Chapter 3
“You better be writing.”
I tapped on the speakerphone icon as I tried to negotiate my wristlet, my apartment keys, bag of cookies, and the pink lemonade I was holding. “Hey, Yaz.”
Kicking the door closed, I dropped everything but the drink and cookies on the kitchen counter, which was so close to the door that the latter didn’t open all the way—kind of annoying the handful of times I had actually tried to cook, but a handy drop-off station for all the takeout I usually had instead of turning on the two-burner stove.
“I don’t hear any typing,” Yaz said. That girl was going to take the courtrooms by storm when she was finally allowed to first-chair a case.
Not that corporate lawyers went to court, as far as I knew—my understanding of the profession had been shaped more by binging hours of courtroom dramas than by Yaz’s infrequent explanations about what she did at work.
“What else could you possibly be doing?”
“Oh, you know, just working on a little self-sabotage, no big deal.”
“Mariel.” I would have been able to hear her groan even without the benefit of a phone connection. “What exactly is the plan here? I’m running out of encouraging pep talks and sage elder cousin advice.”
Snagging the cookies, I toed off my sandals and curled up against the fringed pillow wedged in the corner between my bed and the wall.
I’d spent most of that morning trying to write—then filling out job applications in a haze of panic when I realized how not productive my writing session had been.
“Can you order some more? In bulk, preferably. I’m nowhere near close to being done making mistakes. ”
“Mistakes are one thing. Doing everything you can to not write your screenplay after you quit your good-paying job to—”
“I didn’t,” I blurted out, and immediately bit my lip.
Sure, I’d been feeling guilty about lying to Yaz about what had really gone down with work.
Sure, I’d tried to assuage that guilt by promising myself that I would tell her soon.
But in that context, soon meant when my screenplay was a reality and wildly successful and able to be used as proof that I wasn’t a flighty screwup. Soon didn’t mean right this second.
Miserably, I crunched on a cookie.
“Didn’t what?” she asked. “Procrastinate?”
“Quit my job. I got fired.” My foot started to jiggle up and down, more a product of my nerves than of all the sugar I was shoveling in. “You know I was asked to take the lead on the brownstone renovation? Which ended up being like a week before I found out that Milo was lying to me?”
“Mariel,” Yaz said heavily.
Elaine, my boss and the proprietor of the interior design firm I used to work for, was always saying that in interior design, project management was less than half the job—our true objective was keeping the clients happy.
“Half of them treat me like a couples’ therapist and the other half like their personal assistant,” she’d told me one day as she’d taken a moment to approve a budget I had put together. “Being flexible and understanding goes with the job.”
Turns out, being flexible and understanding was not exactly in my wheelhouse.
Being patient, either. I might have been able to get through the project, even with Mrs. Greyson firing off one unreasonable demand after another.
But then the breakup happened and two months of dealing with Mrs. Greyson took its toll on me.
I wish I was one of those people who can take refuge in their work, but all I could do those days was call in sick, burrito myself in blankets, and read every Regency romance I could get my grubby little paws on.
Eventually, though, I had to go back to work—and when I did, I lost it on one of our most important clients and got fired.
And then I lied to my family about it because I couldn’t stand for them to see me fail at one more thing.
Getting fired had been a new low, which was kind of an achievement when you thought about how many of those I’d already reached. If things kept going the way they were, I was going to be plunging to subterranean depths soon.
“I kind of yelled at the owner of the brownstone,” I told Yaz. “She asked that I be taken off the project. And Elaine was exasperated with me by then—I’d been calling out a lot, and the truth is that I’d never really been all that excited about the work.”
“Because you wanted to write a screenplay. That you’re currently avoiding working on.” Yaz sounded like she was getting a headache. “I don’t get why you couldn’t just write on the side.”
“Oh, you know I’ve always hated side hustle culture,” I lied.
By which I meant, I had tried to write on the side and my document had remained as blank as it was now.
“And anyway, now I have all this time for the screenplay and… other projects.” I broke off a piece of cookie and popped it into my mouth.
