In a New York Minute(9)

Over the years, Cleo and Lola had listened as I worked through the challenges of not knowing much about my birth father. He was a vague entity, a tense subject with my mom, captured in one photograph I kept in the drawer of my bedside table. For my whole life, half of me had always felt like it existed in the shadows.

“And also,” I started, and I saw Cleo raise a brow in Lola’s direction. “Yes. Hot Suit. It’s never fun to be completely humiliated in front of someone, much less a person you’d ogle at in a normal situation. And I told him about that time I peed myself outside Cherry Tavern.”

Cleo winced. She’d been there to see that happen in real time.

“I mean, you all have seen every guy I’ve dated for the past ten years. None of them were ‘I carry a briefcase’ level of hot.”

“Nick the Graffiti Artist was hot,” Lola said.

“Nick who gave me a framed picture of himself for Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that part.” Lola’s lips curled in horrified laughter.

“And then there was Rock Climber Aaron,” Cleo said. “Remember how his bed was in the kitchen of that apartment he shared with Jasper?”

Cleo had dated Jasper on and off in our midtwenties, and Rock Climber Aaron had been his roommate for a few months before moving back to Colorado for the ski season. His bed had been so close to the stove that his pillow caught on fire once while he was cooking us Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Cute butt, though.

“He literally told me he didn’t want to be exclusive, while his penis was still inside me.”

“Definitely not ‘I carry a briefcase’ hot,” Cleo said.

I sat up, pushing myself back against the other side of the couch and tucking my knees in toward my chest. “I just wish I could say thanks, you know?”

“And get his number,” said Lola.

I grabbed a pillow and tossed it at her in response.

It wasn’t his looks that had unraveled me. Something about him seeing me at my most vulnerable and not turning away, but rather stepping in to help, had felt both mortifying and thrilling all at once. For better or worse, he had seen the real me, and there was something about his expression in that moment that had told me he knew it. And even though the whole world could now view what had happened between us, it had also been something just the two of us shared.

“Lo,” chimed in Cleo, sensing my desire to change the subject. “I told Franny we’d help her come up with a plan for work.” The only thing Cleo loved more than making a plan was executing it.

Lola’s posture straightened, ears perked. She leaned forward in anticipation.

“My plan is to eat a big-ass bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips and watch every episode of Law and Order for a week,” I told them. “I’ll ride out my severance, apply to as many jobs as possible, and hopefully I’ll land something.”

“Or you could use this fifteen seconds of fame in your favor,” Cleo said matter-of-factly.

“Yessss.” Lola clapped her hands together, bouncing in her seat like a toddler. “Come on, you’ve wanted to do your own design work forever. Remember when you got hired at Spayce? You were convinced you’d stay for a year and then bail and go work on your own.”

“Yeah, you stayed for way too long,” Cleo blurted. And then, realizing she’d overstepped, she muttered, “Sorry. But you know what I mean.”

“It was a good job.” I picked at the corner of my sock, where the cotton had rubbed almost bare. “I lucked out. And I’ve only done, like, five freelance jobs on my own.”

“And they were all amazing,” Cleo said confidently. “I was at Patrick and James’s housewarming party, remember? It was perfection. James literally cried over that French wallpaper you picked out for their bathroom.”

“James was drunk,” I reminded her.

She ignored me. “I’m sure he’d write you an amazing review. Make some referrals. He knows, like, every rich artsy downtown person in the city.”

“Franny, Franny, Franny,” Lola cheered, shaking her fists in rhythm with her words. “I love this for you.”

“Me too,” said Cleo, pleased with herself. “If we help you find some clients, will you at least think about it?”

“Oh my god, you two are too much,” I groaned.

“Sorry, we can’t help that we’re your biggest fans,” Cleo said, a faux-defensive tone to her voice.

“Yeah, it’s too late because I already made FrannyIsFuckingAwesome.com, and our fan club has, like, a billion members,” added Lola, with extra sass.

“Who, you two and my mom?”

“Yeah,” Cleo quipped. “And Hot Suit.”

“Oh my god, Hot Suit. He’s probably somewhere living his best life, in his town house on the Upper East Side, eating caviar with his equally hot model wife.”

“And their fifteen perfect golden retrievers,” Cleo added, chuckling.

“And his butler, which he spells with two t’s.” Lola paused for comedic effect, arms outstretched. “Get it?”

“Oh my god, Lola.” I buried my face in my hands, half cringing, half laughing. “You literally have the same sense of humor as Jim.”

My stepdad was stoic, but he always laughed at dumb jokes, especially when they were slightly dirty.