Hot Mess (5 page)

“I wish they would have had this show on when I turned sixteen. I could have blown this skank party all the way back to dirty Jersey where it belongs,” she said as I guess some sort of greeting. It was the episode where the girl arrived at her party by helicopter. “Anyway, welcome. And I’m Jayla. Take a look around,” she motioned with a perfectly polished hand. “Those two over there would be your rooms and that’s the bathroom.”

The apartment was museum clean and decorated in that kind of nothing-matches-but-everything’s-expensive-so-it-looks-good-together kind of way. We tiptoed around looking into the rooms, which were huge, and not just by New York standards. Not only that, fully furnished with queen beds, chests of drawers, and nightstands. “Have I died and gone to sublet heaven?” Rachel whispered to me as we stepped into the bathroom. The bathroom that had a tub with jets. I was pretty much thinking the same thing as Rachel:
This is too perfect.
I wondered what the catch was. Did we have to sleep in the bathtub together or donate an organ or be a part of some horribly embarrassing weight loss reality show where they would focus in on my butt fat?

“Um, we’re so interested, Jayla,” I called out, my voice echoing off the hardwood floors and high ceilings. “Anything more we should know about this place? Or the details of the lease or anything?” I didn’t want to insult her, but come on. There had to be something wrong with this place.

“Oh, utilities are included and I think that’s it. I’ve never really done this landlord thing before, so I don’t know. I have the sublease papers right there.” She was pointing to the counter in the kitchen and checking her texts at the same time. “Just sign them. And you have checks with you, right?”

“Well, yeah.” Could it be that easy? I looked down at the sublet form. The header read
St. Clare Realty
. “So, do you own this whole building?” I tried to sound casual, but damn, this girl must be loaded. And judging from the size of her diamond earrings, she probably owned more than just this building.

“Yeah. I mean, no. Not me.” Done, or maybe just bored, with her four-hundred-dollar cell phone, she got up to come talk to us in the kitchen. Even on this lazy Saturday afternoon, she was wearing a gorgeous wrap dress that I would drool over if I ever saw it in a store window. “My dad. This is his thing.” She gracefully plopped herself on a barstool at the kitchen island and inspected her flawless mani. “Like, he thinks that I’m irresponsible with money and shit. There was this one credit card thing, well, in his words a ‘fiasco,’ with a last-minute trip to Sundance this winter. So he’s
completely lost trust in me,
” she said, mimicking a gruff parental scold.

“This apartment is my big test for the summer. Like, if I don’t burn this place down by Labor Day, I can have unlimited access to my—
his
—credit card when I’m abroad next semester. If this doesn’t work out, I guess I’m going to be slumming it on a measly allowance.”

For sure, even her measly allowance was more than what my dad made in a decade. Actually, probably both my and Rachel’s parents combined. She continued her spiel. “I’m looking for tenants who won’t break anything, because I’m not exactly handy with big tools.” She paused before adding, “Well, any tools. And,” she continued, looking sheepish now, “we kind of don’t have a budget for repairs anymore. But if you need five bottles of Grey Goose and the name of a great masseuse, I’m your girl!”

“Why do you keep geese in a bott—” Rachel started to ask, and then abruptly shut up as I kicked her in the shin with my flip-flop. We’d totally just found the deal of a lifetime, and I didn’t want to screw it up with our suburban high school dorkiness.

“The repair stuff is no problem,” I said, trying to look useful. “I have a cousin in the city who could probably help us out with any handyman stuff.”

Before Jayla could even respond, Rachel and I were unfolding the signed checks our parents had given us and filling them out for Jayla.

“Fab, fab,” she said, taking the checks and casually throwing them on the kitchen counter. “So now that I have your checks and stuff, you guys can move in whenever.”

We made plans to move in first thing the next day, and I totally wanted to hug her, but refrained. My sweat would probably eat through her skin or something.

“I’m so glad this worked out! The thought of talking to sweaty strangers all week long was making me ill,” Jayla said. As soon as she closed the door behind us, Rachel and I did a silent celebration dance in the hall. The dancing kind of made us look like epileptic crabs, but who cared? We were so close to being glamorous New Yorkers, I could almost smell the party invites and designer bags!

We got back to our room without getting lost once. The hotel looked more like a dungeon than ever now that we’d seen the splendor that was to be our summer home. Rachel and I jumped back and forth from bed to bed like ten-year-olds.

“That place is so awesome! It’s like where they stay on
America’s Next Top Model,
but those skinny bitches have to share rooms and we don’t have to look at Tyra’s face every time we turn a corner!”

