“Well bye,” said Nicole with an air of dismissal. “Have fun at your party!”
“I will,” said Elinor. She gathered up her stuff and headed to the subway, virtuously, even though it was a little bit dark outside like it was going to rain and any normal person with more than forty dollars to her name would take a cab. On the subway, she tried not to think about the fate of “15 Things Only Coffee Lovers Know” by zeroing in on the subway ads of Dr. Zizmor, a very sad-looking dermatologist who seemed to specialize in almost every medical ailment.
* * *
· · ·
Sheila lived in a large seventies-era tubular apartment building with six other girls. Originally the apartment was a three-bedroom, but it had been subdivided with many ingenious-looking fake walls, some of which were simply fashioned out of very large bookcases. The apartment itself had a real kitchen with a stove and a dishwasher, and the lobby had a doorman and an elevator. Elinor was really jealous of it, even though Mike said that Murray Hill was so douchey he could never live there.
By the time Elinor got to Sheila’s apartment, the party was fairly crowded, and to her chagrin, Elinor didn’t recognize many of the people inside. Perhaps they were nurses Sheila worked with at the hospital. There was a series of different-size bottles laid out in a row on the kitchen island (replete with straw barstools! What an apartment!). The TV was on, playing an episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, but there was no sound coming out of it.
Elinor sat on one of the barstools and was in the process of making herself a vodka soda when she saw Sheila gliding toward her. She was holding a beer and wearing a red V-neck sweater. Her hair, which was brown, was remarkably straight and adhered to the sides of her head as if it had been slicked there with an oil. Usually her hair poofed out at the sides.
“OMG, hi,” said Sheila. “I’m so glad you came.”
“OMG, of course!” said Elinor. “Did you do something to your hair?”
“Yes! I got a Brazilian blowout!” said Sheila.
“It looks good,” said Elinor, trying not to look at it. Sheila really did have terrible style. The longer Elinor was in New York, the more she realized it.
“I think it does look good! Once the oil gets out of it, or something. I don’t know why it looks wet.”
“It doesn’t,” said Elinor. “Not that wet. You can just wash it or something.”
“Ralph isn’t here yet,” said Sheila, touching her hair, perhaps physically relating the two thoughts in her mind. “And I don’t think he’s going to come.”
“Did you invite him?”
“I felt like I had to. Because we’re friends. It would be mean if I didn’t anyway, because we talk every day. But now I don’t even think he’s gonna fucking come at all. So I don’t actually know why I invited him.”
“I bet he’ll come,” said Elinor with a conviction she actually felt. She was sure Ralph would make some important appearance or nonappearance. He was always coming to things and not coming to things in a way that freighted his arrival (or nonarrival) with meaning—like the titular character of a play.
In the corner of the room, behind a large leather couch shaped like an L, one of Sheila’s roommates was motioning to Sheila to help her put a handle of rum into a plastic bowl poised on a coffee table. Apparently they were making a punch.
“I have to help her,” said Sheila.
Elinor checked her phone. “15 Things Only Coffee Lovers Know” was doing pretty well, she thought. It already had five hundred shares and three comments. One of them, from someone named Mimi52, said, “Lol, I do this.” Elinor smiled at her screen. Unfortunately, that pleasant reverie was ruined by Peter, who was somehow entering this party and was putting his coat on a chair piled with coats.
Elinor quickly found Sheila near the punch bowl talking to her roommate. It was an emergency, so Elinor grabbed her arm and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” in a fake friendly but purposely strained voice, so Sheila would know that she was actually upset.
“What?” said Sheila. “Is Ralph here?”
“No. But, did you invite Peter?”
“Yeah.” Sheila pasted an oily lock next to her ear. “What’s the big deal?”
“How do you even know him?”
“You always forget that I was a communications major too,” said Sheila, huffily. “I know all the same people you know.”
“But I don’t even know Peter.”
“We’re Facebook friends so I just included him on the Facebook invite. I don’t really know him either. I thought you said he was your boss.” Now Sheila was mad, Elinor could tell.
