Reading This Will Make You Want to Drink a Frozen Marg With Your Best Friend ASAP
On Nia’s Instagram, she’s captioned a photo with the following: “I always say that Maya is living proof that God is real… on this day he gave me a sister. Maya has been my best friend since I was one, and still is, twenty years later.”
Nia and Maya, best friends since before they can remember, have seen it all together: growing up, attending the same college, living as roommates in the dorm, and eventually getting an apartment with each other. Their mothers, also best friends, brought their families together. They’ve worked with each other at the same retail jobs and speak the same language when it comes to getting dressed, often shopping for each other while shopping for themselves. Last week, we focused on stories about “Love Right Now” and it got me thinking about relationships more generally. I’ve known Nia and Maya for a few years and I’ve always wanted to know how they make their level of closeness work—so I asked them to help explain by doing what they do best: talking to each other about it. (I supplied some questions to help guide the conversation.)
—
What are your first memories of each other?
Maya: I feel like my earliest memory is probably us at preschool getting snacks from the principal.
Nia: We used to always go into the principal’s office. She used to always fix our skirts because they were never right.
Maya: They were twisted around. She’d be like, “Okay, here’s a chocolate-covered pretzel.”
Nia: We used to just go in there and get snacks all the time.
Maya: And our brothers never got snacks.
Are your families close?
Nia: Our brothers are best friends, our mothers are best friends and that’s as far as the best friend situation goes, but we’re a very close family. We vacation together.
Maya: Our moms actually went to college together, but they weren’t friends in college because they were a year apart.
How did you decide to move and go to college together?
Nia: I guess I can answer that. So, Maya was going to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), and I definitely was judging her for it.
Nia: I was like, “Why are you going to FIT? That’s so wack. I’m going to USC, blah, blah, blah.” And then when the time came for me to apply to USC, I was not trying to do those applications. I was like, “Hmm, my best friend Maya goes to FIT. Interesting.” And then I applied for photography, and I got in, and I was like, “Wow, me and Maya can now conquer the city together.”
Maya: We didn’t even live together right away. There was a semester when Nia was commuting from Jersey, and I was coming from Brooklyn. And then we got a dorm room in Nagler without A/C.
Maya: [We worked] our first job together and it’s probably the reason we’re both in New York City and in fashion right now. I had just turned 17, and Nia was 15, going on 16.
Nia: And we’re still close with the woman who we worked with, Sharifa Murdock.
Maya: Yep. From Liberty Fairs. We were her little personal interns. We used to sit on her couch and giggle and do little random things.
Nia: And make little jokes and go shopping for her and make her trend forecasts.
Maya: That was my first time ever seeing a trend. She was like, “Guys, make me a trend forecast.” We did not know what that was, but we did it. I think I did a good job, too.
Nia: It was my introduction into fashion. The first and only reason I definitely was like, “This is what I want to do.”
Maya: Yeah. She’s the reason I wanted to work on the business side of fashion. Originally I was like, “Oh yeah, design, styling,” and then it was like, “Nope, look how this lady has her money set up.”
Nia: Exactly.
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I love you bitchhhhh, I ain’t ever gonna stop loving you bitchhhh!!! till the wheels fall offf, to more years of adventures, being bad, and good fits 
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