“I’m too pale to pull off red lipstick,” Rae decided the next evening, frowning at her reflection as she got ready to meet up with Dustin. The bathroom mirror was still clean-ish from yesterday’s apartment scrub. “I look like I’m going to a Halloween party, not a Christmas party. Some kind of ghost-meets-clown mash-up.”
Rae never wore red lipstick. On Wall Street, red represented lost money, and her wannabe bosses had trained her to avoid it quite literally at all costs—no red pens, no red fonts, no red bar charts.
But she was trying out red lips tonight, figuring it was a nice ode to the holiday theme and relatively subtle compared to the old Santa hat she wore every Christmas, which Ellen had been advocating.
“Stop insulting my best friend,” Ellen said, dousing Rae with hair spray so her curls might have a fighting chance. “You look flawless.”
“I just don’t want Dustin thinking I’m edgier than I am,” Rae said. “Don’t you think bright-red lips say, ‘I’m an effortlessly cool artist’?”
“First of all, youarean effortlessly cool artist at heart,” Ellen said. “And second, for being so ‘not into’ Dustin, you certainly care a lot about making a good impression.”
After she and Rae had dissected every detail of Aaron’s visit—Rae had rated him highly, with a few points docked for “excessive affection”—Rae had listed all the reasons she and Dustin weren’t compatible. She’d even written a cost-benefit analysis, which Ellen had discovered and promptly burned over the kitchenette stove.
“I just want to see what a late-twenties party is like and not embarrass myself,” Rae said. Twenty-nine rang of robust elegance rather than the tinny elegance twenty-five was turning out to be.
She started wiping off her lipstick, but the resulting smudges were even worse.
Her phone lit up with a text.My Uber is pulling up to your place now—take your time.
“Shit. He’s here.” She added a hasty layer of fresh lipstick to cover up the damage and then flung on her coat.
Ellen jammed the Santa hat into Rae’s pocket. “Just in case,” Ellen said, squeezing Rae with ayou’ve got thishug.
Rae wanted to ask,In case what?but she just stole as much confidence as she could before clunking down the stairs in her not-too-low-not-too-high heels, gripping the railing to keep from falling.
Dustin was standing outside the car, wearing jeans and a forest-green sweater. His hair was less tamed than on their first date, and the look suited him far more than the corporate uniform.
“Merry Christmas,” he said as he opened the door for Rae. His smile still didn’t part his lips, but in the dim glow of the headlights, the expression looked soft rather than stiff.
“Merry Christmas,” Rae echoed, sliding into the back seat.
Getting in after her, he left the middle seat empty between them. He buckled up, and she followed suit. She usually forgot to buckle her seat belt in Ubers, and she liked the feeling of the firm strap against her. Dustin thanked the driver for waiting, and something about the quiet, probing way he said it gave Rae the feeling that Dustin was seeing this driver as a human with a living, breathingstory rather than just a servant to get them from point A to point B, like so many people in this city did.
Gridlocked by Saturday evening traffic, the car crawled east along the one-way flow of Perry Street and then up and over to the West Side Highway, picking up speed as they headed north toward the new-money high-rises of the Upper West Side. Out Dustin’s window, the Hudson River twinkled with secondhand light, refracting the city’s overstimulating electricity into a mellower mosaic. Dustin sat very still, as if he was found in thought rather than lost in it.
Rae started to wish she were next to him in the middle seat. Just to have a better view of the water.
Date is beating expectations!
From the bathroom—bright and clean with the toilet seat down and a mason jar dispenser of peppermint soap—Rae texted the Scramblettes, replying to their twenty-four messages asking how the party was going.
MORE DETAILS!Ellen responded instantaneously.And no banker talk—drink!
What’s it like??Sarah asked.Is everyone old and boring??
Have u kissed??Mina asked.
Rae smiled to herself. For once, she was enjoying the actual date as much as recounting it with her friends.No kissing … yet. Will fill you in at brunch tomorrow.
She snooped in the cabinet to see if the toothpaste tube was full. It was, and it filled her with more inspiration than envy. Before she explored the loo so thoroughly that Dustin might suspect constipation, Rae rejoined him in the kitchen—definitively not a kitchenette.
“Spiked hot chocolate?” he asked.
They’d been here an hour already and hadn’t made it to the alcohol yet. Rae had had her hands full of thrilling hors d’oeuvres, including mini quiches she thought of as quichettes, and Dustin hadbeen taking her from room to room, introducing her to his friends and their significant others. Everyone was here as a couple, some even married or engaged. Commitment levels, even more than snack selections, seemed the most statistically significant difference between mid and late twenties. It made her glad that she’d started investing in her love life now rather than scrambling to meet someone in a few years once everyone was already coupled up.
“Yes, please,” Rae said to Dustin, feeling an indescribable comfort in the fact that even sophisticated soirees served drinks in mugs, and chocolate-based drinks at that.
“Cheers,” Dustin said, and they clinked mugs.
