When Josh announced his plan to drop out of Stanford to attend the Culinary Institute of America, Danny shook his head in that specific disappointed way that only fathers can. “You want to pay thousands of dollars so someone else can teach you how to dice an onion?” he’d muttered.
Josh’s mother, Abby, agreed to foot the bill, with the tacit understanding that Josh would one day apply his knowledge by taking over the deli. But Josh had no desire to be the heir to a fading pastrami empire: He had much more ambitious plans. After completing the program, he left for Europe to work in some of the world’s greatest kitchens.
Josh and his dad haven’t spoken since his return to the city. Abby acts as their go-between.
“The two-sided humans were so physically powerful,” he continues, “that they became a threat to the gods. So Zeus sliced them down the middle.” He draws a violent slash through the center of the circular body. “Now they’re all running around on two legs, confused and distraught, trying to reconnect with their other half.”
Ari leans forward, dropping her elbow onto a few square inches of empty real estate on the counter. “The soulmate?”
“Exactly.” He nods once, throwing the towel over his shoulder.
* * *
FOR ONE SECOND, in the excitement about agreeing on something, Ari sees a glimmer of why Natalie finds him attractive. His voice is so much more pleasant when he’s telling a story instead of arguing. And there’s something annoyingly hot about men with towels on their shoulders and rolled up sleeves.
“That’s pretty dark,” she says, staring at the ink slash. “No wonder Hallmark rebooted this concept as a Candace Cameron Bure rom-com.”
Josh’s expression darkens. He stands up straighter, making her feel shorter than five feet five. “Your soulmate gives you the greatest possible sense of belonging,” he says with genuine conviction. “They heal your existential wound. It’s the basis of modern love.”
Her brief flicker of interest in him must have been ninety percent towel-on-shoulder related. “You honestly think there’s one person somewhere on this planet who can fulfill every single need you’ll ever have?”
“Yes. And eventually you’ll get sick of searching for your underwear at two in the morning!” His accent is poking through again. “You’ll start looking for the person who won’t bore you. Who makes sacrifices for you even when you don’t deserve it. Who you want to hold all night until your arm falls asleep. Who’s required by law to bring you matzo ball soup when you get a cold. No one with an eggplant emoji next to their name is ever going to care about you that way.” Ari stares at him, mouth open, slightly alarmed by the volume of his impromptu monologue. He focuses his gaze on a chip in the laminate countertop and clears his throat softly. “What?”
“You’re completely delusional.”
Josh’s phone vibrates across the kitchen counter.
Natalie: hey! So sorry.
Gonna be later than i thought
Just getting to manhattan
The voice in Josh’s head unleashes a burst of creative expletives. The cod is already poaching. The orange sauce vierge will be gelatinous in thirty minutes. By the time Natalie arrives, he’ll be a sweaty mess.
Sometimes in his therapy sessions, Josh’s emotions overtake his ability to answer questions like “what are you experiencing right now?” He can’t take a clearing breath or do a fucking leaves-on-the-stream exercise. At this point, his therapist will inevitably advise him to “anchor.” The idea is to focus on your physical surroundings: things you can touch, hear, smell. Forcing himself to be still and concentrate on the minutiae around him doesn’t exactly come easily.
Except in the kitchen.
In no other place are all the senses so tightly interwoven. There’s nothing but the present in the overpowering scent of rosemary or the gentle gurgle of water coming to a slow boil. The knife sliding easily through the flesh of a perfectly ripe pear.
So it’s lucky that he finds himself in front of a cutting board, holding a plump heirloom tomato for the panzanella when Natalie’s text comes through.
What’s the alternative? Packing up his two hundred dollars’ worth of half-prepped produce, his cutting board, and Le Creuset and leaving the apartment in a huff?
He’s fucking trapped in this sweltering apartment.
“Something wrong?” Ari asks.
“No.” He rubs his forehead. Anchor. “She’s running late.”
Ari raises her eyebrows and nods slowly. “This is exactly the scenario I never have to deal with.” She turns away from him and opens the freezer, grabbing an ice cube tray. “If you weren’t so preoccupied with locking down a relationship you could just shrug it off and do something else with your evening instead of spiraling about it.”
“I’m not spiraling,” he insists, even as he feels his pulse quicken.
Ari grabs each end of the tray and violently twists until the cubes detach from their molds. “Sure, you’re not.”
Quit talking to her. Let it go. Don’t let her bait you. Anchor.
“How would you understand anything about a real relationship when you’re obviously incapable of forming a connection with someone other than the briefest possible sexual encounter?” he utters in one unbroken, comma-less string of words.
Ari narrows her eyes—almost pleased to have set him off.
“I’m not ‘incapable’ of anything,” she says, dropping the ice in her water glass. “I’m honest with people about what I expect. They can’t hurt me and I can’t disappoint them. We both get what we want.”
“If what you want is to fuck someone you don’t care about, roll over, put your clothes on, and see yourself out, you’re set for life.”
“Usually, we pretend to watch a movie first, but what difference does it make if I put my clothes back on ten minutes later or eight hours later?” She tilts her head back and takes four enormous gulps of water, as if the effort of the argument requires rehydration. The glass lands on the counter with a thunk. “We could have the hottest, most inconsequential hypothetical sex of your life and then—”
“We could?”
“Hypothetically.” She huffs out an exhale. “I’d quietly collect my panties and steal away into the night without waking you up.”
“Assuming you can locate them.” He notices a spot of mustard on the side of her mouth. It gives him a zing of schadenfreude.
“I always send a thank you text the next day.” She pauses. “Unless you went down on me for three minutes with zero enthusiasm but also expected a messy blow job thirty seconds later.”
It’s not often that Josh is rendered speechless. Which is to say that his train of thought shifts to the length of Ari’s shorts. Their intense little sparring contest. Handing her his knife.
There’s something there—a frisson of excitement. Somewhere in between extorting him for charity and her description of their hypothetical one-night stand, Josh must have decided—begrudgingly—that she’s pretty. Even if she does have pink hair that’s starting to wash out. She’s obnoxious and wrong about everything, but this is the most invigorating encounter he’s had with anyone in—well, his social life hasn’t been very robust lately.
“You’re missing out on the exciting part.” He sets down his knife. “Don’t you ever have those conversations with people, when you’re lying in bed after the first time you…” He trails off, like it’s risky to use certain words in front of her. “And you’re both vulnerable and nervous and hopeful because this could be a night you’ll reminisce about years later? They tell you things you couldn’t have known about them? The walls come down, and you start to understand who they really are?”
Ari squints at him, as if she’s trying to see a color that doesn’t exist yet.
“Have you spent ten minutes on a dating app?” Her voice is distinctive—maybe a hint of a rasp from shouting at strangers all day. “I don’t want to see who these people really are.”