Free The Kissing List by Stephanie Reents

again. “Is he going to be okay?”
    “Who?”
    “My inside source?”
    For a split second he stares at her. Then he laughs. It sounds like barking. “You’re funny.”
    She smiles, as though she’s a person capable of telling jokes when in truth the story has sucked her into its vortex, its hold so tight she has momentarily forgotten that it’s fabricated. Plus: she can’t stand making mistakes, even fictional ones. Plus: this is a job interview. Criminy.
    “I’ll be in touch,” Leo says, standing and offering his hand.
    “Thanks,” she says, thinking she needs to cultivate a firmer grip. “I know I made a mistake, but I think I’d make a great reporter.”
    Later that night when Mel staggers through the door, Vita has a Caprese salad waiting, a bottle of chardonnay missing onemodest glass chilling in the refrigerator. Buying wine still gives her a little thrill.
    Mel kicks off her shoes and falls on the futon they both pitched in to buy so that their small apartment could accommodate out-of-town guests. A disadvantage of having a real job is late hours. She pinches the top of her nose between her thumb and finger.
    “Tough day?”
    “You don’t want to know.” Mel does something in marketing that Vita has no interest in understanding. Does this signal something objectionable about Mel? About Vita? About their friendship? “It was majorly bad. How was yours?”
    “I had an interview.” She tries not to sound depressed, even though she is beginning to think that soon her desire to update her wardrobe will make her cave in like a mine shaft or a cheaply built tract house. She pours Mel a jelly jar of wine. “Voilà.”
    “Sweetheart,” Mel says, “was it bad?”
    “Honey,” Vita jokes back, “I fucked up majorly.”
    They clink their glasses.
    “Well, I heard about a job you couldn’t fuck up,” Mel says.
    Vita perks up. She can’t help herself, even though she and Mel have been through this routine a couple times before. “Really?”
    “This guy is looking for a professional girlfriend.”
    Vita laughs. “What? A hooker?”
    “No!” Mel says. “Are you kidding?”
    “You want me to sell myself? Make my status as a commodityexplicit? There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I support the legalization of prostitution …”
    “That’s not what I mean.” Mel takes a sip of her wine. “This guy is a European businessman, and he, like, needs a professional plus-one.”
    “I think that’s called an escort.” Is Mel for real?
    “It’s not like that. It’s more like when I have a date with someone who skeeves me out, and you come along to make things easier. To keep it on the up-and-up. It’s like a professional good friend.”
    Vita realizes she is fiddling with her zipper. “And I’d get paid for this?”
    “You’d get compensated.”
    “Compensated? You really know how to wrangle with the English language.”
    “Oy. Conjunction, junction, what’s your function?” Mel sings in her high little-girl’s voice. “Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.”
    “Very funny.”
    “Conjunction, junction, how’s that function?”
    “Stop it,” Vita giggles. “That’s totally irrelevant.”
    “Oy, Vita, I’m just teasing.” She nudges Vita with her stockinged foot. “I just thought, you know, you’re an adventurous girl, and this sounds like an adventure.”
    “Ixnay,” she says. “It sounds like too much work.”
    “Work?! Give me a break. You’d just have to be your own charming little self.”
    “Very funny,” Vita repeats again, which is like sayingknock it off, only a lot nicer. She moves toward the refrigerator, only five steps from the couch. “Caprese salad?” She mangles the Italian.
    “Ah oui, ma chérie,” Mel says. “You are the world’s best roommate.”
    O n Wednesday at five, Dom insists on taking her out for drinks “to thank you for your diligence.” She tries to say no politely, since she suspects she and Dom have said all there is to