Playing with Matches

by Hannah Orenstein

  That’s when I see it. His left ring finger encircled by a gold wedding band. How could I forget to check for a ring?

  “I’m flattered, really, I am,” Subway Man tells me. He shakes his head and laughs. “But I’m married. My wife will get such a kick out of this. She’s a huge Patti Stanger fan.”

  I emit a squeaky “Okay!” and slink over to the door. It’s only the first week of my matchmaking career and I’m already hitting on married men. Great! The subway hums along for another fifteen humiliating seconds. I swear the doors open even more slowly than they usually do. I scurry onto the platform at Union Square and up the stairs away from Subway Man as fast as I can without breaking into a run.

  Aboveground, Union Square is bustling like always. I lived in three of the NYU dorms in this neighborhood, and a wave of nostalgia hits me as I wind through the crowded plaza. The square is ringed by huge chain stores—Whole Foods, Forever 21, Best Buy—but the park in the center has lush green grass dotted with people stretched out on picnic blankets. A dozen Hare Krishnas in long orange robes beat drums and tap bells as they chant. Two teenaged guys whiz by on skateboards. Caroline and I used to sit on the concrete steps here and talk about how much it would suck when we had to get real jobs.

  Mary-Kate is already flitting around the boutique when I walk in. Signed black-and-white photos of celebrities (“Your bras—wow! Thank you!” wrote Jennifer Aniston) line the store and a rainbow of underthings made of silk, lace, and chiffon greet customers at the entrance. The bride-to-be stands in front of a wall of flimsy white items, head tilted, tapping her foot to the beat of the Mariah Carey ballad playing softly in the background.

  She holds up two white bras. One is a millimeter-thin lace dream, complete with delicate daisy-chain straps. The other is a padded, frilly creation, trimmed with dainty ruffles.

  “Which looks more me?” she asks, pursing her pink-lacquered lips at each one.

  I examine both. I can feel the saleswoman’s hawk eyes from behind. Mary-Kate’s a lace girl.

  “How about this one?” I ask, picking up a G-string of iridescent pearls. Mary-Kate grimaces and swats it away.

  When she disappears into the dressing room, I wander slowly around the store, letting the luxe fabrics slip through my fingers. They feel like something a character in a romance novel would wear. I pause at a glossy black kimono with wide bell sleeves. The neckline is cut in a sultry V and cinches at the waist with a belt tie. I want to wear it to pad around the Bliss brownstone under the sparkling chandeliers and sink into the green velvet couch with a vodka martini while Tindering away the hours. I flip over the price tag: $278. It’s all I want to wear for the rest of my life, and it will never, ever happen—at least, not on my own dime. Mary-Kate calls my name and peeks her head around the plush pink curtain of the dressing room, motioning for me to come inside.

  It’s a tight squeeze with two of us in the dressing room, but even up close, I can tell that she looks fantastic. Her boobs are hoisted high by the daisy chains and look soft and round. Her stomach is the flattest I’ve ever seen it, thanks to her wedding diet of grilled salmon, grapefruit, and Adderall. And she swapped my joke pearl G-string for a matching pair of lace briefs. She is religious about her barre classes, and it shows. I tell her how gorgeous she is, and she beams.

  “I’m so glad you’re here with me,” she says, hugging me close. “You’re like family. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s official in a few years anyway.”

  Wait, what? I step back from the hug and search for clues in her eyes.

  “Did Jonathan say something to you?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”

  She turns back to face the mirror, coyly trailing a finger along the seams of her zillion-dollar lingerie and studying her reflection. She flips her hair to the side, and the overhead light catches on her diamond ring, making it glint a half dozen colors in the mirror. She seems pleased with the effect.

  “Mary-Kate! C’mon. Tell me.”

  She hesitates, bites her lip. “I shouldn’t saaaay anything.”

  I can tell she wants to give in, and I glare at her in the mirror until she does. She’s such a pushover.

  “Jonathan mentioned that he wants you to move in with him. Has he said anything about that to you yet?”

