“I know who she is,” I said. “And I know you dated her.” This was the jewelry designer / pest control heiress.
“We’ve never officially gotten back together, but—well, for lack of a better way to say it, we’ve hooked up a few times over the years. Including this past April. And I don’t want to sound disrespectful to her, but I remembered pretty quickly why we’d broken up. That’s always how it’s been with her.”
“Can you be more specific and thorough about her unappealing qualities?”
He laughed. “I can picture her wearing a Good Vibes Only T-shirt,” he said. “How about that? Or, this is a lot more serious, but she’s very preoccupied with food and her weight and counting calories. She’s extremely thin. And I feel for her, but I have enough issues of my own on that front that I find it challenging to be around.”
“Was she staying here?”
“Sometimes. She lives in Malibu.”
I wondered but didn’t ask if her Malibu house had been funded by cockroaches or necklaces.
“Ending things again with her is what made me resolve to email you,” Noah said. “It still took a while to work up the nerve. But I’d felt lonely after being sick, with everything shut down. And then being around Louisiana felt equally lonely. It wasn’t her fault, but there was just something missing.”
With my thumb and pointer finger, I flicked his left bicep. “I almost resent how good you are at saying the perfect thing.”
“Really, perfect? Phew.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Who’s the last person you were involved with?”
“Before Covid, there was a guy I never quite dated but, you know, met up with. Like friends with benefits, except we weren’t friends.”
“I bet he was smitten with you.”
“He definitely wasn’t. And I definitely wasn’t smitten with him. It was a holding pattern for both of us. The last time I saw him was in 2019, in September or October. Then we weren’t in touch for a few months, and I texted him, and he texted back that he had a girlfriend but wished me the best of luck.” Noah’s head was still raised, and I rolled my eyes. “And that’s the story of how I was dumped by my mediocre fuck buddy.”
“That sends chills down my spine.”
“Which part?”
“Being called a mediocre fuck buddy, for one thing. Poor guy.”
“You’re not a mediocre fuck buddy. You’re a stellar fuck buddy.”
I was slightly surprised that Noah didn’t laugh or even seem pleased.
“Anyway,” I said, “the dynamic between Gene and me was completely different from our dynamic. He and I never really talked about anything. And not because we had such an animal attraction that we tore off each other’s clothes the minute we were together. Our conversations were just pointless and uninteresting. They were about how it was crazy that Christmas was almost here, or could you believe that thunderstorm the other day? And also—” I paused. “I lied to him about my job. And I’d done that before, lied to other guys. I said I was still a medical newsletter writer because I didn’t want to talk to them about TNO or be asked for tickets. After the text where Gene told me he had a girlfriend, he sent another text saying, By the way it’s cool you’re a writer for TNO. I asked how he knew, and he said he’d seen a fleece jacket with the TNO logo at my apartment and assumed I’d bought it at the gift shop in the 66 Building, but later he’d also seen a mug that Henrietta had made for my birthday one year that had a picture of me, her, and Viv on it. So then he googled me.” I was quiet, and Noah looked at me.
“How’d you feel about that?”
“Remorseful. Not because he deserved better, although of course he did, but because who was I really pulling one over on? What was I achieving by sleeping with someone I didn’t want to tell the most basic information about my life?”
“Before seeing Louisiana,” Noah said, “I hadn’t had sex for almost a year. In 2019, I went on a bunch of first dates, and a couple second dates, but I felt like I knew beforehand how they’d play out and it just wasn’t worth the energy. If you’re our age and single, dating kind of has to be an act of reckless optimism, right? The triumph of hope over experience?”
“Did you really not have sex for almost a year?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not judging you, I’m just surprised.”
“Because I’m a guy?”
“Partly.”
“Do you buy into the idea of all men as constantly horny? I thought the younger TNO staffers were teaching you that gender stereotypes are nonsense.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but you’re also a celebrity. A good-looking celebrity. Don’t women throw their bras at you onstage?”
“I don’t think that happens in real life.”
“Never? Not even once or twice?”
He smiled sheepishly. “Maybe once or twice.” Then he burrowed into me. “I am constantly horny for you, in case that’s not clear.”
* * *
—
Margit and Glenn came back in the afternoon, and even though I knew they weren’t Noah’s parents, I felt a little like they were, and I wanted their approval. They appeared to be in their sixties—Margit was petite and dark-haired, and Glenn was tall—and I further realized that I’d half expected them to have on uniforms like the servants in a British period drama. Instead, they were wearing shorts and T-shirts, and when Noah introduced me in the kitchen, they greeted me in a friendly but brief way, and then Noah told Margit that we hadn’t eaten the salmon the night before so it would probably be good to have it for dinner. Equally casually, Noah said to me, “Do you want Glenn to vacuum your car?”
“Oh,” I said. “No, that’s okay.”
“If you change your mind, just give him the keys.”
Then we went out to the pool and splashed around and treaded water for a while and stood in the shallow end pressed against each other, making out—did Margit, whom I had the vague impression was still in the kitchen, care? Had she seen a version of this many times?—and Noah said, “I think it’s very important for you to be kissed a lot while you’re in a swimming pool because I hear that Martin Biersch was negligent on that front.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.