She grabbed for the bottle of champagne and waved it in front of me. “Could’ve fooled me.”
I held up my hands, tired of running in circles that seemed to have no finish line. “Maybe we were stupid to think that after Gabe and I broke up our friendship could go on like nothing happened. You chose your side. I get it.” I ceremoniously picked up my glass of the $800 bottle of Dom Pérignon and lifted it in a cheers motion. “And I chose mine.” I pulled a long sip from the flute before resting it back on the table between us. “There’s nothing more to say. I guess we’re done.”
The corners of Marisol’s eyes were wet with tears, but she cleared her throat and threw some cash down on the table as she rose from her chair. “Until you see this has nothing to do with Gabe or Adam and everything to do with you, I guess we are done.”
Chapter Fifteen
True to his word, Charlie texted Lyla, and we arranged to meet the next day at her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Climbing out of the M Train, I pushed through the throngs of early-morning commuters until I reached the Knickerbocker Avenue exit. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, the air crisp and fresh, fragrant with the scent of pizza mixed with the sweet, herby cloud blooming from a nearby vape pen. I looked for an address, scanning the streets and signs, but after a few seconds of confusion, I ducked into the first shop I saw in search of someone to ask.
Pulling open the heavy glass door, I was assaulted by the thick, dank stench of weed and gave a little cough as I made my way to the counter through a haze of smoke. A lithe young hipster stood behind the counter, which displayed glass tubes and thingamabobs that I couldn’t even identify. A thin gray thread floated up past his lips as he asked, “What can I get you? We have a special on Gorilla Punch and also Marshmellow vape carts.”
“Oh, I’m not . . . um . . . I don’t need that today. Thanks. But I was wondering if you know where I can find Morgan Avenue. Is that close by? I just got off the subway, and I’m a little turned around.”
He hiked up his pants with a shimmy and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “Morgan Avvvveee.” He dragged out the words as he thought out loud. “You came up on the M, right? Then you were parallel to Morgan. You just took a wrong turn when you left the station. Head back, and it’ll be on the other side. Just cross over at the main intersection, can’t miss it.”
I threw a few bucks into his tip jar as a thank-you and stepped back into the fresh air, a little dizzy from the possible contact high. I retraced my steps back to the subway and started heading north on Morgan, checking the numbers as they descended until I found myself standing in front of Lyla’s apartment building. I hurried up the front steps into the lobby and pushed the ringer for apartment C3.
Suddenly, a bright voice from inside the intercom said, “Come on up,” followed by a click and a loud, vibrating buzz. I pushed open the vestibule door and started my ascent to the third floor, which incidentally was a breeze after the Mount Everest–like climb I made with Mindy.
A young woman with smooth dark skin, a round face, and wide, excited eyes answered the door with a smile. “You must be Avery. Come in.” She swept the door open and gestured widely with her arm to enter. “Girls, Avery’s here,” she called, her voice echoing down the corridor. “I’m Oaklyn, by the way. I go by Oak. Lyla’s just finishing getting ready, she’ll be right out.”
“Yo, what’s up?” one of the other roommates added as she approached us.
Oak put her arm around the girl’s waist. “This is Sevyn, and she is clearly a woman of many words.”
Sevyn shrugged and barely registered the slight. “Emotions are overrated. I either eat ’em or yeet ’em.”
“Ooh, love that. That should be a T-shirt slogan,” Lyla said, coming out of her room to greet us. “Hey, Avery. I was so happy when I saw Charlie’s text yesterday. We’ve been interviewing a lot of randos and one’s literally been weirder than the last.”
“You’re telling me. The last apartment I looked at was advertised as being subterranean. It was more like sub-subterranean. No windows. Just concrete cinder walls. I kept waiting for the guy from The Silence of the Lambs to pop out and offer me some lotion,” I joked.
Lyla, Sevyn, and Oak all looked at me quizzically. Okay, note to self: if I was going to move in here, no pop culture references before the year 2000.
“Anyway, so it’s just the three of you who live here together?” I asked.
“Not quite. We have one other roommate, Ass, who travels a lot for work. She’s hardly ever home, so she has the smallest bedroom in the back,” Oak said.
“Her name is Ass?”
“Aston,” she replied.
“Right . . .”
Oak continued, “She told us that as long as you weren’t sus, she trusted us to give the green light.”
“I . . . I don’t think I’m sus.”
Lyla said, “Great! That’s the vibe I get from you. Actually, I consulted my tarot and crystals about your aura this morning before you arrived, and it seems like you’ll be a decent fit, according to my cards. And the universe, no cap. And my favorite psychic on the Tok.”
“The Tok?”
“TikTok, obvi,” Lyla answered.
“Obvi, right. Well, that’s good news,” I offered, still a bit overwhelmed by the Gen-Z lingo being hurled in my direction. Living with four Gen Zers in Brooklyn was a world away from the life I’d been living on the Upper East Side only a few weeks ago, but compared to the limited options I’d seen, this seemed far and away the best one. Not to mention that there was something comforting about my less than six degrees of separation from Lyla and the fact that Charlie had vouched for her.
Trust wasn’t something I had much of these days, Adam’s cool deceptions still haunting my thoughts and decisions like a looming shadow. If I could be that foolish once, was it out of the realm of possibility to think I could be that oblivious again? I hated him for robbing me of my ability to trust my gut . . . because look at where it got me.
Lyla continued, “Great. We all have pretty crazy schedules, but Oak is the only one that works from home and she usually takes her MacBook to the park or a WeWork a few blocks away. We don’t host crazy parties or anything, but we do love a good night out. The rent is nine hundred dollars. Think you can swing that?”
I did a quick tabulation of the average of what my tips might be and added it to my paltry savings . . . carry the one . . . it was certainly more affordable than the other apartments I’d seen but would still be tight. I definitely would need to increase my big belting numbers at the diner and start working on hitting that high E above middle C pronto. My pulse quickened at the thought of having to possibly drum up a rendition of “Defying Gravity” （which had always been my most lucrative and crowd-pleasing showstopper）。 But since every time I thought of it, the sound of me mooing made my insides turn into molten lava, I hadn’t been planning on bringing it back into rotation unless I was desperate.
Damn.
I answered, “I can manage the rent. So, I’ll take it, that is, if you’ll have me.” I smiled politely and then remembered I hadn’t even seen which room would be mine. They could be putting me in Harry Potter’s under-the-stairs closet for all I knew. But did it really matter at this point?