Such a Fun Age(37)
Emira accepted a glass of wine from Josefa. Across a cutting board, Josefa pressed a knife into her sandwich and ate a leaf of basil that slipped out the bottom. The plan for the evening had been to watch Netflix, drink wine, and maybe order Thai from the place down the street, so Emira was a bit confused by Josefa’s meal. She also needed a few more minutes to accept this new information. Fifty-two thousand dollars a year?
“So what are we watching tonight?”
“What?” Without looking up, Josefa put the sandwich halves on a plate and licked crumbs off her finger. “Girl, we goin’ out,” she said. “You want a bite of this?”
“No, I’m fine. Since when are we going out?”
“Shaunie’s ’bout to make it rain over here.” Josefa pointed over her shoulder. At that moment, Zara collected the plastic fall leaves Shaunie had sprinkled to decorate the coffee table, and she threw them at Shaunie as she danced. Zara sang, “Make it clap, girl,” and slipped one leaf in between Shaunie’s waistband and her twerking behind. “If you need clothes,” Josefa said, “you can just borrow mine.”
“Man, okay.” Emira pulled her hair over one shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m kinda beat, though.” This wasn’t a lie, but the first of the month was also stupidly close. In two days, Emira would pay her rent and watch the entire contents of her white envelope disappear.
“Say what?” Josefa topped her own wineglass off. “I thought you only babysat on Fridays.”
Emira held her glass with both hands. Josefa would never say something like this to Shaunie. She’d never say, Zara, I thought you only nursed today. For someone who was paid to go to school, Josefa had a strict opinion on what constituted a proper workday. But Emira wasn’t about to defend a job she kind of wished she never had. “Yeah, but we just like . . . did a lot,” she said.
“Well, I had a huge exam today, and I think I killed it.” Josefa did a sign of the cross before she lifted her plate. “So I’m about to get real stupid.”
Emira said, “Right,” and “Good for you,” but she didn’t follow Josefa into her bedroom.
More than Emira hated the idea of going out, she hated the idea of Zara going without her. She knew this was a stretch, but if Emira wasn’t there, Zara could possibly realize that Emira wasn’t her closest friend, but rather the reason why the four women didn’t do more things, like take tropical trips on summer Fridays or utilize gel manicure discount days or try exercise classes like stiletto workouts. Emira wished she also wore school sweatshirts (or scrubs, or button-downs that she considered “work clothes”) that would give her periodic reasons to celebrate, or a valid excuse to say no and stay in.
Emira walked back into the living room and carried Shaunie’s varsity jacket over her arm. She picked a piece of lint off the sleeve and said, “Hey, don’t let me forget to give this back to you.”
“Oh shoot, I almost forgot about that.” Shaunie scrunched up her face cutely and tossed the jacket into her bedroom. With her other hand, she held her phone to her ear. “Or you can wear it again. Drinks on me tonight. I gotta work on getting Troy to come through, but Mira, just go through my closet. Take anything you want.” Inside Shaunie’s bedroom, Zara plugged her phone into the speakers and Young Thug began to play. “Babe,” Shaunie shouted over the first verse and into her phone. “Babe, guess what. You’re coming out with us tonight.”
Zara started to dig through Shaunie’s closet, and in the next room over, Josefa began to paw through her own. Emira stepped into the adjacent bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Above the sink, Emira wondered if there was an appropriate amount of support and enthusiasm you needed to have for a friend, because if there was, then Shaunie was hitting her retainer. Every week it was something. Wasn’t it so great that Shaunie got this internship? Wasn’t Shaunie’s new boyfriend so cute? Wasn’t it so nice that we got free drinks from that old guy who loved Shaunie’s smile?
And most importantly, why did Mrs. Chamberlain have to lie to Briar as if she couldn’t fucking handle the truth?
At the back of Emira’s calves, on the fabric of her leggings, were leftover white pieces of fur from a dog that leaned up against her at the park that afternoon. There were dogs dressed like celebrities and vegetables, and puppies fighting to get hats and capes off their shoulders. Briar kept pointing and screaming that there were in fact even more dogs, and that the dogs she’d seen before were still there, but every so often, she looked up at Emira as if she’d come into a room and already forgotten what she needed.
Emira couldn’t tell if her annoyance with Mrs. Chamberlain came from the ingrained Tucker standard within her (You start something, you finish it), or if it was mostly to do with missing out on dressing up with Briar. Or maybe it had more to do with the fact that Emira had witnessed Mrs. Chamberlain being an outstanding mother, and was realizing that when she wasn’t being one, it was by choice rather than default.
Emira once spotted Mrs. Chamberlain with Briar and Catherine at the post office on a Tuesday morning. She didn’t say hi, but she watched Mrs. Chamberlain sing with Briar as she carefully placed Catherine into a complicated wrap. Briar was distracted and overstimulated by the post office lights and boxes and people. But Mrs. Chamberlain kept her nearby with precious prompts to “stay here, big sis,” to show Catherine how the wheels on the bus go round and round, to try and jump as high as she could. Mrs. Chamberlain did this all in gorgeous, expensive-looking jeans.