Everything and everyone is hotter in this season, so take advantage of it. The only thing that should be tied down this summer is your surfboard to the top of your car.
You can join me every Wednesday for more Shift Girl summer dates, dos, and don’t-you-dares.
Carpe that Effing Diem!
Harper
10
ONCE I STARTED WRITING, NOT staring at the screen and thinking about writing but actually putting words on the page, I couldn’t stop.
I wrote the blog post.
But I also didn’t write the blog post.
It was as if I was creating a character—summoning and projecting a cooler and more confident version of myself—and her voice took over, if that makes any sense.
“This is exactly what I was talking about when I said you could be whoever you wanted,” Kristina says when I try to explain. “It’s not a character; it’s you. The writing sounds like you. Okay, maybe it sounds like you had a million cans of Diet Coke, but it’s totally your sense of humor.”
“It doesn’t seem off to you that I’m giving advice about having a summer fling versus flings when I’ve never had either? It doesn’t seem like I’m lying?”
“It’s not a lie. Just because you haven’t done it yourself doesn’t mean that it isn’t good advice. Advice that you should be taking. It is way better to date lots of guys over the summer. Slash always.” She pauses for a breath before continuing her monologue. “Look, if Mother Teresa wrote a listicle about ways to help poor people, but she personally hadn’t tried each and every one of them, she wouldn’t be lying, would she? The world would still be a better place if people listened to her. Harper, you’re writing service journalism!”
“Service journalism? Okay, now who sounds like she’s been smoking Bobby McKittrick’s bad pot?”
But in spite of the Mother Teresa hyperbole, Kristina is making some sense.
My dating blog isn’t a lie. And even if it is, it’s a white lie. Told for the greater good. And who knows, maybe if I fake this character long enough, eventually I’ll start turning into this new persona through osmosis or something. (I don’t know, science isn’t my thing.)
I send McKayla my column first thing Monday morning, as requested. She doesn’t say anything. And as Wednesday approaches, I freak out that her silence might be a very bad sign. I spend the nights before I finally get McKayla’s feedback tossing and turning, acutely aware of Princess’s snoring patterns. (Three short grunts followed by a long snort, pause, repeat.) Instead of counting sheep, I count all the different reasons McKayla might hate it. All the different ways that things can backfire. What if she sees right through my blog and me? I can hear her saying how obvious it is that I have no idea what I’m talking about.
How it was a mistake hiring me after all. How I’m clueless and I can’t even write. How Adam Lockler was correct and I should focus on fact checking. How I’m going to be fired in a blast of public humiliation and sent back to Castalia, where I’ll be unemployed because Skinny B’s already finished up its summer hiring.
But that’s not what happens.
Because it turns out that McKayla actually likes it.
Okay, so she doesn’t go so far as to utter the words “I like it,” but she does say, “Cute,” before setting it live on the website Wednesday morning. And since McKayla is short on praise, that four-letter word makes me smile just as hard as I would if she told me that she was submitting my dating blog to the Pulitzer committee.
I walk on a cloud, back to the bullpen.
“I gained, like, five pounds when I dated an ice-cream scooper last summer,” Brie tells me later that morning. “How about you?”
“Huh?”
“Your blog post? Your fling with a guy at a fro-yo shop!” Brie’s eyes glimmer. Or maybe it’s just her glitter eyeliner, which she insists is going to be huge this fall.
“Oh, right!” I quickly recover. “Um . . . six? I gained six pounds?”
Sunny looks up from her computer screen and sighs. “It’s so much better dating someone in the fashion industry than the food industry. I’ll take free clothes over calories any day.”
“I don’t know, it would be a toss-up for me,” I reply, hoping to find a way to make Sunny smile. “Fries over guys.”
“Oh, you poor hetero-normative child.” Sunny sighs again. “Besides, I’ll take girls over fries any day.”
