“Listen here, my true crime podcasts keep me—”
“Paranoid?” I offer.
“Informed,” she says.
“Well, you can relax now; I have not been abducted.” I catch my reflection in the mirror and grimace. Tired hazel eyes, a wild high pony of brown sweat-frizzed curls, flushed tomato red cheeks. “But, oof, do I lookrough.”
“Is your hair at the porcupine stage? If so, please send a pic.”
“You’re a turd.” I drop the paper towel pack into the dispenser and flip down the lid. “My hair isslightlyfrizzy from the sweaty work of deep cleaning this restroom, which I’m proud to say no longer reeks of the bowels of hell.”
Lauren makes a retching sound. “Ew.”
“The joys of the job.” I dab sweat from my face with my forearm and sigh. “I really need a vacation.”
“Yes, take one!” she says. “And come visit me, crash my hotel. I’ll work all day, you’ll relax all day, then we’ll party all night.”
I laugh. “When would you sleep in this scenario?”
“I wouldn’t,” she says. “But it would be worth it. So why are you closing today? You never close on Tuesdays.”
I neverusedto because that was one of our nights—Tacos and Tequila Tuesdays, Fried Food and French Wine Fridays—until Lauren moved away almost two years ago for a new job that has her racking up frequent-flyer miles and living out of a suitcase. Since then, we’re rarely in the same time zone, let alone the same city.
“Typically,” I tell her, “Tuesday is not one of my days to close, but Jordan, who was supposed to close, got a call from her son’s day care that he’d puked and needed to be picked up early, so I said I’d cover for her.”
I squeeze soap from the giant refill jug into the dispenser, and it makes a loud fart noise that echoes in the bathroom. “That was the soap. Not me.”
“Sure it was,” she says.
I slap the cap down on the soap jug. “Rude.”
Lauren snorts. “So did Jordan offer to swap you a closing shift to make up for covering for her?”
“Not… yet,” I hedge.
“Thea.”
“Iwillfollow up with her.” I scoop up my phone, taking it off speaker mode, and walk down the hall, then set the cleaning supply bucket back in the closet. Shutting the door, I sigh with relief. My least favorite task at the bookstore, finally done.
“You’ve said that before,” Lauren reminds me. “Because Jordan has done this before.”
“I know. But she’s juggling new motherhood and a full-time job, and that has to be hard. I don’t want to push her.”
“You could stand to push alittle, Thea.”
I head into the office and grab my cross-body bag along with the stack of children’s books I keep forgetting to take with me, then head for the staff-only exit. “Guess what,” I tell her.
“A blatant subject change?”
I smile as I yank the door shut. My friend knows me well. “I’m finally free! Store’s closed.”
Lauren yells, “Huzzah!”
“Now, tell me what’s been going on,” I say. “Get me all caught up.”
“Eh.” I hear the glug of liquid poured into a glass, a margarita in the making—Lauren is the queen of routine, and it’s Tequila Tuesday. “The job is finally not perfect anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Lo. Have a gulp of that margarita and tell me all about it.”