“The what?” I ask, taken aback by her attachment to this scraggly little rag.
Hal shrieks again. “It’s the demo for my start-up.”
“Are you inventing a dishrag company?” I guess. “Made for men, so they start doing their fair share of domestic duties?”
“No,” Hal says. “It’s a bra-humbug!”
I ask what a bra-humbug is and she impatiently explains that it’s a bra for people who hate bras. You know, all the beautiful Scrooges out there like us. Like a bandeau but actually comfortableand supportive, not just some flimsy fashion statement to please the male gaze. “And it’s made 100 percent of recycled material.”
Landfill materialmight be the better term, but I start to see the vision. That’s the thing with Hal—she’s almost too brilliant. It can take a while for other people to catch up, even me sometimes.
“Very innovative.” I applaud. “We can get scrappy and plaster your logo onto the Red Rocket, and I’ll give you free advertising as I speed around the city.”
Hal makes a face like I don’t understand how start-ups work. To be fair, I don’t know a ton but I hate it when she gets all condescending. She says first she needs to get the frat bro investors to see the vision and hand over the money to scale the production and build a robust direct-to-consumer sales operation, but it’s an uphill battle.
“Less than 2 percent of venture capital dollars go to women-founded businesses, you know,” she says. Her jaw hardens into that pissed-off-but-determined-as-anything expression that’s basically a prerequisite for success. It gives me that warm, proud feeling to be on this ride with her.
“You’ve got this,” I say. “You’re a literal genius.”
“I know,” Hal snaps. “I’ve just got to keep grinding.”
Hal shoos me away, so I walk back inside where Jenni and Tara are sprawled out on the couch, looking as hungover as I feel. We went out last night to celebrate Jenni quitting her latest job, some gig at a think tank that wasn’t half as creative as it sounded. She used a portion of her paychecks to buy a Polaroid camera and film, and now she’s going to pursue photography. It’s all part of the process of elimination to help her find her passion.
“No, it’s not anti-feminist,” Tara’s telling Jenni now as they both gulp giant mugs of something—maybe coffee, maybe whiskey, probably both.
“Let’s ask EJ,” Tara says and turns toward me. “Do you think it’s anti-feminist for Jenni to ask out her ex-boss Peter?”
I think about it, tip it on one side and then the other to see how it stands, how it falls. “It’s not anti-feminist,” I decide. “I mean, sure, there’s the concerning power dynamic from your origin story, but the fact that you’re the one asking him out subverts that. And you don’t work together anymore, so it’s not like you have to do what he says. He can take directions from you this time around.”
Tara says yup, that’s exactly what she said too, and Jenni says that settles it, she’ll text him now. “Should I suggest drinks or coffee?” she wants to know.
I say “drinks” at the same time Tara says “coffee,” and Jenni looks flummoxed.
“Jenni,” I say, “you can do whatever the fuck you want. You don’t need our permission.”
I lay a quick hug on her to make sure she feels my softness. It’s hard to detect sometimes, but they’re not my soulmates for nothing. They’re fluent in EJ.
“You’re an ooey-gooey marshmallow at the center,” Jenni tells me. “You’re just always coated in charcoal on the outside.”
It’s a pretty good summation, I’ve got to admit. “What can I say, I like the flames and the crunch,” I reply.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Jenni says. She exhales a pent-up breath and starts drafting a text.
“I’ll be out driving,” I say, grabbing the car keys and heading out the front door.
It’s that kind of day where I can’t sit still for too long. Technically I’m sitting when I’m driving, but the rush of the motion soothes the fidgety feeling. I’m as deranged a driver as you’d expect, but no tickets yet—just a couple dozen warnings that I always flirt my way out of and call theater rehearsal.
I drive for a while on my own tonight, and then when I get bored of myself, I start picking up riders. I’m very selective about who I let into my car—no one who’s got an Uber rating above three starsout of five. The lower the rating, the more interesting the person; it’s basically a scientific correlation. And it’s not like I’m that concerned about anyone wrecking the Red Rocket. There’s negligible monetary value left to lose; it’s all emotional at this point. The bumper is duct-taped together and the wipers smear the chipped windshield with stale ash and dirt.
I accidentally press Accept for someone named Olivia who’s got a 4.9 rating, nearly perfect. I’m about to cancel it, but I’m already at the pickup destination in the West Village. It’s the corner of Greenwich and West 11th Street, the part of the city where everyone dresses like they’re expecting to be mistaken for a celebrity at all times.
This woman on the curb, Olivia it must be, is carefully cross-checking my license plate like she already doesn’t trust me. She’s with a guy who opens the car door for her. It’s just like men to think that they’re being all kind and considerate when actually they’re just propagating society’s chauvinistic order. Because while chivalry is alive, sexism can’t be dead.
Olivia is nothing but chic and bones. She’d blow away in a mild wind, maybe already has. She’s got that vacancy about her, no aura at all. I stare her down in the rearview mirror as she gets into the back seat.
She looks like cashmere and smells like cashmere and is the type of person I might’ve been jealous of in middle school, back before I awakened to the perks of being different. Or maybe she’s someone I’d see now at a fashion week after-party, the kind of event I’d crash just to piss off the people who are on the list, waiting their turn for admission. We’d start hooking up until I’d realize there was no flavor to it, no pulse, so I’d dash out before doing anything memorable enough that I’d need to forget.
Or more likely we’d never start hooking up in the first place because she’s probably never delved deep enough into herself to realize that she’s not totally straight—no one is. Her parents aredefinitely the kind of people who make snarky comments about how the world is going to hell with all these gays with blue hair cluttering up the streets.
