Playing House

by Ruby Lang

  “Well, this was a really great self-guided tour, and I got to see some beautiful things...except there was a guy who got way too aggressive about asking me out. Like, following me around and talking to me for a while, especially when there was no one else around—” Renata opened her mouth to say something, and Fay cut her off quickly. “But that turned out okay, too.”

  “What, did you give him a right hook and send him backward off the porch? You did, didn’t you? That’s why you look happy. Is he dead? I knew this day would come, I have just the person to represent you. Let me get—”

  From seemingly out of nowhere Renata hauled up her briefcase and set it next to her wineglass.

  “No. No. No one’s dead—or hurt.”

  “There’s a story here.”

  “Not much.”

  Renata lowered the briefcase out of sight again. Fay didn’t know why she was suddenly reluctant to share. Nothing had really happened, after all. “Oliver Huang showed up. I pretended he was my boyfriend and the dude backed off.”

  “Oliver Huang?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yep.”

  “The one with the cheekbones.” Her friend was now peering hard at the phone, trying to read Fay’s face. Luckily the light was bad enough in her apartment that Renata probably couldn’t see Fay’s blush.

  Renata said slowly, “Oh yes, I do remember him. He went to grad school with that colleague of yours when you worked at the city—what’s her name.”

  “I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of it.”

  “Funny you know him but you can’t recall her.”

  “Hilarious. I’m sure I’m friends with her on Facebook or something. I should check.”

  Not to be diverted, Renata said, “He’s a very good-looking man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And nice. Remember Sofia’s wedding? Good dancer.”

  “I get the idea—”

  “He’s the one who rescued you from the bugs that other time.”

  Fay shuddered. “Aided, not rescued. I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “But you’ve reconnected.”

  “It wasn’t a date.” And apparently it never would be. Fay turned red again. “He helped me out of a jam—that I could’ve gotten out of myself. But I was glad he was there.”

  “Did you ask him out?”

  Reluctantly Fay said, “No-o.”

  “Well then, did he ask you out?”

  There it was. “No.”

  Fay had been sure he would. And she’d been prepared to say—what? Yes. She had been prepared to hesitate and then say yes. But now she was only embarrassed. “It’s not like that between us. We’re casual acquaintances. Friends,” she amended, “now that we’ve spent an afternoon together.”

  “An afternoon in which you pretended to be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Just for a few minutes.”

  Well, it was longer than that if she counted the other times through the rest of the tour when they hadn’t contradicted other people who had assumed they were a couple—when she’d managed to fool herself that they were a couple. It felt good to be with Oliver. It felt easy to just let the mistakes pass without correction, to stand a little too close, to brush up against his solid, warm arm, and to pretend that it was all real.

  Renata smirked at Fay’s silence and Fay found her irritation growing.

  “I’m not interested in starting anything with Oliver Huang anyway. It would be awkward. I know too many people that he knows, and we’re in the same small professional circle. We have the same urban planner friends, and the same urban planner jokes and interests. People introduce and reintroduce us to one another all the time. To change that, that’s the definition of awkward.”

  “You said that word awkward a lot.”

  “I repeated it because I was afraid you weren’t understanding my important point. He isn’t what I need. I need someone who isn’t playing around, like Jeremy was—”

  Renata snorted. “Jeremy was lazy. All talk, no action.”

  Lazy wasn’t exactly correct. It wasn’t that she had been more ambitious than her ex. If anything, judging by all the high-flown ideas he’d had, his imaginings for what he could do and how much money he’d make, or what ideals he’d uphold, his aspirations went wide and far. Jeremy was the one who was sure of himself. He was the one who thought he could make things happen. He was the one who’d tried a handful of different careers, always putting in minimal effort and expecting success to fall into his lap, and when it didn’t, heading off in search of greener pastures.

  But Fay was the one who had focused on one thing that she wanted to do and was doing it.

  She continued as if she’d been uninterrupted. “I need someone who understands my perspective. Someone driven, who doesn’t just let me talk the whole time, or have me lead him around from house to house showing him things.” Although, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? She’d liked that Oliver let her take the lead, and she’d told him so. Maybe he’d been waiting for her to take the next step, too? “Besides, the moment is gone.”

  “You could easily get his number from any one of your many mutual acquaintances in your small professional circle. You need to go out with someone.”

  “I’ve gone out on dates.” She had dated since the split with Jeremy was finalized nine months ago. She’d been very diligent about fitting it in, going out on at least twelve coffee dates with twelve people, all in accordance with the protocols of getting over a divorce.

  “Not in months. And I know you. You only did it because you felt like you had to prove something. You need to go out with someone you like, on a date with real stakes. Otherwise you’re going to stay in this holding pattern.”

