Brooklyn Girls Page 3

  “Yes, they can!” I say. “I’ve never stood up to them. I just do what they say, and then avoid them.”

  “Sounds healthy,” Julia says.

  I shrug. Is anyone’s relationship with their parents healthy?

  “I can’t believe you were fired!” says Coco. “That must have been awful.” She reaches over to give me a hug. For the second time today, I have to blink away tears. I swear I want to cry more when people are nice to me than when they’re mean.

  “Yuh,” says Madeleine. “Who would have thought dancing topless at a party would backfire like that?”

  “I was wearing a bra!”

  “Pia, it was a sheer bra.”

  “Stop it, Maddy.” Julia forks another piece of French toast onto her plate. I notice she hasn’t said anything about not wanting me to move out.

  “Listen, I have loads of cash, you won’t go hungry … or thirsty.” Angie picks up a piece of crispy bacon with her fingers and dips it in a pool of maple syrup, and then lowers her voice. “And I think the laundry room flooding might have been our, uh, my fault. I’ll help pay for it.”

  “I can loan you money, too,” says Julia quickly, her competitive nature kicking in.

  “Don’t be crazy.” I can’t accept charity. I won’t. “If I need money that badly, I’ll go to a bank. Get a loan.”

  “Are you crazy? Take a loan? You’d have some bananas interest rate, and the loan would just get bigger and bigger and you’d never be able to pay it back! So you’d have no credit rating! It would destroy your life!” Wow, Julia is really upset about the idea of a loan.

  “Okay, jeez, I won’t go to a bank,” I say. “Anyway, that’s really not the point. The point is, I need a job. And I just have no idea what I could do.”

  “What was your major?” asks Coco.

  “Art history.”

  “Art … historian?”

  Everyone at the table giggles.

  “Yes, I chose a very impractical major. No, I don’t know why.”

  “Probably because it sounded cool,” says Angie, flashing me her best I’m-so-helpful smile.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Not helping.”

  “I could see you working at a fashion magazine,” says Coco, hopping off her chair. “Who wants more coffee?”

  “Me please!” say Julia and Angie in unison, and frown at each other.

  “I’m not a writer,” I say. “Anyway, it would be all Devil Wears Prada–y. And the models would make me feel shitty.”

  “Besides, it’s really hard to get a job in anything related to fashion,” says Angie. For a second, I wonder if she knows that from personal experience. Before I can ask, she picks up her phone to read a text.

  “And I need to earn money, now,” I say. And, I add silently, it’s a fact: the cooler the job, the worse the money. My salary at the PR agency—not even that cool compared to working in, like, fashion or TV or whatever—was thirty-five thousand a year, which, if you break it down and take out money for rent and bills, works out to about twenty-five dollars a day. I mean, a decent facial in New York is at least a hundred and fifty. How could anyone ever survive on that salary and still eat, let alone have a life?

  Julia is in fix-it mode now. “Let’s make a list of your skills and experience. What did you do at the PR agency last week?”

  I think back. “I pretended not to spend all my time e-mailing my friends, sat in on meetings about things I didn’t know anything about, and watched the clock obsessively. I swear I almost fell asleep, like, twenty times, right at my desk.”

  Everyone (except Madeleine) laughs at this, though, honestly, it was kind of depressing. Am I really meant to do that for the rest of my life?

  “If you need fast cash, get a fast-cash job, girl,” says Julia. “Waitressing. Bartending.”

  I blink at her. “Manual labor?”

  Madeleine makes a snorting sound of suppressed laughter. I ignore her. I said it to be funny. Kind of.

  “With that kind of princess attitude, you’re screwed,” says Julia.

  “I want a real job. Something that will impress my parents, which means something in an office. Something with an official business e-mail address.”

  “So e-mail your résumé to PR recruitment agencies in Manhattan,” says Julia. “Then wow them with how bright and smart and awesome you are. Any PR agency in Manhattan would be lucky to have you!”

  “Okay.” I love having a bossy best friend sometimes. It makes decision-making much easier.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Pia Keller?”

