Chapter 3
Chapter three
A voice ripped Naomi out of a deep Saturday morning slumber. “You told them.”
She let out an involuntary squawk. Even with her eyes closed and her brain barely awake, she knew the person in her room was Abby.
She and Abby lived down the hall from each other and had been each other’s emergency keyholders since first grade, when they exchanged spare keys to their diaries.
Which is why it wasn’t unfathomable that Abby was in her apartment.
But there appeared to be no screaming, no sirens, no smoke …
nothing urgent that would constitute this rude awakening.
Clutching her sheets, she rolled enough to be able to see out from under her arm.
Abby stood in her bedroom doorway, hands on her hips, looking like she was the lone survivor in a horror film.
She was still in her dress from last night, only now, it hung in a haphazard, tangled mess, much like the remnants of her messy bun.
Directly behind her stood Riley Tahara, their already strikingly tall and slim frame amplified by an all-black ensemble of skinny jeans, a fitted black shirt, and high-heeled boots.
Their thick, wavy hair, dyed a frosty blue, brushed up against their flawless, flaxen skin, which was uncharacteristically lined with distress.
Light distress, but distress nonetheless.
“What is happening right now?” Naomi asked.
Given that she had texted Riley only moments after Abby threw a drink on Freya, she was pretty sure she knew exactly what was happening.
But she was hoping there was a chance she was wrong.
Or that she could at least buy herself enough time to wake up so she could defend herself properly.
Abby indicated behind her with a slight nod in Riley’s direction. “Riley broke into my apartment and woke me up in the middle of an ungodly hangover sleep because of you. So, now you are facing the consequences.”
Riley gasped like a maiden whose honor had been besmirched. “I did not break in.”
“Did I invite you in?” Abby asked, looking behind her.
“What am I, a vampire?” Riley asked. “Besides, you gave me keys. I assumed that was an invitation.”
Abby’s eyes rolled so hard Naomi thought she was going to get vertigo. “I gave you my key last week because Naomi and I were both out of town, and I needed you to feed the cat.”
“Yes, and I made a copy then. You know, for emergencies.”
“Please,” Abby gestured towards Naomi. “Enlighten Naomi as to what the emergency was that brought you into my apartment at 6:58 a.m. On a Saturday.”
“I never got to say what it was because you were busy jumping to conclusions about God knows what.”
“I know what,” Abby said. So did Naomi. But who was going to be the first to say it?
Riley continued, unperturbed by Abby’s interruption.
“As I was saying, I needed to tell you I’m in love.
It happened last night. I stayed late at work doing some last-minute fittings for a Fassi runway show we’re doing next week.
And then I stayed even later doing … was it Ethan?
No, Evan. Well, whatever his name was, he was a Greek god, wrapped in a Roman god, smothered in the nectar of the gods.
” Riley worked for Fassi, a large clothing chain store, but the way they talked about their job sometimes, it seemed like they spent more time with the models than they did with the clothes.
Abby spun to face them. The movement was probably supposed to be a dramatic, TV-courtroom-lawyer, gotcha sort of spin, but she lost any authority when she wobbled so hard she nearly fell over.
Naomi guessed that, given the night Abby had had, she was either ridiculously hungover or possibly even still a little drunk.
“That was last week, and his name was Eric.”
“I mean, fine,” Riley said, finally cracking. They muttered softly, “Maybe I also wanted to hear more about how you Real Housewife’d a star.”
“Like I said,” Abby said, returning her accusatory glare to Naomi. “You told them.”
Naomi pulled herself up to seated, keeping the sheet tightly wrapped around her—more for a sense of protection than propriety. The urge to confess was becoming untenable. She was a terrible liar, but she loved tuning into the Abby and Riley show.
The origin story of this trio of friends hinged on Abigail.
Abby had become friends with Riley first, during college.
But it hadn’t taken long for Naomi and Riley to meet and for the three of them to become inseparable.
Still, Abby and Riley had a dynamic that was their own and part of what Naomi loved about their little threesome was watching their fast-paced and sometimes utterly ridiculous repartee.
