by Lindsey Kelk
‘I can’t wait for her to start dealing with all these whining editors,’ she replied, leaning her head to the left and digging her fingers into her shoulder with a pretty grimace. ‘I have legal meetings all day and I don’t want to have to OK another feature on leather pants for summer, yes or no.’
‘Is everything OK?’ I, a whining editor, asked, my tears disappearing as quickly as they had arrived. ‘With the company, I mean?’
‘Everything is great,’ she nodded. ‘But the investors need to hear me say that a thousand times a day and I don’t appreciate a bunch of old men in suits assuming I don’t know what I’m doing just because I’m young and beautiful. They’re a nightmare,’ Cici groaned, pressing her perfectly manicured fingertips into her temples. ‘I’m, like, you gave me the money, I’m doing my job, now go away please.’
‘Oh, I can imagine,’ I said with an uncomfortable chuckle. I could not even imagine. ‘What’s a few million dollars between friends?’
‘Exactly. I should have funded this whole thing myself. It’s just all so much.’
I was well aware that Alex and I were a lot better off than most people. But for the most part, my money went on impossibly dull, everyday things Cici wouldn’t have been able to fathom. The last thing I’d funded myself was a chocolate croissant.
‘Jumping from assistant to running an entire company is a lot,’ I reasoned. ‘But you know you’re doing an incredible job, everything is going so well.’
‘I know,’ she replied without a hint of even false modesty. ‘And you would think I’d have more to do now but I really don’t. When I was your assistant, I had so many different things to do every day. Like, a thousand dumb tasks.’
I resisted the urge to point out how few of those tasks were ever actually completed.
‘But now it’s bigger-picture stuff. I don’t have so many things to do but the things I do have are intense. Sometimes it’s exhausting, all this power.’
She closed her eyes and smiled like a shark, only Cici Spencer was a thousand times more dangerous than any Great White.
‘I’m sure you went through this when you were younger. I mean, people don’t talk to you like you’re dumb now, do they? It’s terrible that we should have to wait until we’re in our forties to be taken seriously, totally sexist.’
‘Cici,’ I said, clearing my old crone throat before I spoke. ‘I’m not in my forties. You’re three months older than me.’
‘Oh, Angela.’ The look on her face was one of pure horror. She waved a hand in front of her own visage to make sure I knew just what had offended her so greatly. ‘What happened?’
For just a moment, I allowed myself to revel in the memory of that one time I’d punched her at a Christmas party. It wasn’t an act I was proud of but it was something that gave me great comfort in trying times. Like this.
‘Remind me to get you a certificate for Botox for your next birthday,’ she said, still utterly aghast.
‘So, work on Recherché is going well,’ I said, attempting to redirect the conversation before I lamped her. I looked young for my age, everybody said so. Not that it mattered but still. ‘We should be ready to go live in a week or so.’
‘Awesome, sounds great, can’t wait to see it.’ She held up her hand to quiet me as she stared directly at my face. ‘Are you sure you’re only thirty-five?’
‘I’ll be back downstairs if you need me,’ I said, standing up to leave. ‘I’ll try not to bother you in the meantime.’
Because really, if you’d already punched someone once before, did it really count if you punched them again?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I thought you’d stood me up,’ I said, manhandling Jenny in a massive hug after she’d run down the street, fifteen minutes late for our dinner reservation. ‘Again.’
‘That was one time,’ she told me, shame-faced and shiny-eyed. ‘I’m a busy gal. How is my favourite baby?’
‘Ask me when my scalp stops throbbing,’ I replied as I pressed my fingers into my temple. Alice was going through a grabbing phase and I did not care for it one bit. ‘Alex says you can’t see the bald patch but I don’t trust him.’
Jenny peered into my hair, giving it a thorough check. When you couldn’t trust your husband not to lie, only a best friend’s opinion would do.
‘You’re good. It’s red, though. She’s getting strong.’ She linked her arm through mine and started leading me down an exceptionally murdery alleyway. I hadn’t seen Jenny in forever but that didn’t mean I wanted to be led to my untimely death just to get in some non-baby friend time.