  I stand up, smiling the hi-I’m-totally-employable smile that I’ve perfected during my previous fourteen recruitment agency interviews.

  Bridget, the consultant who reluctantly agreed to “discuss options” with me, smiles thinly and offers a boneless handshake. My mother judges women on their shoes, but in the past week, I’ve learned to judge women on their handshakes. Limp is not a good sign.

  I follow Bridget out of the reception area down a narrow hallway to a tiny meeting room. For a second, I consider turning around and walking out. I know exactly what’s about to happen, and I almost can’t bear to go through it again.

  But I need a job. Fixing Vic’s kitchen ceiling cost just over twenty-two hundred, which I split with Angie (she insisted, though I’m not sure the flooding was caused by her and Lord Hugh; the plumber said a drain was blocked with cigarette butts), and the last ten days has sucked up the five hundred dollars that were left, just on food and the subway and tampons and shampoo—you know, stuff. It is as painfully obvious as it is painful: New York is an expensive city. I have, as of this very second, exactly eight dollars to my name. And nothing left in my checking account. At all.

  So walking out of this interview is not an option.

  “Take a seat.” Bridget takes a small bottle of sanitizer out of her pocket and rubs a glob between her palms. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “Well.” I try to look confident, and not like I am broke and desperate. “Um, my name is Pia Keller, I’m twenty-two years old, and I have a degree in art history from Brown—”

  “Why art history?”

  “I’m fascinated by the way that art reflects the political-social climate in which it was created,” I say. That sounds good, right? “Sadly, it’s not that useful, unless you want to be an art historian!” I smile. She doesn’t. They never do. I should really drop that line.

  “And your internships?”

  “Uh, well, my parents live overseas, and we’re a really close family, so I spent vacations with them, which unfortunately didn’t leave much opportunity for internships.” As you can probably guess, this isn’t entirely true. I just never knew what kind of internship I’d want to do, and Angie always had something fun planned, so I joined her instead.

  “And now you want to work in PR. Why?”

  “I love public relations! I like helping to channel information to people through the right mediums, I like—” I pause, trying to remember again why I thought I’d like PR (because it sounded fun and I didn’t know what else to do?). “Helping companies, I mean, brands, build the right image, and organize events that create a buzz in the marketplace, and make a difference to modern society.” Oh, Pia. You utter tard. That was pathetic.

  “Here’s my problem, Pia.” Bridget clasps her hands together like she’s praying. “You are very young. You have no relevant qualifications. You have no experience. You have no skills. You are fundamentally unemployable.”

  “Um—”

  “Why would any company pay you a monthly salary when you can’t help them make money? Not to mention the time and human resources they’ll waste training you. And they have no way of knowing if it’ll even be worth it.” She holds out her hands, palms up, as if testing for rain. “No experience. No job.”

  Every single interview I’ve had so far has ended right here. “But I can’t get experience unless I have a job!” I can’t keep the panic-squeak out of my voice.
“What am I supposed to do?”

  She offers a smug smile. Some people are inordinately happy to tell other people that they’re screwed, have you ever noticed? “It’s a tough market. It’s the same across advertising, marketing, digital media … the roles are only going to the very best and brightest.”

  “Not me, then,” I say, trying to get a smile.

  A smile-free Bridget stands up. “Before you go, we have a ritual here that every candidate creates a digital intro of themselves, no matter how unpromising they are.”

  “A … what?” Unpromising? Bitch.

  “A digital intro. For our records,” she says, leading me into an open-floorplan office. She claps her hands to get the attention of her colleagues. “Everyone! This is Pia. Dave, do it!”

  A guy with overly gelled hair points a digital camera at me. “Who are you? And what are you looking for?”

  As the entire room stares at me, their expressions ranging from uninterested to indifferent, pure fear washes through me.

  I hate public speaking. Even if my voice shows up, I hate myself for being so hopeless. It’s like I’m standing beside myself saying “you are such a moron” the whole time.

  I can’t do this.

  “Go!” says Dave.

