Page 73 of Promise Me Sunshine

“Besides Miles and you, I haven’t made a new friend in years,” I tell him.

“You should call Miles!”

“Why?”

He shrugs, a prism of color under the streetlight. “It’ll be fun!”

So I do just that. It rings twice before Miles answers. “How was the concert?”

“I’m making friends, you tyrant!”

“That’s great. Where are you?”

“We’re headed to a bar in the West Village. Get off your ass and come down here!”

He says nothing and I remember my lesson outside the glasses store. Take him by the hand.

“Hey, Miles.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you come join us? Please?”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Send me the address.”

I hang up and text him the address, looking up at Jericho.

“Let’s go!” He tugs me on and off the train and then into the bar and it’s crowded, but the fun kind, not the bad kind.

Thirty minutes later I feel a dark presence at my shoulder and I jerk around. Miles is standing there, hands in pockets.

“Hi!” I tug him forward into the group. “This is Miles. You already know Jericho, of course. And this is Rica and Jeffy.”

Rica is Dominican, with light brown skin, over six feet tall, and she has the kind of makeup that makes a person look real-life photo-filtered. She’s got earrings the size of my face and a sleek black braid down her back. High heels so tall I could crouch underneath them in an unexpected rain. Her voice is devilishly soft and her smile is devastating.

Jeffy is small and wiry, his blond hair in a bun on top of his head and his eyes suspicious over the top of his beer. My guess is that Jericho brings newcomers more often than he’d like.

Jericho is drunkenly pontificating on Chris Evans’s brilliance as an actor.

Jeffy’s eyes are so narrowed he’s going to see the inside of his own skull soon. “Chris Evans is an absolutezero,” he asserts.

Rica is bored.

“It seems like they’ve had this argument before?” I ask her.

She points. “Jeffy gets personally affronted when anyone conflates good acting with good writing.” She points again. “And Jericho conflates talent with hotness.” She pauses. “Only when they’re drunk, of course.”

I turn back to the group. “But don’t you think being super hotisa talent?”

NowI’mthe recipient of Rica’s pointer finger. “Interesting. Continue.”

“It’s not a talent!” Jeffy insists. “It’s a trait.”

I consider this. “Maybe for a lucky few. But most people expend a lot of energy and know-how to be hot.”

“Facts.” Rica points at herself now. “This makeup represents…six years of YouTube videos? My outfit is…what, twenty years of fashion mags and fashion blogs and dating insufferable FIT students. You’re looking at some serious sweat equity right here.”

“Okay, fine,” Jeffy concedes. “It takes effort to be hot. But the point of him on the screen is not that he’s unbelievably hot. We’re supposed to be moved by his actual acting, no?”

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