The sun was setting and we were deep in the middle of an industrial area I had never been to before and, god willing, would never visit again. According to Google Maps, the address Jenny had given me didn’t exist and so I’d already let myself into a lumber store, a ceramics studio and something they’d told me was doggy daycare – but, since I hadn’t seen a single dog or dog-related item, I was fairly certain had been a meth lab. Alex would be so annoyed if I got killed the week the nanny was off.
‘Where are we?’ I asked as Jenny rapped three times on a bright red door.
She turned back to look at me over her shoulder, with a half-smile on her face and dark brown eyes full of mischief. ‘Are you ready for an adventure?’
‘I’m ready for my dinner,’ I replied, pressing a hand against my empty belly. ‘Seriously, I’m starving. You promised me a feed, Lopez.’
‘I promised you an experience,’ she replied. The red door opened and a tall, very serious-looking Asian man appeared. He was wearing an exquisitely cut black suit, black shirt and black tie and I suddenly wasn’t sure my absolutely adorable blue Faithfull shirtdress and shiny white Converse were going to pass the dress code.
‘Welcome to Fukku Rain to Shinka¯,’ he said, looking us both up and down and frowning at my choice of shoe. I was correct. ‘You have a reservation?’
‘Lopez, for two,’ Jenny said. ‘Riverside.’
‘Riverside?’ I whispered as the man nodded once and held open the door. ‘Is that some sort of password?’
‘Not quite,’ she whispered back. ‘Relax, this is going to be a night you will never forget.’
I immediately tensed up from head to toe. When Jenny promised an unforgettable evening, someone either usually ended up at karaoke until three a.m., face first in the bottom of the Bellagio fountains, or moving to Los Angeles. And given that the last thing I’d done before leaving the house was apply calendula cream to my cracked boobs while Alex quietly sulked about me going out, none of those options seemed particularly favourable.
‘Not to be a Debbie Downer but I can’t be out super late,’ I said. Managing expectations was key with Jenny. ‘Alex is exhausted from being at home with Alice all week.’
‘Angie, it’s Wednesday,’ she whispered as we followed the host through a heavy black velvet curtain and into a tunnel so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. ‘And Monday was a holiday so you weren’t even at work.’
‘Well, he’s tired and I don’t want to take the piss,’ I said, stumbling over something unseen. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Positive,’ her voice confirmed somewhere in the darkness ahead of me. ‘You’re gonna flip.’
‘Only if I don’t fall first,’ I corrected. ‘I’ve got a bag full of Ikea tealights at home, I’d have brought some if I’d have known.’
‘We have arrived.’
The darkness was split by a sliver of something like daylight as the host pulled back another black curtain at the end of the tunnel.
‘Please, choose your vessel.’
I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the light and then again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. As far as I could tell, we’d only walked a few feet but somehow we had been transported to another world. I took a step forward onto a rickety wooden dock that jutted out over an actual river. Flowing water ran all the way around the room, surrounding a miniature island that was covered with full-
size cherry trees, and dotted between the trees were a number of tiny tables, glowing with the light of a dozen candles. So, they didn’t need my Ikea tealights after all.
‘Well?’ Jenny said, nudging me towards three little wooden rowing boats tied up to what looked like an ancient dock in front of us. ‘Choose your freaking vessel.’
‘We have to row to dinner?’ I asked, as a tiny bird flew past my head. They had birds? Inside? Inside birds on purpose did not seem like the kind of thing that would get you a good grade from the New York department of health and safety. ‘Jenny, is this the actual Gowanus Canal? Because you know that water has gonorrhoea, right? I mean, they tested it and everything—’
‘Roberto will row the boat,’ the host explained with a small bow, gesturing towards what was quite clearly a male model, wearing nothing but a pair of gold swimming trunks. Either someone’s encyclopaedia had its pages stuck together or they’d been doing far too much coke when they came up with the idea of this place.
