“Yeah.” I nibble my bottom lip. “But he hates me.”
“No, he doesn’t. You two are pretty amicable.”
I pout glumly and lift a shoulder. Our divorce wasn’t bitter and combative. But that was mostly because I was numb. Disassociated. “We get along the times we have to.”
“Well, you could do it for this.” She shrugs. “Ask him. What have you got to lose?”
“My self-esteem.” But she’s right; I don’t have much left to lose. “I’ll think about it. So. Tell me about this artist we’re going to see tonight.”
“Oh! His name is Xander Frost. He’s a painter. Hang on.” She picks up her phone and unlocks it, then holds it out for me to see a picture, a head shot of the artist: narrow-faced with a dark shadow of beard and mustache, dark hair falling in his face.
I nod. “Handsome.”
“Yes.” She then reads, “‘His work investigates existential themes such as isolation and alienation in the age of technology and his relationship with the absurd.’”
I blink. “Ohhh, yes.” I nod as if I completely understand that. “So important.”
Rachel wrinkles her nose. “That sounds really pretentious, doesn’t it?”
I keep my face serious. “We live surrounded by people and yet we’re isolated. Technology and social media only add to that feeling of being alone by giving us a false sense of connection.”
She stares at me.
My grin breaks free. “I’m being flippant. It does sound a little pretentious, but those things are worth talking about. I’m curious to see his work.”
Rachel regards me suspiciously. “Really?”
“Sure! I have one question about this gallery opening.”
“What?”
“Will there be booze?”
Rachel cracks up. “I sure hope so.”
We finish our wine and bundle up to go out first for dinner at a nearby restaurant: a hipster farm to table place. Inside, it’s warm and cozy with low lighting and golden candles flickering on every table. We’ve been here many times, but the cuisinealways changes depending on what’s seasonally available. We order cocktails and then look over the food menu. I decide on the rib-eye steak and Rachel orders lasagna with butternut squash, goat cheese and pistachio sage pesto.
We talk about all kinds of things, including an argument Rachel had with a guy she works with who told her that feminism is anti-male. “That’s such bullshit,” she says. “Feminism is about equality between the sexes.”
“Exactly.”
“I think his definition of feminism is different than mine.”
“I think some men assume that we’re already equal, and then anything that’s designed to help women, like affirmative action, actually harms men.”
She tilts her head, considering my words. “Yeah. Could be. But that’s bullshit, too. Because women having equal rights doesn’t harm men, or take anything away from them.”
“Lots of men think it does.” I grimace. “Like, women breaking the glass ceiling are stealing jobs from men.”
Rachel rolls her eyes.
“So…” I poke my little straw into the ice in my glass. “If feminism is bringing women up to where men are, why don’t we talk about bringing men up to where women are?”
She lifts her eyebrows.
“Like… well, things like depression, loneliness, body-image issues… men deal with those, too. Just not very well.”
“Ohhhhh. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a guy says he’s depressed or he hates his abs.”
