Chapter 2
Fifteen minutes later, Margie sweeps into La Smith, our favorite corner gastropub, and joins me at the bar.
She is effortlessly polished, elevating jeans, heels, and a simple top to haute couture.
The proof that God has favorites is clear in her pixyish black curls and the high, gold-dusted cheekbones setting off her light-brown skin.
I grimace and swipe a hand over my copper bun. We’re like Lady and the Tramp. The Princess and the Frog. The hot French female chef from Ratatouille and the fucking rat. I share as much as we greet each other with an air kiss.
“Stop. You’re gorgeous. Plus I just rolled out of bed,” she says.
“Was the bed in Vogue?” I hand her a glass of wine, which she downs in a few impressive gulps before signaling to the bartender for another.
I frown, looking her over from her amber eyes to the tips of her Louboutins.
A review once called Margie “a talent-to-watch who will be known for her nuanced and emotional performances,” but she saves all those nuances for the screen.
For her friends, she always wears the same inscrutable smirk, so I can’t tell whether she’s been nominated for an Emmy or just watched an illegally parked Honda get sideswiped by a garbage truck.
“Prepare yourself,” she finally says. “You’re about to be murdered. By my news. Deceased.” Her deadpan monotone is in full effect as she punctuates her words with an airy wave that might be a loose sign of the cross. She accepts the fresh glass of wine from the bartender with a nod and takes a sip.
Concern and excitement ripple through me. Trust the actress to play this for maximum drama. “Okay?” I grab for my glass and lean against the bar.
Margie takes a deep breath. “Series regular,” she murmurs.
My hand flies to my mouth. “Shut your face.” I set my glass down. “Margie!”
“Sorry. I don’t know who this ‘Margie’ is. I’m Leslie Linkletter, Esquire, now.”
I fling my arms around her, jumping up and down. She embraces me with one hand and downs the rest of her wine with the other. “This is amazing!” I shout, breathless with joy.
She inclines her head regally, but her brown eyes glow with excitement.
Margie has had a handful of scene-stealing guest appearances in the last year on a legal thriller called Glass and Carter.
And apparently she made enough of an impression for the show to want her on full-time—something she’s hoped for but wasn’t sure would actually happen.
I spy Avery at the entrance, ducking his way into the bar as only the very tall do. The only right angle in our little friendship triangle, he looks, as always, like Regé-Jean Page disguised as a librarian. “What happened? What’s going on?” he asks, approaching us. I cheer and pull him forward.
Margie musses his tidy hair and wrinkles her nose. “Series regular.”
He laughs and grabs her up in a hug, twirling her around with a whoop. “Tell me everything! Also, I can’t believe you told Penny before me.”
Margie smiles at his grumble. “Next time try and get here when I say we’re meeting.”
“You gave me a twenty-minute heads-up, and luckily I happened to be a few blocks away, grabbing a bite. If I’d been home—”
“You’d have been even later, I know. Tsk.”
“I live on the East Side! You’re lucky you see me ever!” He shakes his head and gratefully accepts the stupid-expensive gin concoction I’ve ordered him.
“You guys celebrating something?” a husky voice observes from behind us. “Or fighting? I can’t tell.”
Lara Smith—La Smith’s namesake—has paused her four-star-general patrol of the perimeter of her restaurant, eyes narrowing in amused assessment. She’s a woman of few words, but a single quirk of her eyebrow is as effective as an hour-long interrogation.
“Margie’s going to be a regular on Glass and Carter!” I crow.
La grins and enfolds Margie in a tight embrace.
She is pale and petite, barely reaching Margie’s shoulders, but she pulls her in with the force of someone twice her size before turning to the busboy at a nearby high-top table.
“Hey, Greg, tell Joe to stop flirting with the new waitress and get back behind the bar. I need a round of drinks for these guys. On the house.” To Margie, she says, “I’m not surprised, you know. You’re incredible on that show.”
Margie stills. “You watch the show?”
La winks and passes a hand over her thick brown hair, clubbed back by a colorful bandana. “Only for you.”