  “A date is not the answer. And I’m not in a holding pattern. I’m keeping it together just fine. My job’s busier than ever. We’re supposed to hire someone soon, if Teddy can get it sorted. I’m even—” she waved her empty noodle pot at the screen “—feeding myself.”

  “Isn’t keeping it together the very definition of a holding pattern?”

  She set the pot down with a clang. “Why have you been pushing me this entire call?”

  “Because it always works on you.” More quietly. “Because I’m worried about you, and I’m not there.”

  Fay’s shoulders relaxed a little but her pride still felt bruised, and her words were pricklier than she intended. “Well, you’re the last person I’d expect to send me toward a man just to solve my problems.”

  “But he’s the first person—first anything—to give you any sort of spark in months. Look around you at all these boxes on the floor, all the unfinished projects, your low energy. Is this normal for you?”

  Fay closed her eyes. “Nothing this year has been normal for me, all right, Renata?”

  A pause.

  “Fay, I want—”

  “I have to go.”

  Fay pushed End.

  Then after a couple of moments, she sent a text with a kissy face—and received a blue heart back.

  It was possible that she and Renata were better friends now that they lived on opposite coasts. Now that she could just hang up when Renata became too much—or was it too insightful? Fay could take a break and retreat to her corner—like now. They were a lot alike and their intensity had worked for them when they were both young, professional women in their late twenties. Fay missed her friend, of course, and sometimes Fay wished that she could go over and flop on Renata’s couch—she always had the most comfortable couches—and yell and eat Renata’s mom’s conconetes. But mostly, it was better now.

  Fay was at peace with her bigger choices; she knew that she shouldn’t be married to Jeremy, and she was very glad she didn’t have kids with him—but it was still hard to take it when Renata mothered her, especially when her friend acted like she had more experien
ce, more knowledge about life.

  Fay had her own kind of knowledge.

  For instance, the truth was that this afternoon, she hadn’t had to take the subway to get home. Her new apartment was only about fifteen blocks from the last house she and Oliver had toured.

  She could’ve asked him to walk home with her, maybe invited him up, messy and unfurnished as the place was. He was a planner. He’d love the neighborhood. He would see the possibilities of the place that she’d seen—and needed to be reminded of. She’d read up on the history and architecture of this part of Manhattan. Maybe she would have taken pleasure in showing him the slot in the bathroom for razor blades, the old penny tile, a stove that came straight from the seventies, an ugly slab of a fridge from the early 2000s. The apartment was like an old Gothic cathedral that had changed styles midway through building because the construction had outlasted the lives of the people putting it together. But instead of a place of spiritual worship, it was a place of common living, every decade of its existence evidenced by an outdated appliance, or a piece of cabinetry or wallpaper.

  And maybe, while she and Oliver were exploring the apartment together, she would have gotten him to sleep with her. Peeled off his jeans, pushed him down on the mattress, and watched him watch her lower herself onto him. But she hadn’t done any of that because, well, she was scared.

  She sighed. The truth was, she did want to be with someone again. She wanted sex and kissing and a pair of solid, warm arms to hold on to. She did want to find a person she was compatible with—and the only way to do it was to date more. As Renata had pointed out, Fay liked Oliver. He wasn’t a complete stranger from the internet like her other dozen post-divorce dates had been. But because she liked him and knew him and he knew her, he could reject her and it wouldn’t just be awkward, as she kept repeating. It would hurt.

  That was damn scary.

  She picked herself up off the floor and rinsed her pot out in the sink. She could do this. She could call him—but later. She didn’t have to always be that woman who did everything now. Later was fine.

  Chapter Two

  Monday

  The text message from Fay came at just past eleven at night, and it was brief. This is Fay Liu. Call me when you get a chance.

  Oliver wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  He’d thought about Fay a lot over the last twenty-four hours. He’d thought about her hair, which had briefly brushed his cheek after their hurried surprise kiss, about her tense strength beside him when Clompy Brent had been sizing them up. Her laughter filled his mind when he woke up, and he summoned her spirit when he needed to confront his inbox.

  He did have freelance work, so it wasn’t like he was unemployed and with nothing to do. But aside from attending the occasional meetings with his client, he was working from home these days—well, not his home. He was living with his younger brother, Nathaniel, in Nat’s Upper West Side apartment. It was spacious by New York standards, with a good view of the Hudson River. But Oliver spent most of his time tapping away on the smallest laptop on the smallest desk in the small guest room or alone at the breakfast bar. There were no watercooler breaks or innocuous chitchats with coworkers to break up the monotony.

