Josh absentmindedly taps the home icon, refreshing his feed.
At the top of the screen is a ghost. A face he hasn’t seen in months.
Thanks to this fucking algorithm that knows exactly how to toy with his brain, Ari is staring back at him, smiling.
Josh quickly shoves the phone into his pocket, as if it doesn’t obey the principle of object permanence.
“The tracks on this extend past the very idea of beginnings and endings,” Manbun opines from a few feet away, his voice projecting like he’s on a stage. “There’s just one aural frame.”
The piano melody seems to get louder over the sound system—complicated and flourishing over the constancy of those two chords.
Josh puts the record down and retrieves his phone again, holding it with both hands, reopening Ari’s post. He swipes through the four photos, each one sending a completely different message. It’s a post specifically devised to confuse him.
He slides the carousel of photos back and forth, looking at all of them, letting his brain memorize the slightly new angle of her face in each photo. Being careful not to accidentally tap the heart icon with the pad of his thumb.
The caption reads, “Enjoying the nation’s #1 erect phallus.” Does it have some meaning beyond a mere dick joke? Has she met someone? Is it code?
He’s been skipping therapy. Some topics are just too big to explain in a fifty-minute session. Better to go without and wait until he gets a handle on the narrative.
He doesn’t want the fucking help right now, anyway.
“Peace Piece” dissolves into discordant notes, the song almost breaking apart.
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.