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Wes, who is perched on the countertop observing the conversation with the vaguest of interest, says, “August, didn’t you go to Catholic school for a million years? Is your family horny for Jesus too?”
“Only the extended family,” she says. “Didn’t go for Jesus reasons. Louisiana public schools are crazy underfunded and my mom wanted me to go private, so I went and we were broke my whole life. Super great time. One of the nuns got fired for selling cocaine to students.”
“Damn,” Wes says. He never did find the keg, but there’s a thirty-rack of PBR beside him, and he’s fishing one out. “Wanna shotgun a beer?”
“I absolutely don’t,” August says, and takes the beer Wes holds out anyway. She untucks her pocketknife from her jean jacket and hands it over, then follows Wes’s lead and jams it into the side of her can.
“I still think that knife is cool,” Wes says, and they pop the tops and chug.
When people start having to do shots in the hallway, Myla flings open the door to 6F and yells, “Shoes off and nobody touch the plants!” And everything overflows into both apartments, drag queens perched on the steamer trunk, Popeyes aprons dropped in the hall, Wes reclined across Isaiah’s kitchen table like a Renaissance painting, Vera Harry cradling Noodles in his beefy arms. Myla busts out the grocery bag of Lunar New Year candy her mom sent and starts passing it around the room. Isaiah’s Canadian friend tromps by with a box of wine on her shoulder, singing “moooore Fraaanziaaaa” to the tune of “O Canada.”
At some point, August realizes her phone’s been chiming insistently from her pocket. When she pulls it out, all the messages have collected to fill the screen. She swallows down an embarrassingly pleased sound and tries to play it off as a burp.
“Who’s blowing up your phone, Baby Smurf?” Myla says, as if she doesn’t know. August tilts her phone so Myla can see, bearing her weight when she leans in so close that August can smell the orangey lotion she puts on after showers.
Hello, I’m very bored.—Jane
Hi August!—Jane
Are you getting these?—Jane
Hellooooo?—Jane Su, Q Train, Brooklyn, NY
“Aw, she’s already learned how to double text,” Myla says. “Does she think she has to sign it like a letter?”
“I guess I left that part out when I was showing her how to use her phone.”
“It’s so cute,” Myla says. “You’re so cute.”
“I’m not cute,” August says, frowning. “I’m—I’m tough. Like a cactus.”
“Oh, August,” Myla says. Her voice is so loud. She’s very drunk. August is very drunk, she realizes, because she keeps looking at Myla and thinking how cool her eyeshadow is and how pretty she is and how nuts it is that she even wants to be August’s friend. Myla grabs her chin in one hand, squeezing until her lips poke out like a fish. “You’re a cream puff. You’re a cupcake. You’re a yarn ball. You’re—you’re a little sugar pumpkin.”
“I’m a garlic clove,” August says. “Pungent. Fifty layers.”
“And the best part of every dish.”
“Gross.”
“We should call her.”
“What?”
“Yeah, come on, let’s call her!”
How it happens is a blur—August doesn’t know if she agrees, or why, but her phone is in her hand and a call connecting, and—
“August?”
“Jane?”
“Did you call me from a concert?” Jane shouts over the sound of Patti LaBelle wailing “New Attitude” on someone’s Bluetooth speaker. “Where are you?”
“Easter brunch!” August yells back.
“Look, I know I don’t have the firmest grasp on time, but I’m pretty sure it’s really late for brunch.”
“What, are you into rules now?”
