It was always so hard to get everyone in the same place at the same time. This happy hour had been on the books for months. It was moved four times—once because torrential rain flooded the subways, once because Callie’s roommate was out of town and she had the rare chance to have the couch to herself for the night, once because Ava’s sitter backed out at the last moment, and once because they all forgot about it. But it was finally happening and Charlie was determined they would all go. She didn’t want to hear any more excuses, even though a big part of her wasn’t ready to face anyone yet. She knew on some level that seeing her friends would make her feel better, that she needed their companionship so she could get out of her head for just a little while, but she was in the thick of mourning and felt an unreal amount of stupidity for said mourning.

Charlie had a promising career in media until it all crashed and burned one month and three days ago, not that anyone was counting. One day she was negotiating client product placements and the next she was shuffling around her kitchen at eleven o’clock in the morning, wondering what she was supposed to do with all the time on her hands. In an ominous way. Like the day stretched out before her and no amount of serial killer documentaries could fill the time until it was acceptable to go to bed. She stupidly felt that she had become indispensable to her company and let a little too much of her true self show.

Forgetting all of the professional niceties one must learn in the workplace like awkwardly smiling at the weird guy in the kitchen because he’s a couple of rungs up the ladder even though he’s visibly ogling any woman who ventures in for a lukewarm cup of Lipton’s tea, or pretending that words like ‘synergy’ and ‘circle back’ and ‘touch base’ and ‘cohort’ are exciting and actually mean anything to anyone outside of the florescent corporate environment, Charlie started rolling her eyes in meetings, making sarcastic remarks about clients, joking around with her cube-mates a little too loudly. Not that those were the official reasons for her axing, of course, but she knew from the moment she was told that she “wasn’t a good fit for the culture” that she made one quip too many, even if everyone did laugh and agree with her general sentiments.

Still, she loved her friends and loved Tribeca Tavern. They’d all met as interns, except for Chris, at their very first job out of college—Bramble & Bard Media—and became fast friends. Together, they’d gone from interns to full time sales assistants, reps, publicists, marketing associates, and were able to bounce the pluses and pitfalls of real world adult life off of each other. It was comforting and she didn’t realize how rare relationships like these were in the workplace until they were gone. They often met in a vacant conference room to eat their brown bag lunches, or on the last Friday of the month, they ordered in and ate like kings around the very table they’d had to sit through the most boring meetings of all time. Sometimes, a few of them would sneak off to Tribeca Tavern for their $10 lunch special which included a buffalo chicken sandwich, pint of beer, and platter of twice battered fries.

The tavern, rustic and out of place in the chic neighborhood of the same name, became their unofficial meeting place. Charlie always felt like she was living in a sitcom in those days. She’d go to work and invariably be bored out of her mind, g-chat with her friends both in the office and elsewhere, endure the office weird guy’s off-putting late afternoon ramblings, and then convene at the mohogany booth by the window in the bar after work. It was where they had celebratory lunches, holiday parties, farewell drinks when they started branching off to new opportunities, one by one, until only Charlie was left at Bramble & Bard.

In a way, she felt like a veteran. She’d been at the company for nearly a decade, had rubbed elbows with plenty of industry experts, had even started mentoring interns over the last eight months or so. But then her manager’s manager started calling very serious meetings about the state of things—revenue was down and despite slashing budgets left and right, they had no choice but to reevaluate their teams and systems. There would be a major restructure, but not to worry, we will do our utmost to keep your jobs safe. Yeah, right.

But she couldn’t dwell on all that. It was past four. She had to take a shower. She had to brush her hair, she had to make herself look like she was doing just fine. And she had to do it all in less than an hour. Happy hour started at 5:30 and she’d never hear the end of it if they didn’t get their booth, which she promised to secure due to the relative freedom of unemployment. For the first time in one month and three days, the planets aligned and not only was she able to shower, dress, and make it to the bar to spread out in their spot, but her hair actually looked really good and, after a quick look at her reflection in the blackened subway window, she thought she might actually be able to fool herself into thinking she was okay, which meant that her friends would think she was okay.

