Kay's potato chips were gone, and her slightly manic college roomie hacked her ex's media accounts. She had no mental capacity to lie now.

"The Chevy," she said.

Jess paused mid-crunch. "That was an invitation, Noodle-head, not a question."

Kay fidgeted as seven cups of coffee bum rushed her bladder. "You said you just moved. I didn't want to impose."

"How dare you imply your presence be anything other than necessary," said Jess. "Now, if you're done moping into the city's shittiest cup of coffee-"

"Don't dis Flo's flow of Joe," said Kay.

"Grab your keys, and I shall open my couch cushions to your skinny butt." Jess frowned as she glanced Kay up and down. "Girl, you do need to eat more."

"Well, someone ate all my damn chips."

"No matter!" Jess raised a hand. "There will be chips on tap from this day forth."

"Am I following you there?"

"Please, have you seen the city traffic. I took a bus here. Public transport for the win. Reduce my carbon footprint and all that jazz."

"You could take the bus home."

"Have you smelled the bus? One trip in a cloud of B.O. and Axe body spray is enough for today, thank you." Jess rummaged through the burlap sack of a purse and slapped a twenty on the table. Kay didn't bother to point out the waitress already picked up her bill. Daphne was open enough to the universe for some insta-karma.

Speaking of which, grateful as she was to Jess for dishing a dollop of digital annoyance on the Jerk, Kay still had to live with the fallout. She dreaded her inbox when she managed to charge her phone.

"Come! Let's away to our noble steed." Jess jumped up from the booth, her arms spread wide. Kay had to admit she missed the dramatic flair. Over the past three years, the Jerk slowly wore the flair out of her with snide comments about her maturity and acting her age, until she no longer talked with her hands or quoted lines from the Princess Bride when the situation called for it. That small epiphany hit her hard, riding on the coattails of another pressing bodily function.

"Fine, but first, I need to use the bathroom or I'll pee my pants on the first pothole."

The porcelain hiatus gave her time to think. Jess's arrival was a moment of serendipity, one Kay honestly didn't deserve after the way she closed her friends out of her life while caught up in the Jerk. She was in the precarious position of needing a helping hand, and Jess was one of the few people in her life who wouldn't slap her across the face with it. Her friend's easy forgiveness was enough to make her eyes fill.

Maybe, after the free fall plunge of ill fortunes yesterday, the scales were tipping back in her favor.

She found Jess chatting with Daphne when she returned. The waitress appeared fully engaged with whatever story her friend was spinning. Kay caught the tail end of it as she arrived.

"So then, Kay shows up in this adorable sushi roll costume, where she filled these water balloons to look like salmon roe," said Jess. "Except they were filled with vodka."

Kay slapped a hand over the woman's mouth and turned to the waitress. "Thank you for the meal Daphne. Have a wonderful day." She swore she heard the waitress cackling as she left. Kay yanked her hand back as Jess licked her palm.

"Ew, you taste like cheap soap," said Jess, crinkling her nose.

"You're lucky I washed my hands," said Kay.

Jess rolled her eyes. "That, my dear germaphobe, is an empty threat."

"I'm not a germaphobe!"

"Yeah right. Like that time we visited that frat house and you used a bucket of hand sanitizer after every room."

"The door knobs were sticky. It was unsettling," said Kay. "Ready to go or do you want to find more strangers to share my embarrassing college exploits with?"

"The offer is tempting." Jess grinned.

Kay sighed. "I missed you."

Kay had several inches on her, but Jess managed to throw her arm around Kay's shoulders. "Come on, Noodle-head. I'll even buy you pho for dinner."

Kay burst into tears.

The drive to Jess's apartment was a blur of chatter and laughter as her roomie caught her up on lost time. Jess had been busy. After she aced a handful of tech based certifications over the summer, she'd snagged a job as tech support in the city's massive public library. The library wanted her to start immediately, which involved picking up and moving several states into the first living space she could find.

"Here it is! I call it the Cave."

The Cave was the converted basement level of an old high school. A row of high boxy half windows provided a smidgen of natural light. The renovators attempt to make the apartment airy and bright but the subterranean space made the white and lemon painted walls mostly anemic.

The living room looked like Jess raided the dumpster at an Ikea, taken up by a chaotic sprawl of partially unpacked appliance boxes, but one corner was cleared away for a lumpy comfortable looking couch and entertainment center. There was a paused game of classic Mario Bros on the large flat-screen. Jess really had dropped everything to come and get her.

"I know it's a bit crowded at the moment but I can stop fluffing around and clear this stuff up," said Jess.

Kay hugged her around the neck. "It's perfect. Are you sure I can't convince you to let me pay--"

Jess batted her away. "None of that. I told you, this is a leg up offer. You can pay me back in the future, when you're a big shot lawyer and my life of online vigilantism has caught up with me."

Kay laughed. "Is there a corner I can stash my boxes?"

"Go grab 'em, I'll clear a space," said Jess.

Least their boxed belongings were easy to distinguish from one another. The Jerk, no his assistant, used uniform identical boxes. Kay snarled a little just thinking of the strange woman pawing through her stuff, packing up her life on the Jerk's orders. She wondered how that order went down so fast. True she spent a good couple hours after the salting incident sitting in HR as they shuffled paperwork, but it wasn't that long. Never underestimate the time management of a determined P.A.

She needed to stop dwelling on the Jerk. And the salt incident. So what if it happened yesterday. Kay needed to move onward and upward. She returned to the living room to find Jess shoving a train of boxes into a room at the end of the hall.

