You, Again(64)

Straight into it, then. Fine. “I want to clear the air about—”

“No. There’s no ‘air’ to clear. This isn’t one of the twelve steps. I don’t care about your personal growth.” Radhya finally turns her head to the left to glance at him, her hand still working the dough. “I’m happy to go on resenting you. It motivates me.”

“It was a heated moment,” he says, spooning the flour onto the scale. “We both went too far.”

“For months, I tortured myself, going over it again and again in my head. And every time I interviewed for another job, I’d have that fucking little inkling. The imposter syndrome. This inferiority complex because I didn’t get to go to culinary school and work abroad.”

“I never said your technique was bad.”

“Yes, you fucking did. You undermined me in front of the entire kitchen over that bullshit duck preparation at the lowest period of my life.”

“Believe me,” Josh says, “I’m familiar with the human cost of being humiliated.”

“No.” She leans in. “We’re not the same. I’ve spent ten years taking shit from white guys like you in the kitchen,” Radhya says, pushing the dough away from her, like she needs to focus on the argument without multitasking. “Watching them get promoted. Laughing off everything from microaggressions to outright sexual harassment. I’ve had to be twice as good and I don’t get the luxury of multiple chances.”

There’s a good response to this but it isn’t in his arsenal. “I’m glad we’re finally talking about it,” is all he manages.

“Wow! After five years?” Radhya takes a huge gulp from her water bottle. “What a sense of urgency you have.”

“The situation was mishandled,” he concedes.

“That’s a passive-voice non-apology.”

“I’m sorry?”

She points her index finger at Josh’s chest. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. Try it once more, with feeling.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep, fryer-oil-coated breath in. “I’m sorry.” Exhale. “On some level I probably felt…insecure about being in charge. I was trying to maintain control and I felt…defensive. And I didn’t realize you were going through a divorce.” He pauses, trying to decipher her expression; it’s both dubious and exasperated. “The truth is, I’m glad you’re doing these pop-ups. You’re a talented chef and the food was…excellent.”

She doesn’t reply, but nods at him to take over the kneading and he tries to mimic her actions. The dough is smooth and strangely pleasing to knead. He pushes his thumbs into it, turning it over and over.

“Where are you working these days?” she asks.

“I haven’t taken out my knives in almost a year.”

They work in silence for a few minutes. Josh doesn’t mind. There’s a soothing aspect to it, similar to his perfect knife work. Maybe a bit less violent.

She watches him add a bit more water to the flour. “I’ve known Ari for a long time—”

“So have I.”

“No, you haven’t,” she snaps before he can add any additional evidence. “You’ve known her for—what?—a few months? And for most of that time she’s been miserable.” Radhya grabs a thin rolling pin and starts rolling flour-dusted discs into flat, perfect circles. “Maybe you’ve noticed.”

“Maybe I’ve noticed?” He would be gesturing wildly if his hands weren’t covered in dough. “Who do you think she’s been confiding in? Who spends hours on the phone with her? Who put together her Ikea furniture with those tiny hex wrenches?”

“You went to Ikea?”

“Who watched her melt down in front of her fucking ex? I don’t remember seeing you there.”

Radhya stops rolling. There’s a trace of hurt in her eyes. “Right. You’re treading water together.”

“What?”

Radhya shakes her head and continues pushing the rolling pin in controlled, even strokes.

“I need you to understand something.” There’s a pointed quality to the way Radhya pauses there and meets his gaze. An unfair implication. “Ari is extremely guarded, okay? She never had a real relationship before Cass. There was a very lopsided power dynamic.”

He’d clocked that almost immediately upon meeting the woman—a living, breathing lopsided power dynamic. He turns it over in his mind, the other pieces of the Ari puzzle somehow joining together with a satisfying click.

“She doesn’t have many people she relies on.” Radhya pats a roti with flour. “It takes time to bounce back from feeling blindsided and abandoned.” Josh feels his fist clenching and unclenching. “Time and space.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks, knowing full well where this is going.

“When you have a crush on a friend, there’s always going to be—”

“That’s not what’s happening.” His voice is low. He feels the dough becoming too dry in his hands. “We’re both dating other people.”

It’s the truth. No one can say it’s not.

“—an imbalance. It can upend things.”

“She kissed me!” He accidentally sends a bit of dough flying. “I mean, it was mutual.” He lowers his voice, straightening his body to full height. “Totally reciprocated. There’s no ‘imbalance’ here.” Radhya has no fucking clue how perfectly balanced it was. Basically the fucking Justice statue with the blindfold and the scale. “Didn’t she tell you about it?”