So she was grinning from ear to ear as she draped her overcoat, the longest one she owned, and her tote bag on one side of the booth to make it look like a friend had just gone to the bathroom, while she sat on the other side and stretched her legs out long. She sipped her beer and scrolled through her phone, occasionally giving dirty looks to finance bros who tried to co-opt her space until her friends started filtering in. Callie, one of Charlie’s best friends, was the first to arrive. Her office was only a fifteen minute walk from the bar, so she walked in looking stunning and rosy-cheeked.

“Oh, my beautiful mermaid queen,” she exclaimed as she rushed to enfold Charlie in her arms, “I haven’t hugged you in so long! I missed you so much!”

“You’re heeeeeereeeee,” Charlie said, pretending she wasn’t starting to cry into her friend’s shoulder, “All is right in the world!”

Callie rightly chose to ignore Charlie’s tears, knowing that they’d inevitably approach the topic looming over their heads at some point, and threw her backpack on the bench. “Come on,” she said, weaving her arm through Charlie’s, “let’s get a drink.”

While they were waiting for their beers, Ava and Arshad walked in, shoulder to shoulder, barely concealing their not-so-secret relationship. They greeted their friends at the bar, got their drinks, and settled at their table. Then came Chris and Sunny and that completed their little group. Wedged into that booth with her dearest friends, Charlie felt like a release valve opened inside of her. Her shoulders relaxed, that painful pinch between her eyebrows receded, and she even smiled a real and true smile for the first time in what felt like forever. As it turned out, some time with her friends was just what she needed. They ordered happy hour fries, nachos, sliders, and mozzarella sticks. They ordered pitchers of beer. They settled in for a good time.

They dutifully tiptoed around Charlie’s newfound freedom, each of them unsure how to broach the subject without sending her over the edge. She seemed relaxed, and no one wanted to ruin that. She even seemed like she was enjoying herself, and no one wanted to be the one to dampen a good time. So they gossiped, which took up a considerable amount of time, because who doesn’t like a bit of innocent hot goss? They talked about what they were watching, shows they’d gone to, who they were (or were no longer) dating, trips they were planning. But as the happy hour specials ended and the night wore on, they each started feeling looser and better equipped to discuss Charlie’s predicament or, in Ava’s estimation, lack thereof, because she believed this was an opportunity for Charlie to pursue the kind of creative life she’d always dreamed of.

Ava rose, glass in hand, and theatrically cleared her throat. She dinged her glass with her fork as if they weren’t already watching her. “And now,” she said, “I’d like to propose a toast. To our dear friend Charles…may she bloom as abundantly as sunflowers in summer as she embarks on new endeavors!”

“To Charlie!” her friends all repeated and she rolled her eyes gratefully.

“You know I hate it when you call me Charles,” she said as Ava sat back down.

“Oh, Chuckie, lighten up,” said Arshad.

“C’mon, Chaz,” laughed Sunny, “we’re just messing around!”

“Aw, does someone have a CHIP on her shoulder,” Chris chimed in.

“Now, now,” Callie, the voice of reason, “let’s lay off our girl Lottie for a bit.”

They winced.

“Amazing word choice, Cal,” said Charlie, taking a swig.

Ava smiled and nudged Arshad who said, “What a segue. Okay, Charlie, let’s get it all out on the table. You got laid off. That sucks. We all feel for you. You didn’t deserve it. Yadda, yadda, yadda, you’ve heard all this before.”

“How are you doing, really,” Callie asked with such a genuine look of concern that Charlie was momentarily worried about herself. Was her facade cracking? Could they see how desperate and depressed and lost she was really feeling? All she could do was shrug.

“I never told you guys this,” said Chris, “but I was laid off from my first job.”

Chris, older than the rest of them by a handful of years, was the internship coordinator their first week at Bramble & Bard. They all looked to him as their sage leader. He always seemed so attuned to the intricacies of office life. It was hard for Charlie to believe that even Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes had been let go.

“It was before I met you, obviously,” he began, “I started at Media Conglomerates fresh out of college. And I mean fresh. Like I had secured the job before graduation. At the time, I thought it was some big feat, like it showed I was really going places, you know? Maybe it made me cocky, I don’t know. But after I got laid off, it was all so disorienting.”

“It was?” said Charlie.

