3. Amiyah #3
My true-crime podcast plays through my ear pods while I eat, the host’s voice a low, conspiratorial hum in my ear. He’s covering a case I already know inside out—the 2017 disappearance of a tech CEO whose body was eventually found in a reservoir after his wife’s Google search history betrayed her.
My phone rings. It’s Penelope. I pause the podcast and take my headphones out and place the phone on speaker before shoveling another bite of chicken in my mouth.
“Hello?” I mumble through my chews.
“Amiyah, we need to talk. I cannot wait any longer. I’m damn near bursting.”
“If you’re about to tell me that contestant deserved to go home, I swear to god I will drive to your apartment and replace all your coffee with decaf.”
Penelope’s laugh comes through the speaker like something that has been bottled under pressure and finally found a release valve. “First of all, that is a war crime. Second of all, she absolutely deserved to go home. Her soufflé looked like something that died of shame.”
“Her soufflé had character.”
“Her soufflé had structural integrity issues that would make a civil engineer weep. The judges were being generous and you know it.”
I lean back in my seat and smile despite myself.
We talk about the reality competition for twelve minutes.
Bake Off Supreme, season four, the episode that aired last night.
Penelope has strong opinions about the judging criteria for macarons.
I have stronger opinions about the host’s haircut, which appears to have been executed by someone working exclusively with kindergarten safety scissors and a grudge.
“It’s not a haircut, it’s a cry for help,” I say. “The man needs an intervention, not a baking show.”
“The man needs a stylist who isn’t someone who hates him personally.”
Another hour passes.
Penelope is telling me about her upstairs neighbor, the man with the pogo stick, who has apparently taken up pogo-based fitness as his hobby of choice and conducts his workouts at approximately 6:30 every morning, directly above her bedroom ceiling.
“I fucking swear,” she says. “It’s for forty-five minutes. Every. Single. Morning.”
“Have you considered murder?”
“Every day at 6:31 AM, specifically.”
“I could make it look like a pogo-related accident.”
“Tempting, but no. I’m saving my one free favor for something that matters more than a man with a questionable sense of cardio.”
I laugh.
The sound feels good in my throat, looser than it usually is, the kind of laugh that belongs to a version of me that exists only in these calls, in this apartment, in the particular safety of a friendship that predates everything complicated about my life.
Penelope asks about my plans for winter break.
“I’m thinking about taking a job abroad,” I say. “Something clean. Something interesting. Maybe Europe. Maybe Southeast Asia. Somewhere with good food and better views.”
There is a pause.
“A job?” She asks, unimpressed with my decision.
“That’s what I said.”
“Amiyah.”
“Penelope.”
“I just—I feel like you’ve been overworking lately, in my opinion.”
I roll my eyes, though she can’t see me. “I’m fine.”
I can hear her clicking her tongue against her teeth, then, “Just…try to have fun while you’re at it, yeah?”
“Fun,” I repeat, as though she’s just suggested I take up competitive yodeling. “Define fun.”
“Fun. Noun. An activity that brings you joy and doesn’t involve a kill list or a practice essay. You know, the thing normal people do when they have three weeks of freedom.”
And I thought I was a smart ass.
I know she’s just worried and I love her so much for that. She truly is the bestest friend a girl could ever have.
“Fine,” I say, and I mean it, mostly. “I’ll try to have fun. I’ll even take pictures. You’ll get a postcard.”
“With a stamp? Like, a physical stamp?”
“I’ll hand-deliver it. I’ll break into your apartment at 3am and slip it under your pillow while your sleeping just like that one guy did to old girl in that one dark romance book you like so much.”
“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I know. I’m quite the catch.”
We talk for a few more minutes and then say our goodbyes.
I press the end button on my phone and pour myself a glass of red wine and take a sip.
It’s dry, but good. Really good. I let it sit on my tongue for a moment before swallowing, savoring the subtle notes of blackberry and something earthy underneath.
I carry the glass and the bottle to my blush-toned sectional and I curl into the corner, knees drawn up, wine glass balanced on the armrest, and I grab my case law book that’s sitting on the coffee table where I left it two nights ago.
I open it up, take the bookmark out, and continue where I left off.
Before I know it, I’m three glasses deep and my eyes are growing heavy.
The words on the page have started doing that thing where they blur and swim and rearrange themselves into shapes that don’t mean anything, and I realize I’ve read the same sentence four times without absorbing a single syllable.
That’s my sign.
I put the bookmark back in the book, close it, and place it back on the coffee table for tomorrow me to deal with.
Right now, this girl needs her beauty sleep.