Long Island City? She actually lived really far away from there, but still, why was he suggesting Queens? Best not to think about things you can’t control, thought Elinor, who promptly thought about it constantly.
* * *
· · ·
On Tuesday, Elinor wore her best underwear to work, a black lace pair that didn’t have any holes. She didn’t think that she and Mike were going to hook up or anything, but you should wear underwear to empower yourself, which was what she was doing.
The workday was slow, and punctuated by Elinor moving around in her seat all the time because her underwear was very uncomfortable. Midway through the day, Elinor realized that she had them on inside out. While in the bathroom to change them, she looked at her outfit in the rimless, speckled mirror someone had recently hung off the bathroom door. She looked cool, she thought. A shapeless top she had seen on Instagram, jeans, boots, a drawstring bag. She really was a totally different person now—a journalist. Maybe that was something that Mike had realized while at the party.
Elinor got to Long Island City forty-five minutes before she was technically supposed to arrive. It was an unseasonably cold day, but Elinor was still dressed too warmly. She sweat a little into her sweater.
Elinor eventually found a coffee shop near where she was supposed to meet Mike. She sat on a cold metal chair and sipped on an almond milk latte. Occasionally, and with a sort of plodding obsessiveness that even she found embarrassing, she would check and recheck Mike’s social media presence. His Snapchat story today was Tomas eating a sandwich. His Instagram this week was a funny misspelled sign. It was all adding up to a theory Elinor was developing and getting increasingly excited about. Andrea was not appearing on any of Mike’s social media channels half as much anymore. Plus she didn’t go to Mike’s mother’s party. Her demonic clone did. Were Andrea and Mike not hanging out as much?
Despite walking exceedingly slowly and stopping to read a historical plaque, Elinor still arrived too early at the bar. But the bar was not a bad place to wait—it had wooden booths and pink walls. The cocktails had egg whites in them and grenadine. Elinor sat down at the counter, put her large drawstring bag on the floor next to her barstool, and ordered a drink.
“Can I have the Old Man at the Side of the Road?” she said to a bartender. The bartender was wearing a flannel shirt and had an evenly trimmed beard. Elinor tried to inject some coquettishness into her tone. “Or what do you like.”
“The Old Man at the Side of the Road is a good drink,” said the bartender. Then he busied himself with assembling the elements of the drink. He whipped an egg in a tiny silver eggcup. He added several dark-colored poultices. He even took a lime and swiped it along the rim of her tiny coupe cocktail glass for no discernible purpose. Why did Mike want to meet her someplace this nice? They never went somewhere so nice when they were dating.
Eventually, the bartender gave her the cocktail, which now resembled a light pink sherbet. Elinor was just taking a picture of it when Mike came up behind her and patted her on the shoulder.
“Hey, E,” he said.
“Oh my god! How are you?” Elinor put her phone down next to her cocktail.
“I’m good, I’m good,” said Mike. “Do you want to get a table?”
“Uh, yeah, sure!” That was when Elinor realized that in her excitement she had tipped over her bag, and several quotidian objects—crumpled receipts, a small leather pouch that had absolutely nothing in it, an empty tampon applicator (but where was the tampon?)—had all fallen out of it. Luckily, Mike had already turned around and was being led to a table by a waitress. Elinor crouched next to the barstool, put the tampon applicator back into her bag, and ran to catch up with Mike and the waitress, who were congregating around a two-person table. Mike indicated via a waving of the hand that Elinor should actually take the booth side. Mike was going to sit on a wooden stool. She never remembered Mike doing this type of thing before.
“So how are you?” said Mike. Under the circular glass lights hanging from the ceiling, the hollows below his eyes looked darker. He was even wearing a green sweater over his usual T-shirt.
“I’m good,” said Elinor. “I’m just working a lot. Mostly.”
“Did you have a good time at the party?”
“I did!” said Elinor. “It was nice to see everyone again.”
“I’m glad you had fun.”
“Did you have fun?”
“It was okay. In general, I hate going to that shit.”
“Well, I had fun,” said Elinor. There was a silence.
“I was surprised you came.”
“Why?” said Elinor. “I said I was going to come.”
“I know you did. I know you said that.” Mike drummed his fingers on the table. “But that was a while ago. I just didn’t know you were going to come.”
“My whole office went. Plus I said I was going to come.”
“That’s true,” said Mike, doubtfully. “It was good to see Peter.”
“Yeah,” said Elinor. “He’s fine. How’s Memo Points Daily?”
“Well, uh, it’s good, uh—”
“What?”
“It’s closing. They just told us.”
