“You break it. You bought it,” her boss always said.
Nicola had originally started with HHPR as a three-month temporary intern, making so little that after food, rent, and gas, she’d been living on $100 a month. One day she’d walked into the office just as a man was throwing Gaynor against the wall. Nicola had run up and slammed her work laptop against the back of his head, sending him to the floor. As he scrambled to his feet, demanding that Gaynor fire “this crazy bitch,” Nicola had held up her laptop again, snarling, “I don’t fucking care who you are, asshole. You raise your fist to a woman again, and you’ll need another shitty facelift.”
Gaynor had given her a promotion and a raise the next day, and moved her from the intern pool to a desk outside her office.
Nicola slipped off her dress and changed into sweats and an old T-shirt printed with a group of penguins wearing sunglasses and the slogan TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL. She pulled her hair back into a short curly ponytail and returned to the living room, where Kara was still busy tidying up the evidence of her online lust session.
In their early roommate days, morning person Nicola had rarely seen night-owl Kara, but over the months, as their friendship grew, Nic would force herself to stay up on the rare nights they were both home. Billy had told Kara that Nic was consciously making the effort, and that Nic loved a late-night cocktail. Ever since, it became a ritual that Kara would fix drinks while they caught up.
“I can’t have a hangover tomorrow,” Nicola called from her bedroom.
“All these limitations,” Kara yelled back. “Fine, I’ll just make the one pitcher of greyhounds.”
Nic settled onto the couch and Kara dramatically stepped out from the kitchen with a frosted-glass pitcher of pale yellow booze and two glasses filled with ice balanced on a silver tray. She placed it on the coffee table that they’d hauled in from someone’s move-out trash, and handed one to Nic. She started talking before she’d even sat down.
“So I was dead beat on my feet and needed a treat,” she laughed. “Pavilions doughnuts, to be exact. And boom, there’s Jimmy J shopping for pastry.” She paused and sipped. “He didn’t want my number, just my Snapchat. My inner ten-year-old was dying. But my outer twenty-six-year-old wasn’t too into it, so I left.
“Ten minutes after I got home, he private messaged me asking how I felt about nude Pilates with a rap legend. I should have asked him if he could hook me up with one, but instead I was bored, amused, and the next thing you know, I’m all, bicycle! Crisscross! Corkscrew! And that fool is rapping about wanting to see my butthole.”
Nicola laughed so loud she spat greyhound all over Kara, who demurely flicked the droplets away with a perfectly filed nail.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she grinned.
Nicola was used to Kara’s life being dramatic. She was a short and gorgeous black girl whose trademark was her huge Afro. She usually wore it in cute black puffs at either side of her head, but on occasion would go “full natural” and let it reach its maximum width. She’d been “the hot girl” in several famous rap videos in the mid-aughts, and had parlayed that into a career as a stylist. She’d “dressed hos” on reality shows like Teen Superstar and Married to My Baby Daddy on MTV. Billy had set Nicola up as her roommate before the two even met, and it suited Kara since she was still dreaming of her big break, and Nicola had offered free publicist services.
“So Jimmy J still thinks it’s 1999 and that he’s the biggest star in the world,” Kara said, stretching one of her legs out behind her. “He’s mainly into himself and his rapping, but he does like my flexibility.”
“Am I the only person who thinks this is all a bit ridiculous?” laughed Nicola.
“No,” smiled Kara. “Nude Pilates is definitely ridiculous. He liked it tonight via Skype, but he says ‘IRL is coming soon.’”
“You must be ecstatic,” Nicola deadpanned. “Or really desperate.”
“It’s hard to keep a straight face and do the positions, and you should hear the weird sexy talk the guy comes up with.”
“Thanks, I’ll pass,” said Nicola, pushing herself up from the couch. “Okay, good night.”
“Wait—didn’t you go to some big party tonight?”
“Yeah…”
“How was it?”
Nicola turned and faced Kara, knowing that to tell her any more would be a mistake. She did it anyway.
“It was kind of fun,” she began. “I met Seamus O’Riordan, and you know, we had fun, strangely.”