After dinner, the girls made their way to the windowless bar downstairs. Shaunie’s friends from Sony piled in, a few of Josefa’s classmates stopped by, some girls they all went to Temple with came through, and none of Zara’s co-workers showed up. When Emira told Zara she was welcome to invite them, Zara had said, “Ew, no. I work with them—please. But tell Kelley to bring that guy with the fade.”
Kelley did bring the guy with the fade and two others. Emira was three drinks deep and sitting atop a bar stool when he walked in. It all seemed extremely funny and miraculous. I have a boyfriend? On my birthday? And he’s white? Oops! Okay! Kelley inched through a crowd of bodies, and while still sideways, he looked at her and said, “Hey, pretty.”
Emira grinned into their kiss. “It’s my birthday.”
“Oh, for real? That’s crazy. Happy birthday,” Kelley said casually. “How was . . . how are you? How was work?”
“Good.” Emira set her empty glass on the bar and swiveled back around to face him. “We saw a movie. And then we saw another movie. And then we got a cupcake.”
“Two movies?” Kelley said this with the goofy trepidation of a father who worried that someone was having too much fun.
“The theater was empty and we just talked the whole time.” It had been so special. Briar looked unusually tiny in the movie theater seat. When the previews started, she’d covered both her ears and looked to Emira as if she’d forgotten to lock the front door. But she eased into it quickly, and halfway into the first film, she patted Emira’s thigh and whispered, “I sit here with you now shhh.”
“Is that why you didn’t call me back, miss?”
“Oh, my bad.” Emira touched her neck. “Sorry, I try not to have my phone out when I’m with her. And then I was in a rush to get out of there and get to Shaunie’s . . . ohmygod, which reminds me”—Emira felt it in her chattiness that she was drunk, but she couldn’t help herself from telling him immediately—“your high school sweetheart was back on her bullshit today.”
Kelley nodded and placed both his hands in his front pockets. “Yeah, I wanna talk about that, and a lot of other things, but this may not be the place . . .”
“Oh no, I can tell you,” Emira said. “It was just super awkward. I came in and she was like, ‘I just wanna tell you that I don’t mind you dating Kelley at all.’” Emira made her voice soft and urgent when imitating Mrs. Chamberlain. “I was like, ‘Ummm, I didn’t ask you but okay.’ She tried to tell me that you were trouble in high school and I was like, ‘First of all, that was so long ago. And second, I’m about to interview somewhere else so let’s not get into this.’”
“Wait, what?” Kelley stopped her. “You’re interviewing somewhere else?”
“I forgot to tell you!” Emira raised her hands up by her cheeks. “I have an interview on Monday!”
Emira tried to sound more excited than she felt. But it seemed worth it to add a little excitement when Kelley said, “No way! Emira, that’s great!”
“It’s a daycare managing position and I might not even get it. But yeah, it’s got benefits and everything.”
“Oh geez, I forgot. You’re twenty-six today.” Kelley touched both of her shoulders as if they might break any second. “Should we get you a helmet for while you’re uninsured?”
She shoved him. “Imma be fine. I got like, thirty days or something.”
“Hey, congrats,” he told her. “And you’re only just starting to look, so this is really great . . .” Kelley’s mouth hung open with something else he wanted to say, and Emira thought, Yeah, I more than like you too. “Hey, don’t go home with your girls tonight. Stay with me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I have some stuff to tell you later, but not now.”
“Good stuff?”
“Umm . . .” Kelley poked out his lips in a way that delighted and gutted her. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Interesting stuff . . . ? But it’s your birthday. Lemme buy you a drink.”
Minutes later, Zara, Josefa, and Shaunie descended on Kelley with hiiiii’s and side hugs. Zara pointed to the gold-cased phone in Emira’s hand and said, “Did you see that I upgraded your girl?” Kelley laughed and said, “Damn. So much better.” Emira said, “You guys are rude,” and Zara matched her expression and said, “Sorry that we care about you.”
“Kelley, Mira is blowin’ up my Insta right now.” Josefa’s phone was still in front of her face. “She just got one hundred and fifty likes in like two hours.”
“Okay, that’s what we should have gotten you for your birthday,” Shaunie said. “An Instagram account.”
Zara said, “What kinda cheap-ass present is that?”
“It’s a thoughtful present for memories.”
“Literally no one uses it for memories.”
“Hey, this round is on me,” Kelley announced to the group. He asked for any requests and Zara and Shaunie shouted, “Champagne!”
“You’ll drink champagne, right?” Shaunie asked Emira. “It’s your birthday, you don’t have a choice.”
Emira didn’t have a choice, but Josefa declined. Without looking up, she said, “Imma skip this round,” and kept scrolling in her phone.
Shaunie insisted on taking a picture of Emira and Kelley squished in next to the bar top. Then she filmed an anticlimactic bottle popping from a bored bartender and the equal distribution into three glasses. Josefa called over, “Z, come here real quick,” and Zara took her champagne and moved down the bar.
“This was so nice. Thank you, Kelley,” Shaunie said. “Have you met my boyfriend? He’s coming tonight and you need to meet him.”
“Have I met him? I don’t think so, I’d love to.”
Emira mouthed, No, you would not, behind Shaunie’s head, but then Zara grabbed her arm and said, “Emira, you’re bleeding!”
Emira said, “What?” and Shaunie said, “Oh no!”
Josefa squared her face with Emira’s and said, “Let’s go to the bathroom right now and take care of it.”
Kelley, opening up a tab with the bartender, bent his head back at them. “Are you okay?”
“She’s fine, I’m a nurse!” Zara pulled Emira’s arm harder. “We’ll be right back!”
Emira allowed Josefa and Zara to pull and push her toward the bathroom. She said, “Girl, watch it,” as Zara shoved her and Shaunie into the handicap stall. Josefa locked the door behind them. Emira looked down at her arm and saw that there was no trace of blood. She blinked four times in succession and thought, Woof, I must be faded.