Chapter 8
SLACK MESSAGE FROM ROGER LUDERMORE TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 5:34 AM:tim cook can suck my dick
Much had changed at Terry’s Bar since Charlotte’s last shift. The restaurant itself had a fresh coat of paint on the walls and a different layout for the dining tables. New artwork hung everywhere: paintings and photographs by Hein students, each with a small cream gallery label and a modest price. Biggest of all, a new food truck sat in the parking lot. By night it revved to life and served Hein students their beloved vegan hot dogs in hemp wrappers.
Charlotte sank into her favorite booth by the jukebox. At least that hadn’t changed: The vinyl stuck to her hands as she scooted over to make room for Jackie.
Their waiter slapped plastic menus on the table. He nodded as Jackie ordered nacho fries to share.
“Nina and Amy must be late,” Charlotte mused, plucking the menu from the waxy tabletop. She ran her fingertips over the text and hummed as she recognized the specials.
Jackie swigged her glass of water. After sufficient hydration, she burped quietly into her fist. “Nice hickey.”
“Shush.” Charlotte swatted away Jackie’s finger as she tried to touch her neck. “I’ll replace the condom.”
“Don’t bother, I’ll load up at the health center this afternoon. I need dental dams.” Jackie grabbed Charlotte’s untouched water cup and poured it into her own. “Want to tell me all the juicy details?”
“No.”
“Rude. We should get pancakes.”
Charlotte’s eyes slid over the pictures on the menu as all those details stole across her mind. She could still feel the pressure of Reece’s lips at her neck. The heat of his breath against her skin. How his teeth grazed just a little, a mere suggestion of pain. She would never forget the relief and rightness of having him inside her again.
But there was no way in hell she was telling Jackie any of that. Even though this was only a casual thing for the weekend, it felt wrong to dissect it like they were bros at a keg party comparing one-night stands.
Jackie sat up straight, her palms flat on the tabletop. Charlotte looked up to see Nina and Amy cutting across the restaurant. Amy’s hair was still wet, and she was fresh-faced and smiling widely. Nina looked a little worse for wear, last night’s mascara smudged beneath her eyes.
“Good morning, Starshine,” Nina rasped. “The earth says hello.” She slid into the booth first, and Amy followed.
“Are you quoting Hair?” Jackie’s lip curled, uncharacteristically ignoring Amy. “Do not quote show tunes at me, Dorantes.”
“Forgive a girl for being cultured.” Nina jutted her chin at Charlotte as she picked up a menu. Her dark eyes widened as she took in Charlotte’s neck. “Is that a hickey?”
Jackie snickered.
Charlotte sighed behind her menu. “It’s not up for discussion.”
Amy’s eyes widened. Mercifully, Nina dropped the subject and flagged down their waiter.
“How late were you out last night?” Jackie asked Nina. “I thought we were going to walk back to Randall together.”
While Jackie interrogated Nina, Charlotte pulled out her phone under the table. She prayed silently that there wouldn’t be any more Slack messages from Roger.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM REECE KRUEGER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 10:45 AM:where you at?
After a quick glance to make sure the girls weren’t paying attention, she replied.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM CHARLOTTE THORNE TO REECE KRUEGER, 11:09 AM:Brunch at Terry’s.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM REECE KRUEGER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 11:10 AM:jealous I miss his fries
TEXT MESSAGE FROM CHARLOTTE THORNE TO REECE KRUEGER, 11:10 AM:I’ll bring back leftovers.
She put her phone down as their drinks and a steaming basket of chips, fries, salsa, and queso arrived. Nina made them wait so that she could take an enticing picture of their meal to send to Eliza.
“This is ridiculous,” Jackie drawled, a strange twist to her voice. Charlotte gave her a look, and she softened, immediately apologetic. “Do you need a fill light?”
“That would be great, there’s a shadow.”
Charlotte watched as her best friend turned on her phone’s flashlight and held it above their appetizer. She knew Jackie well enough to detect jealousy simmering under the surface of her words. But that would mean…
Oh.She bit down on her grin as she put the pieces together. Well, wasn’t this a fun queer love triangle. Or was it a square? Not that Charlotte felt any ownership over Nina. Or her best friend, for that matter.
