The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men by Ernessa T. Carter Page B

Risa,” Tammy said. “You know I don’t like being gloomy.”
    Her explanation was met with stunned silence, everyone at the table intensely aware that none of them had ever known Tammy as anything but the face of Farrell Cosmetics.
    Tammy couldn’t bear their looks, which were just a few shades away from pity. She rushed to fill the silence with her personal brand of optimism and sunshine. “Plus, I didn’t see any reason to tell you until I had something positive to take away from the experience. And now I do. I’ve decided to transition into acting, I’ve already booked my first spot, and it’s a national one, for a Verizon commercial. Really, I’m so excited about my future right now.”
    The waiter showed up with their champagne then, and as he poured, Thursday regarded Tammy with open admiration. Only Tammy would lose a job she’d held for over a decade and spin it into a silver lining. She wondered why she herself couldn’t ever do that, why she considered jumping off a roof every day now because of her latest career setback, and she quietly resolved not to daydream about killing herself in 2011, to be happier, more optimistic, more like Tammy.
    Sharita, on the other hand, made a mental note not to tell her sister, Nicole, who had taken considerable loans to go to grad school at Yale, that Tammy, a former model with no acting experience whatsoever, had booked an ad for the same company that rejected her sister. But out loud, she said to Tammy, “I’m proud of you, girl.”
    “Thanks,” Tammy answered.
    “While we’re on the subject I’ve got some good news, too,” Risa said. “The A&R guy at Gravestone sent my version of ‘Party Hard’ to some music supervisor he knows and now they’re using it for a teen movie starring one of those kids from some CW show.”
    “Which one?” Sharita, their television expert, asked. “
Gossip Girl
?
Vampire Diaries
?
90210
?
Hellcats
?
Smallville
?”
    “Yeah, one of those,” Risa said. She watched sci-fi with Sharita, pretty much everything on HBO and Showtime, and sometimes a few DVRed episodes of the Nick Jr. show
Yo Gabba Gabba!
when she got home from bartending, so she had no idea what Sharita was talking about.
    Before Sharita could press her further, Thursday chimed in with, “I’ve also got some good news and … some weird news. The good news is Caleb and I have been dating for three months, so you guys can meet him.”
    Thursday didn’t believe in introducing a boy to her friends if she hadn’t been dating him for at least three months, and since she used to be a serial one-month stander this meant her friends had yet to meet anyone she’d ever dated. “Since I’m turning thirty next month, I’m going to throw a party at my place and you all can come out and meet him. That means you, too, Sharita.”
    Sharita’s eyes widened. “It’s your birthday. Of course I’ll come.”
    “I’m going to remember you said that,” Thursday said.
    “You should get her to write it down. Like a contract,” Risa said.
    Sharita swatted Risa’s shoulder. “Okay, I’m not that bad. I said I’d come, and I’ll be there.”
    “I believe you,” Tammy said.
    “Thank you,” Sharita told her with pointed looks at both Thursday and Risa. “Why can’t ya’ll be more like Tammy?” Then, before they could answer with something snide, or worse, true, she said, “Moving on, what’s the weird news, Day?”
    Thursday fiddled with the stem of her champagne glass. “I kind of don’t know how to bring this up, so I guess I’ll just say it quick. This actorslash-producer approached me last month because he’s planning to do a biopic about my dad, and I told him I wasn’t interested in it because of, you know, me hating Rick T and all that. But he kept on calling me. And finally, he straight up offered me ten thousand dollars just to read the script and give him my notes. Which is great. I have no problems unleashing on a script about my father, and I