Yolk(14)

I shake my head. “I’m okay.” There are at least four people behind us in the line, but that’s not the kind of thing that trips Ivy up. She rolls her eyes. “You know, you’re kinda being a wack friend.”

I order a milk tea, and when I ask for it without sugar, Ivy grimaces.

“Now you’re just making me feel bad,” she says, angrily stuffing her bakery bag into her tote when we walk outside. We cross the street to watch the basketball players. There isn’t a game on, but there’s a few dudes shooting around and there’s a larger crowd gathered at the handball courts beyond it. I love the way the small, hard ball sounds when it hits the wall. I sip my tea.

“You want to go the diner instead?” Ivy rummages in her pocket and pulls out a vape and offers it to me.

“I have work,” I remind her. Her shoulders slump dramatically as she takes a long drag. Her gel nails are painted like pineapples.

Smoke curls out of her nostrils. We both pretend to watch the game even though we can’t see shit for all the backs turned toward us. “How’s the apartment?”

“Fine.”

“I still can’t believe those cunts kicked you out.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s the boyfriend?” I can tell she thinks Jeremy’s the reason why we’re not close.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” With my free hand I cling onto the cold wire of the chain-link fence, watching through the diamonds as a taller guy dressed in all black shoots a three.

“Are we not friends anymore?” she asks in a small voice after a while.

It’s the unexpected vulnerability that silences me. Makes me want to turn around and disappear into the subway station behind us. I pretend to be mesmerized by a guy strapping on a bright blue knee brace. His broad face is slick with sweat and his chest is heaving, but he’s grinning and talking shit the entire time.

“Whatever,” says Ivy coldly. I don’t dare look at her. “You’re no fun anymore.”

I can’t say what I’d expected. I’d entertained the thought of telling Ivy about June, forgetting for a moment who Ivy was. Who I was to her.

“Where’s that vape?” I ask her instead.

She hands it to me. It’s white with a gold ring around the middle. “It’s a really nice Indica forward hybrid,” she says. “You’ll like it.”

I take a deep drag and hand it back. “Thanks.” When I hug her to leave, she smells like singed vanilla. “I’ll text you.”



* * *



I turn up Erik Satie on my headphones as I walk to work. When I approach Union Square, I notice how weird it is that I was just at a park by a movie theater and now I’m by another movie theater nearing an entirely different park. I realize I’m high, but I love the way the piano music turns the plaza into a movie. On the steps, there’s a protest, making the foot traffic that much slower. Little kids are holding signs. It’s about Medicare. I’m watchful for police presence and unmarked fed vans, keeping my head down.

My posture gets shittier the colder it gets. Growing up in Texas means that you only ever need denim jackets and hoodies and maybe a peacoat if you want to be pumpkin spice latte about it. But New York is no joke. I have a bone-deep fear of cold weather, but at least this time of year, there’s a festive energy in the air. The Halloween decorations are up. Blink and it’ll be New Year’s Eve.

I duck into the store where I work, Fishs Eddy. I was enticed over the summer by the busyness of it. The resplendent displays, the strings of lights, the barrels of raffia-bundled coasters, and so many candles. They have a chandelier made out of antique eggbeaters. It’s the land of milk and honey. The abundance is ridiculous.

I have twenty minutes before my shift, so I wander down the aisles with everyone else, playing house. Checking out the new merch. Someday, when I have the kind of furniture where the sales associate orders fabric swatches, I’ll own all this shit and more. I scan the faces around me resentfully. All the customers feel rich. So many excellent jackets. Colorful scarves in complicated Parisian-seeming knots.

I finger a smooth porcelain butter dish with a lid. I love the romance of it. The decadence. Not only a dedicated place for butter but a roof over its head for protection. Who thinks of such things?

Even with a 30 percent employee discount, I’d never be able to buy everything I need. I want egg cups and cake stands and cookie jars and café au lait bowls. Antique milk jugs for succulents and the wooden, weather-beaten shelf to go with it.

When guests come over, to my home, the place that will one day exist and be mine, I want to convince them that I grew up being this person. That I’ve always had so much crap. Superfluent in the superfluous. That I’d been allowed as a kid to pick a bedroom wall color other than white for self-expression.

I’d roast chickens and mix pitchers of drinks, smiling, always smiling, appearing as though I were the type whose parents knocked—knocked!—before entering her room. Because sleepovers were things that I was allowed to host and attend and privacy was honored. I want to appear as though I’d had a family who knew how to celebrate Christmas. Real Christmas. With a tree and presents that are gift wrapped and asked for. Not stacks of SAT workbooks and a twenty-dollar bill folded around gas station candy.

“Ay,” says Mari, looping her arm into the crook of mine and steering me toward the glassware. “I have tea to spill.” Mari started the same week I did but immediately started dog-sitting for people and going to Wednesday karaoke nights with everyone. She always has gum and tampons. I think she thinks we’re friends.