“You guys will not believe what happened last night at the a cappella party,” Amy said, unaware of the drama brimming under her nose. She licked the salt off her glass, mischief glinting in her eyes.
Charlotte’s phone vibrated in her lap. She bit down on a smile and zoned out while Amy shared a cappella gossip.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM REECE KRUEGER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 11:15 AM:come swim with me? water’s freezing
TEXT MESSAGE FROM CHARLOTTE THORNE TO REECE KRUEGER, 11:16 AM:That sounds terrible.
Jackie slid the nacho fries across the table toward Charlotte. “Eat up, you must be starving.”
Charlotte gave her a silencing look. She adored Nina and Amy, but she didn’t want her and Reece to become a reunion rumor too. The last thing she needed was questions—or worse, opinions—about what it all meant. Or what they would do when the weekend ended. The only way to remain blissfully in the present was to keep their fling safe and private.
She decided the best defense was a good offense. “Amy, I want to hear more about your job. What books are you working on?” Charlotte asked as she scooped a glob of salsa onto a chip. Amy beamed at the invitation to describe her new project.
“Oh, you’d love the novel I’m planning the tour for right now! It’s this YA thriller about lesbian werewolves.”
Jackie gave her best wolfy growl, making Nina snort into her margarita.
“My department head is being so weird about promoting it,” Amy continued. “He keeps saying there’s no audience for queer supernatural stories.”
Charlotte passed the nacho fries basket to Amy. “Has he never met a teenager?”
The meal passed quickly amid a half decade’s worth of updates. They traded war stories about bad bosses and out-of-touch company leadership. In every industry they had run up against the same challenges: “entry-level” jobs that required years of prior experience, and research grants that always seemed to go to a well-connected nephew.
It didn’t matter that all four worked in different fields: They shared the fear that they were scrambling their way up a down escalator. And in a cruel twist, if they got lucky enough to land those dream jobs, they turned out to be nightmares.
As Amy detailed her futile quest to get a raise, Charlotte’s embarrassment about her zigzagging career began to lift. This was the real shit, the unglamorous truth of people’s actual lives. The rosy Instagram filter fell away.
She wasn’t the only one struggling. She wasn’t the only one disappointed by how postcollege life had turned out.
“I’m starting to interview at other houses,” Amy continued. “The only way to make more money is to jump around, but that means leaving behind my authors. But my manager keeps insisting there’s nothing in the budget and this is how it’s done.”
“He sounds like Charlotte’s boss,” Jackie drawled. She speared a fluffy pancake and gave her a sideways look.
Oh great. Here we go again.
Nina fixed Charlotte in her steady gaze. “Yeah? What’s it like at Front End?”
Charlotte looked at the three women around her: Nina’s level stare, Jackie’s frown, Amy’s genuine interest. They’d already heard the celebrity-sparkled version of her life at Front End. She had a choice to make. She could trot out the practiced stories again, or she could let her guard down and confirm what they must already suspect: that she was full of crap.
But she didn’t want another lecture. Not when Reece had sapped the stress from her body. Not when she finally felt calm.
“It’s all right,” she said.
Jackie sipped her Diet Coke, her eyes glinting. Amy’s head tilted to the side like a puppy hearing a new sound for the first time. Nina just stirred her drink and waited.
Charlotte wet her lips and continued. “It’s not what I saw myself doing, but it’s a paycheck.”
“Of course,” Amy trilled. “It must be nice to pay the bills and work on your art on the side.”
Ah. Well, that was an easy assumption to make. Why else would an artist work as an assistant other than to support her true passion? Never mind that Charlotte hadn’t picked up a sketch pad in years, too exhausted in those very few hours “on the side” to even consider it. Never mind that executive assistants were skilled workers with real responsibilities, or that she might have a plan for career growth within Front End.
Because she did! Theoretically.
“Are you still doing portraits?” Nina asked. “You should share more of your work on Instagram, I bet people would love your political caricatures right now.”
Charlotte avoided Nina’s eyes, unable to lie directly to her face. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Jackie put her soda down. “She’s not drawing.”
“Jackie,” Charlotte hissed. She didn’t look at Nina or Amy, instead scowling at the woman beside her in the booth.
