As she stepped onto the stoop stairs, Emira waved four fingers. Alix couldn’t bring herself to shut the door behind her. Upstairs, someone said, “It’s wine o’clock!” and someone else said, “Ladies’ night!” Alix looked at the back of Emira’s head, her fingers securing her earbuds in place, and she thought to herself, Mira, please don’t leave me.
Ten
Between Emira’s fourth and fifth knock, Shaunie’s apartment door flung open and Emira jumped back. With her hands in fists at her collarbones, Shaunie hopped in place and screamed, “I got it I got it I got it!”
Shaunie’s hair bounced and coiled around her face and across her open mouth. From the couch, Zara raised both of her hands and cheered, “Shau-nie, Shau-nie . . .” In a gray sweatshirt that read BU on the front, Josefa looked up from the grilled cheese she was making and said, “Heeyyy.”
Emira stepped inside. “Hold up . . . you got what?”
“You are looking at . . .” Shaunie stepped into the living room as Emira set her purse on the kitchen counter. “The newest associate marketing specialist at Sony Philadelphia.”
Emira blinked. “No waayy.”
“Mira, I get my own office.” Shaunie gripped onto the back of her neck, seemingly keeping her body from floating off the floor. She was still in work clothes—a gray pencil skirt and a baby blue button-down—the kind of clothing that Emira had once thought she’d definitely wear in adulthood. “It’s 52K a year,” Shaunie said, “and I get my own fucking office. Well, I share it with this other girl, but still!”
“Oh shit.” Emira tried to make her face go into something that hopefully resembled joy. “That’s amazing.” Shaunie didn’t notice her struggle. She was beginning to dance against the side of the couch.
“Go, Shaunie. It’s your birthday.” In dark blue scrubs, Zara started singing about Shaunie’s new achievements. Shaunie dipped with her hands on her knees, and echoed each new triumph with, “Ayyeee.”
“She got a new job.”
“Ayyeee.”
“She got an office.”
“Ayyeee.”
“401(k).”
“Ayyeee.”
“Fuck it up, girl.”
“Ayyeee.”
From the kitchen, Josefa asked, “Emira, you want something to drink?”
Emira watched Shaunie dip it even lower as Zara clapped double time. “I’ll literally take any alcohol you have,” she said.
Shaunie’s two-bedroom apartment had a kitchen with an exposed brick wall and a fire escape outside the window. Josefa lived there too, but Josefa never objected to anyone referring to the space as “Shaunie’s.” It was filled with Shaunie’s things, and co-signed by Shaunie’s dad. Emira recognized the dormy-twenty-something-isms about the space—the mess of cords leaking out from the TV stand, the IKEA best-seller couch, too many recent pictures fighting for space on the refrigerator—but Shaunie’s place maintained an air of adulthood, and now her employment did too. Apparently, the management at Sony called Shaunie in at the end of the day. They told her how pleased they were with her performance, asked if she was happy working there, and then they offered her the promotion. On the seventh floor of a high-rise in South Philly, Shaunie toasted her bosses with sparkling cider in plastic cups as she did what she claimed was an ugly cry. And that was when she became the last of Emira’s friends to no longer be listed on their parents’ health insurance.
Emira accepted a glass of wine from Josefa. Across a cutting board, Josefa pressed a knife into her sandwich and ate a leaf of basil that slipped out the bottom. The plan for the evening had been to watch Netflix, drink wine, and maybe order Thai from the place down the street, so Emira was a bit confused by Josefa’s meal. She also needed a few more minutes to accept this new information. Fifty-two thousand dollars a year?
“So what are we watching tonight?”
“What?” Without looking up, Josefa put the sandwich halves on a plate and licked crumbs off her finger. “Girl, we goin’ out,” she said. “You want a bite of this?”
“No, I’m fine. Since when are we going out?”
“Shaunie’s ’bout to make it rain over here.” Josefa pointed over her shoulder. At that moment, Zara collected the plastic fall leaves Shaunie had sprinkled to decorate the coffee table, and she threw them at Shaunie as she danced. Zara sang, “Make it clap, girl,” and slipped one leaf in between Shaunie’s waistband and her twerking behind. “If you need clothes,” Josefa said, “you can just borrow mine.”
“Man, okay.” Emira pulled her hair over one shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m kinda beat, though.” This wasn’t a lie, but the first of the month was also stupidly close. In two days, Emira would pay her rent and watch the entire contents of her white envelope disappear.
“Say what?” Josefa topped her own wineglass off. “I thought you only babysat on Fridays.”
Emira held her glass with both hands. Josefa would never say something like this to Shaunie. She’d never say, Zara, I thought you only nursed today. For someone who was paid to go to school, Josefa had a strict opinion on what constituted a proper workday. But Emira wasn’t about to defend a job she kind of wished she never had. “Yeah, but we just like . . . did a lot,” she said.
“Well, I had a huge exam today, and I think I killed it.” Josefa did a sign of the cross before she lifted her plate. “So I’m about to get real stupid.”
Emira said, “Right,” and “Good for you,” but she didn’t follow Josefa into her bedroom.
More than Emira hated the idea of going out, she hated the idea of Zara going without her. She knew this was a stretch, but if Emira wasn’t there, Zara could possibly realize that Emira wasn’t her closest friend, but rather the reason why the four women didn’t do more things, like take tropical trips on summer Fridays or utilize gel manicure discount days or try exercise classes like stiletto workouts. Emira wished she also wore school sweatshirts (or scrubs, or button-downs that she considered “work clothes”) that would give her periodic reasons to celebrate, or a valid excuse to say no and stay in.
Emira walked back into the living room and carried Shaunie’s varsity jacket over her arm. She picked a piece of lint off the sleeve and said, “Hey, don’t let me forget to give this back to you.”
“Oh shoot, I almost forgot about that.” Shaunie scrunched up her face cutely and tossed the jacket into her bedroom. With her other hand, she held her phone to her ear. “Or you can wear it again. Drinks on me tonight. I gotta work on getting Troy to come through, but Mira, just go through my closet. Take anything you want.” Inside Shaunie’s bedroom, Zara plugged her phone into the speakers and Young Thug began to play. “Babe,” Shaunie shouted over the first verse and into her phone. “Babe, guess what. You’re coming out with us tonight.”