Mismatched in Manhattan: the perfect feel-good romantic comedy for 2020

by Tash Skilton

  “We might be able to call in a favor and snag an extra ticket. Want to come?” Mom asks.

  They are looking at me expectantly. What’s my alternative? Curl up under a blanket and scroll through four hundred cable channels like an anthropologist discovering the life habits of a bygone species?

  On second thought, that does sound tempting … .

  But then I catch the expectant look in my mom’s eyes, smile, and say, “Sure. I’d love that.”

  The favor they call in is from their friend Meredith and, judging by the way Meredith keeps shoving her phone in front of me, set to her daughter’s Facebook profile, I get the feeling that the favor might actually involve me more than I thought.

  This feeling is fully corroborated during intermission.

  Meredith has left me to “look after her phone” while she goes to the bathroom. Which leaves my mom with the perfect opening.

  “Angie lives in New York too,” she says in a way that I’m sure she thinks is casual.

  I have to stifle a laugh. “You don’t say.”

  There’s a pregnant pause while she studies the smiling redhead that is Meredith’s full-size screensaver and then says, as if she just came up with this conclusion, “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

  I hand the phone over without looking at it. “Here. I think you should be in charge of Meredith’s phone.”

  “Maybe you could just friend request her,” Mom says. She’s never been long on subtlety. “I know she wants kids, soon, too—just like you.”

  “Mom. I already told you. I’m not ready to date anyone.”

  “How do you know if you don’t try?” she asks.

  I look over at Baba in a futile bid for some backup but, as per usual, he’s just there to bolster Mom’s argument like an overeager assistant DA. “We’ve met her. She’s very nice.”

  “I’m glad,” I say. “For Meredith. And Angie. And you guys if you had to spend time with her. But the answer is no. I need a break from romance, okay?”

  They glance at each other. “That must be pretty hard considering your job,” Mom says. “Helping people to write their love stories.”

  “I write lies,” I respond bluntly, thinking about Jude, who barely even knew what Undersea was. Even if he and Bree make it to a few dates, I screwed that up for them by becoming too invested in the conversations as myself. It’s like I can’t win lately: I was failing at my work by being too cynical, and then I failed by becoming inadvertently smitten. I sigh and glance over at my parents who—as ever, when they are sitting within two inches of each other—have their hands lightly clasped together. “How do you two even do it? Stay in love?”

  “Love is easy …” Baba says infuriatingly. “If you just remember one thing: It looks like it might be those beautiful wedding photos on Instagram. And it feels like it might be those butterflies when you’ve just met and you’re flirting. But it’s actually when you’re cleaning up your kid’s vomit at four a.m., and you manage to crack a joke that makes your spouse smile.”

  Mom breaks out into a wide grin. “Oh, the Exorcist one!” She giggles. “I remember that!”

  I’m shaking my head—but smiling too despite myself. They’re ridiculous and ridiculously hard to live up to. Maybe that’s been my problem this whole time. But then I glom on to something else my dad just said. “You know what Instagram is?” I ask.

  “Actually … Meredith’s daughter gave us a tutorial.” He winks at me. “She’s just racking up points, right?”

  I laugh. “You guys are relentless.” Meredith comes back and my mom gives her phone back with what I’m sure she thinks is a secret code smile: Mission going well. Let’s recon at mah-jongg tomorrow.

  That night, as I take my usual back-seat spot in the car like the child I’ll always be to my parents, I think about all my plans, how for so many years I believed it would be me and Jordan cracking jokes about our kid at four a.m. I guess that’ll be Doug’s job now. Though, let’s be real, his talents might lie more in cracking open a coconut water (or even an actual coconut) than a joke.

  I snort. It felt good to stick it to Jordan—even just a little—the day before. But that wasn’t even me; it was Zoey. And if I’m being completely honest, maybe that’s the part that felt the best. Laughing with her. Sharing the private joke with her. Feeling her lips on mine …

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  CHAPTER 24

  To: All Sweet Nothings Employees

  From: Clifford Jenkins

  Re: Last Will & Testament

  Guys,

  Wow. Okay. Here we are. What I’m about to say is shocking. There will be no preparing you for what follows, but I know you’re strong, and I know you’ll endure, so I’m just going to come right out and say it.