Her best friend raised her hands, palms forward. “What, am I wrong?”
“No, but…” Charlotte fished for words to express mind your own business and stop looking at me like that. “Priorities change, okay? Work keeps me busy.”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “You mean miserable.”
“Hey,” Nina cut in. “Let Charlotte talk.”
Chastened, Jackie snapped her mouth shut.
Nina considered Charlotte with her trademark steely gaze. “Is Jackie right?”
Charlotte rubbed her temples with her fingertips. A tension headache crept up on her, pressing at her eyes. After months of neatly tucking her feelings away each day, she wasn’t used to prolonged questioning and excavation.
Jackie circled an arm behind her back and prodded at the stiff knot of muscle in Charlotte’s neck. Charlotte wanted to shrug her off, annoyed, but the firm touch felt divine. Her eyes drifted closed. It made her heart ache for something she’d never known: an actual parent to hear out her woes and comfort her when the world got too mean.
She sucked in a deep breath and held it. Then she let it out slowly in a cool stream.
“I’m not drawing. And my job is hell.”
For once Jackie said nothing, she just continued gently kneading Charlotte’s neck with one hand. A loaded silence fell as the women took in her words. They knew how much it cost her to admit it. Charlotte kept her eyes shut, not needing to see the concern on their faces.
Finally, Nina asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
What had Pauline in HR said? Maybe you misunderstood? Your generation is so sensitive.
“No.”
Jackie’s hand stilled on her back, her thumb resting against a knot on Charlotte’s spine. Then her best friend pulled away, space opening up between them in the booth. Charlotte cringed at her obvious disappointment, but she had nothing else to say.
“Can you afford to quit?” Nina played with a napkin ring as she wondered aloud.
Charlotte had enough to cover two months’ rent in her savings account if she only ate PBJs and rice. Not exactly a freedom fund. “I’m not at that point yet.”
Amy tried next. “Have you started looking for other jobs?”
Charlotte squirmed. She folded her napkin and put it on the table, mostly to have something to fidget with. “Not really? Media is competitive. There are hundreds of people applying for each position.” Amy’s angelic face fell. “I’m trying to move departments. There’s a project manager position on the art team that I’m up for. Once I get that, I’ll have more time to draw.”
Jackie put her Diet Coke down with a thud. “Do you really think Roger will promote you?”
“He’s not going to miss me,” Charlotte drawled. Her boss frequently made comments about preferring to work with men. After all, women didn’t know how to take a joke. HR deemed these remarks “colorful humor” as opposed to gender discrimination.
“But why would he let you move teams if he doesn’t have to? What’s in it for him?” Jackie’s forehead creased as she poked holes in Charlotte’s exit plan. “If he’s such an asshole, why would anyone risk pissing him off to hire you?”
She blinked. She didn’t have an answer for that. While Charlotte didn’t expect Roger to mentor her, it never occurred to her that other departments might not want to touch her. He didn’t need to actively sabotage her to hold her back.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” Jackie said as Charlotte’s face fell. “Front End just seems like a dead end.”
Charlotte picked up her napkin and folded it into a paper strip. She looked for a way to defeat Jackie’s logic and came up empty. Harsh reality checks were her best friend’s specialty, and she had an irritating habit of being right. But they were coming at this from totally different directions: Jackie could afford to walk away from a dead-end job, and Charlotte couldn’t.
Roger had all but promised her the project manager role if she came to Reunion Commencement. Hadn’t he?
“Let me ask a different question.” Nina leaned forward. “If you do move teams at Front End, will you actually like working there?”
Charlotte’s nose crinkled as she tried to imagine work without Roger’s constant bullshit. Even if she didn’t sit right outside his glass office, Front End was still his kingdom. Everything the team illustrated needed Roger’s sign-off before going to print. He set the company’s mission, the editorial theme of each issue, the hiring practices and the policies and the norms. If Charlotte worked with other queer folks, she had no way of knowing, as no one felt comfortable being out at work. Front End was also the whitest office she’d ever seen. A new manager wouldn’t shield her from the toxic culture that Roger had created. She would never be proud to work there either.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted for the first time.
