Loretta James lives in a palace of alabaster. The ceilings wear crown moldings, and the fireplace is glazed in a deep bronze filler. Her front door is painted a fresh coat of azure blue, and each of her five (five!) street-facing windows are vacant. The block is lined with London plane trees, sprouting from concrete soil, arms stretched out to the heavens, ready to receive. A chandelier once owned by a Russian oligarch hangs above her dining room table. Each coat gets its own hook.
New York City is filled with apartments, walk-ups, and the occasional abandoned house haunting the end of a friendly neighborhood block. The majority of these lots are placeholders, nothing more than a room with a box-spring mattress and a few stolen glances. But Loretta James does not live on a movie set, nor does she populate an empty promise. Loretta James lives in a home. One day, she’ll use a pencil to etch her children’s growing measurements into the inside of a closet door. Her family will spill wine on the carpet, fight over politics, and eat too much pecan pie on Thanksgiving.
I walk up Loretta’s stoop. Immediately, I’m hit by a wave of nostalgia, a craving for something I’ve never tasted.
My family’s Crown Heights apartment was like a worn, wooden crate full of soil, with budding flowers poking their heads through the surface. Leila and I shared a room until she turned thirteen, our kitchen faucet was always broken, and the pillows never matched. Our apartment housed our family unit, our true home. We had no attachment to chunks of plaster. When my parents announced they were boxing up my childhood and putting the place on the market before their move to Dubai, I felt nothing. Actually, I felt full—full of contempt for my parents for moving so far away. Full of gratitude for a youth so filled with passionately slammed doors and suffocating group hugs. Full of grief that it all had to end. There was not much in my parents’ apartment, but growing up, it always felt full.
Entering Loretta’s town house feels empty, or rather, lonely. Don’t get me wrong, she owns a lot of stuff: a record collection sitting in stacks on the hardwood floor, bookshelves filled with shoeboxes and Gertrude Stein. Her picture frames are mostly empty, save for the one closest to the bathroom, which is filled with a shot of a much younger Sarah. She’s sitting on Georgica Beach wearing aviators, tucking a tiny strand of hair behind her ear.
Loretta floods the stairs like a tsunami. I can hear her footsteps drifting in first before I turn around to look.
“Noora? Darling? Is that you?” she calls down to me. “Come upstairs!”
I grip the railing and begin my climb up the spiral staircase. The walls seem to echo, and I look around to see if anyone else is here, but I know Loretta’s wife isn’t wandering the halls. Sarah is an OB-GYN and usually on call on the weekends. It’s just me and Loretta, all alone in this big, deserted homestead.
When I reach the top, Loretta hands me her phone, turns around, and struts back into her bedroom. I grip it in my palm, caressing it with my thumb and forefinger. The screen lights up. Her background is a Comic Sans–style illustration of Gloria Steinem.
“Are you coming?”
I follow her into her bedroom, which could more accurately be referred to as a boudoir. Her headboard is Gothic and ornate, and the bench sitting at the foot of her bed is coated in a dark, plush red velvet. Cluttered hers & hers Victorian vanities are perched beneath the window. A single engraved silver hairbrush sits against the mirror.
“This is incredible,” I utter, speechless.
“I know.” Loretta’s smile and eyes simultaneously widen. She looks like the Joker. We stand in place, staring at each other as I stroke her comforter with my left hand.
“So where’s your suitcase?” I ask, breaking the awkward silence.
She raises one brow. “Oh, that old thing?” She waves off my question. “I packed that this morning.”
“Then what am I here for?”
It’s 5:00 p.m. and I have approximately three hours until I have to meet Cal, primed and highlighted, in Nolita (not counting the thirty-minute subway ride back). I’m starting to think Loretta might just be merely wasting my time for sport.
Does she need a playmate? A dog-sitter? A book club member?
Loretta gestures to the phone still sitting in my hand.
“I need you to film.”
The truth slowly dawns on me: Loretta asked me to waste thirty minutes of my Saturday sitting cross-legged on the F train all so I could record an Instagram takeover for her.
“Have you heard of them?” she asks.
It takes everything in me to refrain from mocking her.
Apparently, Dickhead Daniel has informed Loretta that her content is only landing with a slightly older, out-of-demo audience. To combat this, he’s asked her to pretape a few clips that can later be used as IGTV segments. In other words, she’s hoping to turn her LA trip into a vlog. Not that she used that specific word—she most likely has no idea what it means.
I decide not to put up a fight. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can go home. I sigh and hit record. Loretta takes a deep breath and lights up like the Empire State Building. I accidentally let out a snort so loud that I have to yell, “Cut! Sorry, sorry, take two!”
“Pull it together, sweetie,” Loretta says, wiping a bead of sweat from her upper lip. “This is important business.”
I suck in my cheeks, count down from five, and begin filming again.
