Ding!
Josh:Hello?
She mentioned she does personal training.
Is that flirting or a sales pitch?
Radhya stares at the phone in Ari’s hand. “Are you coming to NoFucksgiving or not?”
Ari heads for the door and shrugs her coat back on. “I’m going back to Queens.”
“Why? So you can text him in private?”
“So I canwallowalone.” Ari lets the door slam.
A bitter, muffled “Happy Thanksgiving!” echoes down the hallway.
On the street, the wind bites at Ari’s face. Fighting with Rad always permeates every aspect of Ari’s emotional state. She could get the silent treatment from Cass or flub an audition—those disappointments stay in their clearly marked lanes in her brain. When Radhya’s upset with her, it’s a jackknifing semi. Heavy. Messy. Uncontrolled.
Ari exhales a cloud of warm breath and marches across the street to the bodega on the corner. If she’s not going to get sloppy drunk on cheap cocktails with friends, at least she can buy a can of wine and drink it alone, on the Q, through a straw.
A chonky bodega cat guards the entrance on the other side of the glass door, peering deep into Ari’s mind with a disapproving, soul-piercing gaze, and shaming her out of purchasing train rosé.
She grabs her phone out of her pocket, Radhya’s totally reasonable words circling the background of her mind like a carousel.
Ari:plans fell through tonight
Josh:Movie?
Ari:It’ll take me an hour to get home from brooklyn
Josh:This is why I don’t date women outside Manhattan.
Preferably, they live below Madison Square Park.
Ari:this is exactly why you’re not getting laid
I guess I could come to your place
Josh:And watch a movie in person?
Ari:no, just dinner and yoga instructor advice
I could stop at that taco place
Josh:Which one?
Ari:the one where you got the thing with the stuff on it?
Josh:The place with the chambray onions or the carnitas huaraches?
Ari:the one with the hot guy at the counter and a clean bathroom
10
“OKAY, I THOUGHT ABOUT ITon the way over and here’s what you’re gonna do.” Ari steps gingerly off the scary elevator and into Josh’s loft, handing him a grease-soaked paper bag. “After class, take an extra minute to wipe down your mat and ask her about stretches that work your adductors. Trust me, works every time. Yoga classes are a great place to meet women.” He’s dressed in black jeans and a dark sweater that probably cost more than Ari’s entire outfit, including her shoes and coat. “You wear pants at home? With a button fly? Are you a psychopath?”
“They’re comfortable.”
