by Tash Skilton
Probably not, since he’s such a miserable person that only sweet, optimistic Dylan would be able to see the good in him at all.
I tear the notice off the door and stomp in, where I hear his unmistakable heavy footsteps in the kitchen. I rage in there.
“What the hell is your problem?” I yell.
“Excuse me?” He looks up at me, stunned, his hands full of two of my Chinese take-out boxes, which he’s pouring out onto a plate.
Was I going to eat them? Probably not. But are they mine? Hell yes.
“If you want me out of here so fucking badly, maybe you shouldn’t also gorge yourself on my food,” I add.
He looks down at the food and then up at me. “You’ve got to be kidding . . .”
I slam the notice down on the counter. “I get it. I may not have a law degree, but I’m not an idiot. You want me out of here. I’m working on it.”
“Are you? It sure doesn’t seem like it.” Charles’s face has started to get blotchy and red.
“How would you know?” I bite back. “I’m never here.”
“You’re here enough,” he roars. “Enough to ruin everything.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Because I deigned to put a bead of sweat on your goddamn Ikea rug?”
“No,” he says, and now he’s actually shaking. A couple of pieces of rice escape the carton in his hand and end up on his precious floor. “Because I bought a goddamn ring for Dylan the day before you moved in here and now I’ve had no chance to fix up the apartment like I wanted to, or to ask him anything because you will never. Fucking. Leave.”
I stare at him, stunned. “You . . . you’re going to ask Dylan to marry you?”
“You bet your ass I am,” he roars. “Whether you think I’m good enough for him or not.”
I have no response to that. And the next words that come are actually from neither one of us.
“Oh . . . oh, Charles.”
We both whip our heads to see Dylan standing in the hallway, his hands on his mouth, and the mail he had carried up all over the floor. Apparently, neither one of us even heard him come in.
“Is it true? Are you going to propose?”
Charles’s entire face is a frown. “I . . . yes. I was going to. But not like this.” He gestures to the half-open cartons on the counter, and the food on the floor and, of course, me standing in the middle of it all. But he doesn’t look at me. His eyes are fixed on a point on the ground.
Oh, God. Now I feel like such a shithead.
“Do it,” Dylan says, as he rushes over to Charles and takes his hands. “Ask me.”
Charles looks up at him. “Really? But I was going to get food from Chez Nous. And there were going to be candles. And that Nick Drake song playing on the stereo.”
“I have a good imagination. I can pretend all of that is happening,” Dylan responds. “Just ask me.”
Charles takes one brief glance my way, but then his eyes slide past me to a side table in their living room. He walks over to it and opens up a small drawer in the back that I’ve never noticed before. He takes out a ring box.
Then he walks over to Dylan and gets down on one knee in front of him.
“Dylan . . . I’ve honestly never felt love as crazy as this. Or as perfectly sane either. Everything with you makes sense, in a world where so few things usually do. I don’t have to argue a case with you, or make anyone try to see my side. There’s only one side here—our side. I want you to brighten my Northern Sky forever. Will you marry me?”
Dylan gives a yelp and then he sits himself down on Charles’s knee. “Of course I will!” he says, before he takes Charles’s face in his hands and kisses him passionately.
Charles starts to laugh. At least, I think that’s what that is. It’s a sound I’ve never heard from him before. “Really?” he says. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, you idiot!” Dylan says in between laughs himself. “I love you more than anything.”
“And I love you more than anything,” Charles says. “Don’t you at least want to see the ring?”
Dylan grins as he stands up from Charles’s knee and takes the ring box. He smiles even wider. “It’s gorgeous.” He takes it out of the box and slips on the thick platinum band. I can see a diamond sparkling from within it. “Isn’t it beautiful?” He turns to me and shows me his hand.
I smile at him, a genuine one even if Charles will never believe it. “Yes. It is. Congratulations! To both of you.” I turn to Charles then, intending to apologize.
