The table was free because the wind was gusty and everyone else in the city was inside, elbowing each other in the neck for Black Friday waffle irons. The stiff breeze whipped Annika's hair around and bounced a smattering of sidewalk grit off the lenses of Pippi's glasses, but the air was spiced with dry leaves and Fair Trade coffee and the clove cigarettes of the pack of kids ambling by with signs tucked under their arms. It was only going on 1:30, so Anna wasn't even late for the staff meeting yet. For Anna, anyway.
They were never going to make the January site launch date, Pippi thought glumly.
The overcast sky had the high white glow of the hidden sun, suffusing the pearly veil of East Coast cloud cover. Everyone loves New York City the best in the fall. That's what Annika had told her when she'd invited herself to Pippi's for Thanksgiving weekend so she could hunt for apartments.
And not that she planned to admit it, but autumn in New York was one of the reasons Pippi had moved there herself.
"I can't believe you're wearing a skirt on a day like this." Pippi also couldn't believe that she might have been experiencing some kicky-boot-related jealousy. Not that Pippi ever wore heels. Or kicky boots, for that matter.
"Pippi, it's almost 60 degrees! Practically spring-like." Still, Pippi noted that Annika had cupped her hands around her non-fat latte in an effort to fight the damp chill of the day.
"November in New York, folks. I say: what global warming?" Clapping her sketch book closed, Tommy glanced at Pippi with a smile in her eyes and knocked back some joe.
"At least it's not too bad out for the Occupy crowd today." Pippi squinted at a sign trailed by a slouching girl in an olive drab parka: SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. WE ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
"Always worried about the little people. Come to the dark side, Pippi. We have cheese fries." Tommy craned her neck, looking into the dim little restaurant for the waiter. "Or we will, as soon as that kid brings me my order."
"Are you wearing pajama pants?" Annika was looking at Tommy with wide eyes, and Pippi took a sober sip of Baker Street black arabica.
"While I cannot say whether they were purchased for that express purpose, I can confirm that I did in fact sleep in them last night. Why, is plaid So Last Wednesday or something?" Tommy scratched at the knee of her green plaid pants for a moment before re-crossing her legs and resuming the post-caffeine bounce of one sneakered foot.
"No, it's just that I can't ever seem to find any that are actually flannel. They all seem to be this skimpy poly blend, and you can't really lounge in polyester, am I right? Where did you get them?"
"I might have stolen them from Anna? Who finally made it to the meeting, apparently. At least, I think so...?"
Anna strolled into view in a crisp navy suit and flawless tie. He was also draped in a sleek camel-colored raincoat, with a handsome leather portfolio gripped in one fine black leather glove.
The three women stared openly.
"What's with the threads, stretch?" Tommy queried warily.
"Who are you and what have you done with Anna Lane?" intoned Pippi.
"Is that cashmere?" gasped Annika, reaching out to grope Anna's sleeve.
"There's a dress code for the crosswalk," Anna said. "Only suits get past the federales blocking the Exchange. I borrowed this from Tom. So I have to bail. Revolution and all."
"Does this mean that you didn't get us that interview with Our Artificial Tryst? Because I need an autograph. The lead singer is so shimmery! And deep," Annika added.
"Uh huh." Tommy and Pippi shared a look and Tommy shrugged. Patting Anna's arm, she said, "Just try not to get batoned, ok?"
"Yeah, I'd hate to see your face plastered across all my news feeds," Pippi seconded.
"You may have graduated at the top of your class, Pippi, but I got straight A's in passive resistance." He chuckled a little at his own wit, and broke into a brief, throat-clearing cough. His new coat, too, already had the heady whiff of ganja that Pippi had always associated with Anna. She smiled at him against her better judgment and shook her head.
He stooped to kiss her cheek, and then Tommy's, before padding away, straightening the lapels of his duster.
Watching him make his way toward the crowds of protesters, Pippi heard herself blurt, "Link got arrested in Oakland, did you know that?"
"Anna won't get arrested," Annika promised airily. "Not in a cashmere coat like that one."
