Such a Fun Age

by Kiley Reid

  In between a Make Your Own Jell-O Princess Mold and a tiara that reeked of toxins and plastic, Alix retrieved her cell phone from her pocket to text Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra. Kill me, she typed. I hate everyone here. Every present given to Briar was completely ridiculous, borderline sexist, or horribly clichéd. The three-year-old received a silver Fendi snowsuit, a white and pink Little Ladies Tea Set, an Edible Arrangement (had they ordered this online?), and a “birthday cake” scented Yankee candle with a Build-A-Bear gift card attached to the lid. At Alix’s feet, Emira stuffed wrapping paper into a large recycling bag. Briar held up a gift in confusion, a frilly blue apron with matching bonnet. Emira said to her, “That’s for you, birthday girl.” Alix wanted to grab Emira’s shoulders, both of them, and say into her face, This party is not me.

  Alix’s home was filled with the types of mothers she often saw in airports and had come to completely despise. Women with full faces of makeup, way too much luggage (Vera Bradley carry-ons and Lilly Pulitzer passport cases), cork wedge sandals, and plastic bags with souvenirs that took up all the room in the overhead compartments. They noisily called their husbands as soon as they landed or to let them know they’d made it to the next gate. They held up the line to get off the plane (“Do you have everything? Because we cannot come back”). In bathroom stalls, they detailed their activity of papier-mâchéing the seat with toilet paper, rather than doing what Alix always did: chalking up public bathrooms to exercise and just squatting over the bowl.

  Alix didn’t even own a stroller until she was pregnant a second time. She was an incredible packer, often only brought a backpack on weekend trips, and frequently found herself texting Peter that she’d jumped on another flight that got her home quicker. So as she looked around her living room, Alix wondered how she would ever call Philadelphia home. How she could keep her dexterity as a mother and small-business owner while surrounded by the type of woman who halted security check flow because she’d forgotten to remove her jacket.

  Alix stood by the door as parents struggled to squeeze shoes back on their children’s feet and the toddlers began to rummage through their favors. She said, “We have to get the kids together,” about four times as her cheek was kissed and her hands were squeezed.

  Again, Laney made her way to Alix for a heartfelt moment of connection. “I’m just so glad you guys are here,” she said. “We gotta do some cocktail time after the babes fall asleep.”

  It was clear that Laney was being very friendly, but also assuring Alix that while she sat next to her husband every day, she was a girl’s girl, and that there was no funny business going on. This had never even crossed Alix’s mind, and she felt guilty that it hadn’t. Laney had an embarrassing laugh, a disproportionate gum-to-teeth ratio, and she often said things like, “Holy moly.” Laney was the definition of sweet, and as Alix hugged her, she thought, I want to like you. Why is this so hard?

  Over Laney’s shoulder, Alix watched Emira bend down to help a little boy into his jacket. “We didn’t play my favorite game,” the five-year-old told her.

  “Oh yeah?” Emira pulled the sleeves down onto his hands. “What’s your favorite game?”

  He turned around to her and said, “My favorite game is called I’m a Murderer!”

  “Cooool.” Emira stood up and walked to the next room, calling out, “Hey, Briar? Come hold my hand real quick.”

  After Alix finally closed the door behind Laney and her family, she pulled out her phone again. Correction, she texted her friends. I hate everyone except for my sitter.

  You better give that girl a raise, Tamra said.

  Or an Edible Arrangement! Rachel replied.

  That night, Briar went to bed with her new fish on her nightstand, one of the few gifts Alix didn’t place in a donation bag. Newly three-year-old Briar promptly named the fish Spoons, and watched it swim in circles until she fell asleep.

