Page 2 of Story of My Life
I reached for the tie of my bathrobe, only to find it missing. So I wrapped the lapels over my braless, T-shirt-clad boobs and opened the door.
“You look like absolute shit.”
The curly-haired woman in the red power suit was wielding judgment, not my Chinese food.
I let my robe fall open and crossed my arms. “What are you doing here, Zoey? I’m very busy and important.”
My uninvited guest brushed past me and strolled inside on fabulous four-inch heels, bringing with her a faint cloud of expensive perfume. Zoey Moody, fashion-obsessed literary agent and my best friend since the third grade, knew how to make an entrance.
I closed the door and sagged against it. Usually I met Zoey at her place or in establishments that served alcohol, which left me free to live like Oscar the Grouch.
“Busy doing what? Rotting?” she asked, picking up a greasy pizza box that rested atop a carefully balanced mountain of unwashed plates.
I snatched it out of her hands and tried to cram it into the kitchen trash can only to have the overflowing contents reject the new addition. “I’m not rotting. I’m…plotting,” I lied.
“You’ve been plotting for a year.”
I gave up and tossed the box on the floor next to the trash. “You know who thinks writing a book is easy? People who have never written one.”
“I know. Authors are delicate flowers of creativity who need constant care and watering. Blah blah blah. Well, guess what? Agents need stuff too. Like I need my clients to answer their damn phones. Do you even know where yours is?”
“It’s over there.” I gestured vaguely at the entirety of my apartment.
Zoey pinned me with a frown and pursed red lips. “When’s the last time you went out to dinner? Or got some fresh air? Or, I don’t know, showered?” Her strawberry-blond curls trembled within the twist she’d fashioned.
I lifted an arm and sniffed. Damn it. I forgot to order the deodorant again. “I’m having flashbacks to my mother telling teenage me to put the books down and go outside and be social,” I complained. “That was between husbands two and three, in case you were keeping count.”
“I’m not your mother. I’m your agent and sometimes your friend. And as both, I gotta tell you, you’ve officially sunk to depressed-bachelor standards.”
“Wouldn’t that be spinster standards?”
She held up a discarded sock stained with soy sauce. “How many spinsters do you know who live like they’re in a boys’ high school locker room?”
“Point taken. Look. It’s not like I’ddecidedit would be fun to spiral into some depressed, antisocial writer’s block,” I reminded her.
Zoey opened the refrigerator and then immediately regretted her decision. “There are things growing in here.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you. I took up urban farming in my spare time.” I slammed the fridge shut.
“Well, you’re about to have a lot more spare time if you don’t get your shit together,” she said ominously.
I squeezed past her and bent to wedge an arm into the cabinet of the tiny butcher-block island. It took a few seconds and a strained neck muscle, but I finally found a bottle of wine inside and pulled it free.
“Wine?”
“I’m not consuming anything in this apartment. I don’t have time for a staph infection. Tell me you’re at least writing something.”
“Oh yeah. Chapters are just flying out of my ass.”
“We should be so lucky,” she muttered.
“Cut to the chase. Why are you here at noon on a Thursday, Zo?”
My agent and best friend stomped over to the living room windows and dramatically yanked open the heavy curtains. She gestured at the lights on the building next door. “It’s seven p.m. on a Monday.”
I feigned shock and added a dramatic gasp just for fun.
She rolled her eyes, realizing she’d been had. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”
