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And in the perfect synchrony that is Alice Dadamo’s ability to surprise me with her entrances when I’m about to initiate substantial conversation, my boss flies through the assistant pod in her Jimmy Choos. Her first words to me are “Go get John at ten!”

I diligently roll through our owed calls, which is usually this dozen-name-long list of executives/agents/clients who (1) called the day before and (2) Alice didn’t want to talk to but (3) has to talk to in order to maintain her reputation. We manage to make it through three calls before Kiki from reception says John’s here. I make sure my headset is still working and then dip down the stairs and into the lobby.

John manspreads as far as a human possibly can in a T-shirt and shorts that may or may not have a hole in the crotch, but I refuse to look back after one horrifying glimpse. He’s definitely Alice’s grubbiest client, and she’ll be complaining about him to me once he leaves. He’s flanked by two Chihuahua-like college kids in ill-fitting suits who are clutching résumés and mouthing answers to potential interview questions.

“Hi, John,” I say in my peppiest voice.

At least I’m not interviewing for internships or bottom-of-the-barrel substitution-for-the-day assistant (coined “floater”) gigs.

“Hi, Lacy,” John replies.

I’ve lost the instinct to wince at this point.

“Would you like anything to drink?” I ask as we ascend our first flight of stairs.

Most clients ask for water, maybe the shitty coffee we keep on our floor.

“I’ll get a latte from the café,” John says.

Cool.

I exhale, lead John up to Alice, and jog back down to the café, otherwise known as the chillest part of this stress machine of a building. And bless, right now there isn’t even a line. Just Romy Fonseca, the last but best part of the Luna-Wyatt-Romy trio.

Wyatt, Romy, and I all met freshman year at U.S.C. in Intro to Cinema, this blanket requirement for my film production major and Wyatt’s business in cinematic arts minor, and an elective for Romy’s “multimedia narrative studies” major. Some asshole was taunting her about how she dressed in section, saying she’d never attract men that way. I was emboldened from taking too much of an herbal antianxiety supplement, so I threw my arm around her and said she wasn’t trying to attract guys. The asshole backed off within seconds and I lost my passionflower high within a few minutes, but our friendship remains unbreakable.

Romy has since become my roommate of five years, two of which have been spent in our own apartment that we had to have our credit scores checked to nail down. We’re with each other all the time, but seeing her familiar face is still one of the best parts of working at this place. I slide up to the counter.

“John needs a latte,” I say.

Romy looks up and smiles. The perfect eyeliner around her green eyes and her rose-covered cupid’s lips just confirm what a different job could do for me. If Wyatt is a Jewish frat boy and I’m a quirky aspiring filmmaker lady, Romy is our slick andstylish nonbinary accomplice, all ripped jeans, patch-covered jackets, ring-lined fingers, and sleeve-peeking tattoos, with this hipster, volume-up-top, short-on-the-sides dark hair that makes men look like douchebags but just makes her look like she’ll steal your girlfriend. She has one streak up top that’s usually colored, but I guess she’s left it at bleached out. The lack of color is usually a sign she had to go to a relative’s birthday party over the weekend—both her Barcelona side of the family and her Waspy Boston-transplant side of the family have begged her to dye it back to a natural color.

“What’re Caitlin and Jamie saying today?” she asks. We carpool to work only about half the time, because her shifts often start (and end) long after (and before) mine.

“I’d say Shrek, but you’d know I wasn’t awake, so why bother,” I reply as I lean against the counter.

“A valid response. What was on your mind instead?”

Part of me wants to come out to her before Wyatt, but the guilt won’t be worth it.

“Do you think it’s weird that I still feel weird about Wyatt dating other girls?” I ask instead.

“Is he being a shithead to girls again? These Calabasas real estate heiresses deserve at least some basic respect.”

Romy lovingly calls Wyatt “our fuckboy.” She stopped doing it only at one point in our six-year friendship: the three weeks I dated him.

“I don’t know. Probably. Do you think I subconsciously still like him?”

Machines whir. I imagine Romy’s processing. She’s the thinker in the group.

“I’d rather lean into the idea that, as someone with generalized anxiety disorder, you’re just stressed at the idea of someone not seeing you in a favorable light, even if you’re not actually that interested in their attention itself.”

It sounds like something Julia would say, but from Romy it packs more of a burn.

“Which family this weekend?” I ask.

She chuckles. “Damn, you’re good. Mom’s side. They refer to this”—she runs a couple of fingers through the natural dark hair—“as my dad’s ‘rich color.’ It’s as if they still haven’t realized my dad’s side is white people who speak Spanish.”

I frown. “I’m sorry their learning curve still sucks.”