  Five

  Just as Emira decided to distance herself from the now three-year-old girl, to check Craigslist and Indeed every day, and to only apply for jobs that hired adults and offered very adult benefits, Mrs. Chamberlain stepped in hard. The night at Market Depot had done something to her, and she tried to right the night’s wrongs with a forced casualness that made Emira quite cagey. Since that night, Mrs. Chamberlain started returning home at six forty-five, sitting down across from Emira, and referencing conversations that they’d never had. “Emira, remind me what you majored in?” “Tell me where you live again?” “Did you say that you had any allergies?” The timing couldn’t have been worse. These were the questions you asked at the beginning, and not at what Emira was trying to make the end. But for a part-time gig, the money was decent, making it difficult to get excited about potential jobs that offered less money and zero Briar. Every other Friday, Alix handed Emira an envelope with six hundred seventy-two dollars inside.

  Two weeks after the night at Market Depot, this envelope felt particularly fat. On the front porch, underneath a flushed sunset, Emira peeked inside the envelope flap to reveal twelve hundred dollars in cash. A small note on thick card stock was paperclipped to the hundred-dollar bills with Alix’s brilliant handwriting on one side. Emira—, it read.

  This is for the past two weeks, Briar’s birthday, and the awful night when you completely saved us. Thank you for everything. We love having you and we’re here for you.

  Xo P, A, B&C.

  Emira looked down the street. She laughed, whispered “Fuck,” and immediately purchased her first leather jacket.

  The subway was packed. Emira was pleasantly late to meet Zara, Shaunie, and Josefa for a dinner, followed by drinks, followed by all the other practices of twenty-somethings in the nighttime. Everything she wore looked shiny next to her new jacket. It was black with asymmetric zip fastening and was cropped just above her hip. The belt hung effortlessly at her sides, and she let the silver zippers sit open at her forearms. Emira’s jacket came in at two hundred thirty-four dollars, making it the biggest purchase she’d ever made other than her bed frame and laptop. With one hand holding the subway pole, and the other texting Zara that she was on her way, Emira found it both funny and sad that she could feel so cheap in the most expensive thing she owned. She turned her earbuds up loud and balanced into the subway’s turns.

  Behind Emira was a family of six, very much not from Philadelphia, and the mother was calling out, “The next stop is ours. Does everyone hear me?” Underneath her music, she listened to the conversation to her left, where a man in a suit was saying he needed an excuse to not attend a family function. The woman next to him said, “I don’t mind if you blame me.” Emira’s hip bones were prominent beneath her black leggings, and when she caught a flash of her gold multi-chain necklace, she flattened it out against her chest in the window reflection of fast-moving concrete and darkness. She smoothed her bangs and the dark waves at her shoulders, and in the space between one song ending and another beginning, she heard someone call her name.

  Emira turned to see KelleyTCopeland@gmail.com. Over baseball hats and ponytails and shoulders, he said her name again, but this time he said, “Emira Tucker.” Emira readjusted her grip on the subway pole and found herself remarkably nervous.

  He was cuter this time around, partially because Emira wasn’t babysitting or being accused of a crime, but he was also just cuter on his own. Kelley Copeland had dark hair and eyes; a long, pale face; and a big, strong-looking chin that for some reason implied he’d played sports all through college. Emira smiled from one side of her mouth, and Kelley said, “Excuse me,” as he inched his way toward her.

  “Do you remember me? Of course you do, hi.” Kelley laughed as he answered his own question. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ve drafted about six emails to you and I’ve never sent them.” He paused. “I’ve gotta know if you quit or not.”

  Emira was still startled by his very tall and friendly presence. She crossed her standing legs and sai
d, “Sorry, what?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was curious if you quit your nanny job.”

  Kelley Copeland was so tall that he could press his hands flat against the top of the subway car, which was what he did in front of Emira. Emira thought this was both a painfully obvious show of masculinity and also insanely attractive.

  “Ohh, sorry,” Emira said. “Well . . . I’m actually not a nanny.”

  “Wow,” he said. “So you did quit. Good for you.”

  “Oh no, I’m still working.” Emira switched her purse strap from her right shoulder to her left. “But yeah, I’m just a sitter. I’m not a nanny.”

  “Can you tell me what the difference is?” Kelley asked. “I’m not trying to be weird, I honestly don’t know.”

  The subway car stopped and Emira stepped out of the way of a man with four shopping bags as he exited the train. Kelley motioned the empty seat to her, and Emira sat down. “Nannies are full-time,” she said. “They’re salaried and they get bonuses and vacations. And babysitters are part-time and they do like . . . date nights and emergencies.”

