Chapter 1Hannah
Sometimes being a Jersey girl in New York City had its benefits, like approval from her boss to order a six-layer vanilla rainbow cake from New Jersey’s own Cake Boss for her office birthday celebration. She only turned thirty once.
Hannah’s phone buzzed with yet another notification: You have memories with Kate Novack, Stephanie Lansford, and 32 others...
She’d been waiting for that to pop up between all the texts and birthday posts. After twelve years on Facebook, there was a lot to reminisce over. And today, there would be plenty embarrassing memories to scroll through.
She glanced around the small office, but the interns and staff writers were still enjoying birthday cake. Only the section editors—like Hannah—were back at their desks, scrambling to finish layouts. Hannah had finished her section the day before, affirming her New Year’s resolution to have her section in before deadline every issue. She took a bite of cake. Sugar coursed through her, fortifying her for the mortification that was sure to follow as she clicked on the Memories notification.
Kate... Kate... Kate and Stephanie. She scrolled further, bypassing graduate school and going straight for the college memories. Kate... more Kate... Kate and Will. She paused on a picture from her twentieth birthday where she was smooshed between Kate and Will, each of them kissing one of her cheeks. Their eyes were glassy, their skin glossy with sweat. She remembered that birthday. The same couldn’t be said for her twenty-first, though the pictures told quite the story. Hannah, Will, and Kate—the three musketeers. God, they were so unoriginal and so drunk.
She stopped on the last picture in the thread—her eighteenth birthday, two months into freshmen year of college. She and Kate, newly best friends, sat in their dorm room, a pilfered bottle of booze between them. She squinted at the photo—Jägermeister. Gross.
Saving the picture to her photos, she added it to a text to Kate. We were so little, she typed.
Kate’s reply came quickly, a series of scream emojis followed by: My eyebrows. Your hair. What were we thinking?
Hannah snorted, looking around again to make sure no one was paying attention to her. Things were laid back at the Deafening Silence New York office, but she didn’t need one of her interns seeing a photo of her when she was younger than them. In the photo, Hannah’s hair had been a dark auburn, a look that didn’t suit her complexion at all, and Kate hadn’t yet learned to love getting her eyebrows waxed. But still, they had been so cute and little and skinny.
We were adorable, Hannah typed back. And skinny. Omg!
Kate sent several more distressed emojis. I prefer being thirty, flirty, and thriving. Skinny thighs be damned.
The ding of a new email pulled Hannah’s attention back to the office. She glanced at her computer before taking another bite of cake. Skinny thighs be damned indeed.
Re: Arctic Monkeys Feature.
Great. Edits on her birthday. She would look at them later.
“Hannah?”
Hannah straightened at the sound of Riley’s voice and swiveled her chair to face her boss. “Are you here to tell me how awesome my section turned out this month?”
Riley held a plate in one hand, and in her other, she gripped a bouquet of white carnations.
“No, but it was definitely awesome. These came for you,” she said, holding out the flowers.
Hannah stared at them for too long. White carnations were her favorite, but her boyfriend wasn’t the flower-sending type. In fact, she was pretty sure Brian wouldn’t have remembered her birthday had Kate not mentioned it at least four times the last time they were out at McMahon’s.
“Did it have a card?” she asked, clearing a space on her desk.
Riley put them down. “No card. I asked.”
“Oh.” Hannah fingered the petals and breathed in their familiar scent. They had to be from Kate. “Thanks for dropping them off.”
“No problem.” Riley shifted on her feet. “Listen, I have to go. CeCe’s school just called, and she’s running a temperature again. Can you assign the Atlas Genius concert to one of the interns?”
Hannah put a comforting hand on Riley’s arm. Daycare was kicking CeCe’s butt, and it wasn’t even winter yet. And soon, Riley would have two babies to care for. “You mean, you’re giving me the honor of informing Henry that he gets to cover the Atlas Genius show?”
The kid had lyrics from one of their songs tattooed on his arm. Hannah wasn’t even that hardcore.
“Yes, please,” Riley said, resting her hand on her ever-growing belly. At nine months pregnant, Riley looked ready to pop. Hannah didn’t see how that baby girl was going to stay in there much longer. “Anyway, happy birthday! Hope you have something fun planned tonight.”
Hannah waited until Riley padded away, the drag of her feet on the hardwood one of the most comforting sounds in Hannah’s life, before snapping a picture of the bouquet and sending it to Kate. Thanks for the flowers.
I didn’t send you flowers, weirdo, Kate wrote back.
What? Hannah typed. She’d been certain they were from Kate. No one else would send her white carnations.
Your parents?
I don’t think so, Hannah replied. They got me tickets to that off-Broadway show.
That’s right. Who brought them to you? Maybe you have a secret admirer.
Hannah laughed. Riley.
The typing ellipses appeared, followed by a flurry of back-to-back messages:
She would be the first one I’d suspect. ;-)
Heading to a meeting.
I’ll pick up wine, you get dinner.
Meet you at your place.