“What’s the best thing you ever got out of a date?” Brie asks Gigi. “I’ll bet it’s something fancy and European. Like Chanel Number 5.”
Gigi smooths her hair.
“I think it’s very gauche to kiss and tell,” she says, looking straight in my direction, before explaining in a kindergarten teacher voice, “That means tacky, Harper.”
“No way, kissing and telling is fun!” Brie breezes right over the insult as if it never happened.
“I’m sure Harper has an army of conquests she’d love to keep talking about,” Gigi says. “Go ahead. Tell us all about having sex behind the bleachers, or whatever it is you do.”
The interns look up expectantly. Even Jamie, who’s never not busy cranking out a story.
“I already made the Leader Board today, so I earned a break,” she says smugly. The TV screen hovering above our desks shows that her article about “7 Bizarre Pizza Hut Creations You Won’t Believe Are Real” is sitting comfortably as the third most popular story on the website. “I could use a funny story.”
I didn’t know being a dating blogger would make people treat me like a show pony. Luckily I’m more prepared this time than when I was with McKayla, and I have one of Kristina’s bizarre dates ready.
He had a nut allergy. She had no idea and ate a Snickers bar a few hours before they started to Dance Floor Make-Out at a party. Swelling ensued. Eli and the EpiPen.
I tell the story and everyone laughs except Gigi.
“So the cupcakes weren’t an isolated incident? You like poisoning people for fun?” Before Gigi can go on, she’s interrupted by swear words echoing through the office.
We all freeze.
“No, I will not go to the thirteenth floor!” the voice shouts again. I stand up to get a view of what’s happening right in time to see Granny Hair, usually so nice and levelheaded, hang up her work phone and throw it against the wall.
“THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!” she shouts even louder. People sitting near the meltdown go over and start saying things to her in whispers that don’t travel the span of the office.
“NO, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! I GOT A CALL TELLING ME TO GO TO THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.” Granny Hair pushes them away and marches to McKayla’s office, her stilettos stabbing the floor. But we can see through the glass doors that her office is empty.
McKayla’s assistant comes running, explaining that she’s at an important meeting.
“Coward,” Granny Hair says in a more muted tone. “I’ve worked here for five years. She’s going to fire me and not even be here to do it. She’s going to send me down to HR.”
The assistant tries to calm Granny Hair down. “Please, Michelle, just go to the thirteenth floor. You don’t want to make a scene. I don’t want to have to call security.”
“Well, someone needs to make a scene,” Michelle says, before turning around to the rest of the office. “She’s turning you all into hamsters on a wheel. I’m not sorry that I can’t write six-plus stories a day, every day. I didn’t become a journalist to do this.”
She walks back to her desk, picks up her bag, and heads to the elevators. She passes the intern desks on her way out and scoffs.
“I’m sure one of you will replace me in no time.”
No one says a word for a good ten seconds after she leaves, which sounds like a short time but feels like eternity.
Jamie is the first of the interns to break the moment of silence.
“Do you think that she meant it when she said that one of us would replace her?”
“Oh my God, did you really just s
ay that?” I ask in disbelief. “I thought you guys were friends.”
“Also,” Abigail pipes in, “Michelle had been here for years. Her replacement is probably going to have more experience than an intern like us.”
“Maybe an intern like you.” Jamie motions to the Leader Board. “Michelle’s stories never broke the Top Ten. She just wasn’t ready to adjust her skill set and help turn Shift into a digital powerhouse. I’d be a great replacement—I’m cheaper and faster.”
And modest, too.
“Maybe don’t advertise how cheap you are,” Gigi says. “Harper’s right, maybe you should at least pretend you have a tiny bit of empathy for Michelle.”
Gigi actually smiles at me. Which is kind of shocking, but mostly nice.
“I should be realistic,” Jamie says, refusing to relent. “I just want to get in the game.”
