“Coldplay.”
“No.”
He pauses, thinking.
“…Weezer?”
“No.”
“Am I close in any way? Will I ever guess this?”
“Probably not,” I admit. Am I going to say this out loud? “It’s…Ice Age.I really liked that movie as a kid.”
“You’re right,” he says, laughing as if this is the single greatest thing he’s ever heard in his life. “I never would have guessed that.”
“Did you actually want to talk about work, or have you just called me to mock my childhood bedroom?”
“Definitely the latter,” he says. “Are you still a supporter of theIce Agefranchise?”
“No,” I say, lying.
“Why’s the poster still up then?”
“Time capsule. This place is a living museum,” I say, stretching out my hands.
“Your bedroom is absolutely enormous. Hey—where does that doorgo?”
I look behind me to try and parse what he’s pointing at. “The closet?”
“No, that door.”
“The bathroom.”
“Oh my god, you had abathroomin your bedroom, as a kid? That’s bananas.”
“It’s adjoining. I shared it with my sister, her room’s on the other side.”
“Seriously?” His amazement is writ large.
I rip the plug out from the laptop and tour him around, showing him the bathroom and then my sister’s old room, before turning back to myown.
He asks questions about every single thing the camera pans across, wanting to see closeups of every picture, poster, and trophy that adorns the space.
“It’s like you live in a palace,” he says, when I sit back down at the desk.
“Not really. Honestly, it’s just like, a very normal-sized house.”
“Not to me. I grew up on the Upper West Side.”
“That’s infinitely cooler than the Canadian suburbs, trust me.”
“I always wanted to live in the suburbs when I was a kid.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean,why? Riding your bike everywhere, hanging out in the forest with your friends. It sounds awesome.”
“It’s really boring when you’re not in a Spielberg movie,” Isay.
