Amirah crossed her arms but did not say anything.
Simon arrived moments later to a fully silent table, deposited a bottle of wine and a basket of french fries between us, and hung his coat on the back of my chair. His face was flushed from the walk, and the mineral smell of the cold outside clung to his beard. “Hope it’s okay I got white,” he said, smiling nervously. “I texted you, but I guess your phone was in your bag.” He did a dorky wave to the group and unscrewed the cap on the top of the bottle.
Amirah leaned forward. “So, Simon,” she said. “I hear you do magic.”
Simon handled this gamely, and the conversation moved on to other things. Tom did eventually join us, and the group settled back into its usual dynamic, all rude jokes and dumb theories, and the revelation that while Stalin （and indeed the entire line of questioning） was not to his taste, Simon would, if pressed, do it with a pre-atrocities Imelda Marcos. Although I felt a certain chill in the air when I was speaking, everyone took to Simon immediately, and it was a genuine pleasure to watch him blossom under the group’s interest, doling out witty jabs, asking thoughtful follow-up questions, and being charming in his slightly studied though nonetheless effective way.
I zoned out for a minute and watched my friends and sort-of boyfriend discuss a recent scandal involving the prime minister’s socks: to some commentators they had been too political, and to many enraged online presences, not nearly political enough. Simon said he didn’t consider the PM a leftist, but he guessed he was more left leaning than the average voter.
“I did hear you lean left,” Clive said with a sly smile. It took Simon a second to realize Clive was talking about his penis. He did eventually and followed up with a “huge caucus” joke that didn’t technically make sense but was enormously successful as a vulgar pun.
“And this is the man you’re bringing to Emily’s wedding?” Emotional Lauren asked, feigning shock.
“Emily and Patrick?” Amy chirped. “No way! I’m going to that! The groom and I were both on stu gov at Western. I actually gave him an HJ once, but it was at a stoplight party, so I feel like that doesn’t count. Maybe don’t tell the bride, just in case.”
I promised I wouldn’t. “I’ll barely know anybody there,” I said. “I’m mostly going to show off my fancy new man. Look at this: face of victory. Right?” I patted Simon’s thigh like he was my trusty steed. “You could be a war criminal and I’d still take you to this wedding.”
A loud wail broke out from the table nearby, and I realized that someone on Les Quizerables was wearing a baby. I was horrified to find myself in the company of young parents, but grateful to their offspring for breaking yet another long, awkward pause. I looked at Simon and could not read his expression. Amirah avoided my eye contact by fussing with Tom’s hair, Lauren and Clive were texting, and Emotional Lauren was gazing intently into the middle distance with a strand of hair in her mouth. I shifted my eyeline to Amy, who smiled nervously. For the first time since she’d arrived, she seemed unsure how to proceed.
“I’m excited for you to meet Ryan,” she said to me, then turned to include the rest of the table. “Yesterday I told one of my patient’s moms that my boyfriend is a clown, and she looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Aren’t they all?’”
Clive laughed first, then the rest of them joined in. I could have kissed her. In an effort to ride the wave of goodwill Amy had created, I let out a flurry of complimentary non sequiturs, praising Clive’s culinary abilities and Amirah’s trivia contributions and the outerwear of both Laurens. They accepted these gamely, then moved along to other topics, asking Simon about 6Bites and letting Tom talk to us about Bitcoin. I used a credit card to buy a round of drinks for the table, and when the rescue puggle came up again, I kept my mouth shut.
As the night progressed I felt a bit better, though if I was silent for too long a panic would creep in and I’d blurt a self-deprecating anecdote or joke, realizing too late that someone else at the table was in the middle of their own story or conversation. I could tell my interruptions weren’t winning anyone over, but it seemed better than doing nothing. I felt suddenly desperate to impress this group of people who had known and loved me since we were teenagers, who I’d seen barf and betray people and figure out that they were wearing the wrong-sized bra. It was a destabilizing feeling and I wanted it to go away.
We demolished a final round of fries for the table and called it a night, complaining already about how bad our headaches would be tomorrow. Because it was winter in Toronto, the decision to leave meant extensively preparing ourselves to be cold. Base layers were supplemented with scarves, hoods pulled tight around faces, mittens layered on top of gloves, and then we were outside, the frigid air hardening the snot in our noses as we discussed the merits of various bus routes versus the streetcar.
Street mush was already seeping into my cheap winter boots; my toes would be damp when I got home. Amy, whose sublet was nearby, skipped away after putting her number in Emotional Lauren’s phone and promising her “mimos, on demand, any time.” Tom was holding Amirah close to him, his hands in the pockets of her big down coat. Lauren was trying to use the tip of her nose to unlock her iPhone, unwilling to take off her gloves. Clive took in the scene and yelled, “Fuck this, XL for the girls,” ordering a van to whisk everyone to their respective homes. After a quick head count, I offered—gallantly, I thought—to give up my spot. Nobody protested.
Three minutes later, a gray van pulled up. Everyone piled in, and Amirah said a stilted goodbye and tried to hurry the automatic door closed, which made it fully open again, then judder and glitch when she tried to pull it back, which she did several times, until the van’s driver yelled at her to stop touching it. They looked out at me, unspeaking, as the door inched shut incredibly slowly, emitting a high-pitched, whiny beep. When it finally closed the van pulled away, and Emotional Lauren did a tentative wave at Simon and me out the back windshield.
I reached for Simon’s hand and said, “Shall we?” in a sort of Cary Grant voice. He put his mitten on mine, and we set off down Dundas. Snow started to fall in fat, thick flakes.
“Sorry about tonight,” I said. “They’re a lot more fun than that, usually.”
“They seemed fine to me,” said Simon.
When we got back to mine, he was quiet in a way that indicated he was mad.
The Fight （Abridged）
He said, “is everything alright” and I said, “everything’s great” then ranted for several minutes about how nobody made bathing suits with the back and sides on them anymore, and how were you supposed to go on a family holiday with most of your ass and part of your labia hanging out, a bit of majora at minimum. He said, “did you tell your friends I was coming” and I said I didn’t need to, and he said, “people like to be told if you’re bringing someone somewhere” and “I wanted to make a good impression.”
At this point the fight had not started in earnest and was more of a light tension somewhere around my lower back. I returned to the bathing suits, and he said, “you called me your boyfriend earlier,” then explained that he wasn’t against the title necessarily, but was surprised because we had not talked about it, and maybe that was something to—