  “My name is,” I start, and my voice breaks and disappears. My brain is thumpety-thumpeting as Dave’s words ricochet around. Who am I? And what am I looking for?

  “Speak up!” shouts Bridget.

  I clear my throat quickly and start again, mumbling and racing through the words. “My name is Pia Keller. I’m twenty-two years old.” They’re all looking at me, all thinking how stupid I am. I want to look smart, I want them to remember me. Oh, God, the pressure. “And I’m looking for a job … I mean, I’m looking for a career … that, uh, I can love.”

  What a stupid thing to say, Pia. “That’s what I … that’s what … I’m … yeah.”

  Shut up.

  Dave sits back down, making a little “Yikes!” face that he probably thinks I can’t read. In the soul-crushing moment of silence that follows, I feel a shame so strong, it’s painful.

  Seconds later, they swivel back to their laptops. I am gone, forgotten, an irrelevant blip in their day. Another dumb graduate who can’t string a sentence together.

  At the elevators, I try to smile as I grasp Bridget’s boneless hand.

  I’ll never get a job.

  I’ll never make any money. I won’t be able to pay the rent for Rookhaven, not that it’ll matter, because my parents will turn up and force me to move to Zurich with them, and get a boring-as-hell job, and I’ll be alone, forever, for the rest of my life.

  As the elevator doors close, I suddenly feel like the air is being sucked out from around me. I fall against the wall, trying to catch my breath. Oh, God, please no, not a full panic attack, not now.…

  Then my stomach lurches and my face tingles and I know exactly what’s going to happen in about three seconds.

  I’m going to puke.

  I press every button and the elevator lurches to a halt on the fifth floor, and I run out, frantically looking for a bathroom sign. Where is it, oh, shit, I’m going to be sick, I know it, I know it.…

  A split second later, I throw myself onto my hands and knees, vomiting in an empty umbrella basket in front of an office doorway. It’s an acidy, watery gush that I can’t control, and when it’s all out, I wipe my mouth with the back of my jacket arm and lean my forehead against the wall, panting with relief.

  Why, hello, anxiety vomit. We meet again.

  At least it wasn’t a full-blown freak-out. I haven’t had one of those in a couple of years, and not a really big one since, yep, you guessed it, August 26.

  I look back down at my puke basket. I can’t leave that here for someone else to clean up, right? It’s gross.

  Five minutes later I’m walking as confidently as I can out of the building onto Broadway, carrying a stolen umbrella basket of puke.

  So.

  Another stunning success of a meeting.

  Yay me. Way to go.

  As I always do when I’m in Manhattan, I look up, between the buildings reaching into the sky over my head. Have I mentioned that I love big cities, and New York most of all?

  I do. The people, the traffic, the noise, the bars, the restaurants, that indescribable and chronically over-referenced buzz.… I love knowing that something is always going on, right around the corner.

  I was born here, but we left when I was a little kid. So I never had that chance to own New York the way people who are born-and-bred do. I’ve never owned anywhere, really. I never belong.

  I walk down Broadway, looking at all the people rushing past with cool faces and occupied minds. How did they get to where they are today? What do they have that I don’t? Why does everyone else seem so calm about this whole adulthood thing? All I feel is panic, a tight flutter in my chest at the thought that I might not be able to do what everyone else finds so easy.… I might not be able to make a life for myself, a real life. Ever.

  Maybe I should focus on what I want my life to look like, I muse, as I drop the stolen basket of puke into a garbage bin. Positive visualization, right?

  I want to work hard, love my job, and be good at it. I really do. I want to earn my own money. I want a home (walk-in closet a must) of my very own, that no one can take away from me, and I want to keep my friends forever. Oh, and I want to date gorgeous guys, and one day do the whole marriage-babies thing, and so on and so forth.

  How do I get from here to there? I’m jobless, penniless, and covered in puke.

  I wish I could press fast-forward.

