“It’s true,” I say. “I have a good feeling about him. He’s sweet, and really smart.” I pause. “Did you know his wife?”
Kendra shakes her head. “No. It was before I met him.”
I nod.
“He’s been through a lot,” Kendra says. “But I think it’s made him kinder. He has a maturity a lot of men don’t. You can just sense it in him. He’s a real grown-up.”
“I know what you mean,” I say.
“We should all do something soon,” Kendra says.
Kendra’s husband is a man named Joel. They got married last year on the beach in Malibu. Sunset, twenty people, a lace doily for a veil and Bob Marley on the car sound system. Her sister officiated, and afterward we went to Geoffrey’s on the ocean and drank cold beer and warm red wine, ate oysters, and listened to the waves crash up against the rocks below us. It was perfect, and so very Kendra.
The thing about Joel is that he’s not the friendliest, or better:the most outgoing. Maybe that’s a little too harsh, and maybe the comparison to Kendra is just extreme. He’s always been nice to me, but he’s a software engineer and way more comfortable in rooms alone than in any larger conversation. He usually encourages girls’ nights, and resists anything involving a dinner table outside their home. I respect their relationship because it always appears—at least from the outside—that they let each other be exactly who they are.
He loves to hike; you’ll never find her on the trail. He’s a true pescatarian, and Kendra lives off hamburgers. But they balance each other.
“Joel has met Jake before,” she says. “He liked him.”
I unstick my shirt from the leather booth. It gives off a suctioning sound.
“Do you ever miss being single?” I ask her.
Kendra thinks for a moment. “I honestly never thought I’d get married. I never really wanted to, the whole thing seemed kind of stale and obvious.” She shrugs. “And then I met Joel.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Kendra smiles. “Oh, but it is.”
Our food arrives then. The bacon is crispy, the lettuce is wilted but fresh, and the tomatoes are sweet. There’s nothing fussy about it, just the basics. I missed this place.
“So in other words, no.”
“In other words, eat your food,” Kendra says, taking a bite.
Chapter Sixteen
On Friday I go to Jake’s apartment for dinner.
“I cook,” he said when he called Wednesday. “Not well, but enough. Would you like to come over for dinner?”
I put on my favorite AGOLDE jeans and a white sleeveless turtleneck that sits just below my naval. I tie up some strappy python heels I’ll likely have to kick off after an hour, and grab a black clutch. I survey myself in the mirror. Not bad. My hair is a little straggled, and my face looks slightly pale. I swipe a bronzer brush across my cheeks, yank my top down a little closer to my jeans, grab a pair of gold hoops, and make my way out the door.
Jake lives in an apartment in a high-rise on Wilshire Corridor, which immediately strikes me as both hilarious and incongruent. For one, the median age of residents in Wilshire Corridor is probably around eighty-four. For another, it feels off-brand for Jake, what little I know of him. I pictured him ina small complex in Culver City, with a shared garden. Wilshire Corridor is almost like living in New York.
An overanxious doorman greets me in a wide marbled lobby. “Miss? Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Jake Green?”
He sends me up to the seventeenth floor, and when the elevator doors open I see Jake’s head poking out of door 17F, trying to keep a dog at bay.
“This is Saber,” he says. “He’s a little overly friendly.”
I crouch down to greet a bulldog mix who is excitedly shuffling behind Jake’s legs. “Can I pet him?”
Jake nods, holding his collar. “He loves attention. But be prepared to be slobbered on.”
I pat Saber’s head and he rears his chin up, greeting my hand.
