He folds his arms across his chest. “Why did you ask me to come here with you?”
Grimacing at his persistence, she walks over to an untreated pine dresser and pretends to examine it. “I thought you could help me pick out some pans?”
“You’re absolutely not using cookware from Ikea. You’d get the same result with a folded-up piece of aluminum foil. We’ll go to Sur La Table. Try again.”
She opens the top compartment and looks down. Inside the drawer is a crude drawing of a penis. It’s a fun surprise. Like finding a quarter on the ground. “I guess…I like being with you more than I like being by myself.” She takes a deep breath and glances up. Josh has this way of focusing on her face. There’s a potency to it. “Why did you come?”
“The meatballs.” A stranger would say his face appears blank, but Ari can tell he’s pleased. “Obviously.”
Fri, Oct 28, 5:27 p.m.
Briar: Have you looked at any of the proposals from developers?
Josh: Mom sent you after me now?
I don’t care about the proposals. It’s prime real estate on Avenue A.
Sell it to the highest bidder.
Sell it for parts.
Briar: You need to come to my deep stretch yoga class.
There’s a new instructor that’s VERY pretty
Josh: I already have a gym routine.
Briar: She has NYE date potential!
You can’t show up at a gala by yourself when your family is being honored!
That’s just sad.
Josh: Mom said you aren’t even coming.
Briar: Excuse me, I’ve had a luxury yurt booked for over a year! I will be glamping under the stars at Joshua Tree.
8
“I’M DEFINITELY COMING DOWN WITH something.” Ari is startlingly loud as she blows through the swinging doors of the Duane Reade on Broadway and Fourth Street. “It’s either a cold or diphtheria.”
“You came down with several shots of tequila and rang my buzzer at two in the morning,” Josh says, following her past the bored security guard, the cough suppressants, and an aisle of greeting cards. She hadn’t wanted to come upstairs, though.
Actually, Ari has never been to his apartment, even though they’ve watched six and a half terrible movies over the phone, ordered four coffees, shared two pizzas at Arturo’s, and this is their second—no third—joint shopping excursion.
Not that he’s counting.
“Where did you say you found her underwear?” she asks, slurring slightly.
“In my laundry. It was just sitting there,” he continues, steering her toward the cold drinks. “Mingling with my whites and light colors.”
“You have clothes that aren’t black?” She stops in front of the fridge and reaches for a six-pack of Coors Light. “Throw them out immediately. If you let your ex’s stuff linger in your home, it will slowly poison you, like the One Ring.”
Josh wordlessly takes the beer out of her hands, replacing it with a bottle of water. She barely seems to notice as she continues walking.
“Did I tell you that Cass took the time to go through every single one of the books and take the ones that belong to her? Except for one little pile. And I’m positive she left them on purpose.” Ari pauses in front of another fridge and exchanges the water for a Red Bull. “Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life? Daring Greatly? It’s all the shit the yoga teacher reads during shavasana when you just want to fall asleep. Clearly I have to get rid of them. Burn them or something.”
“You can’t burn books,” he says. “We’ll take them to the Strand and sell them.”
Ari nods seriously. “Less violent but more profitable.”
“Try to be sober for five seconds and focus.” Josh grabs the Red Bull can as she attempts to open it. “Am I supposed to send the underwear back to her? I spent two hundred dollars on a tiny triangle of mesh and now it’s mocking me.”
“You bought them?” Ari abruptly turns down a different aisle. “Did I tell you that Cass has this thing about plain cotton briefs?” She raises her eyebrows like he’s supposed to read something into that. “She never wanted me to wear anything else.” She grabs a ten-pack of generic women’s underwear off the rack, holding it out to him. “I have a drawer full of these from Costco!” She drops the package of briefs and Josh retrieves them from the floor. “Okay. Your turn. You need to tell me one really aggravating thing about Sophie.”
He places the briefs back on the rack. “Why?”
“This woman left you high and dry at a time when you needed support and you never talk shit about her. Like…would she leave one square of toilet paper on the roll without replacing it? Did she quietly fart as soon as you left the room when she thought you wouldn’t hear? Does she own NFTs? Does she have any weird rashes or unconscionable hot takes on Zack Snyder?”
Josh scans the Sophie Archives for an anecdote that’s interesting but not painful. A fondness for rioja, the fact that her Kindle was never charged, her fondness for having sex while blindfolded with her sleep mask…
“Sophie has to be listening to this very specific podcast in order to…” Josh performs a noncommittal hand gesture. “You know…”
“Have an orgasm?” Ari shouts.
He shushes her, glancing around the store.
“What was it?” She leans in like she’s going to whisper but speaks in the same loud drunk voice. “Like…an ASMR thing? Erotic short stories?”
“That’s the worst part.” He waits for another shopper to move past them. “It was This Week in Tech.”
Ari nods slowly. “You know what you should do?” She grabs the lapel of his coat and he inhales the scent of Jose Cuervo and citrusy perfume. Her mouth curves into an evil grin. “You should get another woman to put the panties on and take a picture of her and send that photo to Sophie.”
Josh stares at her, impressed and a little intimidated. “Fuck, I’m glad I’ll never have to break up with you.”
She drops her grip on his coat and continues down the aisle, already on to the next topic. “Why don’t you have NyQuil in your apartment? How do you live?” Her voice sounds like truck tires over gravel.
“Klonopin.” He picks up the dark blue NyQuil package. “You shouldn’t be taking cold medication when you’re drunk.”
“Nonsense! That’s the best time to—” Ari stops in her tracks, nearly tripping him. “Oh my God.”
“What? What is it?”
She bounces over to a cardboard display at the end of the next aisle and grabs a box.
“Josh.” She clutches the package to her chest. “Will you be my Dust Daddy?”
He flushes for a second before she flips the box around to show him the logo. It’s some kind of phallic as-seen-on-TV vacuum-cleaner attachment and she’s definitely about to make a scene.
“I’m begging you not to turn that into a nickname.”
“It’s for cleaning. Your favorite. Ooh, it gets into the tiniest cracks and crevices.” She holds out the box at arm’s length so they can both read it. “Flexible tubes with ‘powerful suction.’ How can a girl compete with that?” She bites her lip. “Should we get it? Is this my new boyfriend?” She drops the Dust Daddy back onto the display. “Oh! I have the best idea!”
Josh makes frenetic shushing motions, which only seem to amuse her. “Does it involve a giant bottle of Gatorade and some aspirin?”
“Pervertables.”
“What?” He feels the flush creeping back, not that she’d notice subtle details like that right now. The entire store must look like an expressionist painting to her.
“You pick out items that are normal on their own but could be sexual in the right context. When you buy them together, it looks like you’re preparing for a low-budget kink scene. Like”—she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment—“clothespins and a jump rope.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she insists. “I challenge you to a pervertables duel. Hamilton versus Burr.”
“Is this some awful improv game you force your students to do at the first class?”