“Well, now you’ve gone and complimented me, which means you have to join us for the toast.” Margie laughs.
La complies, and that one glass of wine becomes a bottle of champagne, which in turn becomes many, many rounds of complimentary drinks, since La sticks with our little party all night.
I’m lifting my wine to my lips, pondering the fact that tomorrow is going to bring a monstrous hangover, when La is called to the kitchen. Avery orders a water from the bartender and hands it to me, plucking the wineglass from my hand.
“You look wiped. Everything okay?” he asks, peering down at me.
He still looks shockingly sober, his green eyes bright with concern behind his black-framed glasses. Kind, sturdy Avery. Like a redwood tree. I shuffle, a little unsteady on my feet already, and reach up to tap him gently on the nose. “Boop.”
He laughs and swats at me. “Seriously.”
I sigh and fill him in on my neighbor drama between sips of water. Margie leans back against the counter, still laughing at La’s parting remark, and catches part of my tale. It’s a familiar complaint of mine that now has her rolling her eyes.
“Just move in with me already. I’m sick of hearing about this guy. I’ve got the second bedroom.”
“It’s a closet, not a bedroom, but I appreciate it. You know how hard I worked for that apartment—I love my place. Love the way I’ve made it mine. The crown molding. The fireplace!” I proclaim my apartment’s virtues with the drunken gusto of a founding father declaring his love of country.
“Fireplace is fake,” Margie points out.
“I light my coconut candles in there. Technically a fire. And the windows! So tall!” Margie opens her mouth to shit on my sundae, so I rush to add, “Yes! I know, sometimes during the winter the heat is out of control, and I need to throw those windows open to prevent myself from roasting like a chicken. But whatever its alleged flaws, that building—that apartment—is my sanctuary. It’s a goddamn warm hug of a place.
Nearly perfect. Or was, until that jackass moved in next door and kicked off this whole war of attrition,” I finish glumly.
“That soliloquy was practically Shakespearean,” Margie says.
“There’s always Jersey. Your mom still pressing for you to move back?” Avery asks.
The pulse in my jaw jumps. “I mean, I’m her best friend. Of course she wants me closer.”
Margie changes the subject, sick unto death of my apartment woes, and fills us in on her discussion with the showrunner. She pulls a stapled stack of paper from her purse and hands it to me. “The script that’ll intro my storyline for the season. Run lines with me?”
“Why don’t you ever ask me?” Avery asks, furrowing his brow.
I brighten and grin. “She doesn’t ask you because you’re not the actor I am.” I toss an imaginary scarf over my shoulder.
“Drunk Penny is my favorite Penny,” Margie says.
“Not mine.” Avery looks at the ceiling like a dad whose kid missed curfew.
Margie points out the character bits I’m to read and frowns when I bust out an overly deep, cartoonish voice. Whenever she asks me to run lines, this sort of behavior is par for the course, but alcohol has given my idiocy muscles. Consummate professional that she is, she rolls with it.
“Linkletter, I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” I say, channeling Marvin Gaye.
Avery barks out a laugh.
“Mr. Kelvin! How did you get in— Shelly!” Margie exclaims.
“I’m so sorry, Leslie. He slipped by me and—” I squeak in a dog-whistle decibel.
“It’s fine. He won’t be staying.”
“Do you know how much that little maneuver of yours has cost me? If you think I’m going to spend one red cent on those…” I growl and trail off.
“Those…what, exactly? Tenants? People? I recommend you choose your next words very carefully.”
The script says that Mr. Kelvin “blusters.” So I bluster. Margie rolls her eyes at my award-worthy performance. “I know people. If you think—”
“I won’t get into what I think.” She sniffs derisively.
“But here’s what I know: you’re a slumlord.
And now that the defects at 54 Baxter have been laid bare, you have no choice but to bring that building up to code.
I priced it out, you know. Structural issue…
Yikes. At least a million. And you’re on the hook for all of it. That’s what I know.”
“Wait, is that—” I clear the Marvin from my throat and try again. “Is that real?”
“What?”