“Totes. And Jayla’s prettier than Tyra anyway. She’s totally going to be our hook-up for all of the cool stuff that happens in the city. She probably has a ton of friends from going to NYU.”

Rachel leaped from her bed to mine and I noticed what she was wearing, actually what we both were wearing: khaki shorts and colored tank tops. God! Compared to Jayla we looked like bums. She probably thought we were modeling L.L. Bean’s new line of suburban lesbian wear. I made a mental note to wear something trendier to move in the next day. Would kitten heels be trying too hard?

We went back to the diner down the street for a celebratory dinner. Not the glam champagne-soaked night I would have liked. But twelve dollars doesn’t get you too far in the city that never sleeps. We congratulated ourselves with grilled cheese, onion rings, and an ice water toast.

I e-mailed Jacob about our new digs when we got back, bragging about our sweet Union Square location. He insisted on helping us move in. Each of us only had a rolling duffle and our laptop cases, so there wasn’t much to help with. But a totally nice gesture, I guess.

Jacob was meeting us in the hotel lobby at noon. Rachel and I stood at the reception desk at about 11:58, checking out and hissing at each other.

“Your minibar binge wound up costing us thirty-two dollars!” I growled.

“How was I supposed to know that three ounces of rum cost nine-fifty? That’s crazy!”

“You could have read the card thing they have laminated to the door of the minibar. That’s how you were supposed to know!” I hushed my yelling because I thought we were scaring the receptionist. “Here’s the thing, we’ve already blown through five hundred dollars on this hotel, eighty dollars each for the subway passes, and
at least
two hundred dollars eating every single meal out. We just need to be careful.”

“Uh, thanks, Mama Freeman!” Her sarcasm was enough to drive me to violence before I’d had my a.m. caffeine.

Fortunately, I was distracted from best-friend-icide by Jacob walking through the door. He had totally shed his acne-ridden, D&D-playing exterior and actually looked pretty normal. If he weren’t my cousin, he might even be cute. Well, that grow-on-you kind of cute, anyway.

“Long time, no see, little cuz,” he said as he opened his arms for a bear hug.

After almost squeezing the life out of me, he turned to Rachel.

“Jake Freeman,” he said with his hand stretched out.

As soon as he finished shaking Rachel’s hand, he turned to pick up our suitcases. I mouthed to Rachel, “Not Jewish. Don’t even think about it.”

She rolled her eyes and silently faked puking, but I knew that if I hadn’t put him off limits, Rachel would have been on full-throttle flirt-attack.

It didn’t take long to heave our worldly possessions from curb to cab and from cab to apartment. Jake’s mouth dropped open as we entered the apartment.

“Swank central. Right?” I asked.

“You are the luckiest two girls in the five boroughs. Seriously, this is unreal.” He showed his true nerd colors as he caressed the entertainment center. “This screen is so sweet. Does she have a Wii?” He poked around for a bit and settled for watching
Curb Your Enthusiasm
On Demand while Rachel and I organized our clothing into our very own drawers. Then we joined him in the common room, ready to fully enjoy the AC and HBO. The combo of a clean place to live, air-conditioning, and premium cable was as close to heaven as I could get at the moment.

As we were soaking in the new digs, Jayla popped into the apartment. Aside from introducing herself to Jake, she barely seemed to notice we were there. She was a blond blur, running back and forth among all of the closets and the mirrors in the apartment. Jake was visibly smitten with her. When she walked by in just a towel, Jake’s eyes practically popped out of his head. Just when I thought that she’d completely forgotten we were there, she paused for a second in front of us.

“Which?” she demanded holding two black dresses, both cut low enough to elicit a “Why buy the cow?” comment from any mother. She explained, “I have a date.” Jake just sat there, muted by her frenzied beauty, nearly drooling. Before Rachel and I could answer, she was running back to her room, yelling at us, “Yeah, you’re right. I saw Paris wearing the left one in the last issue of
Us Weekly
. I should probably burn it.” Before Jake could regain his voice, she was throwing us air kisses as she left the apartment.

With no more real excitement guaranteed until her return, Jake took Rachel and me to a Chinese place around the corner for a Welcome to New York celebration dinner.

“We finally get to have our celebratory toast tonight. Is there Chinese champagne?” I asked.

“Hey, cousin, aren’t you like twelve years old? You can’t drink.”

“Hello! Emma is almost eighteen and I myself am well past seventeen and a half,” Rachel retorted, adorably pretending to have a valid point.

