“The goofy smile? Hiding your phone.” Radhya steps into one of her torturous-looking boots with a grimace.
“Well, let me reapply my resting bitch face,” Ari says, waving her hand in front of her nose.
Ding!
Josh: Can I call you?
I need your take on this interaction I had with this yoga instructor.
I’m not sure I can accurately capture the tone over text.
Radhya zips up her other boot. “If you’re texting Cass again, I’m staging an interven—”
The aristocratic butler cuts in: “Incoming call from”—Ari curses as she fumbles to silence the phone—“Josh Kes-ten-butt poodle emoji.”
At first, nothing happens. Radhya and Ari simply stare at each other.
Maybe the name was indecipherable with the British accent. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. Maybe—
“Is this a joke?” It’s like Radhya’s face hasn’t yet figured out how to accurately express this particular form of betrayal. “An ironic code name you use for someone who’s not a toxic asshole?”
“Wait.” Gabe appears to be solving a math problem in midair. “?‘Poodle’ who?”
“Don’t freak out,” Ari says, voice laced with panic. “I ran into him a few weeks ago—”
“Weeks?” Radhya turns to Gabe, as if to verify.
“—we commiserated over our depressing lives and—I don’t know…we just hang out sometimes.”
“You ‘hang out sometimes’?” Radhya stands up from the couch, wobbling a little in her boots. “With fucking Kestenberg??” She looks at Gabe again. “That’s who she’s talking to?”
His eyes ping-pong between them. “Wait, who?”
“He’s moving on from his asshole phase,” Ari says. “I think that if—”
“It wasn’t a ‘phase,’ Ari.” Radhya shakes her head. “I realize that all chefs who happen to be angry white men receive second and third chances, but I didn’t think he’d get the opportunity to redeem himself with my best friend.”
“To be fair,” Gabe says, holding up his hands. “Ari does have a thing for bossy people who think they know everything.”
“Stay out of it, Gaston.” Radhya shoots him an intimidating glare.
He backs out of the living room and steps into the kitchen to observe the argument from a safer distance.
“No.” Ari can’t come up with the right words fast enough. It’s easy to put his past offense with Radhya aside when he’s just a weirdly engaging voice on the other end of the line. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” Radhya cocks her head to the right. “What kind of ‘hanging out’ have you been doing? Because I’m pretty sure I’m the only friend without benefits you have.”
“There aren’t any benefits!” At least this is one answer where the truth isn’t the worst-case scenario. “None. Rad—”
“Is this why I haven’t seen you? Do you get how insulting this is? I’m your friend, Ari. Not him.”
“Then listen to me!”
For the first time ever, Ari briefly wishes she and Josh had just hooked up that evening instead of splitting a pizza. She could have snuck off an hour later, Radhya would never need to know, and they each could’ve gotten their first post-breakup sex out of the way with minimal fuss.
“If you wanted me to listen,” Radhya says, “why did you keep this a secret for weeks?”
“Probably because I knew this exact argument would happen!” Ari stands up from the couch.
“You always do this,” Radhya continues. “You deflect and avoid until things blow up and then you walk away.”
Ding!
Josh: Hello?
She mentioned she does personal training.
Is that flirting or a sales pitch?
Radhya stares at the phone in Ari’s hand. “Are you coming to NoFucksgiving or not?”
Ari heads for the door and shrugs her coat back on. “I’m going back to Queens.”
“Why? So you can text him in private?”
“So I can wallow alone.” Ari lets the door slam.
A bitter, muffled “Happy Thanksgiving!” echoes down the hallway.
On the street, the wind bites at Ari’s face. Fighting with Rad always permeates every aspect of Ari’s emotional state. She could get the silent treatment from Cass or flub an audition—those disappointments stay in their clearly marked lanes in her brain. When Radhya’s upset with her, it’s a jackknifing semi. Heavy. Messy. Uncontrolled.
Ari exhales a cloud of warm breath and marches across the street to the bodega on the corner. If she’s not going to get sloppy drunk on cheap cocktails with friends, at least she can buy a can of wine and drink it alone, on the Q, through a straw.
A chonky bodega cat guards the entrance on the other side of the glass door, peering deep into Ari’s mind with a disapproving, soul-piercing gaze, and shaming her out of purchasing train rosé.
She grabs her phone out of her pocket, Radhya’s totally reasonable words circling the background of her mind like a carousel.
Ari: plans fell through tonight
Josh: Movie?
Ari: It’ll take me an hour to get home from brooklyn
Josh: This is why I don’t date women outside Manhattan.
Preferably, they live below Madison Square Park.
Ari: this is exactly why you’re not getting laid
I guess I could come to your place
Josh: And watch a movie in person?
Ari: no, just dinner and yoga instructor advice
I could stop at that taco place
Josh: Which one?
Ari: the one where you got the thing with the stuff on it?
Josh: The place with the chambray onions or the carnitas huaraches?
Ari: the one with the hot guy at the counter and a clean bathroom
10
“OKAY, I THOUGHT ABOUT IT on the way over and here’s what you’re gonna do.” Ari steps gingerly off the scary elevator and into Josh’s loft, handing him a grease-soaked paper bag. “After class, take an extra minute to wipe down your mat and ask her about stretches that work your adductors. Trust me, works every time. Yoga classes are a great place to meet women.” He’s dressed in black jeans and a dark sweater that probably cost more than Ari’s entire outfit, including her shoes and coat. “You wear pants at home? With a button fly? Are you a psychopath?”
“They’re comfortable.”
She shakes her head, brushing past him, fully taking in the space. “Holy shit. This could be a sitcom apartment.”
“It would look more impressive without all the junk.” Josh retreats to the kitchen to set the table. “I’m in the middle of a renovation.”
To Ari’s eye, the front of the apartment looks less like a “renovation” and more like someone deposited the contents of a basement all over the floor, started trying to put it in order, and gave up halfway through. As a veteran dumpster diver, she can’t help strolling around the piles of treasures: a Thighmaster resting on a cracked boom box, heavy ceramic lamp bases with giant beige shades, the remnants of Brodsky’s giant neon sign. The smell of old paperbacks and dusty vinyl.
Her gaze catches on a familiar silhouette.
“You can’t get rid of the Bowflex, it’s one of the best pieces of sex furniture known to man.” Ari rushes over to the angled bench. She pulls at the lat tower assembly, testing the stability. “Do you have any carabiners?”
Josh’s expression is both stern and laced with panic. It’s so easy to make him uncomfortable, it’s almost unfair.
She perches cross-legged on the bench. “Just so we’re clear, there’s no universe where any form of pants is more comfortable than no pants. I take mine off as soon as I walk in the door.”
“So every time we watch a movie, you’re not wearing pants?”
“Actually, I’m totally naked.” She heaves herself off the Bowflex and walks toward the table, where he abruptly stops setting out the to-go containers. “Sorry, I’m fucking with you again. I can’t watch movies naked. It’s embarrassing. I’m an old T-shirt and underwear kind of girl.”
He doesn’t look up. “Like the shirt you’re wearing? Which isn’t even yours?”
“It’s mine,” she says, voice tinged with indignation.
“Really? Bikini Kill is a little before your time.” He raises an eyebrow, waiting. “More of a…Gen X media studies professor thing.”
“Legally, this shirt is half mine,” she declares. “Am I supposed to throw it away?”