She looked at each of her friends in turn, unable to elaborate. An ugly truth fell out of her storage box, one last scrap she’d denied until she couldn’t anymore: At some point in the last few years, her burnout had morphed into something worse. She wasn’t sad or lost or frustrated. The effort required to go out and have a life was exhausting to consider. Most nights she couldn’t muster the energy to cook dinner, instead ordering from a rotating roster of restaurants near her apartment, which didn’t exactly help her bank balance. This weekend was the first time she’d seen actual friends in months—either she worked straight through until Monday morning, or she spent her time off watching YouTube videos in an exhausted daze.
Recently she’d started to wonder what would happen if she just didn’t get off the subway at her stop and instead rode it to the end of the line. Would anyone worry if she didn’t show up for work? Or would her disappearance be an annoyance easily rectified by hiring some other girl fresh out of school with a bachelor’s degree and untapped energy? Would anyone notice if she stopped answering texts?
If she disappeared, would anyone care at all?
Charlotte looked down at her bitten fingers. She thought she’d managed to keep a lid on her existential dread, hiding it even from herself. It was mortifying to realize her friends saw right through her.
But there were plenty of ways to signal that you were miserable, like falling out of touch with everyone you loved and sharing nothing but anticapitalist memes on your Instagram story.
Jackie pried the napkin from between Charlotte’s fingers and took her hand. She squeezed it tightly, her thumb tracing her knuckles.
“It’ll be okay,” her best friend said. Like it was that simple.
Maybe it would be. Maybe it wouldn’t.
SLACK MESSAGE FROM ROGER LUDERMORE TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:11 PM:do they make yoga pants with built-in wifi
After chasing down the check and negotiating Venmo charges, Nina volunteered to put the meal on her credit card. “For the points, you know how it is,” she insisted, waving Amy out of the booth so that she could take the bill to the bar.
Charlotte tagged along. She wanted to say hello to Terry. The restaurant’s owner went out of his way to hire students who struggled financially but didn’t qualify for Hein’s work-study program. After Charlotte’s mother made it clear that she was on her own after graduation, Terry let her pick up shifts during senior year.
Nina hopped onto a stool while she waited for service. Charlotte leaned against the dark wooden bar and studied the Polaroids tacked up behind the register. The fresh faces of Terry’s current staff beamed back at her. Hein fashion looked the same: The vibe was a bit more androgynous than in the early twenty-teens, but students wore the same button-down flannels from Goodwill. A Black Lives Matter poster took the place of an Obama campaign sign on the side of the drinks fridge.
Nina tapped an elegant finger against Charlotte’s wrist, jerking her out of her nostalgia. “Hey, you okay? That got a little intense.” She jutted her chin toward their booth.
Charlotte had to put more effort than usual into her answering smile, but she got there eventually. She waggled her hand in the universal sign for eh. “I’m still conscious.”
Nina raised a quizzical eyebrow before laughing. “You are so weird.”
“You’re not wrong.” Charlotte drummed her fingers on the bar. She could hear Terry’s voice in the kitchen, gravelly but encouraging as a Tom Petty song played on the radio. Another soundtrack of life at Hein that she still knew the notes to. If only she could record the sounds of campus and take them back to the city with her.
“This whole weekend is weird,” she added.
Nina grunted and leaned forward to rest her chin on her folded arms. “I know what you mean.” She didn’t look unhappy, but Charlotte had always found Nina harder to read than the rest of their friends. When she wanted to, she could box up her emotions just as well as Charlotte.
“You must miss Eliza,” she ventured. Her tone made it clear that Nina could take the subject or leave it.
Nina shifted on the stool and sat up straight again. Her sneakers squeaked as she bopped her feet together. “I do,” she said carefully. “But, at the risk of sounding like a bitch, it’s been…nice? Being here without her?”
Charlotte sat down on the stool next to her.
“I associate everything here with her. But I know if Eliza were here, the whole reunion would be wrapped up in our drama. I wouldn’t appreciate seeing you and Amy. And Jackie.” She peered over her shoulder at their friends. “It used to be fun, always focusing on her. Wondering if she’d text me back. If we’d leave together at the end of the night. But now all that just seems exhausting.”
