Fashionably late was always the plan

Michelle Rodriguez showed up at 7:15 when I said 7:30, which meant she had a full fifteen unsupervised minutes to audit my outfit choices. She opened my closet the way someone opens a crime scene. Hands behind her back, head tilted, making a small sound in the back of her throat that I can only describe as professionally disappointed. I had the emerald top out and she said — and I am quoting — “okay but ARE you sure?” Michelle. I am a certified cultural education coordinator. I have given workshops. I am sure.

Fashionably late was always the plan

We did the mirror selfie, which took longer than the actual getting-dressed portion of the evening because Michelle kept saying her side looked “a little bright” and could I tilt the phone. I tilted it. She said it was better but the angle made her neck look weird. I told her she had a perfectly normal neck. She told me I was biased because I want to leave. Both true. We eventually got a good one where we are both actually smiling instead of doing the thing where you smile with your eyes but your mouth looks like you’re buffering.

The shoe debate lasted eleven minutes. We were already late.

Then I couldn’t find my second shoe — the gold strappy one, not the flat, the heeled one — and this sent the entire pre-departure process off a cliff. Jake, bless him, was sitting on the couch pretending to read something on his laptop while very obviously watching us spiral, and he managed to document the exact moment I was holding the shoe over my head demanding to know where its pair was. Michelle was dead on the counter. We were already eleven minutes late by the time I found it (behind the yoga mat, obviously). The night ended up being genuinely great. But we were definitely not fashionably on time. We were just fashionable.