Gossip blogger haunted by Lena Dunham

Chapter 3

"Hey, Emma, I want you to meet my friend Beyoncé."

"I know you're just baiting me," Emma said. "There's no way she's out there. And anyway, she and I are cool. I'm leaving now, so you might as well go away."

Emma bit her lip. Figuring she could lose her by bolting out of the room, she opened the door of the stall with her eyes closed, wincing. She opened her eyes, and there Lena and Beyoncé were, standing in the corner of the room.

Beyoncé looked Emma up and down pointedly, chewing and snapping some gum with her mouth open. She was wearing some kind of feathered bustier with fishnet tights. Her eyes met Emma's and she shrugged.

Finally, in her deep Texan drawl, Beyoncé said: "You're not being a very good feminist."

Emma's mouth hung open.

"Me? Are you kidding? I wrote a whole blog post defending Jennifer Lawrence's heinous Globes dress yesterday."

Bey's eyes widened and she shook her head.

"You just go into work every day and tear women down. It's not me and Lena's fault you wasted your youth partying and paying no attention to your brain. Then you just expected someone to hand you the keys to a movie or TV show even though you've never picked up a camera. You can't even act. What kind of role model are you?"

Emma knew it was true. But she couldn't admit it, not to Beyoncé. Instead, hurt by her idol's accusations, she turned on her.

"You're the one whose husband sings about Big Pimpin' and 'eat the cake, Anna Mae.' And even when you collaborate with him now, he just holds a cigar and raps about, like, Maybachs while you writhe and dance around him and he doesn't even acknowledge you! In your own music videos!"

Beyoncé looked at Emma for a second, then she locked eyes with Lena, who'd been practically licking her lips while she waited for Emma to implode.

"This girl does not get it," Beyoncé said.

"You can say that again," said Lena, who wasn't even fucking thin. Friends with Beyoncé, and not even thin.

Emma needed to defend herself. What could she say? She straightened up and put her hands on her hips.

"I'm a journalist!" she said, defiant.

Lena and Beyoncé looked at each other for a second. Their eyes seemed to widen; maybe this was what would do it. This was what would get rid of them - or at least get them to be nice and understand that Emma was just tired and broke and defenseless.

Or maybe not. Beyoncé and Lena started laughing their asses off.

"A journalist!" Beyoncé cried.

"She's a regular Edward R. Murrow!" Lena yelled.

Emma bolted back to the office, forgetting the bathroom key. She had a hand on her forehead as if she were going to faint. As she approached the door to her office, she slowed down, pulled at her hideous sweater so it wouldn't cling to her slowly growing free-pizza-and-PBR gut, and walked back into the office.

After she'd replaced the key and sat back down at her desk, she remembered what Jason had said. She was going to interview Lena Dunham - the real Lena Dunham, not the Lena Dunham of Instagram and Emma's own mind. She could do this. She could handle it. She just needed to get some sleep.

She saw that Gchat was blinking again.

"I was jk you fuck," Jason had typed. "Lena doesn't know we exist. my boyfriend only styles rhonj hags."

She didn't answer.

"did u really think lena reads our trashy blog?" Jason prodded.

"ur an asshole," Emma wrote back.

"on a scale of 1 to 10 how hard r u od-ing on adderall right now," Jordan asked.

"I wish," Emma said, before closing the tab.

She felt a little woozy. She downed the last few drops of her latte and resolved to grab an early lunch after this post was over. If she waited any longer, she might pass out.