"You know that it's a little creepy to keep in touch with a kid you met when he was 10," Tommy remarked. "Not that Sick Sad World wouldn't love to dramatically recreate you as the next Mary Kay Letourneau... Wait, you're not, are you?"
"Like everyone else, he's on FaceBook," Pippi said suppressively.
"Ohhhh, speaking of FaceBook friends," said Annika, "I ran into Jodie at Marea yesterday. She asked about you. I was like: she's finishing a second masters, her boyfriend Sanjay is surprisingly good looking, and she got some kind of award for something."
"It was a fellowship," Pippi corrected.
"Because no degree in Journalism is complete without a Masters of Library Science," crooned Tommy.
"The ones with the information are the ones with the power. Besides, my research helped Tom break that story on how Bromwell used the term 'Student-Athlete' to avoid paying workers compensation."
"You mark my words, Pippi. That young Tom Sloane of ours is going to be the next Anderson Cooper."
"Well, he's not quite the same eye candy, but his family's practically as rich, so I see what you mean." Annika leaned her chin on one hand and looked dreamily into the middle distance, until Pippi's expression frosted over and Annika kicked her lightly with the tip of her pointy boot. "I'm kidding, Pippi. What? I watch The Daily Show too, you know."
"Did you ask her about submitting something to the site?" Pippi prodded.
"Of course!" Annika rolled her eyes elaborately. "She said she'd send us something by mid-January, and something bi-monthly after that. Anyway, Jodie and Mac are moving to Seattle after the wedding. God, marrying your high school sweetheart. That's so romantic!"
"Breaking up for four years and then meeting again in law school. That's romantic and practical," said Pippi.
"You know she's going to run for president someday," predicted Tommy.
"Not with a black mark like working for the ACLU on her resume," countered Pippi.
"Hey, it's not like she made 1.6 Million aiding and abetting a financial meltdown," Tommy pointed out.
"Hmm. 1.6 million is chump change compared to all the money we lose to corporate tax loopholes."
"Oooooooh, let's all file as corporations! Then we could be taking advantage of those corporate loopholes." A gaunt kid with outstanding acne skulked out of the restaurant and presented Tommy with some limp, lukewarm cheese fries.
"I think he's taking my evening class," Pippi said, stealing a fry. "If I recall correctly, he has a degree in Art History."
"If you're hoping I'll tip him more, out of some kind of starving artist solidarity, I've got your number, Morgandorffer. If only those nice people would stop giving you all those darned fellowships, you could be underemployed like the rest of us."
"As if you couldn't buy and sell me and my student loans ten times over."
Tommy's installations had been showing up in cities across the nation; her sister Penny was her agent, and she had recently been commissioned to create "something magnificent" by an anonymous donor. She hadn't shared any ideas with Pippi about it, but Pippi was used to careless, offhand magnificence from Tommy, and was looking forward to whatever whim coalesced.
"Are you really rich now? Like, summer house and yacht rich? Pippi says you're the next Banksy."
"Who is this Banksy fellow I keep hearing soooo much about," Tommy said coyly.
"In fact, could I interest you in a few toxic assets?" Pippi continued. "How about some human trafficking? I'm little, but I'm wiry."
"Why Miss Bootstraps, you are the 53%, aren't you? I thought I recognized your signature wit." With a gaping yawn and a comfortable resettling of her limbs, Tommy directed her attention to the other Morgandorffer. "So, Miss Annika, if you've already lined up submissions from Jodie, what will you be contributing to our little online experiment?"
"2011: The year in film fashion. I'm meeting Stacy in an hour. We're going to see Breaking Dawn. Tiffany swears there were two wedding gowns!"
"I see. The Fashion Club would naturally reconvene whenever a new film about how stalkers make such good boyfriends hits theaters."
"I won't try to defend them as literature, but I will say that it was probably the only time that Tiffany read something that wasn't Waif Magazine," said Pippi.
