Friends Like Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

left early for a housecleaning job. So I’m alone, sitting at the kitchen table with a half-eaten bagel and a glass of orange juice and my notebook. Before I moved back to Milwaukee, I interned for six months at Crowley, Donovan, an ad agency in Evanston run by two scruffy, displaced Irish guys who swore constantly, as if their use of the word “fucking” as verb, adverb, and adjective could disguise the fact that they worked fourteen-hour days and drove Saabs. They throw me an assignment now and then, little projects they can’t be arsed to do, and they pay me slightly more than waitressing would, and less than almost anything else. Right now I’m brainstorming names for a new eyeliner for Vérité, a very small makeup and skin care company that is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. “Is it you, or is it Vérité?” That’s their slogan. “If it’s overdue, it must be Vérité,” is how Michael and Declan refer to them.
    I jot a few ideas down on my growing list. This product line is targeted at the young woman in her mid- to late-twenties … She’s single, adrift, not yet comfortable in her own skin. She goes out to clubs and bars looking for excitement and thrills but what she really wants, what she yearns for, is a place to call home.
    We thought it’d be perfect for you, sweetheart, Declan e-mailed me last week. Fuck off! I wrote back, which meant Thanks, I’ll take it.
    Luminate. Luminesce, I try gamely. In the world of cosmetics, nonword variations of “luminous” are always good, as is anything vaguely European; add -ique to any word, and you’ve got a product. Luminique ? But then there’s the danger that your lipstick will sound like a porn star. Food is always a good fallback plan, since apparently women sublimate. Anything with “apricot” or “pear” will generally sell well. (But not banana; we sublimate more subtly than that.) Wordplay in limited quantities can be “fun.” Eye-dentity, I write, but it sounds a little toothy. Eye-dealism. Surpr-eyes! Eye-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter. Eye suck!
    The doorbell buzzes, a welcome surprise. Jane is the poetic spark that ignites my brainstorming sessions; a word from her, a casual suggestion, can be enough to put an end to hours of fruitless ruminating. A few weeks ago, I was working on a tagline for Arrow, a brand of decaffeinated instant coffee favored by octogenarians, and all I could come up with were vague allusions to impending death. (“Arrow Instant. Because you haven’t got a minute to waste!”) Jane breezed in, glanced over my shoulder, and said, “My grandma used to drink that. She called it her morning cup of joe.” And suddenly I understood that nostalgia along with references to dying would sell better than death alone. Morbidity plus sentimentality equals hope! Michael and Declan said “Arrow. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” was my best fucking work yet.
    Jane rings again. I pad over to the door and buzz her in. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” I call out down the echoey hallway. For someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, my roommate forgets her keys a lot.
    “Thanks!” A voice that is decidedly not Jane’s reverberates back, and it’s Ben who ambles toward me down the long corridor, a white paper bag in one hand, a big, goofy smile on his face.
    My breath catches in a gasp; for a second the whole inhale/exhale system that has always worked so well balks at the sight of him. My day crashes open, bright and unexpected. “Ben!” I yelp.
    “Willa!” He stops at the door, gives me a little poke. “You look nice,” he says, still grinning.
    I glance down at myself and realize I’m still in my monkey pajamas, which are now dusted with bagel crumbs and, I notice, newly spotted with orange juice. “See?” I say. “That’s what phones are for.”
    “For removing orange juice stains from monkey pajamas?”
    “For calling first so people can look presentable when their friends come