Fluffy(3)

That's a unique name. What do you do on set?

I’m the creampie specialist.

Oh! A cooking show! Now this is all making so much more sense. I’m about to ask for specifics when Spatula writes back and says: See you in an hour.

And... I have my first freelance staging job.

Life is good after all.





2





On the drive to the new job, I call my best friend. Perky answers immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“You’re calling.”

“Yes?” We have this conversation about once a week. Perky is not only all about the new technology, she’s remarkably predictable in her complaints about my habits.

“You only call when something is wrong.” Smacking noises tell me she’s chewing gum. This means it’s another Day One of not smoking. Perky–short for Persephone–is in a constant state of trying not to smoke. Patches, filters, special vaping, drugs, gum, crystals, hypnosis, the medical intuitive who was convinced Perky had a brain tumor–you name it, Perky will try it, if it means she quits her nicotine habit.

Inevitably, though, she ends up back at Day One, trying yet again to abstain.

“I can’t text and drive. So I’m calling.”

“You’re driving? You mean you left your apartment and let sunlight touch your skin? Where are you going? Reese’s Cup emergency?” Smack smack smack.

“No. Better.”

“Better than Reese’s Cups? Wow. That’s a high bar for you. Has to be big. Job interview?” Before I can answer, she adds, “And plug in your phone. How low is the battery?”

I look. “Six percent. I’m fine.” It's actually at two percent, but whatever.

“Oh. My. God. Plug in the damn phone. You do this all the time, Mal, and no one can reach you.”

“I do not!” My charger plug is hanging in a half-full cup of old drive-thru coffee. I can’t tell her that, of course.

The drive-thru coffee part, I mean. If Perky knew I bought coffee at the National Chain That Shall Not Be Named, she’d kill me.

“Even better. A job!”

“A job job?”

“Yep. A job job.”

“That was fast! When did you get hired?”

“About forty-five minutes ago.”

“And they want you to start now? Right now?”

“Yep.”

“That’s crazy!” Smack smack smack. The chewing sounds increase. I’ve learned to measure her excitement by how annoying the sounds become. Good thing I don’t have misophonia, or I’d have to fire Perky from being my bestie.

“I know. But I can’t be picky.”

“You can totally be picky.”

“We don’t all have trust funds and work fifteen hours a week selling coffee.”

“Hey now. I don’t sell coffee. I brew it, using artisanal methods from training I received in Italy.”

Notice how she’s not offended about the trust fund? Perky’s family spends a small fortune on an on-staff psychologist in her childhood home. Home is a stretch. Palace is more like it. And the palace psychologist is there to normalize and to help the family internalize the fact that winning $177 million from a lottery ticket her mom bought one night on a whim while buying smokes is a blessing.

Never, ever a curse.

“You sell coffee, Perk. Don’t try to make it sound fancier than it is.”

After college, Perky took some of her share of the lottery money and invested it in Bitcoin. Her parents didn’t say much. They were too busy adding a private hangar to their new spread in Wyoming. She made a killing buying Bitcoin at $10 and selling at $20.

We don’t talk about that one hundred percent return these days.

Let’s just say Perky is swimming in cash, and coffee is her fixation. She’s so obsessed with it that she changed her name from Persephone to Perky to identify with the coffee. Not legally – that would require forethought and follow-through, neither of which are her strong suit.

“I hand pull and massage perfection that people put in their mouths,” she argues.

“Now you make being a barista sound dirty.”

“Never underestimate the eroticism of coffee.”

Never underestimate Perky’s capacity for self-delusional bullshit.

“Congrats on the job!” she chirps. She might be super weird about coffee, but she’s also my oldest, most loyal friend. “What is it?”

“Professional fluffer.”

The long pause is really, really weird for Perk. She’s more the type to overtalk than go quiet. Finally, she says, “Could you repeat that, Mal? I swear you said ‘professional fluffer.’”

“I did! It’s an old term for someone who stages houses. I’m guessing the people I’m working with are really uptight. Probably very conservative. I wore a dress, and I have to make sure I don’t swear.”

“Mallory, are you kidding?” Sharp and increasingly loud at the end, her answer ends with giggles.

“What? No. Not kidding. The guy said the set is–”

“Set? You’re going to a movie set?” She’s reaching high decibels here.