You, Again(45)
“It’s Maddie,” she says, apparently surprised to become a direct participant in the drama. “Hi. But I’m not—” She pauses. “This was our first date.”
Ari whips her head back to him. “How many women did you neglect to tell me about, Joshua?”
“Aren’t you even going to say you’re sorry?” Maddie asks him, shaking her head in disbelief.
Great. So, he’s capable of disappointing people in made-up scenarios in addition to the real world.
Ari slices off one more bite of his steak. “This is really good,” she mumbles, somehow acting convincingly distraught while thoroughly enjoying his food.
Josh and Ari stare at each other for a beat. The blaring noise of the restaurant—the laughter at the bar, the clinking of silverware, Le Tigre pumping through the speakers—recedes into the background.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a sober tone. He doesn’t issue apologies often; even this fake one feels oddly potent. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.” He takes a breath. “Because I don’t think you want to hear the truth.” She stops chewing. Her eyebrow does the slightest little quirk. “And it would force a conversation that could blow up our…marriage.” When she looks at him, it’s like she’s eighty percent certain of something. That extra twenty percent will keep him up at night. “So I’ve been keeping things from you”—he glances at Maddie and back to Ari—“my wife.”
Maybe the little moment could’ve lasted longer if not for the server manifesting table-side to cheerfully inquire if Ari is “still working on that steak.”
She is, obviously. But he doesn’t miss the hint of a smile on her face before she grabs his napkin off his lap and pretend-dabs at her eyes.
“God.” Maddie looks down at her highly customized salad like she’s reading tea leaves. “Now I’m rethinking my breakup with Kevin. We were together since college and I thought I was missing out on all these wild sexual adventures in my twenties, but—”
“Oh?” Ari perks up, dropping the napkin.
“—being single is just so bleak,” Maddie says, taking a gulp of her chardonnay. “I mean, no offense, but like, looking at you two, I’m not sure if it’s worse to be out here dating or to end up in a nightmare relationship like yours.”
Josh wrinkles his nose at the criticism.
Ari reaches for another piece of focaccia.
“So…tell me about these wild sexual adventures,” his “wife” says to Maddie, not quite innocently enough, sliding the bread through the bowl of olive oil without breaking eye contact.
13
“REMIND ME WHY WE DECIDED to schlep to the Strand on the coldest day of the year so far?” Ari whines as she steps off the elevator, hunched over with the weight of a backpack sagging on her shoulders.
“It might help if you invested in a real jacket,” Josh replies. “Your coat is an embarrassment to outerwear.”
“At this point, I’m just hoping I make enough cash back on these books to buy myself pierogis at Veselka afterward.” She drops the bag on his dining table. She pulls Daring Greatly out of the bag and holds it up, examining the back cover. “Why is everyone always trying to get me to read this book? Maybe I don’t want to ‘dare greatly.’ Maybe I just want to dare the regular amount and wallow.” She walks over to his fridge and peeks inside, pulling out a bottle of Pellegrino, taking a second to study the stack of identical reusable containers, all labeled and dated in his neat block lettering. Chef habit. “Is it possible to wallow greatly? Somebody write that book.”
Josh reaches into the backpack. “Did she leave you the entire Brené Brown collection?”
“Wait, don’t look in there. I have a surprise.” Ari rushes back over to the table, sloshing some water over the rim of the bottle. “Now, before you say anything”—she slaps his hand away from the bag—“I know you don’t celebrate Christmas. This is a nondenominational winter holiday present.” She pulls out a large box wrapped in one of the free daily newspapers they hand you at subway stops. Maybe Cass took their supply of wrapping paper, too. “Congratulations. I hope you’re ready to be a father.”
After tearing into the newsprint, the first thing he sees is the as-seen-on-TV logo. She’d taped over the little cartoon Dust Daddy character on the box with some old photo from a profile that ran in Saveur two years ago.
“It’s not a gag gift,” she assures him. “I know how you feel about crumbs. This is basically like when Aragon got that giant sword from those dwarves.”
“This doesn’t give you permission to eat crackers on my furniture,” he says, turning it over. “And the elves re-forged that sword. Not the dwarves.”
“I know.” She grins and shrugs off her plaid peacoat. “But when I fuck with you, you get this look on your face like this…” She furrows her brow, creating a little wrinkle over her nose.
The gift is so perfectly casual yet evocative of a specific time and place that’s only meaningful to them that he briefly second-guesses himself as he retrieves the present he’d purchased for Ari two weeks ago. He’d wrapped it the way they do on sitcoms, where the lid just lifts off.