“Counting half years? Totally too young to drink.” He may have gotten less weird looking over the years, but was still just as much of a square.

“Fine,” I groaned as I lifted my water glass for a toast. At this rate, I was definitely on my way to becoming the most hydrated girl in the city limits.

“To one of my favorite Freemans, Emma, and her first big-city adventure! May you end up having more fun than Carly, Melissa, Samantha, and Charlie!”

Rachel and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“Uh…who are they?”

“Duh! The
Sex and the City
girls! Jesus, I thought you two knew what was up.”

We laughed at his (kind of ) endearing dorkiness and dug into our chow mein.

Seven

“R
ach,” I said while pouring my second glass of Jayla’s organic orange juice, “do you realize we’ve been in this city for three whole days and I haven’t called Brian once?” I was pretty impressed with myself.

“You haven’t?” Her voice was laced with more than a little suspicion. “Wow, I just assumed that you’d been calling him in the middle of the night and hiding it from me. Like that time you hid the Clay Aiken CD and pretended it was your brother’s when I found it.”

Would she ever let me live that down? You didn’t see me bringing up the fact that she had Ace of Base on her iTunes in a totally nonironic way. “I did
not
hide that CD! I just
forgot to mention it.
Anyway, no, I haven’t called or even texted him. I don’t know, I’ve barely even really wanted to, either. Now that we’re here in this city and everything, it seems like there are so many more possibilities than Brian McSwain: Thirty-Second Keg Stand King.”

Rachel smiled. “Well I’m glad to hear you say that. You totally don’t need him, Emma. Let him catch the clap in college and come crying back.”

“As my best friend, it is your duty to stop me from ever taking back a weeping man with VD. Hog-tie me and stow me in your station wagon till I come back to my senses. Or dress me in those homemade vests my mother made me wear all through middle school. That way, even a syph-ridden crybaby wouldn’t want to date me.”

We both giggled at the memory of those horrid vests I made every summer at Lil’ Sew-n-Sews Summer Camp.

I put my glass in the dishwasher, and now that I was juiced up, I really wanted to start exploring the city and shopping so we could look the part of the New York glitterati we were so going to be by the end of the summer. “So, what should our plans be today? I say we head out to get fake Louis Vuittons in Chinatown. My guidebook says that’s totally the place for knockoffs.”

“Not me, babe.” I was stunned that Rachel would turn down an opportunity for bargain shopping. “I have an interview at that dyke website, Sirlie.com, or whatever. And if we want a Louis, look no further,” she said, gesturing toward Jayla’s room. “That chick has more bags than Nicky Hilton. Her Chloé bag isn’t even due out until September, how the hell did she get it?”

“Wait, what website?”

“I told you about it, right? My dad’s cousin’s cousin or whatever works there, it’s some lesbian-power online magazine blog thing. I’m assuming I’d cover hard-hitting issues like which Birkenstocks go with which pair of overalls.”

I was so busy looking for an apartment, I’d half forgotten, half just not wanted to think about a job. Mom was so amped on Golf Gal! Eileen’s connection, but I was hoping to find something kick-ass on my own, maybe working for MTV. I could totally see myself holding the cue cards at
TRL
and beating the twelve-year-olds off Pete Wentz. “Are they hiring for more than one person? Could I work there, too?” I was really jealous that Rachel could spend her entire summer at a cool online magazine, especially one where she wouldn’t have to shave her legs. She had absolutely no interest in journalism or writing at all. Why was she getting a cool writing internship? I was the one who kept a journal and was registered for AP English next year. I chewed a nail and avoided eye contact with her, hoping she wouldn’t notice my envy.

“Em, don’t be jealous, seriously,” she said as she got up from the kitchen island and rinsed her cereal bowl in the sink. I hated how she could read my thoughts. “It’s not like I’m writing stories or anything. I’ll probably answer phones, get coffee, and fend off sexual advances from a woman named Spike. What’s this place your mom wanted to set you up with?” she asked, leaning up against the counter.

“Uck, I don’t know. Some boring office thing. What do you think, should I just do that or should I apply cooler places like maybe MTV?”

“You can try, but I don’t know where else you’re going to find something. Internships you’d actually want are all about connections and timing. Unless your dad is Carson Daly or something, you’re so not getting anything at MTV. But who even cares what your job is? I mean, hello! I’m about to rock into Lesbo.org. Anything is a step up from lifeguarding. I mean, you can’t put ‘Got tan, ate tacos’ on your college apps.”

God, my old summer plans sounded so lame now. Rachel was right. This office thing would be much better than station-wagoning around Bridgefield.