"Good enough for now. Want to be the Luigi to my Mario?

"Aren't I always?"

"You are a tall Italian who looks good in suspenders."

"Half Italian. And I shouldn't. I need to charge my phone. And upload my resume." A roof over her head meant Kay could focus damage control on the job front. Dinner was a long way off, but she knew how Jess got with video games. "You made mention of pho?"

"So persistent. Fine, I'll hit up the Door Dash, you plug in your phone. Which box has your laptop?"

Kay waved her phone. Jess gave her a horrified look.

"You don't have a computer?"

"Everything I need to do is on here," said Kay.

"What kind of heathen are you?"

Kay shrugged. "Didn't see any point in buying one. This is smaller and easier to carry. It even counts my steps everyday."

"You just---what about--?" Jess sputtered several more words before she snatched Kay's phone out of her hand and stomped into the same room she'd shoved the boxes. Kay followed to find a disaster of a bedroom, the bed half covered in what she hoped was clean laundry, as Jess dug through a box that once held a toaster oven. She emerged with a slim computer roughly the size of a hardcover book.

"Here. Did you at least save your resume on a Cloud?"

"I'm not a total heathen," said Kay. She grinned as Jess stomped out, muttering under her breath at Kay's lack of technological gadgetry.

By the time their pho arrived, Kay had uploaded her resume to a half a dozen recruitment sites and sent out a handful of fishing messages to see who was hiring. Confident she was set up as much as possible, she settled down next to Jess for an evening of eight bit entertainment and pho in good company.

Jess finally retired to her room around midnight, a late night for Kay, but she was full, the couch was comfy, and she had a roof over her head. She would be back on her feet in no time.

***

Kay woke up to a wet hissing noise. She sat up with start, her hair a wavy puff around her head, and attempted to gain her bearings. She blinked her vision clear in time to see Jess standing at the kitchenette island, browsing on an open laptop as she ate breakfast. Her roomie slapped down the laptop screen with a guilty expression.

"What'sa matter?" Kay mumbled through a yawn.

"It's nothing. Nothing at all." Jess buried her face into a bowl of knock off peanut butter puffs."Good morning sunshine."

Kay squinted at her roomie. For all her illicit digital extracurriculars, face to face Jess was a terrible liar. Kay flopped out of bed and bee-lined for the laptop.

"Ah, wait, noooo!" Jess dribbled a mouthful of milk and mush as she attempted to stop her.

Not that Kay knew what she was looking at, not at first. It appeared to be the resume she posted on one of the recruitment websites, but from the perspective of an admin rather than a potential employer.

"Why is there a smudge over my face?" Kay licked her thumb and attempted to clean the screen while Jess made an indignant noise.

"Use the spray! Like I'd let my screen get that dirty," said Jess. Kay glanced at the sink full of dishes. The blender was a hazmat zone. But Jess's entertainment space was pristine, the desk space in her room uncluttered. The woman had priorities, not necessarily good ones, but she had them. Kay's attention shifted back to the oddity in her file.

"Is something wrong with their site?" Her frown deepened. There was a cross out line through her contact information. "What is this?"

Jess coughed indelicately through another mouthful of cereal. She wouldn't meet Kay's eye.

"Spill it."

Jess set her bowl down with a consternated expression. "It's got to be an error. I'll call their tech guy to check it out."

"Now, you're avoiding?"

She sighed. "You've been black marked."

Kay's obvious confusion made her friend fidget. Jess started talking with rapid fire words. "Okay, remember in Pirates 2 when pirate Johnny Depp had that gnarly black mark on his hand that signaled him for pirate Hell? It's like that except you're in corporate Hell and no one will hire you. Ever."

Kay sucked in a gasp and choked on her own spit. Jess slapped her back until Kay shoved her off. "No, they can't do this," she wheezed. "I have a pre-law degree. And two years of law school."

"And a steaming pile of student debt," said Jess.

Kay flapped a hand at the computer. "How did this happen?"

Jess worried her bottom lip. "It's rare. I mean, you have to royally screw up at your previous employer."

Kay froze. HR moved fast. "How royally?"

Jess snorted. "Did you murder another intern?"

"Not exactly." Kay tapped her fingertips together. "I may have salted someone."

"You assaulted someone?" Jess nodded her head. "Not bad."

"No! And don't look so impressed, you delinquent." Kay rolled on the balls of her feet. "They fired me for 'poisoning my boss'" Kay held up air quotes.

Jess's eyes widened. "You poisoned your boss?"

"I put salt in his coffee," said Kay. "It was freaking April Fools' Day. The whole office did stupid pranks." One measly prank that kept blowing up in her face. There would never be another prank as long as she lived. "What do I do, Jess?"

Jess's mouth moved for a second. Kay sat down hard on the kitchen stool. If Jess was at a loss for words, she was definitely screwed.

"Hey, give me a couple of days. Let me talk to some peeps I know. We'll get this sorted."

Kay wanted to believe her. Jess was genuine and resourceful. She managed to find Kay in this huge city after seeing the Jerk's social media post. She had skills. But Kay couldn't shake the sensation of quicksand under her feet. "What if you can't fix it?" She needed to prepare herself for the worst.

Jess blew out a breath. "I mean, it's a corporate mark. There can't be that much trickle down. Try the smaller firms. And if that doesn't work, take something below your pay-grade." She held up a finger. "For now. We will get this fixed."

Wisely, her friend did not make any promises.