In an effort to hold out a little longer, Naomi bit down on the tip of her tongue, a habit she had forced herself to learn sometime in the sixth grade after she finally figured out that her parents were not actually psychic but were picking up on the fact that she unconsciously nibbled on her lips anytime she tried to withhold any information.
She trained herself to bite her tongue instead, and by the time she was in seventh grade, she had mastered her new lip-nibbling-prevention skill well enough to see not one, but two R-rated movies.
Unfortunately, there was one person who knew her too well.
“I see it, Naomi! I see you biting your tongue. The jig is up. Admit you told Riley.”
Naomi released her tongue. It was no use. “Riley!” she moaned. “You swore you wouldn’t say anything!”
“I didn’t!” Riley said. “I showed up with coffee. I handed Abby the coffee. Literally the most innocent and friendly thing a person can do.”
“So,” Abby said to Naomi. “Let me get this straight. You’re yelling at Riley for not keeping a secret when you swore to me last night you wouldn’t tell a soul?”
“Says the woman who used her spare keys to break into my apartment because she’s mad that Riley used theirs to break into hers.” Naomi was really struggling to keep a smile off her face.
Now it was Riley’s turn for the dramatic courtroom gotcha. This one came without any wobbling and ended with an equally dramatic finger point at Abby. “Ah ha! J’accuse!”
Naomi’s smile was starting to turn into laughter and there was nothing she could do about it. “I’m sorry, okay? But I had to tell someone. It was killing me!”
“Laughing while you apologize is not super convincing.” Abby pouted.
Resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, she decided to accept her penance. “It’s hard to do anything properly without coffee. Can I please go make some before we continue this?”
“Yes. Please go make some.” Abby put such emphasis on ‘please’ that it sounded more like she was begging than giving permission.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Riley said. “No more delays. There is perfectly good coffee in Abby’s apartment that I brought specifically to facilitate this conversation. Naomi, you can have mine. Now let’s get a move on.”
Even though Abby’s apartment was mere steps from hers, that was still a few more steps than she wanted to take this early in the morning.
She did her best to give Riley the evil eye as she walked past them, but Riley was entirely unmoved.
This was in part because she was a foot shorter than them and she became significantly less intimidating when she had to practically put her head between her shoulder blades to glare at them.
“Come on now, chop chop,” Riley said, clapping their hands like a farmer directing sheep to the pen.
Seconds after she was prodded out of her apartment, the door next to hers squeaked open and a single, scowling eye peered out.
It was the signature look for Mrs. Pachenkis, her seventy-eight-year-old neighbor who had lived in this building long before, as she had growled at them on multiple occasions, “You yuppies came in and made my rent go up.” It didn’t seem like Mrs. Pachenkis had any friends or family, only pets, including a very talkative parrot and a pair of cats that made a habit of bolting out when she was glaring at her neighbors from the crack in her door.
Naomi had tried to befriend Mrs. Pachenkis over the years, but her gestures had been vehemently rebuffed.
Now she simply did her best not to give Mrs. Pachenkis any reasons to complain to the building manager.
At the moment, the extreme tilt of Mrs. Pachenkis’ brow suggested that Naomi had failed this morning, and when she looked down, she realized why.
In Riley’s haste to get them out the door, Naomi hadn’t even changed out of her oversized T-shirt that almost, but not quite, made it to her thighs.
She debated going back and changing, but by that time, she was out of Mrs. Pachenkis’ view and nearly at Abby’s door.
She’d need to borrow pants from Abby for the walk back.
Naomi had barely touched the mezuzah on Abby’s door frame before Riley was interrogating them.
“Story. Now,” they said.
Borrowing some inspiration from Mrs. Pachenkis, she gave Riley the best eyebrow raise she could muster.
Riley met her look with one of confusion and offense. “What?”
She settled into the sofa, covering her legs with a blanket.
“You are in so much trouble. This doesn’t seem like appropriate behavior on Shabbat.
” Naomi was the daughter of an Israeli Jew who had fallen in love with an American Jew studying abroad in Israel and, after a whirlwind romance, had followed her back to Chicago.