Page 5 of For The Record

“Hey, stop insulting your car like that! Betsy has gotten us through some good times,” she jokes. “My parents’ flight is here. Pick up ingredients for a stir-fry, please. Thank you and bye!”

I hang up the phone, two seconds away from banging my head on the steering wheel like I’m a movie character. Instead, I slam on the brakes, narrowly missing a cyclist. It’s going to be a long day, even if it is already half over.

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I’m in the kitchen—with the windows open to let out the cooking smells since our range hood broke last month—when Poppy and her parents enter. A birdhouse perches on a branch outside the window, one I made while binging Netflix last weekend. Popsicles and toothpicks painted blue and green make up its miniature walls, ones I carefully assembled while trying not to get splinters under my fingernails.

Picking up a sliver of bamboo shoot off of the floor, I throw it in the trash. Then I get back to stirring the mildly dented wok that we received as a housewarming gift when we moved into our small apartment. It looks out of place next to the high-end cooking equipment, spices, and sauces that my stepmother, Heidi, gave me as a Christmas gift, but part of me thinks it fits right in. It’s eclectic. Quirky, even.

“Skye?” Poppy calls. “My parents are here!”

Edna and Bruce Black have always treated me like one of their own, and in many ways, I feel closer to them than I do to my actual family. Pretty ironic, considering they live in the Midwest and my family is right in Beverly Hills. But I haven’t talked to either of Poppy and Ryder’s parents since the breakup that I instigated.

“In here!” I cough as I hear the smoke alarm go off. The wok is black. Or at least, an extremely dark brown. Is the food burning, or did I just add too much oyster sauce? Quickly turning off the stove, I wince and scrape the food onto a plate. It looks fine. Mostly. I mean, it’s edible, right? “I’m making dinner.”

On second thought, when I think of Edna’s Stepford wife lifestyle and my woeful attempts that fall completely short of it, I should probably just throw the whole wok out. It’s way too burnt to be eaten. Fishing out a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom, some cans of tuna, and a box of pasta, I place them on the counter and go out to greet Poppy’s family.

“That smells delicious, Skye.” Edna engulfs me in a warm hug, a bright smile on her face. Her movements are “What’s for dinner?”

“Tuna casserole,” I cut in before Poppy can say anything. She raises her perfectly drawn eyebrows, but when she notices my blackened oven mitts, she shrugs. We’re both aware that our culinary exploits aren’t always the most… productive. Or even edible.

“Ah, just like grandma used to make,” Poppy says, in a high-pitched tone. She slings an arm around her mom’s shoulders and shoots me a curious look. Her hazel gaze darts around the room in the way it always does when she’s nervous about something and trying to hold together a facade. “Did you call Ryder?”

“Why don’t we get you two settled in with a drink first? Poppy, come help me,” I say quickly before she can ask any more thinly veiled questions disguised as interrogation. Like a flu shot, I might as well get this over with.

“Beer for me, please,” Bruce says. “It’s good to see you again, Skye.”

“You too, Mr. Black,” I say, despite all their protests to call them by their first names. Edna asks for a gin and tonic, so Poppy and I go into the kitchen to give ourselves some modicum of privacy.

“So, what is going on that will involve you and Ryder having to be in close contact soon?” Poppy asks as she pulls two clean glasses out of the dishwasher that we never unload. She tosses a tumbler between her hands like it’s a football, not a breakable piece of dishware. For all her fashionable outfits and Instagram-worthy makeup looks, my best friend is as rough-and-tumble as they come.

I open the fridge, looking for the six-pack of beer that someone left here from our last house party. Finding a can, I pop off the top and turn around slowly, careful not to spill the foaming liquid. “My boss wants me to work with him. For the publicity of his whole… For promoting his debut album, I mean.”

“Are you going to do it?” she asks, setting the glasses on the counter. I pour the beer into one of them as she pulls gin from another kitchen cabinet.

Taking the ice tray from the freezer, I sigh and shake a few cubes into the other glass, careful not to spill any ice onto the counter. “I don’t know. I have no choice. In Jennifer’s eyes, I’m barely a few steps up from an intern. This is my chance to prove myself and prove that I’m professional. Capable of anything.”

“Well, if you can do this, you can do anything. Working with your ex-boyfriend, I mean, after he wrote a song about you,” Poppy says, patting me on the back before twisting the lid off of the Bombay Sapphire in a move that sends the cap flying. “Oh crap!”

While she picks it up, I pour the gin into the glasses, fingers tightening around the bottle.

“Easy for you to say.” I squeeze a lime wedge into the G&T with too much force. A seed flies out and narrowly misses my eye. Poppy fights back a laugh as I scramble to clean it up. Being in this kitchen is like dodging an array of culinary bullets. “Youhaven’t seen any of your exes since you left Kentucky.”

For the record, I would think Poppy is dating someone. With her glossy black hair, electric blue eyes, and slender frame, she should be a model, not a fashion stylist at her magazine. But, then again, L.A. is a city full of model-esque girls, and she’s married to her job… and five-foot-three. The perks are that she takes home tons of free beauty products and sometimes a designer handbag or two. If we get robbed, someone would take the Chanel and Chloe bags before even checking our safe.

“Maybe we can get my parents to take Ryder home with them when they leave?” she jokes, adding soda water to the gin and tonic.

I wish.

We bring out the drinks. Edna and Bruce gush appreciatively over them, making me feel like a child at a Christmas pageant who managed to do the bare minimum of remembering my lines and not puking on my shoes. (Both of which I was unable to accomplish at my elementary school talent show). It’s nice but hollow.

The doorbell rings in the middle of our conversation.Ryder. Never one for brave confrontations, I run into the kitchen and down a shot of gin from the still-open bottle. Ugh. That stuff isnasty. I prefer fruity cocktails sipped slowly, but in a time of emergency, it’s hard to be a chooser. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I take another burning shot to keep my hands from shaking. Then I smile at myself in the blurry reflection of the water that I soaked the wok in.Be professional, Skye.Ugh. In my frickin’ apartment.

“Honey, aren’t you going to go talk to your girlfriend? I’m sure the two of you haven’t seen each other all day,” I hear Edna’s voice floating into the kitchen, syrupy sweet and thick with her Kentucky accent.

My fingers tighten around the gin.He didn’t tell her?

“Actually… Mom, there’s something I need to tell you,” Ryder says, sounding like the words are being dragged from him. I can picture him, five years old in the principal’s office, staring down at his scuffed shoes and being forced to apologize for stealing some kid’s crayons. “We… We broke up. So, no, I don’t want to see Skye.”

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