“Hell yeah, especially in the fucked up way they did it. So I was working with this other guy, Eduardo, for like, our whole tenure. We were basically a team. I was the brains and he was the brawn, you could say. I wrote copy and designed campaigns and he did all the back end stuff to get them off the ground. Well anyway, one day, must’ve been a Monday, Eduardo was promoted. We were all so happy for him. He definitely deserved it. Guy worked really hard. I had a meeting with my manager later that week. All week long, my boss was like ‘big things coming your way, son!’ And so I really built it up in my head that I too was getting a promotion, that I’d find out in our one-on-one.”

“Oh no,” said Callie.

Chris chewed on a mozzarella stick and then continued, “Oh no is right. Oh shit, more like it. I waltzed into that one-on-one on cloud nine. I was so ready to accept my promotion and do big things. But when I walked in the room, who was sitting beside my boss?”

“Who??”

“The head of HR. And they had a fat packet of paperwork. They were phasing out my role. They made me redundant. They said they ‘no longer needed a creative eye for their projects’. They said that an automated service could do my job for half the price. But they also expected me to stay on for two more months while they got their ducks in a row.”

“Um,” said Arshad, “what the fuck? Did you?”

“I mean, I had to. My severance package depended on it, and I had student loans and rent and…I mean this city is not cheap. So I had to continue working there for two months, while everyone celebrated Eduardo and tiptoed around me. Every day felt like I was slowly marching toward my own execution. It was horrible. And I had to keep a happy face. Like, I had to maintain the same level of work—that was another contingency of receiving my severance package. So I had to act like I was happy-go-lucky even though I wanted to burn that place to the ground.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Ava, “that’s really awful.”

“Yeah, man,” Arshad said, clapping Chris on the back, “what an insult.”

Chris shrugged then smiled at this friends, “I don’t know, it could’ve been worse I guess. I heard there was an uproar after I left, but I don’t really care. Anyway, if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have started at Bramble and I wouldn’t have met all of you, so I guess there’s a bright side, right? Charlie, it may not feel like it now, but there will be a bright side.”

“Yeah, okay,” Charlie whispered into her drink, “whatever you say.”

“I bet I can top that,” said Ava.

They all turned to look at her, incredulous. She was really trying to one-up Chris’s layoff story. But then again, it’s just who she was. She meant it in a light-hearted way. As light-hearted as one can be trading layoff stories. Callie raised her drink and motioned for Ava to continue.

“Okay, so, I’ve never been laid off, right? But like, I have been party to it. So like early on when I started at Howard & Associates, I think I was only, like, six months in? We all walked in one day and there were two huge pieces of poster board taped to the glass reception doors. Each poster board had several names on it.”

“Jesus,” said Charlie, “they posted names of people they were letting go like some town square announcement?”

“Not exactly,” said Ava, “because not all the names on the posters were names of people being let go. It was a total cluster fuck. The names were on the doors and they waited literal hours, I think it was after lunch, that they sent an email about it. So we were all at our desks, trying to work, right? Just spiraling. Everyone kept saying ‘last in, first out,’ whenever they looked at me. My name was on one of the posters and I was shitting myself like did I really just leave the relative safety of Bramble to be laid off at Howard? Like I have a kid to think of, you know? And it’s not like I would’ve gotten any meaningful package if they did let me go. I spent the morning wondering how I was going to afford everything, wondering if I’d have to ask Chloe’s father to chip in more, even though I totally hate him and he’s an idiot loser, he would’ve if I asked. I just didn’t want to, you know?”

“Yeah, we know, babe,” replied Arshad in the most definitive statement of their relationship yet.

“So if your name was on the poster and you’re still there, what happened,” Callie asked.

“Okay, so, like it seemed like names were on there for no rhyme or reason. Maybe just to, like, incite chaos or whatever. Some people were laid off, given semi-generous packages, and told to hit the bricks. Some people were given additional responsibilities, additional expectations were laid on them with no additional money but they were expected to be happy with what they got and not ask questions. And some people, like me, were just called into the HR office for, like, a check in. Mine wasn’t until after five so I had to call my sitter and pay overtime all to just sit across from this guy Marcus and his shit-eating grin and have him, like, lean forward and ask me if I was doing okay.”

“And that was it?”

