What would my half sister think of these dishes? I wondered. Would she like them? I dropped my head onto the cushion and let out a quiet moan. I still hadn’t written her back, even though I’d been googling her nonstop.
On Instagram, Anna’s design firm had almost sixty thousand followers. I found photos of her at Fashion Week in Milan all over the internet, balancing in heels as if her feet didn’t hurt. It was like looking at photos of myself misshapen in a fun-house mirror. Olive skin, curly dark hair, the same serious set of eyebrows. Just living a much more glamorous, accomplished, better-dressed life.
I forced my brain back onto work stuff, but that only made me feel nauseous with anxiety. Anytime I tried to sit down and think through what it would take to truly work for myself—the budget, the hours, the money I’d need to make to pay my bills, the clients I’d need to have to actually make said money—I was overcome with imposter syndrome, which had only gotten worse since I learned about my cooler, more successful Italian doppelg?nger. This was the dark, murky hole of insecurity that I fell into the second self-doubt came knocking at my door.
Not that this was a new feeling, of course. I was good at pushing it aside most of the time, but getting laid off was like a welcome mat, inviting it to show up whenever it wanted. It crept into my brain as my head hit the pillow, sat across from me at my tiny kitchen table as I drank my morning coffee.
This fucking day. Lola’s text popped up as I was pacing my apartment, brainstorming, and I sent back a GIF of Daniel Radcliffe screaming “HELP ME” and went back to my pacing, plotting my business trajectory in my head.
My phone chimed again. Teaching until 9, Cleo wrote. McManus later?
One of our favorite dive-bar haunts. My mind skipped over to my three-alarm fire of a budget. I gotta stick to a tight budget these days, I wrote, capping it off with a sad face.
Roof then? Lola responded.
Cleo’s roof had been a meeting spot for us since our early twenties. Not that it was easy to get to. It involved crawling out onto the fire escape of her fourth-floor walk-up on the Lower East Side and climbing a short but rickety ladder. We’d gotten very good over the years at juggling bottles, bags of takeout, and beach chairs in one hand while guiding ourselves upward with the other.
ROOOOOFFFFFFF, Lola wrote back.
“Well, that settles it,” I said to the walls of my apartment. I thumbs-up-emojied back, just as an email alert popped up on my phone. I clicked on the notification to open it, and it was from Lola’s coworker Grant. I held in a breath; this was the message I’d been waiting for, the thing that would be both my creative and financial lifeline, a rope to pull me back to the safe comforts of my old life. My eyes scanned the words on the screen.
“We so loved meeting you, Franny,” the email read. “But we’ve decided to go with a designer who’s also a parent, to really capitalize on their expertise. Thank you so much for your time and thoughtful consultation. We hope our paths cross again soon!”
Goddamn it. My heart sank. Now what the hell was I supposed to do?
*
Hours later, we were spread out on towels doubling as picnic blankets. The roof was dingy gray and covered in bird poop and leaves. There was nothing nice about it, other than it gave us the opportunity for fresh air and a stellar view of the Williamsburg Bridge. For us, that was enough.
While Cleo and Lola sipped from cans of Pacifico, I slurped out of my metal water bottle. We passed around a bag of Pirate’s Booty between us. Technically, it was a free meal. I applauded my frugalness without letting myself get too depressed that I was thirty years old and eating white cheddar puffs for dinner because I was terrified the business I hadn’t even officially started yet was doomed to go under. Not that I was going to bring that up tonight. I needed this time with my friends to decompress, forget for a moment that I was screwed. Besides, my friends worried enough about me already.
“Franny?” Cleo said. “You okay?”
And…that’s the problem with good friends—they know when something’s up, even when you don’t tell them.
“I didn’t get that nursery job. With Grant.” I squeezed out a small, sad smile, in an attempt to act like I was okay.
“No!” Lola gasped as Cleo leaned in to give my arm a squeeze.
“I was kind of counting on that for…well, I guess for everything,” I said slowly. “And I really need to figure out how to get some actual clients this year if I want to…you know.”
They stared at me. “Want to what?” Lola asked.