I was about to take another peak in the fridge to see if there was anything else of Jayla’s I could snag for breakfast when I heard the front door open.

“Jayla!” Rachel chirped as our new roommate stumbled through the door.

“Where were you guys last night? I thought you wanted to come out,” she said as she threw her clutch on the couch.

Rachel and I exchanged a quick glance, neither one of us wanting to fess up to what uncool freaks we were. It was true that we’d texted Jayla last night to see where she was, but totally not because we wanted to meet up. Rachel had burst into my room at two a.m. in a complete panic.

“Jayla isn’t home and it’s, like, really late,” she whispered frantically as she shook me awake. “On
Law & Order,
it’s always the roommate who reports her friend missing. Should we call the cops now? Do you think that she’s dead or being tortured or something?”

Even though I was barely conscious, Rachel was lathering me into a worried frenzy. I mean, we didn’t even know Jayla, but two a.m., come on, who stays out that late on a weeknight? As I slowly woke up, I was seriously thinking of dialing 911 but then realized we might try texting Jayla first, just to see if she would respond. I thought of her, lying in a car trunk or abandoned warehouse with her mouth taped as I punched into my cell,
Where R U? R U OK?

“I’m going to call 911.” Rachel was in extreme
SVU
mode. “Every second we wait is another second she suffers.”

But, just as Rachel dialed 9, my phone buzzed with a text.
@ The Box. Come. Dress sexy!
Our relief quickly melted into feeling totally stupid about our Code Red terror alert, and Rachel shuffled back to her bedroom after promising that we would never admit to Jayla just what dorky suburban girls we were.

In the morning light, I felt even more idiotic. “Oh yeah. Um, we just decided to stay in last night,” I lied. “You know, unpacking all of our stuff and getting organized.” In reality, we each just had one suitcase that took all of an hour to unload, but Jayla didn’t seem to care. She had gossip to spill.

She kicked off her heels and got more comfortable on the couch. “So, guess who I made out with last night.”

“Who?” we gasped in unison.

She paused for effect before fake whispering, as if she weren’t dying to tell us, “Adrian Grenier.”

We shrieked in disbelief. Rach knocked over the box of Lucky Charms in a spastic lurch of excitement.

“Are you
freaking kidding me
? Omigod, Jayla, he’s like
the hottest
thing ever. I have no idea what’s going on in
Entourage
—I just watch it for him,” Rachel squealed. “Where did all this happen? You kissed him at that boxing bar?”

Jayla looked horrified. “Not a bar, honey. A club. Bars are for uglies and fatties. And yeah, it started at the club.” She rattled off more details, everything from denim brands to his drink choices, a memory to rival any
Jeopardy!
champ. I could feel my face turn hot pink when she started to describe his boxer briefs. Rachel almost jumped Jayla when she said that they had exchanged numbers.

“Wait, so you have his number in your phone right now?” I hadn’t seen Rachel this flabbergasted ever. “Let’s send him a text right now. Ask him if he wants to come over today!” She was squealing louder than an entire stadium of girls at a JT concert.

“No! I just came from his place. That would be so weird. And I don’t even know if I want to see him again. Anyway, I’m probably going to spend today doing my art stuff, you know,” Jayla explained. I nodded, but the truth was I didn’t know. The only paintbrushes in this apartment were attached to Jayla’s NARS nail polish. Even through her hangover, she saw the confusion on my face. “Oh yeah, I want to be an artist and I’m trying to spend the summer developing my portfolio and whatever. I haven’t gotten all that far, to be honest.” She let out a huge yawn and stretched, then started her saunter over to her room. “You know, maybe I’ll take a nap before I get started.” She turned around in her doorway, sent air kisses our way, and then disappeared into her room.

Rachel looked at me with a question-mark face. “Art stuff?” She was apparently as shocked as I was.

“I know, as if.” Even though I’d only known the girl a day and a half, I could predict her future like a crystal ball. “It’ll probably be ten p.m. when she wakes up and the text messages are going to be rolling in. She’ll Diane von Furstenberg herself out the door and not work at all on that stuff. ‘Working’ is so totally not her style.”

“If I had her dad, it wouldn’t be my style either,” Rachel sighed. She glanced at Jayla’s discarded Jimmy Choos lying by the door and then turned miserably to go print out Sirlie’s homepage. “Seriously, Emma, as soon as I turn eighteen, I’m marrying for money.”

