Serena nodded, completely unfazed. “So nice to meet you, Franny,” she said, flashing bleached-white teeth.

“You too,” Franny said, looking from Serena to me, then back to Serena, trying to connect the dots. “Okay, well”—she offered us a small wave, and now her voice had shifted to an unnaturally cheerful tone—“have fun, you two!”

“Come show me your new office,” Serena said, dragging me back toward the elevator. “And we’ve gotta get a picture of these tacos for Instagram before we eat them.”

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Franny

My phone rang while I was in the middle of multitasking, too many tabs open across my computer screen to count. In one, I was confirming my orders for Hayes and Eleanor’s office. Load-in was in a month, and everything was on rush order. Then there was the response to Anna that I’d started but never sent, which I kept in my Google Docs and mostly just stared at. And then tab after tab of financial stuff: bank account, credit card balance, student loans. I’d been staring at those too, but not shockingly, the balances still remained unpaid.

“Mom, hi,” I said, tucking the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I could keep working.

“Hi, honey.” Her voice crackled on the other end; they had terrible service at their house. “Just calling to check in on things.”

“Everything’s good here,” I said, fudging. Technically, things were fine. I had clean underwear on and had managed to drink at least one glass of water so far today. That counted for something, right?

“I was just telling Marianne how in demand you are,” she said.

Ah, Marianne, her best friend since high school. They seemed to spend most of their time discussing what their kids were up to. Marianne’s daughter, Ruby, a year younger than me, worked as an RN at the local hospital’s pediatric ward and was pregnant with her second kid. Plus, she and her husband lived ten minutes away from Marianne.

By Mom Measurements, Ruby was always beating me handily. Even as kids, it always felt like we were held up against each other, her very active school sports schedule compared to the time I spent doodling in notebooks. Needless to say, we spent our childhood in very different friend groups and never had much to say to each other when our moms got the families together.

“I’m working on a big office opening right now,” I said, giving her information that would hopefully make her stop worrying. “I’ll send you and Jim pics when it’s all installed.”