“Oh, Mike,” said Elinor, resisting the impulse to cover his hand with her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t that surprised. Honestly, it’s good. I didn’t know if I wanted to stay there forever. We had to file all the time, which really doesn’t allow me to pursue all the long projects I really want to pursue. And since now the party infrastructure has selected their nominees—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Although, honestly, they are both so bad, I don’t know which one is better—”
“Oh, Mike—”
“So there’s a lot of stuff I want to do related to the election that I couldn’t have done if I had stayed there. It’s fine.”
“Okay,” said Elinor.
“It was cool to meet J.W. and Sean though. They seem like really nice guys. J.W. was telling me about his column.”
“When did you talk to them?”
“I don’t know.” Mike blinked. “After you left I guess.”
“Oh, okay,” said Elinor. She changed the subject. “Where are you living now?”
“Well, I was living with my mom for a while. Then I moved to kind of Williamsburg area. I know, I know, it’s douchey. It’s not actually Williamsburg, it’s more like Greenpoint. They just called it Williamsburg in the ad. Probably to get more rent, which is funny because I would have paid more rent to not live in Williamsburg.”
“Is the apartment nice?” said Elinor. That was a dull question, she realized. She scratched her head.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice. We have like, windows and a living room. The kitchen’s been redone, so that’s pretty cool. We have a dishwasher—”
“Do you have roommates?” said Elinor, interrupting him. She didn’t want to hear tales of a dishwasher.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “Just one though. Tomas!”
“Oh yeah, how is he?”
“He’s good.” Mike drummed his fingers on the table again. “You live in Queens? I figured it out when you posted that picture that was like #Queenslifestyle haha. That’s why I picked this place.”
“That was so nice of you!” said Elinor, gleefully picking up on this change of tune. The preceding part of the conversation had been making her feel very glum. But this was heartening news. He looked at her Instagram, just like she looked at his Instagram. It wasn’t weird to look at each other’s Instagrams. “Yeah, I live in Queens. I actually have a studio though. That’s why I moved there. I want to move to Brooklyn.”
The characterization of her apartment as a studio was not actually an untruth. In fact in the Craigslist ad, Kathy had termed it a “semi-studio,” so if Peter ever said anything to Mike implying that her apartment wasn’t a studio, she would just tell Mike—
“That’s so great. A studio, wow!” said Mike.
<
br /> “Yeah, I know. I love it. And the cool thing about it is that Astoria’s really an up-and-coming neighborhood, so. Well, my apartment’s basically in Astoria. It’s kind of on the outskirts. But that’s way cooler, actually.”
“Yeah, completely.” Mike looked past Elinor’s head. Was he looking at the waitress? No, it was the window.
“It was good to see your mom the other night,” said Elinor.
“She’s freelancing for the Times Magazine now. She just wrote a big piece on Upper East Side adoptions.”
“I read that!” said Elinor. She had tweeted her congratulations accordingly, and there had been a dearth of a reply.
“She read your essay too.”
“Oh my god!” said Elinor. “Oh my god, that’s so nice. She didn’t even say anything at the party.”
“Yeah, she told me she read it.” Some ether of some feeling Elinor couldn’t quite distinguish passed across Mike’s face.
“Did you read it?”
“I read it.”
“Well, what did you think about it?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
“Um,” said Elinor.
“Well, initially, I was kind of pissed. I was pissed you didn’t ask me if you could write about me.”
“I didn’t mention you by name!” said Elinor, raising her voice, and feeling panic overwhelm her, as if she had fallen into a well. Mike shushed her.
“But then I thought—”
Elinor made a bleating sound and Mike shushed her again.
“You are allowed to write whatever you want, of course. I would hope that if you ever wrote about me again you would ask me, but I thought it was good that you wanted to explore why women are forced to write about their breakups.”
“Really?” Elinor blushed. “Thank you!”
“But I guess, I just wanted you to know that, you know, I’m not this typical broey male journalist who devalued your writing. I actually hate guys like that. That’s my least favorite kind of guy.”
“I don’t think you are that kind of guy at all,” said Elinor. “I never said that.”
“I think I helped you,” said Mike. “At least you gave me credit for that.”
“Yeah,” said Elinor. She was still very nervous. She felt an itch in the interior of her eye like it would never stop blinking. Her mind was a blank. All she could clearly determine was that she wanted him to stop talking about this. “I mean, nothing was messy. It was just a process where we grew and changed and felt like we were different people.”
“But I just wanted to say, you know? You’re a good writer.”
“Thank you,” said Elinor. “For saying I am a good writer. That means a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” said Mike.
“Listen,” said Elinor, grabbing Mike’s hand. “I’m glad we could hang out. I’ve missed you. My years with you were so important. I really loved you.” Elinor was worried her eyes were involuntarily filling with tears. This sometimes happened to her, and she hoped it wasn’t happening to her now.
“Sure.” Mike’s phone buzzed audibly, rattling the table. He picked it up and looked at it, and Elinor saw the coldness he felt toward her so distinctly it jolted her like a slap. It surprised her, even after all of that.
