“What do you think?” It’s been so long since someone touched him with any degree of tenderness, he’s tempted to tilt his head and lean into it.
“I’m still processing,” she says, withdrawing her hand. “I like seeing your face.”
He pulls himself together, swallows, and checks his phone. “You’re late. It’s almost nine-thirty—”
“There was no chance I was going to be on time, walking in heels this high.” She takes a step back. “And see? I ordered a coat. It’s like a sleeping bag with sleeves and it was on sale for the equivalent of five best-man toasts on NeverTired.” Ari spins around. “Are you happy now?”
Josh considers it for a second, trying to tease apart “happy” from a confused swirl of other emotions that have been bubbling up since that evening at the Strand and Veselka and the not-date that felt suspiciously more…something than any of the actual dates he’s been on in the last month. More like the best and worst parts of a brand-new relationship, after you’ve both broken the surface of polite conversation.
Ari looks at him with raised eyebrows, still waiting.
“Oh,” he replies. “Yeah. Good.”
It forces him to consider what she’s wearing underneath.
Why hadn’t they discussed their outfits? Did Ari even own a dress for a black-tie event?
“Let’s strategize. If you give me this signal”—she mimes a blow job with her fist and her tongue pressing against the inside of her cheek—“from across the table, we’ll make a run for it?”
He nods toward the museum entrance. “Come on.”
“Want the rest of this?” she asks, thrusting the papaya drink at him. There’s lipstick on the straw.
He wordlessly grabs it and throws it in the trash can on the corner.
In the lobby, a dour young woman holding an iPad—who is not amused when Ari gives their names as “Dust Daddy and Plus One”—directs them to the coat check.
Ari slips off the puffy coat, revealing a fluid silk dress with a slit that comes way up her thigh. She glances at him for a nanosecond, but his eyes lock on to her back first, because, well, it’s bare, except for two dangerously thin straps that cross once. He’s never actually seen this part of her: graceful curves and muscles that reveal themselves when she hands the coat across the counter. He’s still staring—had the coat-check person said something?—when she turns around and asks if her dress is okay.
“I stuffed a cardigan into my coat pocket if it’s too—”
“No!” Josh says too quickly. “It’s”—the straps are so precarious. One unplanned twist of the shoulder and—“nice.”
“I thought we could go all in on the goth-wedding-guest aesthetic,” she says. “I took a wild leap of faith that you’d also be wearing black.”
He allows himself to look again. The neckline plunges into a low V. This, too, provides new visual information. Her breasts are covered by two small triangles of fabric held up by those tiny straps—the kind of thing where it’s very apparent that there couldn’t be a bra underneath. “I like it.”
“I’ve had it for a while,” she explains, fiddling with her gold earring. He hands over his coat and takes the claim ticket, feeling slightly deflated that this was a Cass-era dress. “Can we hit the bar first?”
Josh points in the direction of the elevator, happy to delay this interaction with his mother.
“You look really nice, too,” she adds.
His right hand keeps trying to place itself on the small of her back as they walk. He clenches it in a fist.
The bar is set up in a gallery that resembles a dark jewel box, lined with antique Tiffany lamps, all dramatically lit.
“Why are these parties so upscale and expensive if the point is to raise money?” she asks, stopping in front of the translucent staircase in the middle of the gallery and turning around to face him. Her face is illuminated by the softly glowing colored glass.
“I suppose I did agree that you could complain the whole time.”
She pauses to read a text panel next to a glass display case. “Huh. Turns out that Louis Comfort Tiffany didn’t even design most of these. As usual, it was a woman, toiling in obscurity.”
Josh scans the paragraph.
“It says she and her staff were ‘well-compensated,’？” he points out.
“Yeah, well it doesn’t say ‘Clara Driscoll Gallery’ on the door. Clara Driscoll’s ancestors aren’t benefitting from generations of inherited wealth.”