Page 54 of Best Served Hot

“Let’s go review somewhere new and fun,” she said. “Get your mind off of it. Is there anywhere you’ve really been wanting to go?”

I honestly didn’t know if I could handle a full-on real restaurant review right now. It wouldn’t be fair to the restaurant that all their food might taste like bitter almonds on my tongue. “One sec. Let me get some advice.”

I put Alice on hold and clicked over to my texts. Opened up a new one to Jada Knox. We’d traded thoughts on chefs and breaking restaurant news on several occasions in the time since our joint restaurant crawl, so I didn’t feel like I was going in out of nowhere. Random question: Where would you go to drown your sorrows after a bad breakup?

The response came before I’d even clicked back over to Alice. Don’t drown them with alcohol; that’s how you end up on the floor crying (personal experience). Soak them up with doughnuts. Let’s go? Yes?

I blinked. I was dazzled. Sure.

She texted me the address for Wendy’s Doughnuts up in Prospect Heights, only a few subway stops away. Excellent. And I didn’t waste any time wondering if Alice would be on board with an extra guest, because I knew she’d be just as dazzled.

The three of us met up at Wendy’s Doughnuts a little over an hour later. The weather was one of the few pleasant days New York City gets in a year, dry and sunny and not painfully hot or cold. My olive green windbreaker was perfect, though being real, I didn’t want any pictures taken of me today. I’d showcase some doughnuts for my followers as a fun in-between treat, but this wasn’t going to be a full post.

The line for the doughnut place stretched out the door. I found Jada and Alice at the back; Jada was snapping a few selfies with other girls in the line, but she turned her glittering smile on me as soon as she saw me. “It was so great to meet you!” she gushed as the girls went back to their place in line. “Make sure to tag me so I can repost you!”

I hugged Alice, then Jada. Alice asked me, her mouth pinched with concern, “How are you?”

I didn’t want to get into it in public here where people could take pictures of me crying. “You know,” I said vaguely, then changed the subject. “How are you doing?”

Alice shrugged. “I’ve actually been hearing from a lot of recruiters, so clearly that letter didn’t turn off all the tech companies out there?”

Jada’s mouth fell open. “Oh! You’re that Alice Wong!” Her hands clasped together over her phone, like she was presenting Alice with a sleek plastic and metal bouquet. “I was reading about you. You’re amazing!”

Alice wasn’t typically one for hyperbole, so I was surprised to hear her say back, “No, you’re amazing!”

If there was ever a time for women supporting women, it was now. I let them do a little amazing-off for a while, their argument of who was more amazing and who was more impressive stoking a tiny warm fire in my cold, dead heart. I could at least be glad that some people were having a good day. And really, having the two maybe most amazing people in the world turn to me afterward and focus all their amazingness on me made me feel legit extremely special.

I’d already told Alice all the gory details, so I gave Jada, as somebody I didn’t know as well, an abbreviated version. “So he’s been trashing me behind my back the whole time and is planning on doing it to his readers, too,” I said. A thousand tiny needles pricked the inside of my nose. Do not cry, Julie. Do not. Do not.

“What a fucking douchebag,” Jada said. “You don’t need that in your life. Trust me, being single is pretty fantastic. I’ll take you out and you’ll forget all about him.”

I didn’t want to forget all about him. That was the problem. “Thanks,” I said miserably. My whole outlook had changed since I’d started going toe-to-toe with Bennett. I’d found value in myself. In what I did.

But it wasn’t because of him. Jada had helped me there as well. And I still had my revelation at Sebastian. I still had the joy I’d found in what I did. It wouldn’t go away just because Bennett did.

So I sucked the snot back into my head with a truly impressive and truly disgusting noise. I clutched my phone in my hand, felt the power in it. I looked between the two strong, brilliant, kind women, one old and one new, who were there for me. Here for me. When I’d needed them, they’d shown up.

Who needed a company like the Scroll when I had people like them?

The thought and the camaraderie kept me buoyed up a little bit as we hashed out what doughnuts to get, then purchased them and retreated to Prospect Park to eat them. We settled on a bench near the Arch, where we could people-watch to our hearts’ content. The ratio of hipsters to normal people might not have been as high as in neighborhoods like Williamsburg, but there were still plenty of unicyclists and jugglers to keep us entertained. And the saxophonist playing somewhere behind us wasn’t half bad.

Speaking of half bad, that was one thing that the doughnuts were not, either—they were all good. The dough itself was flaky, almost more croissant-like than doughnut-like, and glazed with a crystalline crackling of sugar. The lemon doughnut gushed with sweet and tart filling, the guava and cheese was gooey and creamy, and the plain glazed was still warm from the oven. I took a photo for Jada as she bit into the lemon cream, the bright yellow filling dripping onto her chin, and then she took a video of me pulling apart the guava and cheese so that the sunlight gleamed against the striped pink and white. I advised her on what angle made the yellow of the doughnut pop without washing her out; she helped me figure out what filter looked best so that the pink guava and white cream cheese were vibrant without overshadowing the shine of the dough.

It was really, really nice.

“These were so good.” Alice popped the last bite of the plain glazed in her mouth, not asking if either of us wanted it. I didn’t blame her.

“Do you live near here?” Jada asked her. Alice shook her head. “Too bad, because sometimes they give out the extras at the end of the night for free.”

“I might just move here for that,” Alice said. She sounded so serious I honestly wasn’t sure whether she was kidding.

“I’ve considered it,” said Jada. “It’s a shame to think of all those doughnuts getting thrown out at the end of the night.”

Alice’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “What?”

“They give some out, but sometimes they just make way too many.” Jada sounded kind of like her pet had died. “And they have to toss them.”

“That’s awful!” Alice cried. Had I ever heard her sound so passionate about anything? “There’s got to be something they could do!”