You, Again(57)

Ordinarily, Ari would be scrambling down the rocks to check out the cave, but at the moment, she has a more pressing need.

“Mind if I smoke this?” She retrieves a joint from her little clutch. It seemed classier than a vape pen.

He shakes his head and brushes some microscopic dirt off a large boulder before taking a seat.

“I kind of felt a”—she makes a jittery hand gesture—“thing coming on at the party.”

“I noticed.”

Ari flicks her lighter and slowly creates a cherry, rolling the joint between her fingers over the flame, pausing to take a small drag. She probably should do some deep breathing that doesn’t involve smoke inhalation, but when has that ever worked in a crisis?

She takes a long hit before offering it to him.

His gears turn for a few seconds, but she’s pleasantly surprised when he reaches for the joint. Ari leans against the cold rock wall of the arch, watching him draw the smoke in.

“It’s bad for your palate,” he says, “but who fucking cares now? It’s not like I’m at risk of oversalting someone’s duck confit.”

There’s a retort on the tip of her tongue, but who is she to lecture anyone about giving up?

“Your mom was pretty much running a visual analysis on the childbearing capabilities of my hips.”

“It’s hardwired in her amygdala.” He carefully passes the joint back to her and their cold fingers brush for a second. There’s a quick flash in her mind’s eye: Josh’s hand pressing against her lower back twenty minutes ago. Then tangled in her hair, holding it back. Pulling. That part’s not a memory fragment. It’s…something else. Too many cocktails, maybe. “My mother can’t help trying to fix my life.”

“It’s nice. I mean, I can see how that would be comforting—to have someone want that for you.” The contrast between the icy December air and the hot smoke shocks her lungs.

“When my dad and I weren’t speaking, she was the go-between. I think she still believes she can stitch that relationship back together even though he’s gone.” He takes a second hit and passes it back, leaning against the outcrop. “Fuck, this stuff always makes my heart race.”

Ari looks up at the night sky. The canopy of tree branches obstructs any view of the stars.

“I hate that I’m still wondering what Cass is doing tonight,” she says, letting the words spill out. “I hate that I can’t brush my teeth or pee without remembering how I hid in the bathroom while she cleared everything out of our apartment. I hate that I’m a creep who still sends her these photos just to provoke a reaction and prove to myself that she wanted me at one point.” Josh opens his eyes. “I’m one hundred percent sure that I’ll never give another person this…power ever again. I just want someone who makes me feel good for an hour and who won’t trick me into thinking it’s anything more than that.”

She waits for him to either argue or reassure her.

It feels like a full minute before he responds. “Just an hour, huh?” He blinks up at her.

“Too optimistic? Fine. Thirty minutes.”

Ari takes one more hit and gently stubs out the joint, taking a seat next to him. She lets the THC and the cocktails dilute the noise from other people’s celebrations. For right now, it doesn’t feel like a park shared with millions of other people.

“You had one bad experience,” he says.

She shakes her head. “That’s the thing. There were really good parts. If it was all bad it wouldn’t hurt so much and I could just let it go.”

It’s quiet except for the occasional crunch of leaves or errant police siren in the distance.

A long lull.

“Music?” she suggests, not wanting to risk Josh gently drifting off to sleep in Central Park in December.

He reaches in his pocket for his phone, sitting up a little bit.

“?‘Auld Lang Syne’?”

Ari shakes her head. “Play something that feels poignant but not overly celebratory.”

He furrows his brow, sighs, and then types something into Spotify. A few seconds later, the reverb-heavy opening strums of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” ring out through his iPhone.

“This is a perfect fucking song,” he says as the bass guitar kicks in. “Just as Neil Finn intended it to be heard: from a speaker the size of a pebble.”

“Neil who? I thought Miley Cyrus wrote this.” Ari smiles innocently, taking too much pleasure in his exasperated expression. She stands up, immediately feeling stiletto torture pain. “Hey, if we stand under the arch, the sound will bounce.”

“Technically, it’ll reflect.”

She takes a step forward and holds out her hand. “Want to?”

“Dance?” He raises his eyes to hers, like he’s not completely sure if she’s being sincere.

“I mean, we clearly both need the practice and I spent most of that song making sure that curator couldn’t see my nipples.” She makes a more exaggerated gesture. “If you’re waiting for me to lift you over my shoulder you can forget it.”

He grabs her hand, and she pulls him up to stand. They step inside the narrow passageway.

The curved walls amplify the sound, enveloping them in a ghostly echo, with a sliver of the harsh light from a streetlamp streaking across the ground. They forego the hand/shoulder/waist combination they got wrong before. Ari puts her arms around his neck, and he puts his around her waist, with the phone in his hand gently poking into her back through the down coat. They sway from side to side, not really to the beat.