking my head as I drink the saki straight from the bottle.
