The Christmas Orphans Club(17)
“We should sign Finn up,” I tell Priya. He stepped out a few minutes ago to answer a call from his sister. He was out of fingers in the game anyway.
“No, that’s so mean! I’d be furious if you ever did that to me.” Priya looks horrified by my suggestion.
“Trust me, he’ll love it.”
* * *
? ? ?
?Finn suggests we leave after the first two lackluster performances—a drunk college kid butchering “Summer Girls” by LFO and a woman scream-singing a particularly angry rendition of “You Oughta Know.”
“Let’s stay for a couple more,” I beg. “Please?”
He gives me a funny look but doesn’t protest.
When they announce his name, Finn glares at me. “I should have guessed.” But his mouth quirks into a coy smile.
“You don’t have to,” Priya says with a hand on his shoulder. “I told her it was cruel. Just so you know, it was all Hannah!”
Before she can finish her sentence, he’s already strutting up to the stage, performer mode activated.
* * *
? ? ?
?Priya stands on her chair and wolf whistles when Finn finishes his cover of “Bleeding Love.”
“Goose bumps, Finn, I have goose bumps.” Priya thrusts her arm in front of his face when he makes it back to our table. “You were amazing. I had no idea you could do that.”
“I told you I sing. We had a whole conversation about auditions last week when we went to the launch party for that energy drink.”
“Well, yeah,” Priya says, “but I didn’t think you were actually good.” Her hands shoot to her mouth, the lubrication of the four previous stops on our bar crawl having loosened her tongue. She rushes to cover: “I mean . . . why aren’t you getting cast if you can sing like that?”
Finn doesn’t take offense at her gaffe. “Everyone at these auditions is good. Talent is table stakes. But I don’t have any connections or credits. I’ve had directors tell me I don’t have the right look for the part, which is sometimes code for I’m too Black, but other times code for I’m not Black enough. Or sometimes the reason is totally minuscule. Like one time, I almost got cast for a role, but I was too tall for the costumes, and they didn’t have the time or resources, or maybe just the desire, to refit them.”
“That’s bullshit, Finn. That’s so unfair,” Priya rails.
“Life isn’t fair.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Does anyone want another?” He holds up his empty vodka soda.
“I’m good,” I say. “I have to be up at the ass crack of dawn for work tomorrow.” As the most junior full-time employee at Z100, I had no illusions about getting the whole week off. The station is closed for Christmas, playing a preprogrammed loop of music and ads, but tomorrow we’re back at it bright and early.
“Hannah Gallagher, rising star of radio, destined to outshine her starving artist best friend as she rockets towards success,” he says in a fake newscaster voice.
“I don’t know that I’d call my minimum wage job ‘success.’ I don’t think that’s what they were talking about at BC when they said to ‘set the world aflame,’?” I say, quoting the oft-invoked Jesuit motto they lobbed at us during various platitude-heavy speeches throughout college. But secretly, I was overjoyed to be converted to a full-time employee last month after paying my dues for more than a year as an unpaid intern.
No one was more surprised by my post-college career glow-up than me. I figured I’d wait tables or work at the box office of whatever theater’s production Finn was starring in. I only applied to the internship on a lark after a particularly frustrating conversation with a counselor at the campus career center. “What do you love?” she implored. The only things I could think of were music and my Christmas tradition with Finn, and only one of those was monetizable. Finn, on the other hand, is having a harder time finding his footing.
“Is anyone else starving?” Priya asks.
“Let’s get out of here,” Finn suggests. “We can still make the Waverly Diner.”
“Now that I’m on board with,” I say. It’s one of the few spots that has hash browns instead of home fries, making it our favorite. “Breakfast for dinner is kind of a Christmas thing for us.” I tell Priya.
“Okay, highs and lows of your first Christmas,” Finn prompts as he leads the way down Bleecker toward the West Village.
“My high was definitely your song, Finn. I’m still not over it. You had the whole bar on their feet.” Finn’s face lights up at her gushing praise. “Seriously,” Priya continues, “I don’t have any real basis for comparison, but this Christmas easily takes my top slot.”
I beam back at her, glad she gets it. “Want to do it again next year?” I ask.
“I would be honored.”
five
Hannah
This year, November 16
Wait for me on the boyfriend couch. Finishing up one thing! 5 mins! Priya texts.
I’m not sure what a boyfriend couch is, but it’s self-explanatory when I get to Glossier’s Lafayette Street office and spot three men scrolling through their phones on a pink tufted sofa in the reception area while their girlfriends shop for makeup in the attached showroom, sampling the brand’s minimalist shades and taking selfies in the perfectly lit mirrors.