  This may be my final e-mail on this earth, and if any of you are called upon to bear witness to my state of mind, you may need to produce a copy of this e-mail, as well as the attached postcard from 24 hours ago, when a rich, full life was still ahead of me, in order to prove that the person I was and the person I’m becoming are not one and the same. You see, it has come to my attention that the location of this “retreat” (and I use sarcastic quote marks here!!!!!) is highly suspect. Not only is the Wi-Fi incredibly unreliable and spotty (I PRAY THIS E-MAIL GOES THROUGH) but our surroundings—the woods, the rural, rural woods—contain something that’s worse than ticks, worse than lice, worse than a rabid racoon. During our trust-walk exercise today in said woods this morning I was blindfolded, and during my time without sight, I brushed up against a tree that contained, I can’t believe this is happening!!!!!, a neuro-caterpillar. For those who are unaware—which was also me prior to the orientation meeting last night—neuro-caterpillars are specific to this region and they will fuck your whole life up forever! I’m talking one bite will fry your circuits and take control of your neuro-linguistic programming. (For the layperson, this means they will start to take command of your thoughts, and ultimately, if not treated IMMEDIATELY, your behavior ITSELF.) I am currently awaiting an emergency doctor from the mainland—shit, the city—see, it’s already happening, I’m unable to regulate my sense of direction, it feels as though I’m on an island and no man is an island but here I am, an island in my own mind, trying to help you to understand.

  I can HEAR you asking: “What can we do to help?” As I already mentioned, SAVE THIS E-MAIL. Save the proof. SAVE THE POSTCARD. It will become necessary in the upcoming legal storm I’m about to rain down on these motherfuckers.

  The work continues.

  Send light and love, I’m begging you!

  Clifford (BUT FOR HOW LONG?)

  ZOEY

  The e-postcard in question, the one we’re supposed to save as proof that Clifford used to be normal (?) prior to the caterpillar bite, is from a “wacky photo booth” at the Online Romance International Federation’s International Conference of Executives, apparently taking place in Pennsylvania. Clifford wears a Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose mask as well as a feather boa in front of a whimsical backdrop, while standing under a sign that reads orifice and pointing up at it, laughing.

  Two days after I sent Mary my ideas for her one-woman play, she arrives at my/her/the apartment with takeout from Remedy Diner, a heavenly mixture of roast turkey and brie sandwiches with truffle mac and cheese on the side. Between this meal and my far-too-regular visits to Cheese, it may be time to admit I’ve developed a dairy dependency.

  Also, it pains me to admit it but NYC’s takeout beats LA’s. I should poll Miles about his favorite places since we’re next-door neighbors and could conceivably go halves on something sometime. Then again, that would involve me conceding that something about his city is superior to mine and I’m not eager to hear his smug response.

  Mary doesn’t bring up my e-mail so I’m not sure she’s seen it. E-mail’s never been her strong suit; when I worked for her, she once hit reply all to a group message with a picture of a rash that she thought looked like Al Capone, on
ly to discover the entire production office of The Ellen Show had opinions. The thread went on for days and we got very little else done that week.

  After we’ve settled in with our decadently gooey food, I hand her the bound copy of her play, my notes written neatly in the margins.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “Your play.”

  She continues eating. “Did you think I might be running low on copies?”

  “No, this is … these are my suggestions for it.”

  “Right, I got your e-mail.”

  “Oh.” I’m surprised she never responded, but then again, she’s been really busy. “You probably haven’t had a chance to read it … .”

  “I read it.”

  I look up, nervous and confused.

  “But as I said before, it’s not for you to worry about,” she says, and it finally dawns on me: She hated my notes. Hated them.

  Oh my God.

  What if she always did?