  I lean back against the cool pink wall and shake my head. “No,” I say, stunned.

  Jonathan and I have only talked about the future in vague, abstract terms before. The most specific he ever got was his panicked promise to “do the right thing” the one time my period was mysteriously late. If we move in together, the next logical step is to get engaged, and then to get married. I want to marry him. Who wouldn’t? He’s Jonathan Colton—and in a series of bizarre, incomprehensible events, he’s decided that I am the girl he wants to be with. Not the girl from his country club. Not his Kate Middleton–look-alike ex-girlfriend from Columbia who legitimately works for NASA. Me.

  The morning after the first time he said “I love you,” I signed my Starbucks receipt as Sasha Colton. With a swooping capital C, the sharp cross of the t, and the curled flourish at the end of the n, the name looked regal and sharp against the thin white paper. I signed my name like that every morning for a week before I forced myself to stop, afraid it would become a habit and I’d accidentally slip up in front of Jonathan one day.

  It would be a long engagement, probably. We’re still so young. Even if Mom was married at twenty-one—causing me to down vodka shots the night of my twenty-second birthday and announce to the party that I was officially an old maid—that didn’t mean I wanted to get married at that age. It would be nice to be married at twenty-seven like Mary-Kate.

  But then, thinking of marrying Jonathan, I get a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, which reminds me how tense and closed off he can be, usually when he’s stressed about work. Which is all the time. I don’t know how to open him up or take his mind off the office. We would have plenty of time to work all that out if we were engaged. He’d be all mine. Forever.

  Mary-Kate snaps her fingers in front of my face.

  “Sasha, pay attention.”

  I jerk my head up to see her wrapped in a sheer, floaty white robe over her bra and underwear. The sleeves are embroidered with daisies to complete the matching set and the hem grazes the floor. She looks like a goddess. I force myself to remember that Jonathan is just thinking about asking me to move in with him. Nothing more.

  “You like the robe?” I don’t respond right away. “Please don’t tell Jonathan I told you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  After another ten minutes of fretting over her reflection, Mary-Kate plunks the credit card her mother still pays down at the register. She watches with pride as the saleswoman wraps up her purchases and congratulates her on having such good taste.

  — Chapter 8 —

  On Sunday, I wake up in Jonathan’s bed to the sound of my alarm. I roll over to turn it off, and he pulls me back toward him with one arm.

  “Don’t go,” he mumbles into my hair.

  His body curves around mine, heat radiating from his chest and his hips snug around my ass. Moments like these make the whole day brighter.

  “Why are you awake?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. Sleep slurs his words.

  “It’s Steve’s fiftieth birthday party today, remember? We talked about this.”

  Jonathan rolls over, slides a pillow over his head, and doesn’t say a word. I get up and pull on a pair of denim cutoffs and an old NYU T-shirt I sometimes keep at his apartment for occasions like these.

  “You said you’d come with me,” I remind him. “We haven’t spent the whole weekend together in a while.”

  Jonathan grumbles into his pillow and sits up, squinting and mussing his hair.

  “Um . . . let me check in at work. I told you I’d see if I could come.”

  He reaches for his iPhone, then his BlackBerry, and scrolls through them both. I sit on the edge of the bed and watch him read w
ork emails. I wonder how many hours I’ve spent watching him do this. Dozens? Hundreds? Over the course of our lives together, it will eventually turn into thousands. Millions.

  “Yeah . . . I’m sorry. It’s going to be a heavy workload today.”

  “But it’s Sunday morning,” I protest.

  I can’t stop thinking about what Mary-Kate told me. A Sunday afternoon away together, even if it was just to Jersey to see Mom and Steve, sounds so relaxing. It would be a break from our regular routine—and maybe even the perfect opportunity to talk about what the future might hold for us.

  “Sasha, you know if it were my choice, I’d be right there with you.”

  He’s always saying that, although he really does look apologetic this time. He crawls across the bed to sit behind me, kissing my cheek and massaging the knots in my shoulders. I’m caught between the impulse to stand my ground and openly sulk, or be the chill girlfriend who can roll with anything. One gets to move in together, the other doesn’t.

