“You can’t be serious,” Lux said. “You’re really going to see that movie?”

“Oh my god, are you kidding?!” I exclaimed. “I can’t wait! I’ve read each of the books like five times.”

McKenzie interjected, “The Fifty Shades of Grey Books? You’ve read those books five times?”

“Yes! I love them!” I said and tightened my grip on the subway pole to steady myself.

They both looked at me, somewhat horrified.

“Okay, look,” I said quickly. “I know they’re not well-written and the sex scenes are ridiculous and boring but there’s something…there’s something about the story of two fucked up people evolving and working it out.” I sighed. “I like it.”

Lux raised her eyebrows at me. “Okay.” And then she turned to McKenzie. “So, about our running group. I think we should meet at like 6:30am a few times a week.”

“That’s fine,” said McKenzie. “I’ll be running anyway.” McKenzie, who has run the NYC marathon two years in a row and always had some sort of race coming up. On Mondays when we talk about our weekends she’ll say something like, “Oh, and on Sunday I ran eleven miles.” And she’ll say it so matter of fact, not bragging at all, just like it was no big deal.

Then I’ll tell her that the only activity I’d done over the weekend was to take out the garbage.

“Tracey, can you make it uptown to us by 6:30?” Lux asked.

“Oh geez, I don’t know,” I said. “Is it even safe to be out that early?”

“What are you talking about?” Lux asked. “It’s 6:30. It’s not like it’s -”

I put my hand up. “Can we talk about this when we’ve not all had multiple drinks?”

And then they laughed.

But it was that kind of sad laughter.

Because see, we were riding the subway uptown, as we all lived there, after having drinks for Lux’s last day at the company.

Continue reading A Farewell to Lux. →