“Hi Janey,” he said as though they’d met hundreds of times before. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Janey moved aside to let Alex past her as Boo Radley watched skeptically from the corner.
Alex smiled at him. “Great wire-haired wiener. My grandma had one. Want to show me where your kitchen is?” CJ had explained to her Sprig sent employees, apparently very good-looking ones, to your home to prepare meals for you in your kitchen. Janey hadn’t even bothered to look at the bill for her one-month subscription.
“Whoooooo hooooooo. Now this is what I like to call kitchen porn. You need to be on Apartment Therapy, mama!” Alex said, placing several reusable bags on the countertop in her kitchen.
Janey smiled. There wasn’t a trace of her parents’ cozy southern kitchen here. She’d always been a fan of midcentury chic, and the kitchen was the perfect example of the aesthetic, with its pristine white walls, clean lines, and blond wood.
Alex set up, unpacking small brown boxes and unscrewing the top from a large orange thermos.
“Grab a mug. I have some amazing detoxing ginger tea for you. I’ll pour a cup and get your breakfast together and leave you to enjoy it. Today we have gluten-free granola with coconut yogurt and goji berries. We have this tea and a little bit of baobab juice.
“And for lunch I’m leaving you with this super yummy Super Superfood salad with kale, cabbage, avocado, sunflower seeds, blueberries, and a clove of minced garlic. You’ve got your vitamins A, B, C, E, and K all in one place, plus your carotenoids, flavonoids, selenium, iron, copper, and fiber. We are talking out-of-this-world immune system boosting and anti-inflammatory properties. You’ll feel like a million.”
Janey couldn’t stop smiling at him.
“Is this your full-time job?” she asked with genuine curiosity. “Or are you in college? NYU?”
“I am in school. Thanks for asking. I’m finishing up my degree in integrative medicine at the Holistic Healing Health Institute, HHHI—have you heard of it?”
“I haven’t.” Janey took a blissful sip of her tea.
“It’s in Bed Stuy. Great place. Check out the website. I’m finishing my thesis on whether or not the coregasm can replace a sexual orgasm.”
“What’s a coregasm?”
Alex began mixing together the ingredients for her Super Superfood salad. “It’s when a woman, and sometimes a few lucky men, are able to achieve orgasm through core body work alone. It’s way more common than people think.”
“I’d love to read that,” Janey said, popping a tart red goji berry into her mouth.
“I’ll let you know when I’m finished,” he said brightly. “Now, I won’t be the one delivering dinner tonight. It will be one of my associates, but you should make sure to download our app so you can send us any preferences and adjust your delivery times.”
“I sure will, Alex. I actually have a date tonight.” Was she really telling this stranger this? “With the guy from the juice shop.” Why couldn’t she stop talking? “So I don’t think I’ll need dinner. Can you cancel for me? Thanks so much for breakfast. And good luck with the orgasms.”
It took less than three minutes to devour the entire breakfast from Sprig. Janey moved over to her Eames armchair to finish the rest of the tea, folding her lower body into a nest and wrapping herself in a cashmere blanket. She reached up to touch her braid as she stared out the window. God, she missed her mother. Janey missed Reginald too, but she ached for Lorna, felt the loss so acutely in her bones every single day.
Boo Radley looked up at her as she wiped a tear away.
“I’m sorry she gave you such a silly name, Boo,” Janey said, reaching to scoop him onto her lap as he tried to wiggle away. “She loved you so much, though. Lorna thought Boo was the best character in that whole damn book.” She did. She always said, “That Boo is real and that’s what matters in life, Janey. He’s the best of them all. No pretension. Just goodness.” Her mother had been just goodness, and Janey hadn’t appreciated it enough when she was alive. She’d been so obsessed for so long with pleasing Beau. Why had she done that?
Lorna loved Beau too. It was always so clear she felt sorry for the little boy and wanted to set right all the wrongs forced on him by his parents. But she’d been wary of him too.
“That boy only cares about that boy,” her mother had told her more than once.
· · ·
Janey dressed carefully for her date with this juice guy. She couldn’t for the life of her remember his name (his email was actually [email protected]), and she would need to try to figure it out before she slept with him. She still wasn’t sure she would sleep with him, but she wasn’t opposed to it. And if it happened then it happened. She was a grown woman. And she wasn’t having any coregasms, at least not yet. She could never remember exactly what constituted her core anyway.
She selected a pair of dark jeans and a light grey cashmere V-neck sweater that showed just the right amount of cleavage, adding her favorite bohemian black felt hat for good measure and her Chanel boots, feeling sexier than she’d felt in a long time.
Juice Guy had offered to pick her up at her apartment (chivalry wasn’t dead!), but even though he’d already seen her topless, she’d watched too many marathons of Law & Order: SVU to agree to have him come to her home. She’d told him she’d meet him down at the Wandering Juice and they could head out from there. By the time seven p.m. rolled around she was absolutely starving. The Super Superfood salad wasn’t half bad, but it had done nothing to fill her up, and her stomach had been growling since an hour after she’d finished eating it. She’d unfortunately cleared the apartment of all other food, which CJ had promised her was the only way the food delivery services actually worked in your favor. Otherwise they were just delivering you bonus food, and as CJ liked to say, “Bonus food just makes your bum big.”
She hoped they’d be going somewhere to eat right in the neighborhood. Janey knew of a yummy vegan Thai place right on Eighth Avenue that could be his style, but she’d already decided that she would let him select the restaurant. She was sick of making decisions for men. She wanted to be fawned over for once, to have someone else do the thinking. She wondered if that was antifeminist and decided that she didn’t care.
Juice Guy was sitting down at one of his long picnic tables like a customer when she walked into the snug space. The guinea fowl chirped loudly at her arrival and that same girl, the one with the plant tattoos, was talking to the birds in hushed tones.
He rose right away and enveloped her in a hug. Janey breathed in his unfamiliar scent, something smoky and raw mixed with a sweetness like oranges. He kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hip ever so slightly. Janey was keenly aware that he’d already seen her topless.
“The guinea fowl are up in arms today.”