Asking For a Friend Read online

  That wasn’t why I bought the book, but that was why I fell into a thing with her when the ink was barely dry on the deal sheet.

  I say “thing” because what we had wasn’t a relationship like I’d had with Marisa.

  It was a tryst, and something about it nagged at me from the get-go. But I ignored that little voice, the one that said dig deeper, ask more questions.

  Karina had no ring, made no mention of a husband or children. She had her own place in Santa Monica, with plush white furniture and a view of the ocean—a bachelorette pad. We went out to dinner but never near work, always off the beaten path, then back to her place.

  She was only in town a couple of days a week and said she had to tend to her sick mother on weekends in Palm Springs.

  Her lies were believable enough for a few months, then a few more, until my sister came to town.

  “I want to meet this new woman who’s got you all worked up,” she’d said.

  “She’s taking care of her mom this weekend,” I said.

  Lisa hummed. “And she took care of her last weekend too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the weekend before?”

  I gulped. “Yes.”

  Then Lisa big-sistered me. She sat me down, told me her radar was going off like a tornado siren, and made me tell her everything because “something isn’t adding up.”

  My pride nearly kept it all bottled inside. But my morbid curiosity was stronger. Was Lisa onto something? Had she figured out what had been nagging at me?

  Lisa suggested we follow Karina after work.

  I hated the idea but loved it too. I had to know, so we Starsky and Hutched her, following Karina to her home in Palm Springs.

  The sprawling ranch home she shared with her husband and two kids.

  Turned out the agent I was seeing was actually Karen Lee, a married mother of two with a stay-at-home husband who doted on their four-year-old twin daughters.

  That was what Lisa found on Facebook when she promptly stalked her.

  I didn’t confront Karina in the driveway. I’m not the kind of guy to flip the table on her marriage by exposing her. Lisa and I simply turned the car around and drove back to my place.

  I sent Karina a curt “it’s over, and you know why, but I’m not going to breathe a word of any of this” note.

  Then I had to grin and bear it.

  Because here’s the thing: even though Karina and I didn’t work in the same office, the fallout spilled into my professional life.

  It fucking avalanched.

  It was my dirty, filthy secret. Every day at work, I saw my bad decisions, my poor judgment, because we had a project together. No one else knew what had happened. But I had to work with her and shepherd that book into the marketplace with a woman I knew was a liar.

  That’s why I instituted my rule—do not mix business with pleasure.

  That may also be why online dating is appealing, or so I’m learning.

  Yes, I know I could meet a liar online.

  I’m well aware of catfishing, and that the web can be a hot cesspool of married scammers.

  But I’m not bringing a book into the world with any of those people. I’m not tangled up professionally with anyone in this online realm.

  And I’ve learned to trust my gut.

  Right now, my gut says Asking for a Friend is someone I’d like to chat with.

  Especially when she responds to my opening lines with her own quip: Don’t trip.

  Then she quickly follows up with another note.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Mostly because you never know who might be watching and/or capturing your call on cell-phone video, and then you’d become the next day’s walking-and-reading-and-tripping gif. And nobody wants that, right?

  * * *

  And just like that, we’re bantering like it’s a bag of potato chips I can’t stop eating.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: One of my goals in life is to avoid becoming a gif or a meme or a viral video.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: How are you doing with that so far?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: It’s working out well. Thanks for asking. Hey, is this where we segue into the “life goals” conversation?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Why, yes! Now that you’ve asked, my biggest life goal is to end discrimination against jammies as all-purpose attire.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Pajamas are so misunderstood.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: That’s why I’ve taken up their cause. Someone needs to be their champion.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: The sleep garments thank you, I’m sure.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: BRB. I need to grab the banana bread from the oven.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: You’re making banana bread at eleven thirty on a Saturday night?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: You’re chatting with a banana bread maker at eleven thirty-one on a Saturday night. So there.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: But maybe I’m chatting with the world’s finest banana bread maker. So, tell me. How is it? The finest?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: You tell me. I’m waving it in front of the screen. Can you smell how delish it is?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Oh yes. My phone screen is the scratch ’n’ sniff kind. That smells incredible.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Amazing, isn’t it, since bananas are a bad idea.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Like, in general a bad idea? And if so, why on earth are you baking banana bread?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Because even though bananas are a bad idea, banana bread is always a good idea. Which often makes me wonder—how is it possible that one can despise bananas but love banana bread?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: One word for you.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: What is that word?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Sugar.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: I disagree. I think the one word should be . . . butter.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Clearly, we disagree on some fundamentals of life. Sugar versus butter. Raiders versus Back to the Future.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Whoa. Not so fast there, buddy. I have enough love in my heart for both flicks. Don’t you?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Of course I do. I’ll prove it. *clears throat* *recites line* “C’mon. Show a little backbone, will ya?”

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: The plane! After Indy escapes from the South American jungle and jumps on the seaplane and the pilot’s pet snake, Reggie, crawls into his lap.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: *long slow clap*

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: *takes bow*

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Not that I’d ever advocate getting a snake for a pet, can we just agree that Reggie is a great name for a pet?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: We can agree on both counts.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Then we should discuss flossing too. You listed it in your top things, and I have to know now—are you secretly spying in my medicine cabinet?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Maybe I am. Are you a mad flosser too?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Thirty years and zero cavities.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: I see what you did there.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: What did I do there?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: You dropped in your age, oh so cleverly. By the way, I’m twenty-eight.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: I can see that. It’s on your profi
le!