  “Hey, if you’re ever missing out on male company, you can always talk to one of your Tinder guys, right?” he says, snickering at his own joke.

  I whip around.

  “That’s not funny. You know Tinder is for work only.”

  “I know, I know. Sorry. I was kidding.” He stares at me with wide, gentle eyes until I turn back around, letting him finish the massage.

  As he finishes working out a particularly gnarly knot in my shoulder, I vow to act less bitchy toward him. It’s not really his fault that he has to work so much. He’s a little more than a year into his three-year analyst program. If he gets promoted at the end of the three years, he becomes an associate, enjoys a cushy salary bump, and regains control of his life. He’ll finally have time to go to the bar trivia nights he’s always telling me about; he’ll have time to relax; maybe we could travel together. I fantasize about his promotion more than I’d ever admit out loud.

  On my way home, I text Caroline a quick plea to be my date to Steve’s party, then check in with both Mindy and Adam. Mindy sends a flurry of outfit photos for me to choose from—we wind up agreeing that her red fit-and-flare dress strikes the right note between bombshell and wife material—while Adam just asks if he needs to bother with a tie (I tell him no). And Caroline agrees to come. Back when I was single, she was always my plus-one for family holidays and birthdays and special occasions like these. Sometimes, I miss when it was just the two of us. I know she does, too.

  Mom picks us up from the train station in her silver Kia. “My princesses!” she trills. “Get in. We have so much to do this afternoon before the party.”

  I move three white ceramic coffee cups with dried brown coffee rings in the bottoms from the front seat into the console before sitting down. Mom leans over to kiss me on the cheek, then licks her finger and rubs the lipstick off my face. She does the same to Caroline, who—to her credit—does not flinch when Mom rubs her wet finger onto her cheek.

  “Irina, so good to see you,” Caroline says.

  Mom launches into the list of preparations as we drive home: make the salad, frost the cake, set the table. I never noticed she had an accent when I was a kid, but now I hear it loud and clear when she speaks in front of my friends. It’s thick and guttural—not ugly, exactly, but clearly not American. When we pull up to the house, the sting of shame kicks in, as it does every time Caroline visits. Caroline’s summer house in the Berkshires is nicer than Mom and Steve’s regular (only) one. It’s the smallest on our street and could probably use a fresh coat of paint. The lawn is stubby and uneven. Caroline has never said anything about it to me, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t noticed.

  Inside, Mom sets us to work chopping tomatoes and onions for the salad. She busies herself in front of the oven, putting in the chicken. Steve comes downstairs and peeks his head into the kitchen. He’s bald, shorter than Mom, and wears dumpy sweaters, but he makes her happy. They’ve been together since I was fourteen. He’s always felt more like an awkward uncle than a dad to me, but I know he tries hard.

  “The yenta is here!” he says, voice creaking. “Looking lovely as always, girls.”

  “Hi, Steve,” Caroline and I chime together.

  “You’ll have to tell all my friends about what you do when they arrive. They’re completely fascinated.”

  “Now, how exactly does this work? You use a catalog of girls?” Mom squints, pursing her lips.

  “No, Mom, it’s not a catalog. It’s a database of people who have already expressed an interest in Bliss. And I use Tinder and other online dating sites and apps.” I’m only a little exasperated; I’ve explained this to her at least once already.

  “I don’t know how I like that,” Mom says. “These girls, how do they feel about you sending them out on dates with strange men?”

  “No, they ask to be set up. They pay for dates, too. It’s nothing like . . .” I start, trailing off when Mom flares her nostrils angrily and cocks her head in Caroline’s direction. Caroline pretends not to notice and chops her tomato with gusto. Mom doesn’t know that Caroline knows about her past. “It’s a really nice company, I swear.”

  “Tell them the story about how you tracked down Adam,” Caroline prompts.

  “Oh! It was kind of cool, actually.” I launch into an explanation of how I stalked him to that bar, and they seem genuinely impressed by my diligence. But there’s something else I need to say. It won’t go smoothly or easily, but at least I can rip off two Band-Aids at once—Mom and Caroline.

