Chapter 6
Julie
Not to be, like, dramatic or anything, but I think I was in love.
I didn’t even know what it was about Helena, just the way she carried herself, how she walked and talked like she was blazing radiance, and then the way she looked at me like we were the only two people in the world.
Green eyes I was going to see every time I closed mine.
Holy fucking shit. She was funny and charming and clever and jaw-droppingly beautiful, and somehow she gave me her number and I was not supposed to be happy about that, because what the fuck, she thought I was Cassandra Evans-Pierre and that I was married.
Kingmaker was right about, like, two things in his life, and one of them was that I needed to wash my hands of anybody who thought I was Cassandra.
I was thankfully spared any more spiraling over the most perfect woman who had ever existed or ever would exist, because her businessman friend from Shanghai, Mr. Cheng, showed back up to talk to her again, and I took the opening to slip away, trying to catch my breath and sort out my thoughts—I got around the corner and away from everything, to a quiet part of the party, where I leaned against the back of a pristine white couch with the speakers between me and the rest of the party, looking out over the railing back in the direction of Brooklyn behind us, trying to sober up—both off the alcohol and off the sound of Helena’s voice—when, once again, I heard the very last voice I wanted to hear.
“Do you think God gave me two eyes for nothing?”
I choked on the air, freezing up and looking back at where Krysten Adesina came around the sofa towards me.
Shit, she had me pinned in now. Unless I went full chimpanzee on the situation and vaulted over the back of the couch to climb the terrace roof.
I wasn’t ruling it out. “Oh, uh, hi,” I said. “Lovely weather, huh?”
“The weather? This one wants to discuss the weather. I think you want to kill me.” She folded her arms in front of me. “You will explain this. You will explain this now.”
“Explain what?” I said, my voice too high-pitched. “The party? Yeah, lovely… party. Lovely night. Party night. I love to party. Have you ever thought about making a party app?”
She gestured at me. “Will you look at yourself! The lord has made you out of shamelessness.”
“No, he, uh, made me out of shame. Concentrated shame, squeezed out of a tube like toothpaste.”
“Why did the woman just now call you Cassandra?”
I needed another drink real quick. Specifically cyanide. I’d take a shot and… and never see Helena’s smile again? Was that my reason to live? God, I was such a fucking lesbian. I slumped against the back of the couch, looking wearily up at the sky. “You have to promise not to laugh at me.”
“I will make no such promises.”
“Okay, you know, fair, I’d laugh at me too.” I hunched my shoulders. “You remember that Kingmaker guy?”
“The eccentric genius. I do remember.”
“Well, eccentric yes. The other part remains to be seen. See, he, uh, he’s my life coach. He heard about this event and that Cassandra wasn’t going to make it, so he told me to, uh, come here and lie at the door that I’m Cassandra so they would let me in.”
“For what? So you could talk to me?”
“No, actually, so I could talk to literally anybody but you,” I rambled, my face hot.
“See, I’m not actually in music or in, uh, anything, I’m just a fucking loser with no career and no prospects, and I met this fucking shady-ass weirdo white guy in a durag who called himself Kingmaker in a pizza parlor he called his forward base where he told me he would make a king out of me, and then he tricked me into making a big purchase on credit so now I’m stuck in debt, specifically so I would be hungry and have a fire within me to make stacks or die trying, and then he told me to come here and make an important contact while pretending to be in the music industry, so that I could get my foot in the door, and so I tried to scope out who seemed important and tried to talk to them and it turned out to be the single one exact person who knew Cassandra wasn’t going to be here, and then the hot woman I accidentally blabbed to at the door happened to come along and repeat how I’d said I was Cassandra right in front of you, so I’m just gonna jump off the roof now.
Do you have any requests for tricks I should do on the way down?
Maybe a backflip? Maybe I can go down with a drink in hand. Take a shot of fireball as I go.”
Krysten stared at me a good long while before she said, “I think you have maybe had too much to drink.”
“Look, yes I have but that’s unrelated.”
She stared a little while longer, and I thought she was about to kill me, before, finally, she laughed.
It was just a little snort-laugh that spilled out from her lips as she tried to maintain her composure, and then she clapped her hands together and threw her head back with a laugh that they could probably hear from ground floor.
