Ari wills herself not to show any trace of hurt. “I can hear everything she likes,” she says slowly—really twisting the knife. “Even with her thighs covering my ears.”
Josh’s face is red. There’s a blood vessel bulging from his temple.
Ari pulls at the door handle, hoping for a quick exit before he can muster a response. She has no idea where she’s going, just the unstoppable desire to flee. Better to be the one who walks away than the person who gets left behind.
As she throws the door open, he adds, “You forgot your panties.”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you.” Ari holds her phone up to her ear. “I’m on a fucking call.”
2
ARI STANDS OUTSIDE THE RESTAURANT, juggling her phone, a vape pen, and an enormous street-meat skewer with two hands. Not surprising that her roommate, Radhya, isn’t picking up, since dinner service at Scodella is still going. Radhya is somewhere in the kitchen, perfectly roasting and grilling expensive cuts of “carefully sourced” pork or things like squab, which is really just fancy chicken. Rad can press the pad of her index finger to a steak and tell exactly how done it is.
Wed, Sep 13, 10:12 p.m.
Ari: HUGE NEWS
gonna stop by, can you take a break?
Without them tacitly acknowledging best friendship, Ari and Radhya had become each other’s emergency contacts over the summer, when Radhya kicked her husband out of her apartment and began the search for a roommate who wouldn’t mind sleeping in the middle room of a railroad apartment. Enter Ari, who knew it wouldn’t be a problem because she would never bring anyone home to spend the night.
They’d spent most of July and August smoking weed on the couch and bingeing various Real Housewives franchises, while Radhya revealed all of the worst things about her ex （cheating with a hostess, putting ketchup on hot dogs, cheating with a different hostess）。 Listening to the world’s most depressing listicle every night only increased Ari’s confidence in her own approach to sex and dating. （More of the former, as little of the latter as possible, thank you.）
Radhya makes delicious grilled cheese sandwiches at two a.m. Ari provides the deliciously strong pot brownies that induce the grilled cheese cravings. Radhya appreciates friends who don’t judge her career choice, the men she hooks up with （often messily tangled with the career choice）， or the amount of money she spends on cosmetics. Ari always asks before borrowing the cosmetics.
As friends, Radhya and Ari are a better couple than Radhya and her husband ever were.
Ari: loading dock? Or meet you at Milano’s?
Ari tucks her phone into her bra to better focus on consuming the lamb skewer. She’s ravenous. It’s the buzzed feeling under her skin: this strange, unstoppable effervescence, like a soda that never goes flat. Making people laugh—causing them to lose themselves for a few seconds and surrender—is the greatest feeling in the world. Yes, better than sex. Stand-up is a different kind of high than improv or, like, actual drugs. It feels better when it works and ten times worse when it doesn’t.
But tonight? Worked. Even though it was only one of Gabe’s open mics. Even though most of the crowd was wannabe comedy men who never laugh at anyone else’s material and run the gamut between shitting-themselves nervous and why-am-I-still-doing-open-mics cocky.
That didn’t matter tonight. Because five hours ago, she heard the fateful little ding from her phone. The email. Subject line: OFFER.
Real money in exchange for a script. She’s been reading the text of the message all evening, one little sentence fragment at a time, like she’s slowly savoring wine from a chalice.
KWPS （pronounced “quips”） will be the Netflix of comedy, but curated.
Only the coolest shit. No vowels necessary.
It’s a game-changing career development. A tangible thing to add to her anemic list of professional accomplishments. She’s a professional nanny for a family on Sixty-eighth and Park. A professional cashier at a panini place at Rockefeller Center. A professional assistant at the LaughRiot theater on Fifty-third Street, where she answers phones, cleans up after classes, and pours weak, overpriced drinks at their makeshift bar before the shows.
Maybe after tonight, she could call herself a comedian and not feel a giant shameful wave of imposter syndrome engulf her internal organs.
Ari’s always felt slightly out of step with the intensity of the comedy “community” in New York. Most people love to talk about their “journey.” They won childhood talent shows or edited The Harvard Lampoon or personally encountered the ghost of Del Close. Ari fell into comedy after a hookup with the leader of her college’s improv team. The encounter was brief but the improv lasted four years. It was like rushing a tiny, nerdy frat.