“Chummy?”
“It’s part of my quarter-life crisis to try out new words. Chummy felt right.” She shrugs, picking up a notepad from my desk. There’s no such thing as privacy when it comes to Emma. She reads my notes about the quote for new lighting at the Sutten gallery as if she has any idea what she’s reading.
“Tell me about this quarter-life crisis,” I demand with a big sigh. I know her well enough to know that she won’t leave until we’ve talked about whatever she came here to discuss. Even if she’s having to talk about it with me instead of Margo.
She drops the notepad back onto my desk as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, narrowly missing the glass of water she insisted she needed the moment she came into my office. “That’s so nice of you to ask,” she tells me sarcastically. “Now, are you going to listen this time?”
“Sure,” I answer with a resigned sigh. “It’s not like I have anything else going on.”
Emma claps her hands together, straightening her back to prepare to say what I’m sure is a long story that’ll put me even more behind on my schedule for the day. “I don’t know what I want to do with my life,” she admits, chewing on her lip nervously.
“I thought you had a job?” Maybe she was fired, and that’s why she’s bothering me in the middle of a workday.
She lets out an annoyed sigh. “You really weren’t listening, were you?”
I stay silent because I think it’s pretty clear—I wasn’t listening to her at all. I was too busy thinking about how I can check off everything on my to-do list here so I can go back to Sutten. Why I feel the need to return so quickly is beyond me. I tell myself it’s because I’m still trying to get the gallery up and running smoothly, and it isn’t because I’m wanting to see the woman at the coffee shop next door who hates me.
“I quit,” Emma says with a shrug. I’m a reluctant friend of hers, but since she’s given me no option, I feel a tinge of concern for her. She looks sad and defeated, a line creasing across her forehead.
“You quit?”
“Yep. Margo is here. Winnie is…well, I don’t know where, but she isn’t in California, so I didn’t want to be there. I quit.”
“And you flew to New York? Where are you staying?”
“God, you suck at paying attention to anything. I’ve been living at Beck and Margo’s old penthouse for a week while I get my shit together.”
Damn. Maybe I need to catch up with Beck and Margo. I thought they’d sold the penthouse when they moved to their giant brownstone. I also had no idea that Emma had been back here. “Well, the great thing is that you’re in New York. There are so many jobs here.”
“What if I don’t know if I want to live in New York?”
I frown because sometimes I ask myself the same question. I always thought I loved the city, but now that I’m in my midthirties, I often wonder if I’d rather end up somewhere else.
“Where do you want to live? What do you want to do?”
Emma throws her hands into the air. “That’s the problem! I don’t know what I want to do, where I want to be. I’m just now realizing that I’ve spent the last few years following my best friends around because they’re my family—the ones I care about, at least,” she adds. I want to pry and ask what she means by that, but unlike her, I respect privacy, so I assume if she wanted to elaborate on her family life, she would.
“And now they both have their own lives, and I have no idea what the hell I want to do with mine.”
I stare at Emma for a few seconds because I’m realizing she and I might be more similar than I thought. Maybe the universe has a funny way of bringing a friend into your life right when you need them. She still gets on every bit of my nerves like a little sister, but I do understand where she’s coming from. The older I get, the more I don’t want to run galleries and instead would rather avoid people and get lost in long days with my hands covered in clay.
“Maybe give yourself some time to figure it out,” I offer, knowing I might need to take my own advice. I prefer to just avoid the fact that I don’t know if I love it here the way I used to. My life used to be fun and exciting. Now it seems mundane and simple—something I’m beginning to not enjoy.
“I guess.” Emma shrugs. “I do love New York,” she offers, her eyes catching on my desktop screen. It’s a photo of the exterior of the gallery in Sutten. I’ve hired someone local to help with the curb appeal on the outside. It’s something I was told to do, not understanding why there needs to be potted plants on the outside of an art gallery. That type of shit isn’t necessary in Manhattan, but apparently, it makes it seem more approachable in Sutten.