“Okay,” Ari says, barely audible.
He grips the handle of the basket almost hard enough to break the plastic, waiting for the bomb to explode. She can have until the count of three to tell her ex to fuck off.
Cass’s fingers stay pressed into Ari’s shoulder, as if she still has some claim. Some right to be there. “I hope you’re okay. If you need anything…”
Three…
Two…
“She’s fine,” Josh snaps.
They both turn their heads accusingly, as if he’d interrupted their moment.
What happens when Ari needs something? Who does she call? Who’s been picking up the fucking pieces? Fuck this presumptuous—
“In that case,” Cass says, turning back to Ari, “you should stop texting me. No more…pictures, okay?”
The way she says pictures sends Josh’s mind spinning in twelve directions.
Ari nods, defeated. Her eyes don’t seem to be focusing on anything.
Cass gives Ari’s shoulder a final squeeze as she takes a step past her. Josh is about to let himself exhale when she pauses and turns around, her face now just an irksome inch above his. Must be the heels of her boots.
“Oh, and, Josh? I’ll give you a tip. Eating pussy should be the main event, not a three-minute warm-up.”
Six semi-formed comebacks fail to fully materialize in his brain. He blinks dumbly, watching Cass walk away.
Ari reaches past him, pressing the elevator button. It groans to life from the floor below.
There’d been no outburst. No argument. She’d passively absorbed everything that came out of that woman’s mouth: the false comfort, the performance of kindness, even the judgment.
“Let’s go,” she says, her voice carefully modulated in that indifferent tone that drives him fucking insane.
The shock of the whole encounter wears off into something sinister. She’d seemed almost…embarrassed to be seen with him.
“What about the books you picked out?”
“What do I need books for?” she snaps. Her cheeks are crimson. “I don’t have shelves. I have a move-out date.”
“I can keep them—”
“No!” Ari doesn’t look at him. She’s staring straight ahead, face red. “I don’t want your help. I don’t want the books. I want to go home.” Eventually, the elevator door creaks open. “Except ‘home’ just reminds me of…that.”
He sets the basket down, abandoning it to the Rare Book Room, and follows her into the elevator.
“Then let’s go to Veselka. You wanted pierogis.”
She lets out an aggravated sigh, which Josh takes as a “yes.” If he sticks to the script, a normal activity—something they do all the time—he could stabilize the situation.
They stand in the same positions as before but now everything’s changed around them, like the elevator is some kind of emotional teleportation torture device. Maybe he’ll encounter Sophie chatting with the ghost of his father on the first floor.
When the door opens again, it’s a random couple waiting to get on, holding hands and laughing about something that’s only funny to them. They’re locked in their own little bubble, oblivious to the disaster that occurred three flights up.
* * *
—
JOSH CAN HEAR ARI’S FOOT tapping on the floor in no discernible pattern, even though Veselka is noisy tonight. She turns the laminated menu back and forth.
“You’re not getting the pierogis?” he asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they left the Strand. This time, there hadn’t been any cookie-splitting or not-quite-hand-brushing. Just awkward silence and the sound of boots scraping against wet pavement.
She shrugs, tossing the menu down on the table and pointedly not making eye contact. They’re surrounded by couples, but Ari makes no predictions about the nature of their forthcoming breakups.
When the waiter returns, she orders a fucking salad, which is somehow the most insulting thing she’s done all evening.
With the distraction of the menus gone, they sit in continued silence: Josh looking at Ari and Ari looking anywhere but at Josh, her refusal to engage keeping his anger at a low boil.
There’s something almost disrespectful about her brittle demeanor inside the homey, unpretentious atmosphere, drenched in the familiar smell of carb-heavy comfort food. It’s a warm Ukrainian blanket of a diner.
“Should we talk about what just happened?” he asks, after giving her a reasonable two minutes to speak first.
“If you want,” she says. If you want. Like this is for his benefit.
“Are you okay?” He keeps his tone steady and devoid of feeling. They could be two chatbots exchanging pleasantries.
“Oh yeah, perfect,” she replies, letting a drop of sarcasm through whatever filter she’s using to sift out emotion. “I’ve been holding my breath for months, waiting for it to happen.” She continues to tap her foot. “I ran into my wife—”
“Your ex.”
“—looking like a drowned rat ragamuffin. And that’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You certainly seem ‘fine.’?”
“Yep.” Her foot taps harder against the tile. There are no distractions: no food on the table, no menus.
After a beat, he tries a new strategy. “It’s okay to be upset.”
“Oh, I have your permission now?” She picks at the corner of the table and finally looks up. “Great. I’m upset with you.”
“Me?” Josh sits up straighter.
“Why were you acting like that in front of her?”
“I could ask you the same question.” He unrolls the paper napkin and wipes off the water spots from each piece of silverware. “You acted like you didn’t even know me. You should have just shoved me down the elevator shaft in front of her, it would have been subtler.”
Ari raises her eyebrows to cartoonish heights. “That’s why you’re mad? Because I panicked and didn’t perform a round of gracious introductions? Sorry if I was distracted for two minutes by the person who shattered my fucking heart.”
The waiter chooses this moment to serve Josh’s matzo ball soup and Ari’s salad, dropping the dishes down on the table with a clatter.
“I was trying to help,” he says, as much to himself as to her.
“I never asked you for help, so you can stop trying to live out this fantasy where I’m your girlfriend.”
The word lingers in the air like gun smoke.
“Excuse me?” he shoots back, driving toward some heretofore unacknowledged line. The border of the demilitarized zone of the friendship. “You were practically begging me to kiss you three seconds before your ex showed up.”
Her mouth falls open. “We were joking around! And you started it. You pushed this on me.”
“What did I push on you?” He feels over-caffeinated, like he’s barely in control of whatever might spill out of his mouth next.
“Really?” She cocks her head to the right. “Why are you eating soup in a diner instead of taking a Lauren to some under-the-radar Argentinian wine bar? Why don’t you dress up the yoga instructor in your giant coat and humiliate her in front of her wife?”
“Ex-wife. I made you wear the coat because I don’t want you freezing your ass off because I fucking care about you.”
She stares at him, saying nothing.
The middle-aged couple at the next table pause their own conversation and give each other painfully obvious “look at these two” glances.
The adrenaline that was coursing through his body a few seconds ago dissipates into dread, tepid and stagnant.
Ari looks down at the plate and pokes at the lettuce with her fork. Her shoulders start to shake. When she finally looks up, her eyes are spilling over with tears. “Is there more to me than bong vapor and nipple piercings?”
“Ari.” He modulates his voice into something soft. “That’s a ridiculous question.”
“I was supposed to be her muse,” she says, her voice drained of all levity.
“That sounds very convenient for her but you’re not her love interest. You’re not the character without a personality who only exists to make someone else seem desirable.” Josh picks up his soup spoon. “That’s not you.”
“You’re right. I’m supposed to be the person who’s happier being alone.”