“I mean, I do know him. It’s so awkward though. He’s always really awkward with me.”
“That’s weird,” said Sheila, who seemed, suddenly, very bored by this story, but more probably was still mad, as Sheila was usually inflamed by mild, unspecific acts of rudeness. It was her greatest strength as a friend. “Well, you don’t have to talk to him.”
“I know that, I just, he’s my boss sort of and I hope he doesn’t think that I’m a total slacker or something because I’m at this party.”
“Elinor, that’s so dumb. He’s at this party. I have to go to the bathroom. It’ll be fine, okay?” Then she walked toward the bathroom—a large amber marble monolith with huge mirrors that Elinor was also jealous of.
In the ensuing pause, Elinor checked her phone again. “15 Things Only Coffee Lovers Know” had seven more comments.
When she looked up from her phone, Peter was standing near the punch bowl, a mere five feet away from her, blankly putting liquid into a Solo cup. It seemed as if he was going to try to affect a look of fake absorption in his task so that he wouldn’t have to say hi to her. Elinor wasn’t originally going to say hi to Peter, but she definitely wasn’t going to stand for this particular treatment. Now she was going to be extremely outgoing.
“How’s it going, Peter?” she said.
Peter looked up from the punch bowl shocked, like he was famous and someone had popped up from the inside of a trash can and asked for his autograph. “Uh, hi,” he said.
“It’s Elinor from work,” said Elinor.
“Peter,” said Peter, reaching out to shake her hand.
“I know you!” said Elinor.
“I know,” said Peter. “Hi, how are you.”
“Fine.”
Peter blinked rapidly. “I saw you put something up before I left.”
“Yeah, ‘Fifteen Things Only Coffee Lovers Know.’ I think it’s really going off great.”
“We’ll see. Are you enjoying your first week at work?”
“It’s stressful but good,” said Elinor truthfully. Despite her doing absolutely nothing all day, it was actually the most stressed out she had ever been in her life. “And Mike’s starting a new job too, so—”
“Mike who?”
“Mike Moriarty? My boyfriend?”
“Oh, him,” said Peter. “He’s your boyfriend?”
“How do you not know that Mike is my boyfriend?” Elinor felt a dull panic, which soon transfigured with a reassuring rush to anger. “Of course you know that.”
“When you mentioned him in the interview I just thought we had a mutual friend,” said Peter, with a disturbing equanimity.
“I’m around him all the time though. It would be weird if we weren’t dating.”
“I’ve never seen you together.”
“Yes, you have. I had dinner with you.”
“I don’t remember that. Sorry. It’s not a big deal.”
Sheila approached them then.
“What’s up?” Sheila was holding a beer and seemed mollified. Her hair was slicked back into a braid. She must have done that in the bathroom. “Is Mike coming?”
“Mike, my boyfriend?” said Elinor. “He has to go to this thing at work.”
“Really? That’s cool.” Sheila had taken out her phone and was texting on it. Elinor couldn’t see who she was texting. “Hey, Peter, good to see you.”
> “Uh, thanks,” said Peter. “I’m going to get a drink. Does anyone want anything?”
“No,” said Sheila. Peter shuffled away toward the wineglasses and started pouring himself a fresh glass of wine, even though Elinor was pretty sure his Solo cup wasn’t actually empty.
“He’s nice,” said Sheila.
“Yeah,” said Elinor. “I think he’s such a dick.”
“He seems nice to me.” Sheila texted. Elinor looked at her phone too.
“Okay, Ralph is FaceTiming me. I don’t even know why, but I should probably take this. Ralph? Ralph? Hi.” Sheila wandered dreamily away, looking at a miniature distortion of Ralph’s face, and Elinor was left alone again.
Elinor decided to get a drink even though she didn’t want one. Luckily Peter was not even near the table where the wine was anymore. More people had arrived at the party and she couldn’t see him in the crowd. Maybe he had left. She unscrewed the plastic cap on the wine box and poured a little, with shaking hands, into a red Solo cup. The wine tasted like potpourri. Elinor took a large swig and, glass in hand, walked toward the TV. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone.