  “So, I heard from Mary-Kate that Jonathan might ask me to move in with him.”

  Caroline’s knife stills. “Wait, what?” she asks, annoyed, at the exact moment Mom exclaims, “Oh! Honey.”

  “It’s nothing concrete yet,” I admit. “He hasn’t even asked me. But sharing a one-bedroom with him would be so much more affordable than what I’m doing now.”

  “But . . .” Caroline slides her knife sharply through a tomato slice and juice spurts up onto the cutting board. “I love living with you.”

  “I know. And I do, too. But I’d save so much money this way.”

  She stares down at the cutting board and starts on another tomato, knife flying. Her mouth squishes to the side. I can tell she’s working up the courage to say what’s really on her mind.

  “It’s not really about the money, though, is it? You just want to move in with Jonathan.” Her tone is sharp. Accusatory.

  “That’s part of it, yeah.” I shrug, but instantly regret how flippant it makes me look.

  “What about me? Who would I live with?”

  “You could find a new roommate. Or your parents could spot you money for a one-bedroom, right?”

  She grimaces. “I’d feel bad asking them for more money.”

  “But you could,” I point out. I know she hates whenever I bring that up, but I’m annoyed that she isn’t being supportive. It’s so like her to act all pouty whenever things are going well with Jonathan. “They already pay most of your rent anyway.”

  “Better my parents than my boyfriend,” she shoots back coolly.

  “That’s your moral high ground?”

  Mom darts her gaze from me to Caroline like she’s about to jump into two opposing lanes of traffic. She tentatively interjects herself. “Sweetie, do you really want to live with Jonathan? It’s a big commitment, living with somebody.”

  “Yeah, I think so?” I don’t mean for it to come out sounding like a question.

  When we spend time together at his apartment—and it’s almost always his apartment, because his place is bigger and brighter and has a fancy doorman who greets every resident by name—the hours just slip by. I feel like I’m at home already. Why not make it official?

  “That boy works too much,” Mom says, shaking her head. “That’s the problem. If you want to see him more often, make him see you more often . . . but don’t move in with him to make the relationship work.”

  “He can’t help his work schedule.” It’s one thing for me t
o complain about how busy he is, but it’s another for Mom to do it.

  “If he made more time for you, you wouldn’t feel the need to move in with him so young.”

  “You had been living with Dad for two years when you were my age,” I point out.

  “Which is exactly why I’m telling you not to make the same mistake.”

  Mom can give me her opinion, but ultimately, the decision isn’t hers to make. Unlike Caroline’s parents, mine don’t actually have any financial strings to steer my decisions. I’m not naïve enough to think that living with Jonathan would be like playing house; we don’t cook, or make DIY furniture, or garden. Life together would be less about achieving domestic bliss and more about avoiding the half-hour slog between each other’s apartments.

  “I love him.” My voice sounds small. I hate that they’re ganging up on me.

  “I know you do,” she says, sighing. “I’d just rather see you live with Caroline. Have fun. Be young. There’s no need to rush.”

  We’ve had variations on this conversation before: whenever I explain how important Jonathan is to me, Mom pushes back. You’re so young, she says, or There’s no need to jump to conclusions that he’s the one for you. I think it comes from a place of fear: she doesn’t believe a rich guy like him would really choose a Jersey girl saddled with loans like me. I want to prove her wrong. I keep chopping at my onion. It burns my eyes. The kitchen feels too cramped right now.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t asked me yet. It was just an idea. I’m just not making very much at Bliss. And Caroline, you know this has nothing to do with our friendship. Really. I promise.”

  “We can talk about this later,” she says curtly.

  “Caroline, I love you. You know that.”

  “Mhm.”

  I hate fighting with her. We almost never do, and this is precisely why—neither of us is very good at it.

  Steve, who’s stayed silent, claps me on the shoulder.

  “I see Uncle Jim and Aunt Joan pulling into the driveway now. Why don’t you go open the door for them?”