  Was that the reason for the apartment, the new life, the push out the door? It’s so obvious! She sent me to New York to get rid of me with a clear conscience because she couldn’t justify keeping me as an employee when my ideas were this bad. And because she’s softhearted, she wanted to make sure I’d be okay.

  “You just worry about yourself, and your own writing, okay? Keep plugging away. I know you’ll get there,” Mary says, but her words are drowned out by a buzzing in my head that’s quickly replaced by a buzzing IRL: a FaceTime call coming in on my laptop. Normally I would ignore it, considering I have company, but it’s from Bree.

  “I’m sorry, I have to take this. For work,” I say, dazed by the upsetting questions whirling around in my brain. There’s no time to analyze what I’ve discovered and how it changes my perspective on everything.

  Mary’s up already, wiping her mouth on a napkin and gathering her items. “No problem, I’ll clear out.” In her haste to give me privacy, she knocks her play to the floor and that’s where it’s still sitting, pages bent back, after she leaves. I don’t bother picking it up and smoothing it out. What’s the point?

  I return Bree’s call. She answers on the first ring, looking … flushed. Endorphin-filled.

  Like some kind of morning after.

  Er, afternoon after.

  “Hey lady,” she singsongs. “Guess who got lucky last night? And with whoooom?” She sounds like a self-satisfied owl.

  Unless she reversed course and decided to return to her one-night stand ways, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to answer the second part of that question.

  I congratulate her, my throat tight. She offers to provide all the “deets” and I politely decline. And whoosh, just like that, it’s over. I’m out of Bree’s life. Out of Jude’s. They’ve knocked cosplay boots or whatever and my services are no longer needed.

  Which means any second now—yep, there it is: Clifford’s video and bonus cash appear in my inbox. The song blasting out of my speakers barely registers.

  The bonus cash is nice, but the flaming hoops I jumped through to get it were not worth the angst. Clifford’s latest ripped-off song plays on a loop: Apparently, I’m a maniac, maniac on the floor. I can’t scrape by on Clifford’s nonsense alone, and let’s face it, he’s only going to get worse, with or without neuro-caterpillars eating his brain.

  He could’ve just as easily pulled the plug on my work with Bree, and I’d have ended up with nothing. I can’t live like that. It’s time to get serious about finding other freelance work.

  I don’t know how long I sit there, staring vacantly out the window and trying to muster up the energy to take stock of my situation. A knock at my door cuts through the mental fog.

  Has Mary come back? I warily get up to open the door, but no one’s on the other side. There is, however, a bottle of champagne on the floor with a note from Sweet Nothings attached. Wow, that was fast.

  I pick it up and someone calls my name. It’s Aisha. Uh, why is it Aisha?

  “Oh my God, he doesn’t … make you … deliver the champagne?” I squawk.

  “It’s a gig economy—what can I say?” She grins. “Just kidding, I’m strictly photography. This happened to arrive at the same time as me.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  We meet each other halfway, between Miles’s place and mine.

  “This is where my brother lives! I’m watering his plants while he’s out of town. He’s taking one for the team; whenever one of us visits a set of parents, it buys the other one at least a month of no guilt.”

  “Your brother is Miles?” Mind. Blown. To hell. Though now that I look more closely at her, I can see the family resemblance.

  “Cousin, actually—I’m so used to thinking of him as a brother that I always slip up. But yeah—he asked me to keep his orchids alive while he’s away.”

  “He’s capable of keeping something alive? Huh …” My cheeks warm because against my own free will I’m thinking about that kiss. He’d certainly made me feel alive. And Aisha should probably never know that.

  This is too weird. I’m going to ignore it until it goes away. Drinking should help …

  I hoist the champagne bottle and tilt it toward her. “When you’re done, want to join me?”

  She grins. “I probably shouldn’t, but … yeah, let’s do it!”

  Fifteen minutes later we sit on the couch and clink our coffee mugs together: “To the gig economy,” I offer.

  “To family members always willing to send you job listings,” Aisha adds, raising her mug in the direction of my shared wall with Miles.

