You, Again(34)

“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?”

“No! That would probably constitute sexual harassment.” Ari grabs a stick of deodorant off a display rack, opens the cap, and inhales the aggressively strong fragrance. “Usually this is something I do with people I’m trying to go home with.”

It’s exactly the kind of maddeningly ambiguous statement that sends his brain in five directions at once.

On the other hand, she probably won’t remember this conversation tomorrow.

Josh sighs. “We’re not leaving until this happens, are we?” If his coping mechanism is logging hours at Crunch, apparently this is Ari’s.

“Three things, Dust Daddy.” She walks backward—stumbling slightly—toward the tower of plastic shopping baskets at the entrance. “One minute. Set your timer?”

“Okay,” he agrees, converting one Drunk Ari minute into five Regular Person ones. “If you also buy an enormous bottle of water.”

“I hope you have a plan.” She hands him a basket. “I’m really good at this.”

“I always have a plan.”

“Aaaaand…go!” she yells, tearing down the aisle toward the kitchen supplies with no warning, no three-two-one countdown. “Let your dirty little imagination soar!”

Three minutes, twenty seconds, and two incoherent shouted verses of “My Shot” later, Ari sprints to the register, where Josh has been waiting patiently with his basket.

“I can’t believe I did that before the timer went off!” He stifles a laugh as she reaches for her selections. “Okay, I got”—she gasps for air—“spatula”—she hits him on the chest with a satisfying thwack—“that’s an impact implement. Toothbrush case, with ridges, obviously. And plastic wrap, extra clingy.” She peeks into his basket, still out of breath. “Your turn.”

“Hairbrush. Latex gloves. Baby oil.”

Ari gets quiet, stares at him, looks down at the items in the basket again, and then back up.

“Josh. Josh, I feel God in this Duane Reade tonight. You total”—she’s yelling now—“Fucking. Perv.” Without warning, she launches herself at him, wrapping him in a giant bear hug. Or a petite-medium bear hug, considering her size. A rush of warmth courses through his body. She hasn’t ever touched him this much. It feels like months since anyone so much as shook his hand. He tentatively raises his arms to reciprocate—for once, the motion seeming automatic, rather than forced—when she suddenly breaks the hug and sets his basket on top of the counter at the register. He tries to mask his disappointment. And his hard-on.

“Congratulations, we are purchasing all of your items to commemorate this moment,” she declares. “God, a paddle-style hairbrush?” She cackles. “You should add this skill to your dating profiles.”

“No,” he says firmly.

Her expression changes to something like panic. “Oh shit, we forgot the Dust Daddy!”

Josh avoids eye contact with the bored-looking cashier, who sighs as he scans each item. When he gets to the baby oil and then the NyQuil, something seems to snap into place.

The cashier looks up. “Not throwing away your shot, huh?”



* * *



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“ANOTHER ONE?” ARI ASKS, WHEN the credits start to roll on Grown Ups 2, the ninth terrible movie they’ve watched over the phone in the last two weeks. It’s becoming a routine: How to be pathetically alone, together.