“Hi, readers! You’re live on the Instagram with Loretta James, editor in chief of Vinyl magazine,” Loretta says, doing her best Kegel-clenching impression. “I’m about to fly out to LA for a very exciting industry event. But first, I want to show you folks at home what I’m packing.” She extends one long, frail index finger, coated in red nail polish, and curls it in a come-hither motion. “Come along, kitties!”
It’s almost too painful to watch.
We go on to film for another fifteen minutes. Loretta walks me through her pre-packed suitcase filled with La Mer products and “comfort clothes,” aka 100 percent cashmere sweat suits and Golden Goose sneakers. I roll my eyes—there’s no chance readers can actually afford to pack like this. But I guess that’s the point? Perhaps to a random stranger living in Minnesota with a navel piercing and a coupon to Chili’s in their wallet, Loretta’s life is aspirational.
“And CUT,” Loretta says. I snap awake, having accidentally zoned out after minute eight. “Play it back!”
We sit down on the bench at the foot of her bed, and I hit play. Slowly, I watch as the muscles of Loretta’s face tighten into knots. Then she turns her head away, as if I’m showing her a scene from Saw V.
“Turn it off!” She breaks down into tears. “It’s a goddamn disgrace.”
“What’s wrong?” It’s already been twenty minutes. I need to speed up this process, like, yesterday.
“What’s wrong?” Loretta throws her hands in the air like a preacher, wailing. “I look old, Noora! I look like a decrepit, old hag!”
“That’s simply not true. Look at your complexion! Your facial lines barely move as you talk. You don’t have a single stress line! And your roots have been dyed to perfection.”
She waves off my comments as if they’re mosquitoes.
“I need you to try again.”
My heart drops—I don’t have time for this. Loretta frowns, noticing that my upbeat “can do!” attitude has taken a decline.
“Okay, what’s wrong, my sweet?” Her vocal tone turns from sour to pure sugar. She sounds like a concerned teacher.
I sigh. “No, really, it’s nothing.”
“Come on, honey. Out with it.”
“I don’t want to bore you.”
“Noora,” Loretta says, approaching me.
She lays one manicured hand on my shoulder and turns to meet my gaze. Her expression is maternal—warm, even. Up close, I can see her more clearly: the vein popping ever so slightly in the middle of her forehead, her dilated pupils. She’s scared. Underneath all her frustration, layered like a winter coat, lies deep-seated fear. An insecurity that she’s no longer what she was once. That’s she’s not enough.
“You can talk to me, you know?” she says, “In some ways, you remind me of my younger self. A plucky thing, I was. Full of ambition and distractions, in equal measure. What’s distracting you, Noora? You can trust me.”
She pats my shoulder like it’s a miniature poodle and, for some reason, I find it endearing. Maybe opening up to me makes her seem, well, I don’t know. More human, less android? This is, after all, the Loretta James. The publishing legend. There’s a reason I wanted to work under her, to study her every impulse. I’d always hoped she’d be more of a mentor to me, molding my writing into its truest potential. Perhaps, I was too quick to judge her. Too harsh. She is, after all, under a lot of pressure. And right now, we’re having a moment.
“It’s just…”
“Go on.”
“I have a date tonight.”
Loretta narrows her eyes. It’s amazing, watching her entire face, voice, and demeanor all transform in a matter of seconds. If her performance weren’t directed at me, I’d be a captivated audience member.
“Well, that’s a shame,” she says. “You know, Noora, I really wish you hadn’t told me that.”
Moments pass.
Loretta stares at a single spot at the wall, furiously shaking her head. It’s as if her body might involuntarily combust.
“Now we have a classic catch-22, don’t we? Because, you see, I feel for you, I really do. But this is your job. And I think I’ve made the parameters of your job perfectly clear. So you can go on your date. In fact, I want you to go on your date! But there’s a task that needs to be done. And it’s going to get done. And if you don’t stick around and do it, I’ll have to find someone who will. You don’t want that, do you?”
I feel a tiny tear escape my duct and slither down my left cheek.
“No, I don’t.”
“Good,” she says, smiling once again. She leans over and wipes the tear off my face with the bottom of her thumb. “Now, let’s try that again.”
We record the entire takeover and watch it back two more times. After each take, Loretta breaks down in front of me. She hates how flat her hair looks but is also disgusted by its volume. I matte her face to perfection with a compact, but then she cries out that she needs to look “dewy.” Her voice sounds too high-pitched and squeaky then low like Elizabeth Holmes. She alternates between telling me I’m a disappointment and like a daughter to her.
After the second take (third in total), I ask to go to the bathroom. Once I’m sitting on top of the toilet, I send Cal a quick text informing him that I’m not going to make it. But before I get the chance to press send, Loretta bangs on the door and asks what’s taking so long.