I slumped against the back of the couch, waiting wearily for her to finish having her fun, and she slowly, clapping her hands, shaking her head, came down from the laughter, wiped tears from her eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, and then she scream-laughed, doubling over and holding onto the couch for support.
“I’m at the lowest point in my life right now, you know,” I said.
“Your low point is so funny, though!” she howled in between loud laughter, struggling to breathe now. I put a hand to my forehead.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”
“Do you think you—” she started, clearly invested in whatever witty zinger she was about to drop, but another wave of laughter hit her, and she wailed in screaming, crying laughter, clutching the sofa with both hands now for support.
People were looking now. One woman in a uniform signaled me like she wasn’t sure if Krysten needed help, and I gestured wearily that all was well here.
She nodded, but she still looked concerned. I couldn’t blame her.
Slowly, Krysten regained her senses, standing back up, still choking on laughter, and at long last, she cleared her throat, stopped laughing, and spoke.
“I think you—” she started, and she broke again, doubling over the railing again and choke-scream-yell-cry-laughing towards the ground below until I thought she might throw up.
“Krysten, pull yourself together,” I said.
“I am trying!”
“This is a serious situation.”
“Make a king out of you!” She wailed with another round of laughter, and once again, I had to signal across the rooftop to the same woman as before that all was well here. She seemed less convinced this time.
“Do you need some water or something?”
“Water! This one thinks I need water. No, darling, I need a mai tai.”
“Oh… do you, uh, should I go and… get one…”
She waved a hand in front of her face, fighting off another round of laughter to say, “I will not accept a drink from a girl with no prospects and debt to a strange man. No, no, no.”
“Technically, the debt is to a different, very lovely man, the strange man just… tricked me into taking it.”
“Do you think that makes it better, my dear?”
I sighed irritably. “Let’s go get your drink.”
A minute later, we were seated in the plush white seating at the other end, a little corner spot with a few chairs grouped together and a plant wall separating us from the chatter of the rest of the party, the music like it was coming from far away, and Krysten, now fully recovered with a drink in her hand, looked almost delightedly at me.
“So, you are in something of a predicament, then, are you, Cassandra Evans-Pierre?”
“Oh, god. I’m sorry about that.”
“You are an entertaining one. Is Julie your real name?”
“Julie Branch, yeah, yep. That’s me. I was supposed to just be Cassandra to get through the door, but then Helena and her friends overheard it, and then she came around to talk to me while you and I were talking…”
“So then you have no studio,” she said. “What a disappointment. I thought maybe Jewel would do well in the music industry with just a lead or two.”
“Wait,” I said, shifting forward in my seat, my heart suddenly pounding. “I don’t have a studio, but I do—I mean, I’m sort of connected to one. Well, Kingmaker is sort of connected to one. I can talk to them about it.”
She raised her eyebrows high. “Now you think I will believe you?”
“Okay—look, I wouldn’t believe me either. But you don’t have to. I’ll prove it by getting them to adopt it.”
She laughed. “You want the kickbacks, don’t you? Do you think it will help you pay your debt?”
“Well… I mean, that’d be a cool bonus…” I scratched the back of my head, talking in a gravelly voice.
“But I’m, uh, you know. Shit, why am I still trying to come up with a cover story?
” I shook my head. “I’m trying to get my foot in the door.
And I’m just thinking, maybe, you know, if I’m trying to get people onboarded with a good system, then I’ve got more to offer studios than just being a weird stranger showing up.
And maybe if I get some people on board with your app, then, uh, you’ll overlook the whole… stealing your friend’s identity thing.”
She grinned, her eyes sparkling. “You are a bold one, darling. Do you even know what Jewel is, or did you lie about that as well?”
“Oh, yeah, see, uh, thing is, yeah, I definitely lied about that too.” I scratched my head. “I mean, I’m guessing it’s sort of a… scheduling thing, managing clients, based on what you said. But yeah, I made up the studio night, I’d never heard of Jewel.”
“You preside over a court of foolishness from your throne of lies.”
“Look, I know I do. Can you just tell me what the app is?”