  Sighing heavily, I begin my walk all the way back to Brooklyn. I can’t afford a cab and it’s too hot for the subway. My feet start blistering right after Canal Street, so I buy a pair of three-dollar sandals and hook my heels over the handle of my bag. I now have five dollars left. What can I get with five dollars? A couple of Jell-O shots? This is it. It’s over. Then my stomach growls, so I spend my last five dollars in the world on a Fage yogurt and a Luna bar. No point in buying a cookie. A sugar crash would not improve my day.

  When I’m walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, with Manhattan on one side of me and Brooklyn on the other, I make a decision. I have no money. I have no future.

  I will just call my parents and tell them I’ll move now.

  Why does that feel so wrong? I feel like, I don’t know, like maybe I am supposed to be here. Like maybe I belong.

  As I’m walking past a long stretch of grass outside some old memorial, I see a homeless woman. Old, gray-haired, stooped, and, despite the heat, she’s layered in grubby winter coats, and cardboard boxes are tied to her feet. Maybe I should offer her my sandals. I’m nearly home already, why not just walk the rest of the way in bare feet?

  We make eye contact, and I smile at her. And for a second, I think she’s going to smile back.

  Then she opens her mouth.

  “You!” she screams. “Go home! You’re not welcome here!”

  I immediately look away and keep walking. When I peek back, I see that she’s started to walk toward me. I quicken my pace, and hear her cackling with laughter.

  “I’m comin’! I’m comin’! Run!”

  So I run.

  As fast as I can.

  But I don’t know where I’m running to. Shit, where am I? I take the first left. Oh please let me find people. I don’t even know where I’m going, another corner and— Yes! People! I always feel safe in a crowd. I try to run down Court Street, then some woman shoves me, jabbing me hard in my boob with her elbow. I gasp in pain, start sobbing uncontrollably and stop running. Big, fat tears are coursing down my face and I’m breathless and hiccupy, half from running and half because I’m scared and desperate and I just bombed yet another job interview and I don’t know what’s next.

  I feel like I’m at the edge of an abyss. Do I turn around and go back, or do I jump and see what happens?

  Then a cab pulls up next
to me.

  A guy in a suit gets out. He’s so good-looking that I’m jolted out of my misery. Tanned skin, dark hair, the deepest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, and good eyebrows, eyebrows that almost make me wonder if he does something to make them so nice.… I can’t help it. I stare.

  Here’s the weird thing. As if sensing my stare, the guy pauses, too, turns his head, and our eyes meet. My heart thumps so strongly, I put my hand up in front of it, almost automatically. Shit, maybe I’m having a heart attack.

  The guy gives me a slow, easy smile and I smile back, thinking, You’re perfect. I feel the strangest sense of déjà vu, like I’ve met him before, a genuine click of recognition.

  And yes, that’s a totally stupid thing to think.

  “Hi,” he says, his voice breaking halfway through. It sounds so strange that we both laugh. Then, one of my heels falls from my bag onto the sidewalk.

  The guy immediately crouches down, picks it up, and, still on one knee, hands it to me. Like Prince freaking Charming. If I had a voice, I’d make a Cinderella joke. So instead, I lean over and take my shoe, my mouth still hanging open in stupid wonder.

  Prince Charming frowns and is just opening his mouth to speak, when—

  “Can you help me out, for God’s sake, you ridiculous man?” shouts a female voice with a British accent, and boom, the spell is broken. He immediately turns to help the woman out of the cab: a brunette as gorgeous as he is, in tight jeans, heels, and a silk top, trailing scarves and bags in that effortlessly messy London way. Girlfriend. He has a girlfriend.

  As soon as I see her, I put my head down and walk away, and I don’t stop to see if he looks after me. I can hear her voice echoing down the street as they walk into Sweet Melissa Patisserie. “And I was like, why, you know? And— Ooh! Waffles! Bliss! And he said, look, darling, you always knew it was going to be like this—”

  And then they’re gone. The perfect man … and his perfect girlfriend. I still feel an endorphin rush from smiling at him, is that weird? It probably is. Not to mention shallow, after the end-of-days hysteria of a few minutes ago.