Free Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot

this?”
    “You brought her up,” Chaz points out.
    What am I doing here? What am I doing, sitting on my best friend’s boyfriend’s couch, telling him all my problems? Worse, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend.
    “If you tell Luke,” I growl, “anything about what I said here today, I’ll kill you. I really mean it. I’ll—I’ll kill you.”
    “I believe you,” Chaz says gravely.
    “Good.” I climb to my feet—not very steadily. Chaz didn’t skimp on the gin. “I’ve got to go. Luke’ll be home soon.”
    “Hold on there, champ,” Chaz says, and pulls me back down to the couch by the back of my beaded cardigan.
    “Hey,” I say. “That’s cashmere, you know.”
    “Simmer down,” Chaz says. “I’m going to do you a solid.”
    I hold up both hands, palms out, to ward him off. “Oh no,” I say. “No way. I do not want a loan, Chaz. I’m going to do this on my own, or not at all. I’m not touching your money.”
    “That’s good to know,” Chaz says dryly. “Because I wasn’t planning on offering you any of my money. What I’m wondering is if you could do the wedding-gown thing part-time. Like, afternoons only.”
    “Chaz,” I say, putting my hands down. “I’m not getting paid to do the wedding-gown thing. When you aren’t getting paid, you can pretty much make your own hours.”
    “Right,” he says. “So you have your mornings free?”
    “Regrettably,” I say.
    “Well, it just so happens,” he says, “that Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn just lost their morning receptionist to a touring company of Tarzan, the musical.”
    I blink at him. “Your dad’s law firm?”
    “Correct,” Chaz says. “The receptionist position there is apparently so demanding that it has to be split into two shifts, one from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, and the other fromtwo in the afternoon until eight in the evening. The afternoon shift is currently held by a young woman with modeling aspirations, who needs her mornings free for go-sees…or to recover from her hangover from partying the night before, whichever you care to believe. But they’re looking for someone to fill in for the morning shift. So, if you’re serious about wanting a job, it might not be a bad gig for you. You’d have your afternoons free for Monsieur Whatsisname, and you wouldn’t have to sell off your Betty Boop collection, or whatever it is. It only pays twenty bucks an hour, but it comes with benefits like major medical and paid vaca—”
    But he doesn’t get to go on. Because I’ve already thrown myself at him when I hear the words “twenty bucks an hour.”
    “Chaz, are you serious?” I cry, grasping big handfuls of his T-shirt. “Will you really put in a good word for me?”
    “Ow,” Chaz says. “That’s my chest hair you’re pulling.”
    I let go of him. “Oh God. Chaz! If I could work all morning, then go to Monsieur Henri’s in the afternoons…I might be able to make it. I might actually be able to make it in New York City after all! I won’t have to sell my stuff! I won’t have to go home!” More important, I won’t have to admit to Luke how much of a failure I am.
    “I’ll call Roberta in human resources and set up an appointment for you,” Chaz says. “But I’m warning you, Lizzie. It’s not easy work. Sure, all you’re doing is transferring phone calls. But my dad’s law firm specializes in divorces and matrimonial planning—in other words, prenups. Their clients are pretty demanding, and the lawyers are pretty uptight. Things can get really tense. I know, my dad had me work in the mailroom one summer when I was just out of high school. And it sucked.”
    I’m barely listening. “Is there a dress code? Do I have to wear panty hose? I hate panty hose.”
    Chaz sighs. “Roberta can tell you all about that. Listen. Not to make it not all about you for a change, or anything, but do you know what’s up with Shari?”
    That gets my attention. “Shari? No. Why? What