“Other… Mariel, you’re not really going through with the whole Regency porn thing, are you?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked defensively.
“Because you have something else you need to be doing? It’s really worrying that I have to keep reminding you of that, by the way.”
“Well, you don’t have to. I haven’t forgotten about the screenplay. And look at it this way—at least this will give me something good to write about.”
“I thought you already had something good to write about.”
I waved a hand in the air even though she couldn’t see it.
“Something other than the trials and tribulations of an innocent interior designer being sucked into her clients’ seedy world of luxury and blackmail.
Look. Some women are out there girl-bossing too close to the sun.
Me? I’m daydreaming my way to fame and fortune.
Well, maybe just fortune—nothing I’ve seen of fame makes me feel like I’d like it for myself.
It’s all PR relationships and secretly tipping off paparazzi and—”
Yaz’s sigh cut through my chatter like a warm knife slicing through butter. “Just… promise me you’ve got it all under control.”
Did I, though? I was well over my head with a rent that I only got approved for because of a job I no longer had.
My bank account was about to fold up into a puff of dust and I had like three scenes written on the screenplay that was supposed to get me an agent, a sale, and enough money that I wouldn’t have to buy cookies with a credit card.
I was, to put it mildly, extremely fucked.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I said into the phone, rubbing a hand over my face. “Probably. I mean, how am I supposed to get my life together without a cute, slightly uptight, enemy turned love interest to make me want to tame my wild ways?”
I could hear Yaz’s eye roll. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that she’s never willingly read a romance novel.
“Since when are you the kind of person who sits around waiting for someone to make you shape up?” she demanded.
“It’s a new thing I’m trying out.” I slurped some of my lemonade, but not even the cold, tart sweetness was enough to quiet down the anxiety screaming inside me.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with you running into Milo yesterday, would it?”
Damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have texted Yaz about it.
“I mean, I never had my shit together when I was with him, so probably not. I just… Yaz, I know I don’t have the best track record when it comes to making good life decisions.
But being fired from the studio… Honestly, I think it’s taken me one step closer to the person I’ve always wanted to be.
Not the person I was trying to be when I was with Milo, but the person I truly, genuinely am.
And hey, if all else fails, I can always come live off you.
Your fancy attorney salary can absolutely keep me in the manner to which I’ve grown accustomed. ”
“Mariel, actual billionaires couldn’t afford your baked goods and sugary drinks habit.” Yaz’s laugh wafted out through my phone’s speakers, and I felt a pleasant little tug in my chest at having made my cousin laugh.
And having distracted her from the lecture she’d been about to deliver.
“I know it all sounds a little too wild, even for me. But trust the process, okay?”
“I might have to, albeit reluctantly—for now. I believe in you and I believe in your talent. But I also believe that you need to plaster your butt to your chair and get some real work done if you want your daydreams to turn into something real. I want to be supportive, and I want you to be true to yourself, but honestly, I think that whole Milo thing knocked you off course. And instead of trying to keep your life from going off the rails, it seems like you’ve been doing your best to push it over. ”
It was easy for her to talk. Yaz had come out of the womb with a torts textbook in one hand and a wedding veil in the other. She and Amal may have just gotten engaged, but they’d been together since before they started the first grade. Yaz had never flailed the way I had my entire life.
“I know he broke your heart,” she said softly, “but he doesn’t get to break your life, too.”
“He hasn’t.” I folded down the top of the paper bag the cookies had come in. “I don’t think.”
Hadn’t he, though, if only peripherally? As much as I hated to give him that much credit, Yaz wasn’t wrong about the breakup knocking me off course. But maybe that was the push I’d needed. That, and getting fired.
Yaz and I talked for almost an hour longer, catching each other up on the latest addition to the menu at her mother’s restaurant and the overly complicated travel plans Amal was making for their honeymoon.
There was a slight chance Yaz would spend her five days off from work lugging her carry-on from one airport to another, and there was a much bigger chance that Mami and Aunt Nena would spend at least a month telling her they should have gone to a resort in Punta Cana instead.