Page 23 of Keeping It Professional

I laughed again. “Sparkling.” Tonight did feel sparkling, and not just because the sky was clear, not just from the moonlight on the fresh snow. I’d hit a milestone tonight, and my friends were here with me, and what could be better than all of that?”

“I’ll bring your drinks to your table,” the bartender said. I smiled and skipped back, light on my feet.

“No drinks?” said Jen.

“He’s bringing them over.”

“Kate was just telling me, you know those air horns? She went on a call to this telemarketing… studio? What do you call that, where they keep all the spammers?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. A roach motel?”

Jen stared for a moment, then she got it and hooted. Kate smacked her arm.

“You’re such a lightweight.”

Our drinks came then, and I gave Jen my water. I sipped her beer slowly, already buzzed.

“Anyway,” Kate said, “we got a call to this… roach motel… and this one telemarketer took off her headset, and the bud was all bloody. Like, covered in blood. Someone blew an air horn andruptured her eardrum, and she sat there all day and kept making calls.”

“Someone she called?”

Kate gulped beer. “Yep. Honked it right in her ear, and she had the volume up.”

“Didn’t it hurt, though? She just kept on calling?” Jen rubbed her own ear. “I think mine’s bust, too.”

“No blood,” I said, leaning to check. “We had one the other night, a bug in his ear. Miles flushed it out with warm olive oil.”

Jen shuddered. “I hate bugs. We had one with maggots…” She gagged, sipped more water, and shook her head. “You know what? I’m too drunk to think about bugs. Let’s talk about whatzisname.”

“She just said it. Miles.”

I choked on my beer. “What about Miles?”

“Is he still a dick?” Jen jerked upright. “Oh!Did I tell you, my shift supervisor— Not Shelley. She’s nice. But the other one. Janice. She did one of her speeches yesterday morning, and I swear she said ‘honestly’ twelve entire times.Honestly, it’s not that hard.Honestly, shut up!”

“At least she’s not sniffing all day,” said Kate. “My partner called in three days last week, some killer flu she picked up from her kid. I got stuck with this part-timer they call Grandma Sniff. She never stops sniffing. Oh, my God. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.”

Jen and I sniffed. Kate showed us her finger. She narrowed her eyes at me, all boozy focus.

“You never answered Jen’s question.IsMiles still a dick?”

I laughed. “He was never— Holy crap.”

“What?”

I could hardly believe it, but Miles washere, over by the doorway, loosening his coat. He was talking to a thin man with messy blond hair.

“That’s him,” I hissed.

Kate lit up. “Which one? The blond?”

“No, no, the other one.”

Jen blinked. “He’s the hot one?”

“I wouldn’t saythat.”

“I would,” said Kate. “He looks like that guy, y’know, from that show. That dating show where they’re all on that island?”

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