“Well, eccentric yes. The other part remains to be seen. See, he, uh, he’s my life coach. He heard about this event and that Cassandra wasn’t going to make it, so he told me to, uh, come here and lie at the door that I’m Cassandra so they would let me in.”
“For what? So you could talk to me?”
“No, actually, so I could talk to literally anybody but you,” I rambled, my face hot. “See, I’m not actually in music or in, uh, anything, I’m just a fucking loser with no career and no prospects, and I met this fucking shady-ass weirdo white guy in a durag who called himself Kingmaker in a pizza parlor he called hisforward basewhere he told me he wouldmake a king out of me,and then he tricked me into making a big purchase on credit so now I’m stuck in debt, specifically so I would behungryandhave a fire within meto make stacks or die trying, and then he told me to come here and make an important contact while pretending to be in the music industry, so that I could get my foot in the door, and so I tried to scope out who seemed important and tried to talk to them and it turned out to be the single one exact person who knew Cassandra wasn’t going to be here, and then the hot woman I accidentally blabbed to at the door happened to come along and repeat how I’d said I was Cassandra right in front of you, so I’m just gonna jump off the roof now. Do you have any requests for tricks I should do on the way down? Maybe a backflip? Maybe I can go down with a drink in hand. Take a shot of fireball as I go.”
Krysten stared at me a good long while before she said, “I think you have maybe had too much to drink.”
“Look,yesI have but that’s unrelated.”
She stared a little while longer, and I thought she was about to kill me, before, finally, she laughed. It was just a little snort-laugh that spilled out from her lips as she tried to maintain her composure, and then she clapped her hands together and threwher head back with a laugh that they could probably hear from ground floor. I slumped against the back of the couch, waiting wearily for her to finish having her fun, and she slowly, clapping her hands, shaking her head, came down from the laughter, wiped tears from her eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, and then she scream-laughed, doubling over and holding onto the couch for support.
“I’m at the lowest point in my life right now, you know,” I said.
“Your low point is so funny, though!” she howled in between loud laughter, struggling to breathe now. I put a hand to my forehead.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”
“Do you think you—” she started, clearly invested in whatever witty zinger she was about to drop, but another wave of laughter hit her, and she wailed in screaming, crying laughter, clutching the sofa with both hands now for support. People were looking now. One woman in a uniform signaled me like she wasn’t sure if Krysten needed help, and I gestured wearily that all was well here. She nodded, but she still looked concerned. I couldn’t blame her.
Slowly, Krysten regained her senses, standing back up, still choking on laughter, and at long last, she cleared her throat, stopped laughing, and spoke.
“I think you—” she started, and she broke again, doubling over the railing again and choke-scream-yell-cry-laughing towards the ground below until I thought she might throw up.
“Krysten, pull yourself together,” I said.
“I am trying!”
“This is a serious situation.”
“Make a king out of you!” She wailed with another round of laughter, and once again, I had to signal across the rooftop to thesame woman as before that all was well here. She seemed less convinced this time.
“Do you need some water or something?”
“Water! This one thinks I need water. No, darling, I need a mai tai.”
“Oh… do you, uh, should I go and… get one…”
She waved a hand in front of her face, fighting off another round of laughter to say, “I will not accept a drink from a girl with no prospects and debt to a strange man. No, no, no.”
“Technically, the debt is to a different, very lovely man, the strange man just… tricked me into taking it.”
“Do you think that makes it better, my dear?”
I sighed irritably. “Let’s go get your drink.”
A minute later, we were seated in the plush white seating at the other end, a little corner spot with a few chairs grouped together and a plant wall separating us from the chatter of the rest of the party, the music like it was coming from far away, and Krysten, now fully recovered with a drink in her hand, looked almost delightedly at me.
“So, you are in something of a predicament, then, are you, Cassandra Evans-Pierre?”
“Oh, god. I’m sorry about that.”
“You are an entertaining one. Is Julie your real name?”
“Julie Branch, yeah, yep. That’s me. I was supposed to just be Cassandra to get through the door, but then Helena and her friends overheard it, and then she came around to talk to me while you and I were talking…”
“So then you have no studio,” she said. “What a disappointment. I thought maybe Jewel would do well in the music industry with just a lead or two.”
“Wait,” I said, shifting forward in my seat, my heart suddenly pounding. “I don’t have a studio, but I do—I mean, I’msort of connected to one. Well, Kingmaker is sort of connected to one. I can talk to them about it.”