She sat down on the L-shaped couch. The leather upholstery was baggy, and Elinor picked up about an inch of it and rubbed it between her index finger and her thumb. On television, she watched as some blond woman went into a blindingly white mansion and talked to another blond person with sunglasses on.
After ten minutes or so, Elinor became engrossed in the show. She was thus completely unaware of the fact that Peter was also watching The Real Housewives on the other side of the L couch, his arms embracing a cushion balanced on his stomach. When she noticed him, she stopped rubbing the upholstery with her thumb.
“So do you like this show?” said Elinor.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
“Do you want to know what it’s about?”
“I don’t really watch stuff like this,” said Peter.
“Okay,” said Elinor.
They both watched the show for ten more minutes.
Eventually, she said, “Okay, I gotta get another drink.”
“Bye,” said Peter, not looking at her.
Elinor didn’t actually get another drink. Instead, she picked up her bag and grabbed her coat, and said goodbye to Sheila, who was very upset. Ralph had FaceTimed her to say he wasn’t going to come to the party. Sheila had agreed to this on the phone, and then had sent him several angry texts after he hung up. This meant that he was probably going to come to the party, but very late after everyone left, and Sheila had cried profusely.
Elinor went back to her apartment. This time, however, she took a cab. She didn’t want to, and it used up a lot of her forty dollars, but it was dark out.
* * *
· · ·
When Elinor got back to the fake wooden door of her apartment, which blocked no sounds, she was startled because she heard muffled voices coming from inside the apartment. Was Mike having a party he didn’t invite her to? She could hear a song—some warbling man singing over an electronic beep. A girl was in there. Elinor heard her voice.
Elinor didn’t dream at all at night, but she had very complex daydreams involving shattering scenes of emotional distress. So she had thought a lot about what she would do if she went home and found that Mike was cheating on her, even though Mike would never do that. Would she be shocked or would she stand there stolidly and yell, “I knew it.” Would Mike yell, “I can explain!” Would he cry? Would Elinor scream?
Elinor turned the key in the lock and got the door open. Inside the apartment, there was Mike, Andrea, and some other guy Elinor had never seen before, who was wearing a whisper-thin, gigantic T-shirt that was clearly quite expensive. His hair was white blond. He was fiddling with the computer. Mike and Andrea were sitting on the foam pad, talking to each other.
“Hello!” said Elinor, brightly.
Mike looked up from Andrea. He made a face at Elinor. It was a very brief face. A flicker of the eyelid. A stiffening of the jaw, maybe. Had something in her voice showed that she was upset that Andrea was there? Did she seem annoyed? She wasn’t even upset really, when she thought about it. When she thought about it more, she was just surprised. That’s all she was.
“Hey!” said Mike. He waved to Elinor from the foam pad, but he did not get up. “How was your party?”
“Peter was there,” said Elinor.
“Peter?” said Andrea. “Your friend Peter? Oh my god, I love him.”
“Isn’t he the best?” said Mike. “Elinor always hated him.”
“I never hated him,” said Elinor, “I just didn’t really know him before and now I work with him.” She crouched down to the minifridge, took the Brita out from the back chasm, and started pouring some water into a glass. Why would Andrea know anything about Peter? Did she meet him at some point when Elinor wasn’t there? Elinor took a sip of water.
“You think Peter’s a dick?” said Andrea, affecting a sort of lawyerly attitude and crossing her ankles on the foam pad (hard to do).
“Oh, Elinor definitely thinks Peter is a dick,” said Mike. “Like, a hundred percent.”
“I never said that,” said Elinor.
“That place must be stressful, though. Like, I bet he’s just stressed having to crank stuff out like that. I like that we can take time to write,” said Andrea. “We’re not as dependent on deadlines.”
“How was your party?” said Elinor.
“Ours?” Andrea pointed at herself. “It wasn’t really a party. It was more of a work drinks.”