As soon as Rachel headed off to her interview, I made a quick call to Mama Freeman. I was relieved to hear that she’d already talked to Golf Gal! Eileen and they’d arranged for me to interview at this company called MediaInc with their Senior Vice President of Marketing today. Thanks for telling me, gals!

I spent the morning trying to pull myself into some version of professional. I looped my hair into a low pony and tried to apply makeup that made me seem older and classy. But since I only had my everyday lip gloss and mascara to work with, I pretty much looked like the same high school Emma I always do. I tucked a collared shirt into my favorite black H&M pants and set off. By the time I’d taken the subway to Midtown, walked two blocks in the wrong direction, turned around, and ran until I found the place, I was so sweaty I looked like a bag of wilted lettuce.

I marched up to the reception desk, hoping the lobby AC would dry my sweat mustache by the time I spoke.

“Hi, I’m Emma Freeman, here to see, um…” I shuffled through my tatty Pokemon folder that contained the interview contact info and a hasty copy of my resume. “Margaret Pavese in Human Resources. I’m Emma Freeman. Oh shit, I already said that, sorry. Wait, did I just cuss? Oh damn, sorry about that. Omigod, I did it again, I’m—”

“Eleventh floor, suite two fifteen,” the receptionist said curtly, and I scooped up my Japanimation Five Star and shuffled away, 100 percent mortified.

My sweat started to dry as I headed up in what had to be the world’s nicest elevator. I surveyed the sleek LCD television that displayed breaking news and numbers that I guessed were stocks, though they could have been lotto numbers.

“Hello, I’m Emma Freeman. I need a reservation for ten tonight at your really expensive restaurant. Where do I work? Well, I’m typically not one to brag, but…the really big building with the TELEVISION in the elevator, maybe you’ve heard of it.”

By the time the elevator binged open, I had daydreamed myself into a Fortune 500 CEO’s life. A sharply dressed woman with long red nails was waiting for me when the doors opened.

“Hi!” I smiled. “You must be Mrs. Pavese. I’m Emma—”

“That’s
Ms.
Pavese,” she cut in curtly before I could finish. “Right this way, please.”

I swallowed hard, feeling like I was tanking my very first interview before it had even really started, and trailed her to an enormous conference room where it looked like world wars were planned out.

“Resume?” she demanded and I passed her my best thrown-together-through-tears-over-Brian-and-too-many-reruns-of-
One Tree Hill
list of employment and skills. I’d had my mom look it over and she gave me the thumbs-up. But she’d been a sixth-grade Language Arts teacher for the past twenty years, when was the last time she’d even seen a resume?

I fiddled with my cuticles as she glanced at the ecru high-stock page.

“So you’re in high school?” she said without looking up.

“Um, yes. I’ll be a senior next year.” I sat straighter in my chair, hoping perfect posture would make up for the fact that I didn’t even have a high school diploma yet. “I just got elected French Honor Society vice-president, and we’re going to have a really awesome croissant sale fund-raiser this year. And I think our soccer team’s county title is—”

She put up a hand to silence me. Had I even completed a single sentence since walking into this building?

“Can you type? Have you used Excel at all? PowerPoint? Internet?”

“Internet? Oh yes!” I decided to leave out my expertise in stalking people on Facebook. “I can type really fast and I use PowerPoint for all my school presentations and stuff. And I’ve only used Excel a little, but I’m sure I can pick it up.”

She nodded silently, still scanning through my resume. I hoped everyone else at MediaInc wasn’t this frosty. What if all the people were? What if
this
was New York? No, she’s probably just
being professional,
I told myself.
This is how all grown-ups behave, New York or not.

She folded my resume in half, looked at her watch, and rolled her eyes at me. “I’ll show you to Mr. Dorfman’s office. He’s the one needing a summer intern.” She was clearly bored with me and wanted to pawn me off on someone else.

She walked several paces ahead of me. I trailed her as she sprint-walked down a long hallway, not even looking back when I almost didn’t make it into the elevator before the doors closed. We rode up several more floors in silence. When the doors opened this time, I stuck to her like glue. I wasn’t going to lose an arm in a slamming door and show up to my very first real interview mangled. She opened a series of glass doors with her name badge and I was getting winded in the hustle to keep up with her. Finally I stepped inside Mr. Dorfman’s office. It was like something out of a movie, a totally cliché big-shot office—huge windows overlooking the city, portable golf green in the corner, and a man in pleated-front khakis talking loudly into a headset. The only thing missing was the corner bar. But when I sat down in one of the huge leather chairs facing his desk, I could see a fully stocked one set up behind the door.