“Mutually beneficial agreement?” Her eyes narrow, and she leans forward again. “You know what the press says about him, right? What people say online?”
“I’m not really interested in what the press says about him. And I’m certainly not interested in what people on social media with nothing better to do with their time say about him.” I give her a pointed look. “And you shouldn’t be either.”
Her words rush out in a correction. “I’m not. That’s not what I meant! I just want to make sure you’re okay with—that you know who you’re ... with.”
“We aren’t with each other. It’s not real.” I wave a hand towards her phone. “People can take pictures and say whatever they want. That’s kind of the point.”
“Like fake dating?” Her eyes light up.
“No,” I tell her, but she looks skeptical again, so I repeat myself with a laugh. “No, Imani.” Her shoulders sink with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “But we agreed to help each other with a few things ... and if people think we’re dating while we are, so what? It helps Miller and it’s not like I have a hiring committee to impress.” I force the smile to stay in place. “They found me distinctly lacking.”
She straightens her shoulders. “You wouldn’t be doing anything against the rules, anyway. If it were true. He’s not a donor. You aren’t soliciting him for funds.” She puts such a heavy intonation on the wordsoliciting, she might as well throw me an exaggerated wink. “He’s an employee of one of our philanthropic partners to support our educationalprogramming.” Seemingly satisfied with her outline of all the ways I’d be following the rules even if I was dating Miller, she tips her chin up. But then her mouth tugs to the side in concern. “And Scott?”
“Scott already thinks so little of me, I assure you this wouldn’t make a difference.” I force another smile and pretend that even though it’s been four years and I don’t love him anymore, that it doesn’t hurt me—the waste of my youth and my love and my dreams.
Imani throws another glance at the anglerfish model before she whispers, “Screw Scott.”
“Screw Scott,” I repeat.
She gives a satisfied nod before she turns curious again. “What kind of things are you helping each other out with?”
“Uhm,” I mumble, teetering forward on my heels. “He has all these things he doesn’t really do anymore because of ... He just doesn’t like doing them. Like going in public.” I clutch my tablet to my chest, tipping an elbow towards her phone as she shoves it in her pocket. “So, I went with him to the grocery store. He’s got a list of six things he wants to try again, and I have this list of five ... things.” Swallowing, I shrug. “We’re going to help each other work through them. When he’s in town, obviously. Did you know baseball season was so busy? He plays like, six games a week. Usually, he’s away so he only has one day off to travel home. So just ... whenever.”
“Five what?” she asks softly, sidestepping my rambling explanation of the regular baseball season.
I’m about to call it what it was—this list of things I let someone steal from me and find all kinds of fault with. All the reasons why I wasn’t good enough. All the reasons I shouldn’t just be me.
But I think of the other name for it.
The new one.
“Reasons why it’s not so bad to be me. Things I like. Old hobbies,” I whisper, something soft and real tipping up the corners of my mouth. “Ren’s Reasons to Be Ren.”
My list of reasons to be me didn’t include coming to terms with the fact that as much as I don’t think I’m the emotional mess Scott painted me out to be, my organizational skills leave something to be desired.
At least at home.
At work, I keep the best records of any collection across any department. I led the digitization of our fossil mammals when there wasn’t even a standard software being used across types of vertebrates.There wasn’t even a question about whether I’d be able to manage the new family of Saurolophus we’re getting in a few weeks.
But here? Where I live?
Things are everywhere. I’m everywhere.
Books are tipped over on shelves. Vinyl records sit in haphazard stacks on the sideboard. Half-burned candles litter every surface with struck matches beside them. My keys are on the kitchen counter, and my purse sits spilled on the coffee table. My dress from the gala did make it off my bedroom floor, but never made it further than the chair sitting in the corner where most of my laundry gets abandoned until I need it.
I think, when I take it all in, these pieces of me I’m supposed to love, I could try to be a bit more systematic about it.
But I give up when I realize the drawers I was going to start shoving things into so I could pretend I wasn’t the type of person who left remnants of themselves all over every surface of their home were full of junk, too.
So, I light too many of the candles, I pick a record at random from that haphazard stack to play even though the turntable could really use a dusting, I sit cross-legged on the floor in my living room, back against the couch, two-day-old Thai food containers spread out on the coffee table in front of me, and start sorting through a stack of papers on coelacanth fossil preservation.
I don’t get very far with that either.
My phone vibrates against the worn wood surface of the coffee table, and when I look away from the paper I was reading and the noodles I was carelessly bringing to my mouth, my fingers slip against the chopsticks, sending the food everywhere.
“Shit,” I mutter, cringing down at the oil stain spreading across the paper, blurring all the words about possible latent causes of pyrite decay.
Frowning, I drop my chopsticks and glance back to my phone.