  “Okay, gotchyou,” Kelley said. “Sorry, I thought I heard you say you were a nanny at the store that night.”

  “No, yeah, I said I was a nanny so that guy would leave me alone,” Emira explained. “Which obviously worked really well.”

  “Right.” Kelley gave her the kind of goofy, annoyed look that passengers exchange when there’s a loud, drunk person on a train, or when the conductor keeps announcing that there will be more delays. “Well, if you stayed you obviously had a reason to. But I’m hoping you got a raise at the very least.”

  Emira swiped a strand of hair out of her lashes and the zipper at her sleeve jingled delightfully. She smiled and said, “They took care of me.”

  Kelley leaned both of his hands on the bar above Emira’s head. “Where are you going right now?” he asked.

  Emira raised an eyebrow. She looked up at him and couldn’t help but think, Really? It was Kelley’s casual determination mixed with the sight of twelve uncreased hundred-dollar bills that gave her the spirit to think, You know what? Yeah, okay. Fuck it. She pursed her lips and said, “Dinner with some friends. And then Luca’s. Why?”

  “Luca’s.” He put out impressed lips and said, “That’s very fancy.”

  Emira raised her shoulders in a sweet I don’t know motion.

  “What if I buy you a drink real quick?” he said. “Then we can go our separate ways. I’m meeting friends tonight, too.” The train stopped and a woman pushed past Kelley to claim the seat next to Emira.

  Emira feigned reluctance; she was enjoying this as much as he was. She was counting down to the last time she would see him tonight, and from what she could tell, it would be around two a.m. “I’m already late,” she said. “You could buy me a drink at Luca’s, though.”

  Kelley laughed. “Yeah, I’m never gonna get in there.”

  Emira looked down at his shoes. They were laced and brown, beneath dark jeans and an expensive-looking gray hoodie. “You’re dressed okay,” she assured him. “You should be fine.”

  “I didn’t mean my clothes, but thank you, I am now brimming with confidence,” he said with a grin. “It’s just I’ve heard they don’t let you in that place unless you’re with a woman.”

  Emira’s stop was next, and as the train started to slow, she stood up in the space next to him. “Well, you have my email. Just shoot me a note and I’ll come outside.”

  Kelley pulled his phone out. “Wouldn’t it be easier to text you?”

  Emira exhaled in a laugh. “You can email me, son.”

  “Right, totally.” He put his phone away with an obvious duh expression. “I was gonna say the same thing. Email. Cool.”

  Emira said, “Mm-hmm,” and stood by the double exit doors.

  Kelley sat in Emira’s previous spot, which looked much too small for him and his frame. He rested his hands between his knees and smiled aggressively at Emira. She raised her eyebrows again and dropped her eyes down to her phone.

  “That’s my girlfriend,” he said loudly to the woman sitting next to him. The woman looked up from the book she was reading and said, “Hmm?”

  “That’s my girlfriend right there.” Kelley pointed at Emira.

  The woman’s face came into curiosity. She looked to Emira, who shook her head and said, “Umm, that’s not true.”

  “She does this,” Kelley said, keeping his eyes on the woman to his right. “It’s cute, she plays this game when we’re on the train where she pretends like she doesn’t know me.”

  “Ohmygod.” Emira placed three fingers to her forehead.

  “When we get home she goes, ‘Wasn’t that funny, babe?’ And then we laugh about it. It’s hilarious.”

  The woman laughed and said, “That’s really romantic.”

  The train stopped and Emira said, “Bye.”

  Kelley called out, “See you at home, honey!” and the doors slid shut behind her.

  At Luca’s, Shaunie requested a booth on the balcony and bottle service, to which Zara said, “Excuse me, bish?” and Shaunie replied, “What? It’s on meee.” In a plush booth with white leather seats, the four girls sipped their drinks and bounced to the music. Shaunie ordered a second bottle, and when it arrived, Josefa held up her phone to announce to Snapchat, “We havin’ a blessed motha-fuckin’ night, okay?”