By the time McKayla comes back to the office, she doesn’t acknowledge anything has happened. Granny Hair’s long gone and Skirt Suit from HR packed her desk into a box hours ago.
No one brings it up. Out of sight, out of mind.
McKayla summons me into her office and my heart skips a beat, knowing my blog post didn’t make it onto the Leader Board. It didn’t even come close.
Before McKayla has time to deliver her reprimand, I apologize profusely.
“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Be better. There isn’t a lot of social media chatter about your blog. What girls have been tweeting about the most is that they want to know how they can actually get a fling.”
“Wait, people have been tweeting in response to my blog?”
McKayla looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Twitter is one of the biggest promotional tools we have. You really need to start using social media in a professional capacity.”
I nod.
“So for your next blog, let’s give readers what they want,” she says. “I want you to write a how-to guide. How to get a date.”
11
“WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE you’re about to throw up?” Ben says, unleashing Princess so that she can attend to her pre-bedtime nap. “I thought a summer fling would have put some hop in your step. No extra toppings on your fro-yo?”
I look up from my notebook page, which is titled “How to Get a Guy” with absolutely nothing under it.
“You read my blog?!” I ask.
“I needed new reading material. Princess isn’t as good as Atticus at sneaking me your diary.”
“Not a diary. A notebook. Totally different thing.” I kick off my shoe in his direction.
“Yeah, yeah. What I’m saying is, of course I read your blog. It was good. Although I’m more of a one-girl kind of guy.”
“Ah, yes, pining from afar.”
“Not by choice!” Ben bends down to take a picture of Princess. She’s positioned like she’s posing for a boudoir photo, luxuriating on her back with her head hanging off the side of her royal-purple doggy bed. “I wanted to go upstate for the Fourth of July to visit Delilah, but she told me she was too busy. She said I’d get it if I took sports as seriously as she did.”
“That’s kind of harsh.”
Ben shrugs. “It’s true, I guess. What are you up to this weekend?”
“Researching my next blog, aka why I look like I have to throw up. Editor’s orders: Actually finding summer flings.” I pause and watch Ben position Princess’s crown squeaky toy in the frame of his picture. With trepidation, I put on my casual voice and ask, “Any advice? On the best ways to approach guys?”
“Just wear a low-cut top and you’re golden.”
“Ew!” Princess jolts up at my cry.
“You’re not the only sarcastic one here!” Ben says, scratching under Princess’s (multiple) chins to calm her down. “Guys are easy. You could even ask us what time it is and we’d be interested. It’s just about starting the conversation.”
Well, that’s good news. I’m capable of stringing sentences together. Most of the time.
“Do you need help finding guys? I have friends who’d love to go viral . . . not in an STD way.”
“Gross. Wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, this blog is a how-to guide on picking up a guy. I’m going to have to find them for myself.”
This weekend it’s time to practice what I preach, out in the wild.
* * *
I had planned on going into the day with a theme song. Maybe play my “Pump Up” Spotify playlist to get me in the zone for flirting domination. But I left my earbuds at Aunt Vee’s apartment, so I headed downtown to the soundtrack of the subway—which is basically people playing Candy Crush with the sound turned on and little kids screaming about how badly they have to go to the bathroom.
I get out at 14th Street, Union Square, and make my way to my preselected first stop: the Strand.
“You have to go; it has eighteen miles of books,” my mom gushed, encouraging me to make the trip to the East Village independent bookstore. “I used to go all the time in grad school. There’s a secret entrance to a rare books room that will make you feel so inspired.”
And so after two weeks in New York, I’ve finally made my trip to:
1. See what on earth 18 Miles of Books—a slogan written on Strand coffee mugs and tote bags—actually looks like. (Answer: Everything from bestsellers to graphic novels to pulp paperbacks to hardcover French first editions crammed in every crammable nook and cranny.)