But this isn’t the time for that. Charles has put his hand on Dylan’s back, and he suddenly dips him, and starts to furiously kiss him. Dylan responds.
I spend another second with a sappy smile on my face, watching them, before I realize that, er, I definitely need to let them have this moment alone.
I scoot around them as quietly as I can, pad down their hallway, and leave.
It’s only when I’ve walked half a block that I realize the classifieds section is still clutched in my hand.
Well. Now seems as good a time as any to look for a new apartment.
I think about finding a bar or café to go sit down, but then I come across something better.
Staples.
I walk in and head straight over to the most comforting aisle there is, the aisle of a thousand Post-its. Few things in life make me more zen than knowing that one can take notes on an almost infinite variety of shapes, colors, and sizes of sticky paper. Ever since I was a kid, the sheer possibilities for organization—the thought that no matter how unpredictable life gets, there are tools to neatly catalog it—have been massively appealing.
The whole store is pretty deserted, and there is no one there to ask me what the hell I think I’m doing as I place my back on the metal shelves and slide down to the floor.
I lean my head against a pen display (fine point, 0.7 mm, and comes in five colors. I should give one a whirl before I leave here). So Charles and Dylan are going to get married. I realize that’s the first proposal I’ve ever witnessed that wasn’t my own.
But my own proposal to Jordan certainly had a lot of witnesses. It happened at the fancy Mexican restaurant where we’d had our first date. I called ahead to set everything up: the peonies on the table, the ring placed inside a beautiful chocolate rose on top of her flan, and the bottle of Veuve Clicquot afterward. I got down on one knee as soon as they brought the dessert out, so happy to present the ring that had been burning a hole in my pocket for weeks. So happy to watch Jordan’s face.
She looked elated. I’d gotten the ring off her Pinterest page, so I knew she liked it. And when she said yes, the whole restaurant burst out into applause. The maître d’ even led everyone in a toast to us.
Looking back on it now, I wonder if that’s what really made Jordan so happy. The fact that there were people to approve of her big moment, like the real-life version of social media likes. I think it’s quite possible that Jordan smiled more at the people applauding us than the person kneeling in front of her. Dylan, on the other hand, hadn’t cared how his boyfriend proposed. He just wanted Charles.
I sigh as I pick up the crumpled Metro page, not really expecting to find anything there. (I mean, honestly, who lists housing in an actual newspaper anymore?) Sure enough, it’s a few room shares with a questionable number of roommates, a $7500/month studio on the Upper West Side, and one ad that I’m not sure should be categorized as a sublet or a missed connection. “Roommate wanted: the brunette in the lemon-print dress that took the A train at 5:16 p.m. on Tuesday. You wear that dress every day; I will make you lemon pancakes every morning. Southern-facing windows, private bathroom (though you’re also welcome to share my jacuzzi tub). You pay half for cable and Internet.” Either way, I’m considering reporting it for sheer creep factor.
But then one listing catches my eye. It’s a building in the East Village, on Avenue A. Actually, I think it’s across the street from Café Crudité. I Google the address. Yup. It’s a 650-square-fo
ot one-bedroom for . . . this can’t be right. $900 a month?
Obviously a scam.
Also. The ad rhymes:
So you want to live in Alphabet City . . .
All you have to do is be witty.
Just have a sit,
And answer me this,
Make the words pretty, not sh*tty.
And then it’s followed by an honest-to-God essay question. So maybe it’s just some rich, eccentric leprechaun who wants to fill his building up with a certain type of person. That actually makes the price slightly more plausible.
Then I read the question: “If you had to pick one fictional character to be for the rest of your life, who would it be? And why?”
I let out a snort that actually shakes the pen display behind me.
Well, that’s easy. Harry from When Harry Met Sally. For one, he’s not too far off the mark from myself: snarky, slightly embittered, thirty-something New York guy. But with the added bonus that my beautiful, smart best friend eventually realizes she’s madly in love with me. Plus I’d get to read as a white dude for once. Win/win.