  Shaunie’s parents were as rich as Shaunie was generous. Her family’s money came from a southern chain of drive-through Laundromats, and Shaunie’s bigheartedness stemmed from a deep belief in karma, as well as inspirational quotes found online. Ever since they’d met (Zara had come to Emira after class and said, “This light-skinned girl offered to take us to a concert and she might kill us but it also might be dope”), Shaunie was constantly offering up her wardrobe, a first round of drinks, and the other half of her queen-sized bed. When Emira spent the night on Shaunie’s couch, she’d wake up sweating beneath a blanket that Shaunie had applied sometime in the night.

  Josefa, Shaunie’s roommate, was as inconsistent as Shaunie was reliable. She either stayed at home, glued to her phone and new memes and videos, speaking to her sister and mother in Spanish via FaceTime, or she wanted to rally and drink until sunrise. Josefa went to Boston University and was now a research assistant and fellow at Drexel. Her parents said they’d support her financially as long as she was in school. She currently was in the process of getting her second master’s, this one in public health.

  “I invited this guy here but I don’t think he’ll come.” Emira said this to Zara as they danced in front of their booth, behind the railing that looked down to the first floor. “I met him on the train, but it’s whatever.”

  “He got friends?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Zara nodded that she’d understood, and then put her leg on the table so she could twerk to the side.

  Shaunie leaned her ear in to say, “Boys are coming tonight?”

  “No no.” Emira shook her head. “Probably not.”

  Zara pushed Shaunie’s shoulder as she danced and said, “It doesn’t matter, ’cause you have a boyfriend.”

  Shaunie raised her hands in defense. “I was just asking!”

  Josefa announced, “I want a picture.” In the reflection from her phone’s screen, the girls were in order from lightest to dark. Josefa with her thick brown hair and glossed pink lips, Shaunie with her curls and honeyed round face, Zara with her freshly done twists and massive smile, and Emira at the end with her waves on her shoulders. They held on to the railing and looked into the flash.

  Emira kept checking her email. As she waited for messages to load, she’d think, Why did you try to be cute with this dumbass email thing? But when she saw that she had no new messages, she’d think, No, it’s good he didn’t come. He’d probably like Shaunie. It would h
ave been weird.

  But when she saw him walk onto the second floor of Luca’s, Emira saw why Kelley had not emailed her to get him at the door, and why he did not need her help getting in. Around eleven p.m., Kelley arrived with four friends, and these friends, to Emira’s indisputable surprise, were all black. Kelley looked like he was being filmed for the intro of an extremely problematic music video. One of the men was wearing sunglasses. Two of them were wearing Timberlands.

  When Emira went to make introductions, she saw that Josefa had put her phone away. Shaunie had draped her curls over one shoulder, and Zara just squinted hard at her friend. One of Kelley’s friends announced that they were getting drinks, and what did the ladies want. Together, the men went down to the bar, and when the last of their heads disappeared down the stairs, Zara said, “Umm, really bitch?”

  “Okay, you know what? It’s whatever. I’m in a good mood.” Emira blushed and sat down in the booth next to Shaunie. Josefa scooted into her right hip and the girls’ heels clunked together beneath them.

  “Donchyou whatever me.” Zara held up a pointer finger from the other side of Shaunie. “’Cause lemme get this straight . . . it’s okay when you do it? Is that right?”

  “Ohhh.” Josefa started to laugh and pointed at Zara. “’Cause you went home with redhead guy from Shaunie’s party?”

  Shaunie remembered this and said, “He was so nice!”

  Zara placed a hand to her chest. “Apparently I can’t swirl but you can? You get a leather jacket and you better than everybody?”

  “Okay, okay.” Emira laughed. “I get it. I’m sorry. But you know what I meant. That guy you fucked with had a compass tattoo.”

  “That boy went down for a whole EP.” Zara twirled one of her twists in her hands. “I ain’t seen or care about no tattoos.”

  Shaunie sat up so she could see over the railing to the bar. “Okay, but for real? Emira, that boy is fine.”