2. Put myself in the flirting vicinity of cute guys who read. (Ben says he isn’t a big reader, more of a “visual kind of guy.” I had to remind myself not to feel disappointed that he’s guilty of my biggest deal breaker—yet another good reason that he has a girlfriend who isn’t me. What Ben reads or doesn’t read is Delilah’s problem, and from what he’s told me, she mostly sticks to reading playbooks.)
The store is packed with both books and literary-minded boys. But I don’t know where to begin. Maybe if I just stand by one of the highly trafficked tables and say “hmm” a few times, someone will just strike up a conversation with me.
Not so much.
I move on to the next level as the aggressor: smiling. Maybe at an easy target.
I walk over to the graphic novels and turn all my focus toward a freckly redhead wearing a periodic table of elements T-shirt. I wait, smiling across the table from him intently, for what seems like forever until he finally looks up at me with a completely confused look on his face. Oh God, I’m not being flirty. I’m smiling like a maniacal clown, aren’t I? I get a feeling in my stomach like I’m on a roller coaster and turn away quickly . . . directly into a cute clerk who was standing behind me. All the books he was holding go crashing to the floor.
“I, um, I—I,” I stammer, and bend down to help him pick up what has fallen and accidentally bonk into his head, because obviously that’s what I’d do right now. Periodic Table Dude laughs from the sidelines, proving that he never deserved my killer-clown smile in the first place.
Okay, time for round two. Refusing to give up, I head outside to catch my breath.
Harper:
I am failing!
Kristina:
I’m sure ur not.
Harper:
Seriously. Incapable of having normal human interactions. How do I start flirting with someone in a bookstore?
Kristina:
Maybe reach for the same book, let him take it, and then start a convo?
Kristina is a serious genius.
I walk along the discounted dollar-book carts that flank the side of the store, shaded by its deep-red awnings, until I come across a boy who looks like he’s about my age, wearing NYU gym shorts. Perfect.
I approach the cart he’s at slowly, and as soon as he goes to inspect a book, my arm shoots out like a frog’s tongue reaching for a fly, and I literally grab it out of his hand.
“Hey, I was looking at that,” he says, clearly annoyed.
(Note: A tad too aggressive, Harper.)
“Oh, sorry,” I say.
In the hope that I can somehow
fix this scenario, I restrain myself from re-creating my clown expression and instead smile with my eyes, known to the uninitiated as smizing. Unfortunately, this does not have the desired effect of getting NYU boy to smize back.
“So, can I have the book back?” he asks, eyebrows raised.
“Sure,” I say, still smizing. I don’t even know what the book is. But as I start to hand it back, I realize that it’s an old copy of American Psycho. I take a quick flip through its yellowed pages and see that it used to belong to the Rikers Island Correctional Facility library.
Um, a book about a murderous investment banker that was possibly read by murderous investment bankers in prison? Yes, please.
“Actually,” I say, with a change of heart, “you can’t. I definitely want this.”
“Wait, are you serious? You ripped it out of my hands!”
“Sor”—Don’t say sorry. A Shift Girl is never sorry—“I mean, afraid so!”
His voice trails behind as I run inside with my dollar bill. All’s fair in love and literature.
Even though I’m one point for literature and nada for love so far.
So the Strand didn’t work. But I’m not resigned to failure. I walk up toward 14th Street and decide to restart my efforts at Union Square. One block wide and three blocks long, Union Square is as close as America gets to having a European piazza. (Not that I’ve technically been to Europe, but I’ve seen Pinterest boards.)
If I were wearing a strapless bikini under my dress—which Brie claims to do every weekend “because you never know when you’ll end up at a rooftop pool!”—I would join the anonymous sunbathers on the central lawn. Ask someone to put suntan lotion on my back.
But I’m not. Instead I traverse the square’s periphery, bordered by Forever 21 to the south and Barnes & Noble to the north, accepting samples of spicy pickles from the pop-up farmers’ market but refusing samples of “Free Hugs” from someone in desperate need of a shower.
Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies Page 7
