You, Again(89)

It would probably feel good to unfollow her. Or maybe he could post a selection of his own photos that suggest a productive and exciting new life. Let her be the one to check her phone too often.

But when has he ever let himself feel good?

Josh puts his phone away again. He pretends to leaf through the bins a bit more. Maybe this is a form of anchoring, too.

The melody slowly reconciles with the bass, easing into a gentle resolution.

His breathing slows.

The moment he’s mentally out of the woods, his phone buzzes again in his pocket.

Tues, March 14, 6:12 p.m.

Radhya: Hello “Chef.” I have your pasta machine.





24


JOSH ISN’T HERE TO ASK any questions about Ari. He wants his goddamn pasta machine, whether or not he uses it. That’s why he’s finally dragged himself to Brooklyn.

He wipes his boots on the welcome mat as the door swings open.

Radhya’s wearing a pair of jeans with holes at the knees. Her hair is down and it’s longer than he would have assumed. It must be the first time he’s seen her without her kitchen armor: no chef’s whites, no hair pulled tight into a bun.

Her apartment smells like Sichuan food. From somewhere beyond the foyer, there are sounds of low music and cans being placed directly on a table without coasters underneath.

“Is this a bad time?” he asks, eager for any excuse to make a quick exit.

“No. Come in.” She gestures at a slightly tilting stack of cardboard boxes at the end of the hallway flanked by a black trash bag. His dad’s pasta machine sits on top of a bulging Crown Royal box.

Josh lifts it up. His dad never actually used it for pasta—just an unsuccessful experiment with pierogi dough. Maybe it’s cursed. Strange how this innocuous piece of cooking equipment has come to symbolize his misguided belief that he mattered to Ari.

There’s something bright red poking out of the top of the trash bag. He bends down and grabs the wrinkled Soundgarden T-shirt.

“This is her stuff?” he can’t help but ask.

Radhya nods. “I’m storing some of her things.” She nudges the trash bag with her foot. “But this is going to Buffalo Exchange. I guess Cass’s old gym shirt is another person’s vintage ‘statement piece,’?” she says.

It doesn’t really mean anything. Maybe she’s purchased new shirts. Maybe she’s sleeping naked.

He’s itching to open the boxes. To examine her stuff and recapture a little bit of that feeling of knowing her.

He admonishes himself, wiping that thought away almost as quickly as it appears.

That kind of urge should have dissipated by now.

To be fair, it’s fading a bit. Ari occupies less space in his brain. He’s no longer agonizing over her, waiting for a call, or deciphering each social media post like it’s composed of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Or he’s limiting himself to only doing that in used record stores.

“Have you talked to her?” Radhya is staring at him.

“Who?” he forces himself to ask.

“Really, Kestenberg?”

“No.” I’m giving it space, or whatever the fuck you said, so…

Radhya lets out an enormous sigh. “She’s—” He braces himself for her to drop a momentous piece of Ari information. Seeing someone else. Marrying Gabe. Joining a cult in British Columbia. “—fine. According to her.”

Josh doesn’t respond. It always happens this way: Just as his feelings tip over from anger into acceptance, something reshuffles the whole fucking deck. He clenches his jaw, willing his face to maintain a neutral affect.

“Did you eat dinner?” Radhya asks.

“No.” Josh shakes his head once. He must really look pained. Pathetic. Friendless. “But I should get going.”

“I ordered Chuan Tian Xia,” she says. “Don’t pretend you don’t want it.”

And then a way-too-familiar voice from the other room: “He can’t resist Chengdu noodles.”

He glances at Radhya and then follows the sound around the corner to the small living room, where his sister (traitor!) is sitting on the floor in front of a coffee table, every inch covered by containers, dishes, napkins, lids, and beer cans.

If Briar was capable of shame, she’d be staring up at him with wide, apologetic eyes, but instead her face is calm, even pleased. Best to maintain power position since this is an obvious trap of some sort.

“What is this?” he asks, whipping his head between them. “An intervention?”

Radhya narrows her eyes and takes a seat. She’s always been good at maintaining a facial expression that simply dares people to question her further. She pushes the fortune pepper fish an inch in his direction—the Radhya equivalent of an olive branch. “This isn’t about Ari.”

“It’s business,” Briar adds. “I had an idea.”

Radhya fishes a package of chopsticks out from under a stack of napkins. “She thinks we should work together on a new pop-up.”

“This would be closer to a full-scale operation,” Briar says, opening a beer and handing it to him. “Like a trial run for the kind of restaurant Radhya wants to open. Gujarati-inspired with a…well, let’s call it a nod to traditional New York delicatessen classics.”