‘We’ll take this one.’ Jenny pushed me down the dock and hopped into the boat, spreading her gorgeous scarf-print dress around her on her seat. ‘Angie, can you take a picture?’
She leaned forward to hand me her phone before positioning herself in the boat, lifting her chin and reclining seductively.
‘I’m real sorry but we don’t allow photos inside the forest,’ Roberto explained in a thick Texan drawl. Holding my breath, I waited for Jenny to scratch his eyes out but, instead, she simply sat up straight and nodded, her face a study in seriousness.
‘Of course,’ she said, snatching back her phone and shoving it deep into her quilted Gucci camera bag. ‘Totally get it.’
What was going on? Jenny was OK with being told she couldn’t take photos? Everyone had officially gone insane. I looked down at the water and saw something dart underneath the boat.
‘I’m sorry I don’t want to panic anybody but I think I just saw something in the water.’ Most likely gonorrhoea, I thought to myself. ‘It looked like a fish?’
‘Most surely was, Ma’am,’ Roberto replied as he nonchalantly adjusted his package. ‘How else are you gonna fish for your supper?’
‘Jenny.’
‘Angie?’
My heels were already starting to hurt, my stomach was howling with hunger and I was almost certain one of the tiny birds had already shat in my hair.
‘Have you brought me to a restaurant where I have to catch my own fish before I can eat?’
‘Technically, only if that’s what you order,’ she replied, hitting me with her biggest, brightest smile. ‘But I ordered ahead so that is what you’re going to do, yes.’
‘I am going to die,’ I muttered, gripping Roberto’s arm tightly as I boarded. ‘I cannot believe you brought me here.’
‘You’re so welcome,’ Jenny said happily, taking my hand and completely missing my point. ‘It was not easy to get a reservation, believe me. But nothing’s too good for girls’ night, not for my Angie.’
I eyed her suspiciously. She was definitely up to something.
‘I’ll bet you one hundred dollars that one of us falls in the water before the night is over,’ I replied, entirely unamused as we rowed across the moat. ‘There’s no way we’re getting in and out of a place that serves booze and has a moat without one of us ending the evening piss-wet through.’
‘Jeez, would you relax?’ she huffed. ‘This is the hottest restaurant in the world right now, it’s booked up for months. Someone at work offered to get me into the Met Gala if I gave them our slot tonight.’
‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘You passed up tickets to the Met Gala so we could fish for our dinner in Gowanus?’
Jenny shook out her lion’s mane of chocolate-brown curls as the boat completed its brief journey and hit dry land. ‘It isn’t what it used to be,’ she muttered as Roberto the golden-trunked gondolier helped her out of the boat. ‘It’s all Kardashian-Jenners these days. At best, you get Rihanna. Who tried to get a reservation here and couldn’t, by the way.’
‘Here we go again,’ I replied, wobbling up and out. ‘When will you stop the one-upmanship with Rihanna?’
‘When she admits I gave her the idea for Fenty Beauty,’ Jenny snapped. ‘You were there, you know it’s true.’
‘If you’re talking about the time you were so wasted you lunged at her when she was leaving Philippe Chow and told her she was really hot and she should “do something with makeup”, then, yes, I was there.’
With a dismissive huff, Jenny turned on her heel and walked off up the dock and into the forest.
The restaurant whose name I had already forgotten was beyond. There was lush green grass beneath my feet, a dusky sky complete with fluffy clouds above my head. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care to. Now I was out the murder tunnel and on dry land, the only thing I could think about was food. I ducked to avoid a head-on collision with a passing butterfly as a beautiful redhead in full Geisha get-up tiptoed through the cherry trees towards us.
‘Good evening, ladies,’ the woman said, bowing her head slightly. ‘We are so pleased you could join us on the island. I have you at one of our riverside tables this evening. Please follow me.’
At least the ‘Riverside’ bit made sense now.