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Oops! Ha! I forgot! Also, yes, daily flosser here too. And brusher. Confession: I carry a travel-size tube of toothpaste in my purse.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Of course you do. Because you are clearly a civilized person. I, on the other hand, do not carry a purse—or a murse, for that matter. But I do have toothpaste and floss in my desk drawer.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Sooooo glad you don’t carry a murse.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Or a fanny pack.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Wait. Do you carry a fanny pack?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Don’t answer. I’m being judgy. I shouldn’t be judgy. Feel free to wear a fanny pack. Wear two if you want.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: But, side note, isn’t fanny pack like the worst name ever?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Damn, woman. You type so fast I couldn’t get a word in edgewise! But don’t worry—no murses or fanny packs on this guy. That’s one of my principles: never wear a murse, use a murse, or advocate for murses.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Let’s be honest here—we both have super-noble life goals.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: The noblest . . . but back to your profile. That’s one helluva take on Betty Boop. I didn’t know she had pink knee-high boots.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Betty is a fashionista and a pioneer at the same time. I LOVE her. And the image of her holding the cake plate is one of her lesser-known ones, but I love it so much I commissioned an artist on Etsy to make me a necklace just like this. Also, your Dax Powers icon is adorable.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: *cringes*

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Why are you cringing?

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Isn’t “adorable” the kiss of death for a guy? Like, “He’s as adorable as a baby duck”?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: First, who wouldn’t want to be compared to a duck? Second, if you’re as adorable as a baby duck, count yourself lucky. Third, “adorable” has many meanings. You might think it only means “cute,” but maybe I’m using it synonymously with “appealing,” “attractive,” “delectable,” “dishy,” or “dreamy.”

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Do you actually know those synonyms off the top of your head, or did you google them?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Wash your mouth out with soap! I did not google them. I looked them up in the thesaurus. Also, “dishy” is a great word.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: Want to bring back “dishy” into popular vernacular?

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Yes! Let’s make that our new life goal.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: That’s quite a delectable life goal.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Stop being so adorably dishy. :)

  * * *

  After thirty more minutes like that, I haven’t stopped grinning. This is just the distraction I need to stop thinking about Amy.

  Because so far, Betty Boop is quite dishy indeed.

  And my new life goal for the rest of the weekend is to keep talking to her.

  11

  Amy

  Who knew surrogate dating for a friend would be so fun?

  If I’d known, I would have started this project sooner.

  Hunting for a man for your bestie is like living in a TV commercial. One with a woman blissfully smiling as she’s traipsing through a field of flowers, twirling in circles because her laundry smells so freaking good.

  And hell, my laundry does smell amazeballs as I remove it from the dryer in the basement of my building the next morning. Bringing the towels to my nose, I draw in a deep breath of lilacs.

  “Come to me, O fabulously clean clothes,” I hum around the dry items.

  The lilac detergent does smell fantastic.

  But I woke up with a silly grin and showered with one too.

  I might skip through Manhattan picking daisies and singing to chipmunks. Because . . . tra-la-la.

  Ping-Pong Lover is rocking my mood.

  He has so much potential for Peyton that I chatted with him late into the night and again first thing after I woke up.

  I’m learning so much about him as a possible suitor, plus I’m practicing all my marketing skills during our convos.

  I have to be fascinating when pitching books, and these random yack sessions are a crash course in putting myself out there, since I need to be delivering wit at rapier-sharp levels.

  What more could I ask for?

  Especially when the chats make me laugh too.

  We talked about silly things that are fun to discuss, like how amazing sleep is, how fantastic naps are, and how much better society would be if nap time were mandatory every day.

  I even confessed my deepest secret.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: I’ve been known to snooze at my desk right around three p.m.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: You daring scofflaw, you.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: I wish I could say it’s deliberate. It’s totally accidental snoozing.

  * * *

  Ping-Pong Lover: I’m going to pretend it’s a flagrant disregard for societal conventions and call you a nap gangster.

  * * *

  Asking for a Friend: Best nickname ever. I will henceforth be known as the Nap Gangster. And I’ll dub you the Mad Flosser.

  * * *

  So we both changed our names in the chat.

  * * *

  The Mad Flosser: Let’s make mandated napping a new life goal.

  * * *

  The Nap Gangster: Yes, and until then, you’ll find me on the other side of the law.

  I’m a good girl, though, so I ignore my phone for the next hour while I dive back into the manuscript I’m working on for my sample editorial letter to submit with the job application due at the end of this week. This is separate from the sample pitch, but it’s critical too, since it’ll show my vision for how I can make a good book even better. After all, that’s what any editor worth her salt and pepper will do.

  I review some of my notes then shut down my machine and leash up Inspector Poirot for a short walk.

  As we wander through the hood, I have a spring in my step, and nothing knocks it out, not even the bearded guy who smacks into me while hoisting a beanbag onto his shoulder.

  “Sorry! Didn’t see you there,” he says, apologizing fitfully.

  Even though my elbow smarts from the impact, I’m mostly unfazed. “No worries. I’ll live.”

  He laughs then turns up the steps into a building.

  Damn, that laundry detergent is a potent drug.

  Or, really, the Mad Flosser is.

  And as my little pooch embarks on a deep inhalation of a patch of grass, I click open the app and send him a note. Naturally, I have to update him on my morning. How else will I learn if he’s good at discussing everyday life matters with my bestie?

  * * *

  The Nap Gangster: A beanbag just accosted me on Ninety-Second and Lexington.

  * * *

  The Mad Flosser: Reason number 111 why we should abolish beanbags. Also, I’m new to New York, but I hear there are fewer beanbag attacks on the Upper West Side. Something to consider?