Charlotte remembered her excitement every time Reece texted her last night. He didn’t distract her from enjoying her friends. If anything, he gave her something wonderful to look forward to, sunny potential on the horizon. She had known his texts were building to something. Reece wasn’t the type to dip out if something better came along. She could trust him.
Ben, on the other hand…A text from her ex-boyfriend used to suck the air out of the room.
Now that she thought about it, she felt the same way when she got a Slack message from Roger.
Nina was still watching Jackie and Amy chat across the restaurant. New worry lines gathered on her forehead. “There were things I didn’t notice with Eliza always around.” She turned back to Charlotte. “Can I ask you something?”
Charlotte had a hunch that she knew where this was going. “Of course.”
Nina frowned. She addressed her question to Charlotte’s left earlobe. “Am I way off base, or is Jackie into me?”
Oh hell yes.
Charlotte bit back her glee. “She hasn’t said anything to me, but it’s not like she’s subtle.”
Immediately Nina relaxed, her teeth pearly white as she mirrored Charlotte’s smile. “No, she is not.” She laughed. “There’s been a vibe this weekend, and y’know, when at Hein!”
There was beauty in Nina’s smile, how obviously bemused she was by the situation she’d found herself in. She was changing the script. Instead of spending the weekend on campus pining for her ex-girlfriend, Nina had opened herself up to something entirely different.
Without Eliza around to pull Nina’s focus, she and Jackie made a certain kind of sense. They were both unapologetic women, assertive and independent. And as adults as opposed to college babies, they were mature enough to sleep together and handle any complications that might arise the morning after. Charlotte approved.
When at Hein, indeed.
Nina gave her wrist a grateful squeeze. “Thank you, Char. I hope you get some quality time with Jackie too. I know she was excited to see you.”
Charlotte smiled uneasily, thinking of her plan to spend the afternoon at the quarry with Reece. But she and Jackie would go to the clothing swap later, and then to dinner after that. They had plenty of time before Roger arrived and she had to turn back into Work Charlotte.
Nina glanced around the restaurant for a server. “Let’s pay so I can go flirt.”
Charlotte leaned over the counter and craned her neck to glimpse into the kitchen. She could see an elbow and the heel of an old sneaker. Laughter bubbled over the warble of the Dave Matthews Band.
“Oi, Terry!” she called out.
Terry’s face popped around the corner immediately, his mouth caught midlaugh. “What? Oh snap, look who it is.” The rest of Terry followed his head out of the kitchen. “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again.”
Charlotte met his high five with a firm smack. “Hi, boss.”
“You look great, Thorne. Long hair suits you.” He looked her over fondly like a favorite uncle. “Glad to see you’re not skin and bones anymore. Ready to cash out?” He swept their check and Nina’s credit card from the counter and whirled around to the register in one smooth motion. “Where you living now? D.C.?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Ah, good for you, kid. You workin’ hard?”
She never knew if it was his soft Boston accent or his salt-and-pepper hair, but Terry exuded kindness. He was whip-smart and embedded in local politics, but he treated everyone who worked at his restaurant the same way. If you were hungry, he fed you. If you were short a few bucks, he put it on a tab that never needed to be paid. If you needed a ride home during a blizzard, he threw your bike in the back of his minivan and dropped you off at your dorm.
Charlotte sighed. “Too hard.” He tutted under his breath as he slid Nina her bill to sign. “I miss it here. Best job I ever had.”
“You get tired of those schmucks in New York, you come back here. We got new merch and everything.” He gestured to his blue T-shirt. It featured an anthropomorphized nacho chip wearing sunglasses. “Look at ’im,” Terry boasted. “Ain’t he cute?”
Nina caught Charlotte’s eye, and she fought the urge to laugh.
“Adorable,” she said. “Unsettling, but adorable.”
“Ey, no free shirt for you with that attitude.” Terry waggled his finger, but he was still grinning. “Let me get you some nachos to go, yeah? On the house.” He barged back into the kitchen, already shouting orders.
Plastic plates clattered in the kitchen as they hit the floor. “Ey, ey, slow down!” Terry cried out, more alarmed than angry. “No need to rush, Rico, take it easy. Don’t want you getting hurt.”
“That nacho looks constipated,” Nina observed. She slid her credit card back into her wallet and stood up. “Excuse me, I have wooing to do.”