Are you smoking in there? She wants to know.
How could I be so wrong? To think, even for one second, that Loretta and I are one and the same? That’s the last time I lower my guard around her. I’ll never be so naive again.
I quickly shoot off the message and run outside, barely pausing to look at my reflection in the Victorian-era, gold-plated mirror. Put politely, I look like the shit I didn’t have time to take.
Around 9:00 p.m., I walk out the door of Loretta’s town house. I’ve filmed her Instagram takeover six times, brushed through her knotted red hair five times, reapplied her Chanel Rouge lipstick four times, messed around with different lighting schemes three times, sat through outfit changes twice, and, somehow, only cried once.
When we finally got it right, I collapsed on Loretta and Sarah’s bed, momentarily forgetting where I was. I looked up at the wall. There’s a framed photo of Barack Obama hanging above her bookcase. She has a pair of Gucci mules wedged next to We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Loretta came up behind me and patted me on the head like a Pomeranian.
“Good girl,” she crooned.
It’s now dark outside. Pitch-black, actually. All the streetlights on Loretta’s block appear to go out at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday nights, most likely for the kids or to ward off wayward partygoers. As soon as I’m surrounded by the cover of nightfall, I break out in big, gigantic sobs. My body shakes with each wave of misery. People stop in passing to ask me if I’m all right, and I offer a tiny smile and a nod. I look down at my phone and find I have three messages.
Cal (7:56 PM): Happens.
Leila (6:42 PM): I found your coworker Saffron outside the apartment? You didn’t mention that their head is shaved and they’ve got like a bajillion tattoos. Kind of hot TBH. Are they single??? Anyway, I let them in and made a pot of chayee. They said u were supposed to meet them here? Wru? Is everything OK? Call me.
Saffron (4:33 PM): Yo I’m at your front door where r u?
Oh my God. Cal hates me. I totally spaced about Saffron. It’s official. I’m a blue-check verified, capital C-U-N-T.
I call back Leila. She unexpectedly answers on the first ring.
“Noor? You good?”
Between the snot pouring out of my nose like Niagara fucking Falls and the mascara-stained tears painting my cheeks, I can’t get a word in edgewise. I just take a seat on the sidewalk and cry into the phone. I can hear my sister’s concern grow on the other end of the line.
“Meet me at La Esquina,” she says. “I’m on my way.”
Leila hangs up and I follow suit. Without another word, I pick myself up and solemnly get on the subway.
La Esquina is my and Leila’s happy place. From the outside, it’s a nondescript taco stand sitting on the far end of a tiny park on Kenmare Street. There’s a red LED sign extending over the ceiling that says THE CORNER in big, bright lights, right in front of a billboard that usually boasts YSL ads (or just SL now, I suppose). The interior consists of a sole worktable to order your meal and a series of barstools, facing an open window into the heart of Nolita. Every surface imaginable is covered in stickers—free stickers, band stickers, Fuck the Man stickers. There’s an impressive display of vintage Coca-Cola bottles featured behind a sheet of glass below the counter. During the warmer months, you’ll find scattered lime-green and pink tables and chairs sitting outside. A fake greenery, like a virus of vines, lines the scaffolding above. It’s a secret plastic garden.
Even more discreet is the dark, smoky speakeasy that sits beneath the taqueria, which reeks of sex and cigarettes and sounds like the cheap mumblings of elevator music and chatter. The first time I discovered it was by drunkenly wandering past bathroom signs and into a false kitchen. It served as a good reminder that nothing is ever as it appears, so best not to judge from appearances. Also, knowledge is always power. All you need to know is the password.
When we were little, Leila and I used to celebrate small victories with tacos at La Esquina—a top grade on an English paper here, a DFMO with a hot but snotty collegiate boy there. We’d perch on the stools facing the street and divulge confessions to each other over minced meat and ceviche. As we got older, the tortillas and guac transformed into margaritas and sangria. But we kept coming back, time after time, year after year. It’s where Leila whispered to me that she thought she might be bi—then gay, then pan, then queer. Each admission was made between tears and salted rims. We’d fight then hug, leaning into both our differences and our similarities. There’s something about blood mixed with tequila and cilantro that can heal even the deepest of wounds.
As I get off at Spring Street and make my way down Mulberry, I can feel my cheeks begin to air-dry. I pick up the pace, speeding past tourists taking photographs of Little Italy and nano-influencers sharing a glass of wine outside Ruby’s. I turn the corner, power walking through Petrosino Square, and see Leila sitting outside, waiting for me. She’s dressed in a pink power suit and chunky loafers. I can tell she’s stressed by the speed at which she’s hitting her vape pen. When our eyes meet, I start running.
“Whoa, slow down there,” she says, leaping up to hug me. I collapse into her arms. She smells of nicotine and kai oil. “Tell me everything.”
