What Ari had presumed would be a polite handshake with Josh’s mom turns into a “hello hug,” which becomes a full-on, lingering, motherlyembrace. Ari stiffens at the unexpected tenderness. Sometimes it’s not until she encounters genuine parental affection that she recognizes the utter lack of it in her life. It hurts more to fill the cavity than to leave it empty.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Kestenberg,” Ari says while they’re still mid-squeeze. She doesn’t mention that Cassislisting their two-bedroom, but from what she’s gathered from Josh, Queens isn’t exactly his mom’s market.
“Call me Abby. And it’s Cohen, not Kestenberg, by the way. I kept my own name before it was a thing. Women weren’t doing that in the eighties. Are you planning to keep your name?”
“Oh, um,” Ari says, unprepared for this line of questioning. Josh is somewhere behind them, caught in a conversation with someone. “I actually never thought about it.” Which is true. She and Cass never discussed it.
Ari finds herself distracted by the charmingly imperfect application of Abby’s eye shadow as she tilts her head down, conspiratorially. “Josh never liked introducing us to his girlfriends, so when he told me he was bringing someone—”
“Oh, I’m not, like, asomeone,” Ari protests. Ten feet away,Josh maneuvers around partygoers with a panicked expression. “We’re just—”
“Joshua!” Abby drops her arm and gives her son a careful peck on the cheek without actually touching his face. “Before we sit down, let’s take a picture in front of the step-and-repeat. I think we have time before the amuse-bouche.”
Josh rolls his eyes. “This isn’t prom. I don’t want to draw more attention to myself with photos.”
“We should definitely take a prom picture,” Ari suggests, letting her nervous-babbling coping mechanism take the reins. She subtly readjusts her dress, making sure her right boob is safely hidden behind a piece of black silk that feels way too flimsy. Clearly, it was a mistake to choose something unabashedly sexy knowing she’d be meeting Josh’s mother. “The classic pose on a staircase, so you’re three feet taller than me. I never got to do that.” Abby’s eyes light up. Even though it’s probably because she’s envisioning future grandchildren, it feels like validation. “Did you go to prom?”
“No, he didn’t,” Abby answers. “Anyway, half the people in this room have been canceled or Me Too’ed. You’re hardly the only person here trying to control the narrative.”
“I wasn’t canceled,” he mutters, but Abby’s already hustling them to the photographer, where she insists on multiple poses with Ari and a begrudging Josh.
“Let’s do one with just the two of us,” Abby says, putting her arm around Ari, like they’ve known each other forever. As if this woman—a high-powered real estate broker? Venerated restaurateur? Friend of Countess Luann?—has any reason to pose in front of a New York City Department of Cultural Affairs logo with her son’s inappropriately dressed friend who ghostwrites raunchy maid-of-honor speeches. “Now, Ari, what do you do?”
“She’s a comedian,” Josh volunteers.
“Really!” Abby exclaims with genuine excitement. “Now, is it ‘comedian’ or ‘comedienne’?”
“Usually it’s ‘waitress’!” Ari quips, making Josh’s mother laugh a lot harder than the joke deserves. Ari’s brain begins scanning for new potential ways to achieve the dopamine hit of making Abby crack up again. “Comedy doesn’t really need more ways to make gender more obvious.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Abby says with a serious nod. She leans in and whispers, “Josh could still be the David Chang of pastrami sandwiches, you know.”
A voice over the sound system announces the start of the dinner. Ari tries not to think about which catering company booked this gig and whether she could have been getting extra holiday pay tonight by refilling glasses of champagne instead of drinking them.
“I feel like I’m at church,” Ari observes, looking up at the stained-glass windows and fifty-foot ceilings that ring the space.
“They do absolutely beautiful weddings in here,” Abby says. She’s unstoppable. “Only twenty thousand for a Saturday night reception.”
A woman with blown-out hair and questionable lip fillers touches Josh’s mother on the shoulder to congratulate her on a closing. Abby holds up a finger to pause the greeting.
“Ari, sit next to me? I want to hear all about your comedy and how you two met. Joshua is always so secretive. Taking an interest in your son’s life isn’t ‘meddling.’ ” She doesn’t wait for a response, taking a step away from the table to graciously listen to the woman’s complaints about her co-op board.
Ari turns to Josh, who pulls out the chair in front of her. “Do you want to describe the tentacle dildo, or should I?”
“My mother thinks she can speak things into existence through sheer force of will,” he whispers over the cacophony, his mouth very close—almost ASMR-close—to her ear. “I’ll straighten it out.”
They both sit as a waiter offers them a champagne refill. A curator on the left side of the table blathers on about how his team selected the featured photographs for the exhibition, all the while focusing his eyes approximately ten inches below Ari’s face. He introduces himself as “Dr. Davison.” No first name mentioned, probably to force everyone to use the title “Dr.” She longs for her cardigan.
Abby returns to her seat next to Ari and picks up where they left off.
“So have you performed with anyone I’d know? I love Amy Schumer.”
Ari disguises a snort and shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Though I might have opened for a guy that wiped down tables at the Comedy Cellar before one of Amy Schumer’s sets.”
“I find it absolutely fascinating.” Abby places all her focus on Ari and it feels like something in between a beam of sunshine and an interrogation lamp. “The kind of self-confidence you need to get up in front of strangers and try to make them laugh.”
“My friend Gabe always says that performing is equal parts masochism and praise kink.” Ari feels her cheeks heat. She should’ve paraphrased that, but Abby lets out a laugh. “Improv gives you something totally unique as a performer.” She pauses in case Josh’s mom is just making polite small talk. But Abby’s still listening intently, with her chin in her palm. “You’re part of a team and there’s so much trust there. With the right group of people and a good audience, you can feel it under your skin, just this…giddiness. You’re in control, but only to a certainextent, and you have to be vulnerable enough to accept the surprises. It’s this series of moments that are never going to happen quite that way ever again. You can’t hold on to it. You can’t repeat it. You can make the most perfect joke in the universe and you know it’ll only happen once. It’s magic.”
Abby nods. “That’s exactly how I feel when a property goes into escrow.”