“That was it. Total waste of time. I think it was like a real power play. Like the bosses were sending us a message. No one is safe and we will do as we please, kind of thing. I mean, don’t trust anyone there. I wish I could get out, but the market is rough right now. Sorry, Charlie.”

Their conversation lulled for a bit. Charlie hoped that they would move onto something else, anything else. She tried to get them to look at the drunk bros trying and failing to play darts, but they weren’t rowdy enough to distract from the topic at hand.

Sunny cleared her throat, “I didn’t want to tell you guys this, but my company just did a round of layoffs. I survived, but it was brutal. Some of my hair fell out, I was so stressed. And Ava, I think there’s something to what you said about the bosses sending a message. It all feels like a big dick measuring contest or whatever.”

The friends all turned their attention to her, knowing they were all trading stories of layoffs and near misses like war stories. Like they were all in the trenches, surviving gunshot blasts raining over their precious heads. Charlie considered this and felt like the comparison was apt, if a little dramatic. They’d been through SOMETHING and while she could fully recognize that stress in a corporate setting was not anything like putting your life on the line, she felt a certain amount of PTSD from her experience. Maybe that meant she was soft. She didn’t really care.

Sunny put her hands on the table and held court, “So about five years ago, New Horizons did a big restructure. They furloughed a bunch of people indefinitely, brought others back, changed everyone’s jobs all around. I started around then and it was like whiplash that I survived those changes. I guess some higher ups saw potential in me, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” said Chris, “I remember you telling me about that.”

“Yeah,” said Sunny, “so it’s been five years and we’ve all more or less settled into our roles and things seemed to have been going really well! I’ve been content at this job, made a few friends, etcetera, etcetera. So like maybe a week or two after Charlie’s news, a massive interdepartmental meeting was called and this real suck up who I’m pretty sure is younger than me, but like, don’t accuse my of ageism okay? I just think there’s something to age in a higher up kind of position. Anyway, she started talking about changes needing to be made, the business is evolving, we are growing and changing with the industry. You know, the boring stupid word salad everyone says to try to justify what they’re about to do.”

She paused to take a drink of water and then continued, “So anyway, basically they were making us re-interview for our jobs. They said it was going to be fair. That we were each to meet with a panel of ‘deciders’ and one HR person. We’d all get the same questions over a 45 minute period, and then they’d determine where we’d fit best ‘in the new horizon for New Horizons’. It was so stupid. Everyone started freaking out about what the interview questions would be, and why we were all getting the same questions if we were all different people with different jobs.”

“Sounds like a ruse to root out people they don’t like,” said Callie.

“Pretty much was. I had to take a walk before my interview, I was so angry. I didn’t want them to see it or feel it. I took a walk and I took a nibble of a gummy to even me out. Judge me, I don’t care.”

“We aren’t,” said Ava.

“I took a gummy before coming here,” admitted Charlie.

“Hey, do you have more?” asked Chris, then, “sorry, Sunny, continue.”

“Whatever, gummies rule,” Sunny grinned, “better topic of conversation too. Anyway, I walked into that room and there the ‘deciders’ were: the suck up, the new French guy who has his nose like all the way up the CEO’s ass that he can probably, like, climb out of his mouth, and some lady who has literally never spoken a word to anyone. This is the elite panel of deciders over at New Horizons.”

“What were the questions like,” Charlie asked.

“Let me guess,” Arshad quipped, “are you a team player? When it comes down to business versus personal, you always choose business?”

“Basically,” answered Sunny, “and then there were others that were like ‘do you like commercials?’ Like um no, I only work in ad sales my dudes. And ‘do you like talking to clients?’ And ‘what is your favorite workplace?’ And my personal favorite: ‘are you helpful?’”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” interrupted Ava, “they literally asked if you were helpful and that was supposed to determine whether or not you stayed?”

“Yeah, I mean, they already knew what they were going to do before we did this song and dance.”

“So what did you say,” asked Callie.

“I gave some corporate mumbo jumbo about being useful and helpful and a team player and like worked in some other team building bullshit and they ate that shit up.”

“Good for you,” said Charlie, meaning it. “Callie, didn’t you have to do a song and dance too at your job?”

