Ellen was on laundry duty, meaning it was her turn to lug their dirty wardrobes down seven flights to the basement washing machines, infamous for gobbling quarters and socks. They’d problem-solved by buying enough underwear to sustain them four full weeks between washes, but the downside was that when they did do laundry, they had so much that it took between three hours and three days to put away.
“I’ll read you the haiku summary,” Rae said, taking a sticky note out of her pocket.
Date ten not bad but
his all-time favorite book was
The Wall Street Journal.
“But you like theWall Street Journaltoo,” Ellen pointed out.
“ItoleratetheWall Street Journal. And it’s a newspaper, not a book, for crying out loud.”
“I still wouldn’t say enjoying business news is a deal breaker.”
“But not sharing french fries is?” Rae quipped.
Ellen had just ended things with someone after three dates because he wasn’t adequately enthusiastic about her helping herself to his food without asking.
“Generosity is the cornerstone of any good relationship,” Ellen asserted.
“As is an ounce of creativity.” Rae dug into the ice cream pint with a fork (no spoons to be found) and ate standing up. The couch was draped with still-damp leggings and sweaters.
“Well, I’m still proud of you,” Ellen said, sorting their underwear—lacy thongs in Ellen’s pile, cotton-blend briefs in Rae’s. “You’ve come a long way in a short time.”
It was mid-December now, two grueling months after the great emotional crisis of Rae’s twenty-fifth birthday.
“My sweat glands have certainly normalized,” Rae said. “Though that’s probably just because I stopped using that stupid natural deodorant you recommended.”
There had been other cringeworthy moments beyond the sweat and handshakes—spilling red wine on her date’s monogrammed shirt cuffs, being hit with a slippery kiss and instinctively wiping it from her mouth, admitting her writing ambitions to a guy who’d audibly scoffed upon finding out she was unpublished.
After her fifth painful date, she’d assembled the Scramblettes for a performance review, soliciting feedback. She’d worked her way up the learning curve—stepping up predate diligence, cross-checking LinkedIn profiles with dating app profiles, screening for matches who were differentiated from the competition, and honing herAbout mepitch.
“At least the percentage of guys who asked me out again improved by a multiple of three in the second cohort of dates,” Rae said, congratulating herself with a generous forkful of ice cream. “Sixty percent compared to only twenty percent.”
“Drink,” Ellen said, pointing to an already-opened wine bottle on the kitchen counter. The Scramblettes had imposed a rule where Rae had to drink every time she used corporate lingo to describe dating. It hadn’t curbed her habit yet. She took a swig straight from the bottle.
“But I still haven’t found my husband,” Rae moped. “The algorithm is flawed. It matches like with like, but I don’t want another investment banker whose idea of scintillating conversation is debating whether discounted cash flow analysis or precedent transaction data is a more reliable method of valuing blue-chip corporations.”
Ellen snickered. “Are you sure you don’t want to go on a second date with any of the guys you’ve met, though?” she asked. “First dates are good for screening out psychos, but it’s hard to actually get to know someone.”
“No,” Rae said. “The opportunity cost is too high.”
“Drink again.”
Rae took another swig. “I just mean, why would I choose to suffer through more small talk when I could be meeting someone new or catching up on sleep?”
“That’s what toilet naps are for,” Ellen said.
The toilet nap was Ellen’s newest invention. It went like this: you sat in your office bathroom stall and set your phone alarm for ten minutes, then rested your head on the stall’s side wall, touching it with only with your hair, and dozed off. Rae had dismissed it as unthinkably unsophisticated until she’d tried it. She’d been averaging two toilet naps a day from her “banker bunker” stall at work, the one refuge from men breathing down her neck.
“That just proves my point, though,” Rae said. “I’d rather be napping on a toilet than going on second dates. And besides, none of the guys passed the arm test.”
“What the hell is the arm test?” Ellen asked.
“You know,” Rae said, with a certain pride in being able to share dating tips with Ellen now, not just the other way around. “When you’re talking to him, do you find a reason to reach out and touch his arm in conversation?”
“I usually just go for the lip test,” Ellen said. “Or the dick test.”
