“We aren’t.”
“—my nemesis?”
Ari narrows her eyes. “I thought your nemesis was the chef de cuisine at Marea.”
A sweaty-faced guy in a stained apron swings open the kitchen door, observes Rad’s body language, and quickly retreats.
“I’d almost rather it was just some meaningless sex thing,” Radhya says, sitting back down on the crate. “I’m supposed to be the person you confide in.”
“Given your previous experience with Josh, it didn’t seem as simple as calling you up and saying, ‘Hey, I want to tell you about this guy I know.’？”
“But it was easier to sneak around behind my back?” Radhya takes another drag of the cigarette.
Ari opens her mouth to dispute this interpretation of events, but instead, what comes out is a trite analogy. “It’s like…I got pushed into the water. But it’s not a nice, heated pool. There’s no shallow end. I got shoved over the railing of the Titanic.”
“Say what happened. Cass pushed you. Stop using the passive voice.”
“I’ve been treading water and I’m so exhausted that I can’t bring myself to”—Ari inhales a back-alley-scented breath—“like, wave my hands and shout for help.”
“I’m right here, offering you help, and you’re waiting for Kestenberg to rescue you?”
“No,” Ari says, her voice full of conviction. “He’s in the water, too. We’re both clinging to the same shitty piece of debris.”
“According to that metaphor you’re drowning in open water with someone who shoved my head underwater and never looked back.” Radhya exhales a cloud of smoke. “Don’t be the Leo in this situation. Don’t let him hog that fucking door.”
“I’m not the Leo.” Ari’s never actually seen Titanic but she knows the reference from the memes. “He’s mostly just…going through a self-loathing thing.” It feels like a slight relief to swivel the spotlight away from her and onto Josh and Radhya. “He doesn’t even cook anymore. I think he’d like to apologize to you.” Even as she says it, she can’t quite remember him actually stating that.
Radhya stubs out the cigarette. “I’m not interested in being the next stop on his journey of ‘listening and learning.’？” She groans like someone twenty years older than she is as she stands up from the milk crate. “I should get back inside.” She pulls the kitchen door halfway open and hesitates. “Did you at least talk to my lawyer?”
There’s an odd swell of nerves in the pit of Ari’s stomach. “How bad is it to send your ex a topless selfie from the bathroom of a divorce lawyer’s office? Asking for a friend.”
Radhya turns around to look at her. “Tell your friend dubcon nudes are…not great.”
“I’m self-medicating.”
“Meet me at Johnny’s in an hour?” Ari nods, her giant exhalation creating a cloud in the cold air. “You’re buying the drinks, Twattie.”
* * *
—
“HOW HAVE YOU LIVED IN the city for eight years and never been to the Frick?” Josh asks in a tone that’s both exasperated and reverently hushed. “It’s basic cultural lit—”
“Literacy. I know, I’m a heathen.”
Late afternoon light streams through the glass windows of the Fragonard Room, illuminating gilded sculptures, porcelain vases, and a series of large paintings that the label describes as “exuberant depictions of romance.” Josh and Ari have been wandering through the museum for almost two hours. Well, wandering is generous. It’s more accurate to say that Josh has been coaxing and sometimes literally dragging her between the wings.
“Let’s see,” Ari says, glancing at the panels depicting subjects who definitely lost their heads to the guillotine. “I’m not interested in robber barons, colonialism, or celebrating thousands of years of sexism.”
“Is there anything that’s not problematic for you?”
“Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t have unzipped my hoodie to reveal my killmonger was right T-shirt in front of the docent?”
Josh stops in front of a giant mirrored mantelpiece and meets her eye in the reflection. “This is one of my favorite places in the city,” he says. “It hasn’t changed in…I don’t know, a hundred years? I’m not going to apologize because a wealthy industrialist once bought a Persian rug.”