“I was honestly hoping you’d skip me,” said Callie, “or that we’d move on to something else. But yes, I had to literally do a song and dance to keep my job a few years ago.”

Chris spit out his beer, “Like a talent show?”

“I fuckin’ wish,” said Callie, “remember that LL Cool J video for ‘Doin’ It’?”

“I’m almost afraid to answer here,” said Arshad.

“The one where he’s in like a private room at a strip club or something and watching a girl dance through a window?” Sunny asked.

“Yep.”

“No way,” said Chris.

“No, it’s true,” cut in Charlie, “I helped her practice her dance. I like, waited in the lobby for her as moral support.”

“What the fuck,” said Ava, “why didn’t you tell us?”

“Um, because it’s so weird? Each of us on the marketing team were told we had to ‘perform’ to keep our jobs. Like, literally perform. I thought they meant improve metrics or whatever, but they meant PERFORM-PERFORM. They turned the multi-purpose room into, like, a smoky lounge type atmosphere with velvet curtains over the glass doors, a piano player on a stage and bar tables and they even hired a bartender. I guess to loosen us up? And against the back wall, they set up this big booth. It was a little like a confessional, except the room we were meant to perform in was much bigger and the person on the other side could definitely see us and we could see them.”

“What song did you choose though,” Arshad was so curious, he was leaning forward, gripping the table.

“Well, like there were four other people on my team performing. One decided to try her hand at ventriloquism—didn’t work out in her favor. Another person performed a slam poem about how great it was to work in such a creative and forgiving environment, she also got axed, too much sucking up. Another woman played the Celine Dion Titanic song on her violin and earned not only a standing ovation but was made to play it on the makeshift stage in the lounge area. And this guy on my team did a stand up routine about floss, like how you only really remember to floss when your dentist appointment is imminent or whatever. They kept him but they put him on a pip because it was so weird.”

“Come one, Cal,” said Charlie, grinning, “don’t leave them hanging. Tell them the song.”

Callie shivered and then laughed. “You guys, I did Busta Rhymes’ Break Ya Neck.”

Arshad slapped the table. “You fuckin’ did NOT!”

“I fuckin’ DID,” said Callie.

“She is like, really good at the fast part, do it for them, Cal!”

“No, oh my god, my performing days are behind me. I think I totally freaked them out. I was just like this is so stupid I’m going to make this as weird as possible. I like, dressed up like Jennifer Lopez in her Jenny from the Block phase, white jeans, white crop top, white headband around my half-up pigtails. I put white paint on my cheekbones like a football player. I walked in and I did BREAK YA FUCKIN NECK and I left them astounded. I just replaced all the n-words with FELLAS. It was crazy and then to walk from the confessional to the lounge and out to the florescent lights of the cubicles was like…where even am I? It worked though because they truly did not know what to do with me and I think were a little scared of me and I even got a promotion.”

“No way,” Chris was turning red, hysterically laughing, “THAT is how you got PROMOTED to VP?”

And with that, Callie launched into one of Busta’s verses seamlessly. That really lightened the mood for the group of friends. Arshad got up out of his seat and started whooping. Ava, Charlie and Sunny cheered, Chris was gobsmacked. They all drank some more beer and ate some more fries and felt like maybe the night would turn around now that they’d all shared their war stories.

All except for Arshad. They almost moved away from the subject, but as they sipped their drinks and checked their phones, he got eerily quiet. The light that Callie’s performance ignited in his eyes dimmed. He almost looked like he needed a cigarette, so haunted he was by his memory.

“Arshad, dude,” said Chris, “what is it?”

The rest of the group immediately quieted, noticing the quick change in Arshad’s demeanor. It was like someone died. Ava put her hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s okay, babe, you can tell them.”

He sighed and the pointed at a scar just below his left eye, “See this?”

It was fairly new, certainly pronounced. A small half-moon just under the lid, like a fingernail had been driven into the socket to pop the eye out. He had been cagey about the injury for months, purposely taking space from his friends and relishing in any excuse to delay the happy hour in hopes that it would heal fully before seeing the group again. He was resigned to the fact that it would never heal, that he would always bear the mark of his employer’s disdain for its workforce on his flesh.

“You didn’t get that from—” Sunny started.

