Page 19 of British Daddy to Go

“Can I get you a drink? Soda? Water?”

“I’ll have a soda, please.”

Jenna disappears around a corner in her one-bedroom abode, and I take the opportunity to really look around. Her front door opens into the living room, which is decorated in Jenna’s typical art deco fashion. The furthest wall is lined with mirrors in a parallel design from thin and short to tall and thick back to thin and short. In front of this display are two dark maroon arm chairs with rounded edges. Her coffee table looks like a bathtub filled with cement, placed on top of a black and gray rug with a varying square design. It reminds of something I would see in a socialite penthouse, not a Brooklyn flat. I’d bet money that Jenna didn’t spend more than a hundred dollars total on this entire room, which makes it all the more impressive.

“What do you think?” Jenna asks when she catches me admiring her living room. “Cool, right?”

“I love it! It’s very you.”

“Not you, though. You would have vintage lace everywhere and portraits of old people you’ve never met.”

I settle into one of Jenna’s fancy chairs. “Probably. I wish my parents would let you re-do our apartment. You could make it so much better, even with the thrift store furniture my parents are attached to.”

“I’d die if the wardens ever let me design your apartment.”

Jenna’s nickname for my parents used to bother me, but the older I get, the more it seems to fit. Sometimes, they treat me more like a prisoner than a daughter. Actually, I think prisoners have more freedom than I do.

“Maybe someday.”

She hands me a can of cola and takes the seat next to me. “I’ve missed you, you know.”

“I’ve missed you, too! How is your new job?”

Jenna’s face lights up. “Incredible! I know I’m only a junior designer at the firm, but I already have five clients of my own. According to my boss, I’m the first junior designer to advance this quickly. They seem really impressed with me!”

While I had stayed home after high school to work at my parents’ dry cleaners, Jenna went to Rhode Island School of Design to study interior design. My parents were thrilled that Jenna would be an inconvenient distance away. They also liked to point out that New York has three of the best design schools in the country, but Jenna didn’t go to any of them. I never told them that Jenna was accepted to Parsons and Pratt but had chosen to go to RISD instead. It wouldn’t have helped. If anything, they would have thought her decision to move two hundred miles away from her parents made her an even worse person than they originally thought.

After she graduated, Jenna had spent two years travelling the world and learning from interior designers in Paris, Moscow, Egypt, Australia, and a bunch of other exotic places. When she came back to New York last year, she was a shoe-in for a junior design position at the firm she’d interned for during college. They hired her in a heartbeat, and she’s been there ever since. It’s no surprise she’s climbing the ladder. They had wanted her to start working for them before she’d even had a diploma in hand.

“I’m really proud of you, Jenna. You’ve made your dreams come true. I envy you.”

She places a gentle hand on my arm. “You’ll get your chance, too. Just look at your designs! You’re untrained, but you’re still better than half of the designers out there.”

I roll my eyes. “You have to say that because you’re my best friend. I’ll probably be working at the dry cleaners until I die.”

Jenna cringes. “That’s still the plan? Even though you got a job at the tux store?”

“Still the plan.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie. I know how important design is to you.”

She’s probably the only person on the planet who gets it. At least I can live vicariously through her.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine. I had a date last night.”

I sit up a bit straighter. “Yeah? How’d it go?”

“Absolutely awful!” she laughs. “We went to Piccoli Trattoria because he said I look like I must enjoy Italian food.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs. “Hell if I know!” We both laugh. “So he made me meet him there instead of picking me up, which is whatever since it’s in Brooklyn and he’s from White Plains. I get there, and he opens the door, walks in, and lets it slam behind him without even pretending to hold it for me!”

“No!” I gasp.

“Yes!” she screams, struggling to contain her laughter. “It only went downhill from there. He ordered for me. Guess what he picked?”