“There wasn’t enough drugs,” said the kid with the big T-shirt on. He had a hat on too. It had graffiti on it.
“E, do you know Matt?” said Mike, gesturing to the kid.
“Uh, no, I don’t. Hey,” said Elinor. The kid just nodded at her.
“I see him everywhere,” said Mike. “He was just at the bar where our drinks thing was. He goes to everything.”
“Do you guys work together?” said Elinor, trying to smile at Matt, who was absorbed in the laptop of music.
“No,” said Mike. “But he knows Jeremy.”
“Did you talk to Jeremy?” asked Andrea to Mike confidentially.
“Who’s Jeremy?” said Elinor.
“He’s our editor in chief,” said Andrea. “Such a cool guy.”
“No,” said Mike. “He was talking to David the whole time.”
“That sucks,” said Andrea. “I know you wanted to talk to him about that story.”
“What story?” said Elinor.
“Look, guys,” said Matt. “I’m going to bounce. I got things to do and places to go.” Matt chortled when he said this, as if he was so visibly original that such a cliché was necessarily ironic. Everyone else laughed too, like they agreed.
“Hey, man, sorry,” said Mike. He stood up and gave Matt a strange elaborate handshake Elinor had never seen him do before.
“Cool,” said Matt. “Well, bye.” He snowshoed summarily out the door.
Unlike most people, Andrea did not take this as a cue to vacate the premises. On the contrary, she seemed to almost settle in, sit lower and deeper on the foam pad, as Mike returned to his perch beside her. Mike might have later said that Elinor seemed to not like Andrea for no real reason, but there was a real reason. The real reason Elinor hated Andrea was because she was always being rude and not picking up on obvious social cues.
Elinor stood by the kitchen counter and checked her phone. Her story had ten thousand views. That was actually pretty good for a piece of content on Journalism.ly.
“You know, I actually wrote a piece today, and I think it’s doing kind of well!” said Elinor, apropos of very little. “It has like, ten thousand unique views?”
“You guys track how many views your piece gets?” said Andrea. “Darren is really against that. I mean, we know generally how things do, but we don’t know the actual number of views something gets. He thinks it completely ruins the writing process.”
“Yeah,” said Mike. “I actually think only one guy in like, the entire organization knows how anything actually does.”
“That guy Chris?” said Andrea.
“Yeah, Chris. I think he’s the only one to see the actual numbers.”
“LOL, Chris is so weird,” said Andrea.
“I know,” said Mike.
Elinor walked over and sat on the foam pad on the other side of Mike. This way, even though they were all on the foam pad, she could also rest her head against the wall (the foam pad lay right against a prominent crook in the wall—none of the walls was straight in the whole apartment; there was always some unnatural divot) because she was tired. When she looked back on this moment, because later in her life she thought about this moment a lot, she never wavered in her conviction that her tiredness at that point could not be helped. She really was extremely tired. She just wanted to let her body stretch out on the floor like she was dead. But she didn’t even do that! She actually just rested her eyes a little bit with her head against the wall. Was that so awful? Was that really so bad?
“Okay, well, I think I’m going to go,” said Andrea. “Elinor is like, basically asleep. I feel bad.”
“Oh, you don’t have to go,” said Mike.
“No, I should,” said Andrea. “It’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“No,” said Mike. “I’ll go out for more beers.”
“Nah, we got to get up early tomorrow,” said Andrea. “I’ll see you at the office?”
“No fun,” said Mike. “Boo!”
“Bye, Andrea,” said Elinor. She got up from the foam pad and shook Andrea’s hand. She yawned loudly because she was tired. That was the only reason.
Andrea got up and ambled toward the door. Mike walked her down the hallway. They were saying something to each other that Elinor could not quite make out, and then Mike loudly said, “See you tomorrow,” and the door slammed. Elinor started putting on her pajama pants.
“You’re putting on your pajama pants?” said Mike, when he came back from the doorway.
“I’m super tired.” Elinor yawned again.
“What was up with you tonight?” said Mike.
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