Callie finished, “—you didn’t get that from WORK, did you?”

“Oh my god, Arshad, did you get into a fight at work?” Charlie asked, horrified.

“Dude,” Chris said, “you could have a lawsuit on your hands if they made you do that.”

Arshad just shook his head, “No, they made us sign NDAs. I shouldn’t even be talking about this now, here.”

He looked around and couldn’t see anyone he recognized. Still, he reached into his backpack and turned off his phone. “But, what the hell, you’re my closest friends.”

“It’s okay, babe,” Ava purred. “They won’t judge.”

“A couple months back, Creative Suites went through a similar financial fall as Bramble & Bard. I mean, makes sense, same industry, you know? Only, Charlie, you got out lucky. Because they didn’t just do layoffs. They made us fight.”

“They made you…are you for real,” Chris asked.

“Shh, let him speak,” Ava said, then turning to Arshad, “Just get it all out here and now and we’ll never bring it up again.”

“So, okay, they gave us the same runaround about the market and having to make changes and restructuring, all the normal stuff. Then one morning a meeting was put on all of our calendars. Except it wasn’t in any room any of us knew, it was in the building’s basement. It was super weird, but what were we supposed to do? We went down there together, our team of six, and it was like an escape room out of Saw or something. They shut us in there, locked the door, and then a voice came over the system. It was the CEO’s. He was like, ‘you have two hours. The first person to open the door unscathed may sustain employment.’ So we were like okay, this is fucked up, but it’s whatever. And we went about our business like, doing the escape room. We didn’t really know what unscathed meant but we thought the dude was just being dramatic. Like maybe this was some test to see how good our teamwork really was.”

They all nodded, rapt.

“So it was actually kind of cool. It looked a little like the weird bathroom in the first Saw movie, and the clues all around the room were based on Saw which was freaky but like, who cares. I’d seen all the movies so I was the one that could help decipher the clues as we gathered them. Only when we opened the door, it wasn’t just like okay go back to work. It opened up into like an old-timey boxing ring. The CEO and our manager and the head of HR were all sitting on the sidelines. Some other HR guy was there dressed as a ref, and he pulled us up into the ring two by two and made us fight. It was like a bracket system: whoever won the previous match would fight in the next, and so on and so forth. I had a really hard time because, like, there’s girls on my team and I don’t want to hit a girl. Hell, I don’t want to hit anybody. But the first person I was matched with was a girl and she fought like holy hell. She ripped off her gloves and dug her fingers into my eyes. The ref had to pull her off of me. She was disqualified for fighting dirty. I had to keep fighting despite my bloody eye and blurred vision. I was the one that made it through. I wasn’t unscathed, as you can see, but I was more or less okay. That’s how I kept my job.”

“So, you fought five people? And they were all let go? And you had to, what, go back to your desk and act like nothing happened,” Charlie asked.

“Well, no, I had to go to the HR office and sign the NDA and talk to their lawyers about best business practices and how detrimental it would be to the firm if this should get out. They basically threatened me, but hey, I’m still employed so, is that your bright side, Chris?”

Chris shifted uncomfortably and tried to smile at his friend. In truth, none of them knew what to say or to do, but everything was finally out in the open. Charlie sat back, thinking about the stories her friends just told. All in all, she made it out pretty easy, considering. There was no question about the legality of their methods, but they were all trapped, cogs in the capitalist wheels. And they’d remain so, what else could they do? Where could they go? It wasn’t like there was some utopia that existed where they could just forever hang out at Tribeca Tavern, drinking and eating and never succumbing to life’s responsibilities.

One by one, just like at Bramble & Bard, they started leaving. Ava and Arshad had to get home to Chloe. Chris had band practice. Sunny had to walk her dog. They hugged each other and promised to meet again soon, at that very table, wishing for better circumstances.

Eventually, it was just Callie and Charlie left. They ended the night the way they began: together, jocular. They didn’t talk about the others. They didn’t do their customary recap of the night’s events and conversations, though it would’ve been a juicy one.

As the bartender rang the bell for last call, Callie threaded her arm through Charlie’s, and asked what she wanted to do next.

Charlie took a beat, looking dreamily toward her future, and then she said, “I think I’ll write about it.”