“What you just said. Defect uncovered, old building being forced up to code.” My sluggish mind whirs, a bicycle with its chain off the track. “It’s real? The landlord has to fix it, even if the building is old?” The thread of excitement in my voice is bright and clear, even to those around us.
“I hate to tell you how TV works and ruin the magic, but Pen… I’m not a real lawyer.” Margie laughs at the expression on my face, puckered and sour.
“But…if it’s real, it could solve all my neighbor drama.”
“Come to set. There’s a legal consultant who works on the scripts. We can ask her. And if it’s true…” Margie’s lips curve slightly, but the sparkle in her eyes is pure mischief.
Avery escorts us to my building not long after, making sure we get into my lobby before hailing a cab to take himself home. Margie and I stumble up to my apartment. Even tipsy, I’m incredulous she isn’t even remotely winded after climbing five flights in stilettos.
“I get why you love your apartment. Schlepping all your shit up these stairs,” Margie drawls. “Who needs an elevator?”
“Burglar deterrent,” I pant, reaching the landing. “Plus my ass has never looked better.”
Margie snorts in response.
“You sleeping over?” I whisper, fitting my key into the lock.
“No, I need to give Cashmere her insulin,” she says in a voice designed to tell the cheap seats about her cat’s diabetes.
I shush her.
“Give me my nightcap, and I’ll be on my way, shusher.”
She sails by me and into the kitchen, picking up the bottle of wine on the counter.
“Twist cap? Savage,” she says, setting it back down and pulling my Brita from the fridge. She pours herself a glass of water and kicks her legs out like an old-timey chorus girl, sending first one shoe flying and then the other—right into the far wall with a thud. I wince.
The pounding on the wall of the living room follows almost immediately. He must’ve been on his sofa.
“Oh, what a pain in the ass,” Margie says.
“Told you,” I whisper.
“You two are still doing that wall-banging thing?” she whispers back. Tipsy as she is, she still picks up on my cues. “I can’t wait for you to come to set and ask Genevieve on Monday. If that law is real, we’re fixing this”—she waves a hand toward the wall—“for good.”
My kitchen is narrow. I gesture for Margie to move over before draining the last of the water into a fresh glass.
The room tilts one way, and my stomach tilts the other.
This much activity is too much for me, evidently.
“Margie, you’re the worst. I haven’t been this drunk since my twenty-second birthday.
” I grab hold of the counter to stop the spins.
Margie cracks out a laugh. “You always blame me. But I didn’t funnel wine and vodka down your gullet by the glassful tonight. And your old college pals Goldschl?ger and J?germeister did it to you back then.”
I moan and plug my ears. “Never mention those two beverages to me ever again.”
“And by the way, ingrate,” Margie continues, “for your twenty-second, Avery and I threw you a very nice surprise party.”
We both grin. “‘Drink specials? All of our drinks are special!’” we recite at the same time, mimicking the bartender’s proclamation from the birthday party in question.
Another bang from next door.
Margie narrows her eyes and marches over to the wall. She kneels on the sofa, her mouth right up against the plaster. “Instead of bickering with your hot neighbor, Pen, you could be sinking your teeth into that ass of his.”
I stumble in my haste to make it to the sofa, alarm pouring out of my every cell. I wave my hands in Margie’s face and mouth “Oh my God” and “Stop” and a whole lot of other four-letter words.
Margie’s smile just widens. “I mean clearly there’s some sexual tension that needs working—”
My hand is over her mouth. I feel her tongue against my hand. Skeeved, I rear back. “Ew, you licked me,” I hiss.
“Bet you wish it was the hot… Okay, okay!” Margie laughs as I smack her with a pillow.
We settle on the sofa next to each other, and I hold on to her arm for dear life, the spins starting in earnest. To the wall, I loudly state, “I wouldn’t get with that d-bag if you paid me.”
“Didn’t know you were selling your services,” comes Jack’s immediate response. His voice is muffled by the wall but still too loud and clear for a man who’s currently sitting in an entirely separate apartment.
Margie laughs. At my glare, she holds up a hand. “I know we hate him, but that was funny.”