I didn’t dare ask if her ensemble was cultural appropriation as we followed her to our table because I was fairly certain it was and I was too hungry to get thrown out. She led us down a winding pathway through the trees until we reached a small table, right next to the water. I could see other tables dotted around the forest but the perpetual twilight meant I couldn’t quite make out anyone else’s face. I made a mental note to have a nose when I went to the toilet, just in case there were any proper celebs in attendance.
‘Wait,’ I said, clutching my non-existent pearls as Jenny took her seat and immediately started fannying about with the fishing pole resting next to her chair. ‘Where are the toilets?’
‘Our lounge is through the forest and over the bridge,’ the waitress replied, waving a graceful arm over yonder. ‘It is gender neutral and paperless. Tonight we will start with our signature cocktail and feel free to begin fishing at your leisure. Please let me know if you require assistance on your journey.’
With a soft smile and a gentle nod, she disappeared back into the trees.
‘This place is so very you,’ I told Jenny, allowing her to believe it was a compliment. The restaurant, like my friend, was the very definition of the word ‘extra’. ‘What happens if I don’t catch a fish? What happens if I do catch a fish? And what does she mean by a paperless toilet?’
‘Half of me never wants to know and half of me so does. There’s no menu, by the way. Everything other than the fish you catch is omakase, chef’s specials, OK?’
‘Not really but sure,’ I replied, trying not to stare into the water. There. Was. An. Actual. Fish. ‘So, I haven’t seen you in a million years. What’s going on with you?’
There was a time when I knew absolutely every thought that went through Jenny’s head. Back when we lived together and spent all our nights watching America’s Next Top Model and mainlining Ben & Jerry’s, there wasn’t a single second of a single day when I didn’t know where she was, why she was there and what or who she was doing. Even when I’d moved in with Alex, we’d still managed to see each other all the time but, ever since Alice had come along, the amount of time I had to hang out with my friends, even my best, best friend, had been obliterated.
‘Everything. Everything is going on,’ she said, grabbing her napkin and flicking it out onto her lap. I did the same, knocked a pair of chopsticks off my plate and watched them roll onto the floor, down the bank and into the river. The evening was off to an excellent start. ‘I’ve finally figured it out. I know how I’m gonna become the next Oprah.’
Jenny had been plotting to dethrone Ms Winfrey ever since we met. There was not a single woman on this earth who owned as many self-help books, went to as many workshops or generally went
around giving out unsolicited advice. Not that I was complaining about her fabulous fairy godmother routine, it always worked out a treat for me. Well, almost always.
‘Tell me everything.’
Jenny’s beautiful face lit up with an excitement usually reserved for sample sales, Tom Hardy and other people’s dogs.
‘I’m starting a podcast!’ she said, throwing her arms in the air, narrowly missing what looked awfully like Alec Baldwin’s face by roughly three millimeters. ‘Isn’t it the greatest idea you’ve ever heard?’
‘Oh my god, it is!’ I gasped as she did a happy dance in her seat, inching ever closer to the edge of the water. I utched my own chair a few inches back towards safety. ‘You’re a genius.’
‘So, I was running a few days ago and listening to a podcast and I was, like, dude, I should have a podcast! And now I’m officially a media mogul.’
‘To be honest, I expected a more dramatic story,’ I admitted, one eye on the fish that was having a good poke around at my submerged chopsticks. ‘Does it have a name?’
Jenny tapped her fingers against the table in a mini drumroll.
‘It’s called … “Tell Me About It with Jenny Lopez”,’ she announced. ‘I’m going to interview interesting people and get them to, you know, tell me about stuff. I already asked a bunch of people. It’s going to be amazing.’
‘I am so excited for you,’ I said, meaning it completely. This was so entirely perfect for her, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of it sooner. A microphone, a platform and a completely captive audience? She’d be president within a decade.
‘I still have a few things to figure out.’ She smiled at the waitress as she returned with two tall glasses of clear liquid that did not look even slightly like proper food. ‘Like a studio and an editor and all the marketing, social media and graphic design. But other than that, I’m good to go.’