Look, I don’t really know if this ad is legit. But if there’s one thing I can do, it’s write, especially this essay. So might as well, right?
I stand up, grab one of the pens from behind me, and a notebook from one aisle over. I pay for them, and then head right back to the Post-it aisle where I settle in to wax poetic about eating at Katz’s, singing electronic-store karaoke, and delivering zingers about the dance of the white man’s overbite.
CHAPTER 12
ZOEY
It’s been raining on and off all morning. The air outside Café Crudité is thick with humidity, as though the streets and buildings have Saran Wrap stretched around them, trapping a layer of heat and garbage and smoke over our heads. By ducking under canopies on my walk over, I managed to arrive in a relatively dry state, with zero competition for the big table.
It’s only nine a.m., but when the downpour starts, and a slash of lightning crackles through the air, it looks and feels like midnight. Unsurprisingly, the place fills up with people who appear mildly traumatized.
Despite Clifford’s assurance that he’s “killin’ it” at depositions, his e-mail has me feeling mildly traumatized myself. If Bree and Jude work out—and I’m torn between wanting that and not wanting that—the Sweet Nothings’s check better not bounce. I’m not as panicked about this as I might have been a few days ago, though. For one thing, Clifford’s e-mails all tend to blow over, and for another, I’m still buzzing from the hike Jude sent me on and all the wonderful things I saw along the High Line.
Thunder rumbles overhead, the door flies open again, and about eight more people shove their way inside, huddled and shivering.
Miles is among them. He wears an Adidas track jacket (black, with two white stripes down the sleeves and two red stripes at the cuffs) over a soft-looking, gray pocket tee and skinny, dark blue jeans that cling to his fit body. His face is clean-shaven, and his hair is damp and dripping from the rain.
In short, he’s cute AF.
An observation I’ll be taking to the grave.
He runs a hand through his thick brown locks, pulling them away from his eyes and inadvertently giving himself a side part.
Stop looking at him, I order myself.
The floor’s slippery and the last one in, an older woman whose glasses are fogged up, almost takes a spill. Miles holds his arm in front of her like a bar so she can steady herself. She nods gratefully to him and he nods back, guiding her ahead of him in line.
Hmm. Downright chivalrous. Quite the opposite of his behavior with me. Which one is the true Miles? Angry shouter, or courteous caregiver?
The café is so crowded now that every table may as well be the Big Table—they’re all coveted, and tension fills the room as it dawns on the customers in line that soon, there will be nowhere to sit. They can’t go back outside, though. Orders and names are shouted, hot drinks are dispensed, and the air vibrates with the hum of people shifting into and around one another, arguing about where to sit. Any second now a fight may break out.
“. . . But I’m waiting for a friend,” a middle-aged woman protests when a soaking, uninvited guest plops down in one of the few unoccupied seats remaining.
“When they get here, I’ll leave,” the interloper snaps. “But there’s nowhere else to . . .”
“Double up, folks. Make it work,” Evelynn booms, hoisting a gallon of oat milk onto the counter.
Instinctively my gaze swings back to Miles. I stare, hard, and wait for him to meet my gaze. When he does, I jerk my chin toward the chair opposite me. He’s not nearly as wet as the latecomers, and since I’m being forced to double up I’d rather it be with a mostly dry person.
Miles peers behind him and from side to side, unable to fathom a universe in which I would invite him over. He points to himself, a questioning look on his face.
“Yes, you,” I shout.
He wastes no time bringing his drink over and depositing his annoying messenger bag made of tarp. Today it probably saved his computer.
“Thanks.”
“Better ‘the devil you know,’ right?” I ask. “Besides, I’m in a good mood today.”
He glances at my plate of biscotti and I yank it closer to me. “Not THAT good a mood,” I clarify.
He rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t going to—”
“My generosity extends as far as my paycheck.”
“Starving artist?”
“Sort of. You too?”
It would explain why he spends all day on his laptop. He’s probably a novelist. One of those guys who writes a book from a woman’s POV and then swims through an ocean of praise about how sensitive he is.
He nods. “Okay if I clear this?” He motions to my collection of notebooks and papers. “Set it on the bench next to you or something?”
“Sure.”
We reach for my leather-bound notebook, a gift from Nana, at the same time. Our fingers brush and the contact makes my stomach flutter, which is flat-out wrong. I inhale sharply and pretend it didn’t happen. He doesn’t seem to notice, just lifts my notebook and pens and hands them to me to make room for his laptop. I can’t help but notice how artistic his fingers look—and then I notice something catastrophic: a loose sheet of paper has fallen out of my notebook and flutters to the floor. He bends over to get it.
“Don’t!”
He sighs. “What is wrong with you? I’m just picking it up.”
“Give it to me—” I waggle my fingers impatiently. My strange reaction has piqued his curiosity.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
He holds up the paper and squints at it.
“It’s private,” I insist.
“Is this a . . .” He turns it sideways and my cheeks get so hot I may burst into flames. People could gather around me to keep warm.
“It’s a tally,” I say, hoping to hasten him along. “Just a tally, nothing important—”
He won’t be deterred or hurried. “ ‘Table Champion,’ ” he reads aloud, “with dates and initials—who’s MHH?”
“No one,” I stutter. “What? I don’t know.”
He tries and fails to muffle his laughter. “Did you . . . make a chart for which of us gets the table each day?”
“MHH,” I grit out. “Miles. High. Hair.”
His hand flies up to his hair, and it’s my turn to smirk.
“Miles-High Hair?” he repeats, looking hurt. “Me, Miles? How do you know my name?”
“ ‘It knows my name!’ ” I shriek sarcastically.
He sets the tally between us and sits down. His legs are so long he has to tuck his knees flush under the table or they’ll invade my space. “How do you know my name?”
“They only say it every day when your order’s up.”
“Only someone who’d been listening for it would notice, though.”
“You’re right; you caught me. I just had
to find out the name of the stranger who YELLED AT ME for no reason.”
He cringes. “In my defense, that was one of the worst days of my life.”
“Me being a tiny bit greedy was one of the worst days of your life?” I retort. “Can we switch lives, please?”
“No, the bad stuff went down before I came to the café. You being a lot greedy was the last straw.”
“You can sit here,” I mutter. “But that doesn’t mean we need to talk.”
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours,” he says simultaneously.
I clear my throat. “Zoey Abot.”
Silence. We look at each other for a second, as though waiting to see if the other will hold out their hand for a shake. Neither of us does. I think about the way our hands touched earlier and decide it’s for the best. It’s been a freakish enough encounter already.
“My miles-high hair doesn’t just happen, you know,” he says amiably. “I have to have had a particularly atrocious night of sleep.”
“What happened last night, then?”
“Ouch. Guess I walked right into that one. Why do you keep a tally of who wins the table?”
“I wanted to see if there was a pattern. Days you didn’t show up, so I wouldn’t have to race here. I’m winning, by the way. Sixty-five percent of the time.”
“You must be proud.”
“Which begs the question, why do you keep coming here, when I’m so clearly dominating the competition?”
“A) I couldn’t care less who gets the table. The fact that you do says way more about you than it does about me.”
The other tables are comically bad. What a liar! He cares. He cares so hard. I can feel my blood pressure rise, just looking at his smug face while he talks.
“And B) Free Wi-Fi, usually no big crowds, and I don’t have to worry about gorging on junk food because they don’t sell any. Speaking of, I think we should order something.”
Strangely enough, I agree. It’ll fend off the vultures and keep us safe from Evelynn, who might otherwise kick us out into the storm to make way for customers who actually eat.