"We all read them. They were fun! This just in, Pippi: I like things that are sparkly. And I think the novels are surprisingly insightful on a number of issues feminists still have trouble addressing. If, as feminists, we believe in girls' and womens' autonomy, how do we understand the autonomy-shattering power of desire? Do we determine that some desires - to be dominated? to be beautiful? to get married?- are bad and others good?"
"I can't believe it, but that's really surprisingly insightful of you." Pippi resettled her glasses, squinting to make sure that Annika was still Annika.
"And that's why the two of you had a hand in this reboot of Sassy magazine. I'm still surprised you didn't go with my original suggestion: Sassy II: Electric Boogaloo."
"Well, we did get you to do the art design."
"You can't afford me," Tommy reminded her. "But the impressionable youth of the world need me!"
"We need you, anyway," Annika said. "She would have called it Madame Curie if you hadn't shown up."
"Daphne and Velma is much better," Tommy agreed. "But we could have printed a hardcopy zine with covers that glowed in the dark!"
"I think that that no matter how lofty our goals, society would frown upon giving an entire generation of teenage girls aplastic anemia."
"Is that like anorexia?" Annika met Pippi and Tommy's raised eyebrows with an impish grin. "Kidding. Again. You two are so easy."
"It's still really strange to me that I went to college and you…"
"Got a sense of humor?"
"I was going to say 'became a person'," amended Pippi.
"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," Tommy proclaimed with a hand wave. "What really boggles me is that you two bonded thanks to the written word.
"It was Mom's idea." Annika stole one of Tommy's long-cold fries and licked her fingertip. "I think that makes Pippi squirm even more than the fact that we're writing a fashion magazine together."
"It's not a fashion magazine," Pippi maintained grimly. "It's a website dedicated to the concerns and interests of young women, with a focus on political awareness, healthy sexuality, feminism and…"
"Say it, Pippi. Fashion. Faaaaaaaashion," Annika enunciated encouragingly.
"Personal style," Pippi finished.
"I remember when I found that copy of Sassy under Pippi's mattress. Like porn," Annika smirked. "Why, I remember it like it was yesterday! Let me see, what could have drawn you to the feminist dialectic: was it Four exotic ways to change your looks, the Eight big reasons guys reject you, or the purely intellectual studliness of Robert Downey, Jr. on the cover?"
"I wanted to see who the fiction contest winners were," Pippi mumbled.
"See, Annika? She was only reading it for the articles!"
"Look, much like cultural luminary Whitney Houston, I believe that children are our future. And I can't, in good conscience, leave the future in the hands of Waif Magazine. But really, it wasn't even my idea. It took an essay by a fourteen year old girl to help me decide it needed to exist again, to try to help people come to terms with the purportedly contradictory dictates of feminism and the ubiquitous, damning, and yet obnoxiously persistent desire to look cute when you feel ready to kiss a boy. Or a girl, for that matter."
"Pippi, it's almost as if you've finally realized that teenage girls are people, too!" Tommy wiped away an imaginary tear of pride.
"Of course they're people. And I'd like to give them something to steer by in a world where, as our good friend trojankitten once said, 'Free speech is violence. Money is free speech. Corporations are people. And pizza is a vegetable.'"
"And you'll do that, Pippi," Annika promised with surprising sincerity.
"We'll do that," Pippi said, hiding her rather giddily optimistic smile behind her last sip of coffee.
Tommy's next installation was up with the sun. An inflatable post-modern Prometheus eclipsed the Paul Manship sculpture by the ice rink in Rockefeller Square: a female figure, 20 feet high, in a long, belling black skirt with a nearly bouffant updo, basically a Thanksgiving Day Parade float sans the helium, out of respect to rapidly dwindling world stores of this noble gas. She held a glowing blue sign that read SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. WE ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE WORLD. At seemingly random intervals, the figure was lit from within, revealing the stern little face of Madame Marie Curie painted on the polyurethane. Every time her face appeared, the sign would blink out, leaving only the solemn, unflickering exhortation: CHANGE THE WORLD.
Tommy declared it a great success, and certainly something magnificent. Pippi, who had commissioned it for two slices of pizza, did not disagree.
END