  “Did he help you get Sweet Nothings?” I ask, surprised.

  “The job beforehand, actually, which led to Sweet Nothings. Thank goodness, or I’d have been asking him for a loan,” she admits with a rueful smile. “Of course, he would never work there. Anyway, I take it this means your latest client fell in love?” Aisha asks. “Congratulations.”

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Unfortunately?”

  “I sort of … developed feelings for the guy. The match. So unprofessional, right?”

  “You know, I think it’s understandable that you’d start to feel things for the people you’re meeting or helping. When you’re flirting that hard, I’m sure it’s not always easy to turn it off.”

  “Thanks for saying that. It’s just—he was so clever and just really nice and—” Easy on the eyes.

  “If you’re looking for clever and nice, honestly, I’m not just saying this, but M—”

  While she speaks, I take my first sip of the champagne and dear LORD it’s foul.

  “Oof, I’m sorry, I—” I race to the sink and spit it out. “Undrinkable.”

  Aisha cringes and slides her coffee mug away before its skunk scent can infiltrate her innocent nose.

  We look at each other and laugh. “What is wrong with him?” she ponders.

  “Why send champagne at all if you’re not going to buy a tasty one?” I cry.

  “You didn’t hear this from me, but I have it on pretty good authority that Sweet Nothings won’t last the year,” Aisha says. “It’s heading toward an Old Yeller solution at this point.”

  “What makes you say that?” I joke. “Was it the last ten e-mails?”

  “What will you do if it goes under?”

  “I have no idea. I was supposed to be in New York to find my own voice and work on original material, but every time I open my script file, my whole body tenses up. I’ve been miserable trying to force it. My old boss doesn’t think I’m good enough to revise her work and that’s the real reason she fired me. You want to know the saddest part? I only just figured it out. Like, an hour ago.” I laugh ruefully. “Talk about clueless.”

  “Wait, did she actually say that to you?”

  “She didn’t have to. And it sucks because editing and giving notes and bringing out the best in people’s writing is my favorite thing in the world. It’s exhilarating to shape someone’s work like that. As crazy as Sweet Nothin
gs is, that part of the job I loved. Now I just have to find a way of making a living at it.”

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it? How to make it viable.”

  “Are you able to make a living from photography?”

  “I’m getting there,” she says. “It doesn’t always go smoothly but I’m learning as I stumble. But the way I think about it, I can take a job I hate and try to learn to like it, or I can do something I love and try to become great at it. I mean, what better way is there to spend our lives, really?” She shrugs. “Doesn’t mean it’s easy, of course.” She checks the time on her phone. “Shoot, I gotta run, but next time we’ll drink something that isn’t from the ninety-nine-cent store, okay?”

  “Good plan.” We hug good-bye, and a couple of hours later, I’m still sorting through what she said.

  Underneath my jealousy over Bree and Jude’s intimacy, I feel proud. I got them together, I shaped that romance. My words did that.

  What else can my words do?

  On a whim, I sign up for a free website platform and begin typing.

  Hmm, what to call it … A to Z Edits? No, Z to A. For Zoey Abot.

  My fingers fly across the keyboard. “Need fresh eyes for your manuscript, screenplay, theatrical play, college essay, or corporate presentation? Lend me your voice and I’ll polish your pages until they shine. From proofreading to copyediting, rewrites, and more, I’ll go through your project backward and forward …”

  There was a time when I’d have asked Mary to vouch for me so I could slap a big ol’ referral quote at the front of the site. That time is over. I don’t have her approval or her support for this, yet I’m doing it anyway. Maybe it’s a big mistake, but at least it’ll be my mistake to make.

  I have a weird urge to walk down the hall and tell Miles, which is ridiculous (what was in that champagne?). Still, I can’t help being curious about when he’ll return from his trip and what he might think about my new venture.

  CHAPTER 25

  To: All Tell It to My Heart Employees

  From: Leanne Tseng

  Re: I’m back

  Team,