I sit down and begin to unload. As I heave word vomit on to the table, it occurs to me just how long it’s been since Leila and I had a proper heart-to-heart. I walk her through my crush on Cal, Liang-gate hell, and the mysterious blackout meetings. I stumble briefly, tearing up once as I describe Loretta’s manic mood, changing as rapidly as the racks at Zara. It’s hard to put into words, but I try. I outline her vendetta against Jade, her obsession with technology and understanding the “youths.” The mysterious war she keeps alluding to. When I finally finish, I land on a sentence that catches me off guard.
“I’m going to quit.”
The second the words come out of my mouth, I know they’re true. I can already feel a giant weight, all the pressure that’s been suffocating me for the past two and a half months, begin to lift off my shoulders. I imagine what it would be like to sleep through the night without waking up in a pool of sweat, terrified that I missed a text or email from Loretta.
Leila loudly clears her throat, waking me out of my trance. She’s biting the corner of her cheek. That’s never a good sign.
“Noor, I have something to tell you,” she starts. “Promise you won’t be mad?”
“Promise.”
“You want the good news or bad news?”
“Good news.”
“Well, Willow totally hooked it up.” She pauses for effect, grinning. I have zero clue what she’s getting at.
“Sorry, Willow whomst?”
“Willow! You met her, right? I think you guys, like, had coffee one morning recently?”
I shut my eyes and try to concentrate. Then it hits me.
“That femme you hooked up with? Like, a couple weeks ago?”
“Yes! So, she’s kind of an up-and-coming Instagram model type thing. She’s been doing a ton of concept shoots for Central Saint Martins kids—you know, the ones Rihanna tapped for Fenty—and Lim loves her. He’s using her for his Paris preview. Anyway, she gave HQ a call and put an end to the whole Liang debacle!”
I can’t fucking believe it.
Actually, I can. Of course, Leila saved the day—she always does, always has. But that rando septum piercing chick with zero manners and a penchant for swigging from the carton? That’s one plot twist I didn’t see coming. I guess you never know who you’re sharing a bathroom with.
“I don’t even know how to begin to thank you, Lei.” I throw my arms around her and give her a squeeze. Her body immediately stiffens.
“Um, I have a few ideas,” she continues. “So, don’t freak out, but I may have gotten a little, eensy-teensy, teeny-weeny, tiny bit fired last month.”
My jaw drops. Leila pushes it back up and closes my mouth.
“Basically, you know that gala I helped organize? Puppies for Penelope, with all the golden labradoodles and that one retired acrobat from Cirque Du Soleil who had the eye patch, at that Meatpacking District roof deck pool? Well, everything was going so great. Like, so, so great. Next-level perfect, Noora. All the puppies were doing that little synchronized swim we taught them, and the venue had a line practically wrapped around the block. I mean, I was about to get promoted, really. Until, you know. Penelope had to take a quick pee and may have found me bending over the bathroom sink, hooking up with her, er, husband. It’s the bastard’s fault, when I really start to think about it. He didn’t tell me who he was or anything. Plus, he swore he locked that door. I asked him to check. Twice! And, besides that, it was, like, a hell of an event. For the record books, I swear. But try telling my boss that.”
I can see Leila’s on the verge of tears. It’s a strange sight. Growing up, she never cried—not even when our baba bozorgh died. She’s the most confident person I know. I swallow my own tears.
“How bad is it?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“Well, I have a little bit of money saved. But you know personal finances have never been my thing. And for some reason, things just aren’t falling into place the way they normally do for me. I’ve reached out to, like, fifty firms and nobody has so much as done me the courtesy of responding to an email. And these are places that used to beg me to even consider joining their ranks, let alone beg to apply. It’s going to take a bit longer to find a new gig than I would have liked, Noora. I think I may need to consider switching industries or reinventing myself as a pop star or something. Maybe I’ve run out of good karma or used all nine of my lives or I don’t know. It’s like I’ve been blacklisted.”
She’s avoiding making eye contact with me. I can tell whatever she’s about to say next is hurting her as much as it has the potential to hurt me.
“I know things are shit right now, and I’m your big sister, and I’m supposed to protect you from narcissist monsters, and I’m sorry. But I’m going to need your help with rent, at least until I find my next gig. The thing is, I’m already a little late on this month’s check. Our landlord pretty much has no chill. And...”
“And?”
“And I give it a couple more weeks, maybe a month, tops, before he makes good on his threats. But if you quit your job now, we’re probably going to get evicted.”
I slouch back and feel the weight of her words crushing my spine.
“Will you promise me you won’t quit your job? At least not for the time being,” she pleads. “I need you, Noor.”
My entire life, Leila has never let me down. It’s time for me to lift her up.
“I promise.” I’m not so sure I mean it.