Page 130 of Everything's Coming Up Rosie

“Evelyn!”

“We’re old, not dead.”

“What do you suppose happened here? Do you think they...?”

My eyes pop open and the four women standing over me let out a collective gasp. “What’s going—” I glance to my side and find Booker. Asleep.

“Rosie!” Sadie says. “You’re awake.”

“Looks like you had a great night,if you know what I mean,” Evelyn cracks.

“This isnotwhat it looks like,” I say, willing my creaking muscles to work. A tarp on a stage isn’t a mattress.

I give Booker a shake and try to sit up straighter.

“Well, that’s a shame.” Evelyn looks genuinely disappointed. “Unless you’re just saying that.”

I shake Booker again. “Booker, wake up.” Then, to the Nosy Nellies: “I’m not just saying that.”

“What do the young people call this?” Sadie asks the others. “A walk of shame?” Back to me: “Rosie, walk around so we canofficially tell everyone you did a walk of shame this morning.” She giggles.

Evelyn is staring at Booker. “Rosie, did you get to see him with his shirt off?”

I shake Booker a third time. Geez, this guy sleeps like the dead. He stirs, eyes fluttering open, confusion in all of his features. “Rosie? What’s wrong?”

“He even looks good in the morning,” Evelyn whispers.

“Sorry the same can’t be said for you, Rosie.” Sadie winces and the others shake their heads in agreement, like a brood of chickens.

Booker sits up. I can see him bring the scene into focus. “Oh. Uh... we fell asleep.”

“Looks like you had a good night, though,” Evelyn says.

Sadie giggles.

I’m about to stand when the door to the lobby opens and Bertie walks in. She lifts her hand in a wave, but her smile fades when she spots us, still positioned center stage, on a tarp, where we’ve clearly spent the night.

She turns and glances behind her, just as someone else follows her in: a woman wearing a very nice royal-blue suit and sporting a very specific kind of newswoman haircut, followed by a man carrying a camera and a tripod.

“Oh my gosh,” I say, jumping up. “Oh mygosh,” I repeat, because what else do I say right now?

“What?” Booker says. “What’s wrong?”

“Are we going to be on the news?” Grace’s eyes go wide.

“Shoot, shoot, shoot. They never told me a time, and—” I start swiping at my hair like there are bees in it.

Sadie grimaces. “That’s not going to help.”

Bertie is staring at the stage, and I see the moment she realizes that Booker and I are both here, spread out on a tarp, like we just had an indoor camping excursion. She glances at the reporter trailing behind, then back to me, eyes wide.

I smooth my hands over my leggings. I can smell my armpits. Beside me, Booker stands. “You have an interview?”

“Yes, but they didn’t tell me...” I stop myself from repeating. It isn’t going to change the fact that they’re here.Now.

“Obviously,youdistracted her,” Evelyn says.

Bertie has reached the stage now, and she gives us a tentative smile. Her eyes flick from me to Booker and back again. “Things here look... interesting.”

---