You, Again(39)
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?”
“You told me to toss out everything that belonged to Sophie. It’s hypocritical.”
She lets out a little huff. “It’s a comfortable shirt! That’s different from keeping someone’s lingerie and you know it.”
“Is it?”
“Everything else is gone. I can’t have this one stupid shirt?” She’s surprised at the way her voice almost cracks. Josh falls silent. It’s just as well—Ari doesn’t have the energy to pick a fight so soon after the Radhya debacle. “Can we eat now?”
He gestures at the table, which is set as if he’s hosting a formal dinner. Ari can’t help but observe that it’s large enough to accommodate sex: a true New York luxury.
“Eating on dishes instead of takeout containers helps you stay in touch with your humanity,” he says. “According to my therapist.”
“I guess that makes me an animal.” She takes a seat. His kitchen is in disarray—old cabinets and countertops with fancy new appliances, some still wrapped in plastic. “I thought cooking was your passion,” she says.
Josh carefully arranges the tacos on a platter. “I refuse to fill my free time with something that reminds me of failure.”
As she dumps a mountain of tortilla chips onto her plate, a dating app notification splashes across Ari’s lock screen.
Any one of these matches could be The One! Tap here to find out who.
“Ugh,” she says, wrinkling her nose at the message. “How do I tell this app I don’t want ‘The One’? I’m not even ready to have totally forgettable rebound sex yet.” Ari clears her throat, reading from the profile. “?‘Adam, thirty-eight. Big white one. Uncut. Huge loads. Can’t an Uncut guy just get some head.’?” She drops the phone on the tabletop, disgusted. “This is what you put up with when you date men.”
He reaches for her device and stares at the moonfaced man featured in a driver’s seat selfie. Josh has one of those faces that never seems to relax into a casual expression. It’s like his eyes are always scanning, seeking more information. “There’s no question mark. And why is ‘uncut’ capitalized?”
“That’s your critique?” She wipes her greasy hand with a flimsy taco place napkin. “Clearly you have the luxury of thousands of profiles of nice, normal women at your disposal.”
He looks up, narrowing his eyes. “Then why aren’t I spending time with nice, normal women right now?”
“You’re probably disqualifying them for completely petty reasons.” Everything she’s deduced about his ex and the other nameless previous relationships he’s vaguely referenced seems to indicate that yes, he absolutely does have a history of dating lovely women with real jobs, who actually read The New Yorker and don’t let all the issues pile up for several months before going through them and skimming only the movie reviews and the cartoons. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I could be trapped for hours at some mediocre restaurant with someone who doesn’t respect the rules of grammar.”
“Whenever I got stuck on a really bad date, my friend Gabe would show up at the restaurant and pretend to accuse me of cheating on him. It brings the date to a screeching halt, while eliminating any chance of future contact.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to date again.”
“You need someone more objective to do the swiping.” She places her open palm in front of him and gestures for him to hand over his phone. “I’ll show you my terrible future dates if you show me yours?”
He opens an app and begrudgingly hands his device across the table. Ari stares at the Raya profile of “Lauren,” who has a passion for travel but also loves relaxing at home. She swipes again on a “Hannah,” who does part-time fitness modeling. “Your entire feed is beautiful overachievers?”
Josh swipes left every few seconds with one hand and rubs at his fledgling beard with the other. “Are you actually going to meet any of these people?”
“I’ll risk it if you will,” she says, examining a photo of a different Lauren, who’s always up for an adventure. “So have you actually talked to the yoga instructor?”
“Two after-class conversations this week.”
“You went twice?” Ari asks, a little embarrassed by the odd tone of her voice.
He scowls at her phone and makes another swipe. “?‘No fatties’? Really? This asshole is holding a fish.”
Ari sits up taller, craning her neck to see what Josh is doing on her device. “Did you make sure it’s set to all genders?”
“I assure you, I’m combing through every available human in the entire tri-state area. It’s quality control. Unless you want to end up with someone who uses a bathroom selfie in their profile?” He’s giving her that focused gaze again—the one that makes her feel exposed.