“I’m sorry about that,” said Mike. He put his phone down.
“No worries,” Elinor said, too loud.
“So yeah, what were you saying?”
“Nothing that good.”
* * *
· · ·
They were outside the bar. Elinor had put on her coat inside the bar, but Mike was still putting his coat on, over his sweater.
“Wow,” said Elinor.
“Yeah,” said Mike. “It was really good to see you.”
“It was supergood to see you too. Here! Come in for a hug!”
Mike approached Elinor and they hugged. She smelled Mike’s coat. It smelled the exact same way that it used to, like pizza.
“Are you going to the reunion this summer?” said Elinor.
“Not sure. Especially with this job stuff,” said Mike. He sighed. “Speaking of which, I hate to be a dick, do you know if there are any openings at Journalism.ly?”
“I don’t know.” The street they were on, Elinor realized, was deserted—an unusual thing in New York. She noticed that the bar didn’t have many patrons, that paint was peeling off the wooden trim that encircled the roof. Maybe this bar was going to go out of business. It was a bad bar anyway. The Old Man at the Side of the Road was a terrible drink, despite its pink color. “I don’t think so.”
“Not that I want to work there. I was just wondering,” said Mike. “And also like, would I have to write about all this stuff I didn’t want to write about?”
“We have a politics section.” Elinor thought of the Journalism.ly’s antiseptic politics section. She still had never spoken to Josh, whose bald spot had grown precipitously. Then she thought about Mike, working alongside Josh, wandering into the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee, and wandering out of it.
“The thing is, though,” said Elinor quickly. “I’m not sure you could really do it.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s way different than what you’re doing now.”
“How so?”
“You have to reach a big audience, Mike, you know? I don’t know you can really do that.”
“You mean like, I kind of write very rarefied stuff?”
“No!” said Elinor. “You don’t have a social media following, and that’s a big part of the job. Like, you never even put anything up.”
“Okay.” Mike scratched his arm. “But I don’t think that’s that hard to do. I could put stuff up if I wanted to.”
“Also like, I share a lot of stuff in my writing. I’m very honest—and I feel like Journalism.ly is really about realness.”
“And you think I’m not real?” Mike was surprised, she could tell.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I don’t think you would like working there because I just don’t think you would like it.”
“Okay.”
“Plus we don’t have spots anyway.”
“Oh, okay, whatever…” Mike’s voice trailed off.
“Sorry! I’m just trying to give you a heads-up.”
“Yeah, thanks for telling me. That doesn’t sound like something I’d be interested in,” said Mike.
“I’ll email you if I hear anything though! Bye!”
“See you around,” said Mike. “Bye!”
Interestingly enough, they never saw each other again. Mike never followed up on the job and Elinor never emailed him. It was the end.
* * *
· · ·
On the subway ride back home, Elinor’s mind pored over the preceding events. In the end, she didn’t know how to think about it. She felt slightly depressed, but perhaps that was irrational.
When the train finally went overground, she texted Sheila. “Meeting Mike was great! He totally apologized to me for how he acted and I really feel like we’re friends now. Meeting up was just a good thing to do.”
“OMG,” Sheila texted, two hours later.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people who have contributed to this book, and I am incredibly blessed to work with a tremendous team.
I have to specifically thank my editor, Jenny Jackson, whose absolutely brilliant edits transformed this book into what it is. She read so many drafts (literally so many, I have lost count) and always had something trenchant, incisive, and revolutionary to say. She helped me zero in on the core of Elinor and relentlessly pushed me for the more subtle insight, the larger point, the deeper meaning. She gave shape to the book and never lost faith. Her unfailing support was what got me through the process.
I love Doubleday! Thank you so much, Zakiya Harris, for always clarifying what I meant when I did a terrible and incoherent cross-out. Thanks also to Lauren Weber, who has been extremely helpful in bringin
g me into the twenty-first century.
To my agent, Jane Finigan—you are the best. Thank you for molding this book with your extreme intelligence as you always do. You are such a sharp reader and a great friend. I feel privileged that you read my books!
To David Forrer, thank you so much for being so helpful in a million ways. You rock. I’m so immensely grateful to you and the entire team at Inkwell.
To everyone at Lutyens and Rubinstein, especially Felicity, Sarah, and Juliet. Thank you so much. I have loved talking with you all about the issues this book tackles and I am so happy to have such brilliant, funny, and amazing representation.
To my family and husband. I love you guys! I bet you are all glad to stop talking about social media’s implications for postmodernism, and I am too. It’s depressing!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Harrington is the author of the novel Penelope and I’ll Have What She’s Having. Her work has appeared in New York magazine, The New York Times, Elle, NPR.com, and other publications. She lives in New York City.
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