“Pete will cue you with a question,” Eliza replied before briskly exiting the room.
Priya reached into a giant pouch attached at her hip and spritzed my hair deliberately with hair spray. “All set, honey.” She winked at me and followed Eliza out the door.
“Promise me,” I said, turning to Lola and Cleo, “that we’re going out for mimosas after this, no matter how it goes.”
“Fran, I called in sick for you,” Lola said, offering me a loving smirk. “You’re stuck with me today whether you like it or not. Also, worst-case scenario, we can discuss the gorgeous woman I met in the bathroom earlier. I’ve already slid into her Insta DMs.”
“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Cleo shook her head at Lola, but she was smiling too. This was classic Lola: confident, unabashedly brave, ready to flirt even while peeing.
“Maria, my TA, is handling seminar prep,” Cleo assured me. “First round is on me.”
“I love you guys,” I said, my heart racing.
“And we’ll start figuring out your new life plan,” Lola said, reaching over to grab something out of her bag. “I got you a present that we can all do together later.”
She passed a small white box to me, and one to Cleo. “A DNADiscovery kit?” I asked, reading the delicate black font across the front.
She nodded, all-knowing. “Remember when you said the other night that losing your job felt like losing your identity? Well, now you can get to know more about the rest of you. And we’ll do it with you. It’ll be fun!”
She said this with a shrug of her shoulders, as if spitting into a bottle alongside friends were a typical bonding activity, like a night out playing pool.
“I’m pretty sure I know my results already,” Cleo said with a scoff. Both sets of her grandparents had emigrated from Korea.
“And I’m going to be, like ninety-nine percent Ashkenazi,” Lola said, laughing. “But you never know! One of my interns found a whole set of cousins they didn’t know about.”
My stomach churned at the thought of digging into my ancestry. There were some things we just didn’t talk about in my family, the main one being my birth father.
“Or we could just focus on the fact that she’s a Sagittarius with an Aquarius moon and Leo rising, and get her chart done,” said Cleo, who yesterday had very studiously asked me for the exact time and location of my birth.
My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. “We’re ready for you,” Eliza said with a wave of her hand forward. “Pete will lead the interview, but Jenna, our traffic reporter, is onstage as well. She covers subway delays, so it’s a perfect tie-in.”
I clasped my hands at my chest, turning back to my friends. “What if he thinks I’m a weirdo?” I lowered my voice in hopes that Eliza wouldn’t hear me.
“One, he won’t,” Cleo said, steady and reassuring. “Two, who cares?”
“Three”—Lola tapped her index finger to her chin, squinting in thought—“do you care?”
The swirling sea of nerves in my stomach told me that yes—yes, I did care. I wanted this stranger to like me, to know that there was more to me than the sweaty, snotty mess he met on the subway. But there was no time to have this conversation right now. Instead, I twisted my middle and index fingers into symbols of good luck and gave my friends one last look, stretching my lips wide. “Are my teeth okay?” I asked them.
“Always,” Cleo said, beaming, as if she were trying to transport all the love she felt for me into my body.
“Remember, you’re a fearless, badass bitch,” Lola said confidently.
“Have you met me?” I asked with a chortle, blowing them a kiss as I followed Eliza out the door.
*
The lights of the NYN studio were blinding, so much so that I almost missed it when the interview started. My stomach was in my knees, which were inexplicably sweating. I kept nervously tucking my hair behind my ear, even though it was firmly held in place with hair spray. In other words, I was a wreck.
“Our guest today has had quite a week,” Pete said with a warm smile. He was perched on a stool next to Jenna, who nodded along, auburn ponytail bouncing. “Becoming a viral internet sensation in an instant must have come as quite a shock. Franny, why don’t you tell us about it in your own words.”
“Okay, well, first, thanks for having me!” I let out a nervous laugh and smiled just a bit too wide for what felt like an eternity.