  He read the message and reread it. Call me, it said. Not Text me. But it was too late for work calls, and late for personal ones unless they were very personal, and he was not getting that from the message. He wasn’t getting much of anything from the message, honestly.

  He thought about it and was playing a video game about it when Nat got home.

  “It’s 2 a.m.? What are you still doing up?” Nat yawned.

  “Waiting for you.”

  Nat smiled lazily. “I had the most magical evening.”

  He sank down into the couch with his eyes closed.

  “In love again?” Oliver asked.

  “Of course. The boy of my dreams. He’s got dimples. And a cleft chin. He’s just bulges and depressions in all the right places.”

  “Is he a man or is he a topographical map?”

  “He’s the valleys and the mountains, and I’m going on a long hike along the trails—all the trails, baby.”

  Oliver glanced back at his little brother again. Nat could take care of himself—more than that. He was taking care of Oliver. Letting Oliver live in the guest room, even though having his older brother there had to be cramping his style. Making sure Oliver ate. Tying his ties and lending him shoes for job interviews.

  Wow, it had come to this.

  Oliver pressed his mouth into a thin line and continued his game. Badly.

  “Have you left the house in the last few days?” Nat asked.

  Oliver tried not to sound defensive. “Yeah. Yes. I did. An architect buddy gave me a ticket to the Mount Morris Park house tour on Sunday. Ran into an old friend, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh-ho. Anyone I know?”

  “Probably not. Fay Liu.”

  “Did we go to school with her?”

  “No, she’s from California originally. She’s a planner, too. Worked at the city with one of my grad school classmates.”

  Clearly, Nat scented blood in the water. All Oliver could do was try not to swirl it around.

  “Which one?”

  “Her name is at the tip of my tongue.”

  “But you can’t quite recall. Funny how you remember this Fay Liu but not your classmate.”

  Oliver tried to sound nonchalant. “I see her around. My friends know her friends. I’ve seen her at conferences, parties. I may have taken a day trip with her and a couple of people—”

  “May have.”

  “It was all very casual.”

  Oliver snuck a glance at Nat. He was grinning. The fucker.

  “If you say so,” his brother said.

  “Anyway, Fay wasn’t the one to email me, but someone from her firm is supposedly looking at my CV—they’ve had it awhile now.”

  Nat blinked sleepily. But Oliver knew better. Nat might seem careless, he might seem to not be listening, but pretty soon he’d throw out a question—or five—that would force Oliver to think. This was probably why his brother made big bucks as a risk analyst.

  “So you’ve noticed her a lot over the years.”

  Yes. “Maybe.”

  “Have you slept with her before?”

  “No, asshole. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “But you like her.”

  “She told me to call her.”

  “And you haven’t.”

  “Did I mention she’s one of the principals?”

  Oliver abandoned the game. He watched his character stand stock-still. The locusts descended upon him. Presently a funeral director came out and put him in a tiny coffin and lowered him into the ground.

  He shut off the console. “I should go to bed. Lots of...desk-sitting to do tomorrow.”

  “You aren’t working with her yet.”

  “But I don’t have a regular job. In addition to the fact that she might become my boss, I don’t have a steady gig. What do I have to offer anyone right now? You’re making money hand over fist. You can stay up late and look fresh in the morning and make sense of large datasets. I’m almost forty, Nat. I have some consulting work and nowhere to live.”

  “Sure, you do. You’re with me.”

  “I can’t stay here forever.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  His brother meant it, too. Oliver got up from the floor and hugged him.

  “You don’t have to be perfect to go out on one tiny date, Oliver,” Nat called after him.

  Well, he damn well knew that. It had never bothered Oliver before. But his last relationship had ended a while ago. Then six months ago, the consulting firm he worked for had gone bust, dragged down when their big client had itself gone out of business. He wasn’t broke. He had sav
ings, and the smaller contract jobs paid fine. But it felt precarious enough that he’d given up his Brooklyn apartment when the landlord issued a rent increase. Oliver was a planner, yet everything felt up in the air. He was thirty-six, single—never married—and he lived with his younger brother. “Shiftless, just like your father,” his mom had said in a mixture of Mandarin and English when he told her he’d lost his job. He sure didn’t look like a great bet for someone who probably wanted more, and Fay was surely a woman who wanted more.

  Well, now Fay wanted to talk to him.

  He’d spent the past day remembering all the things he’d heard about her—things he already knew either by experience or from their mutual friends. She had moved out here for college. She was generous, both with money and with her time as a volunteer. She didn’t like bugs, he recalled, from one very memorable incident (although neither did most of their mutual acquaintances, it seemed).

  And she was driven. Fay had started her own shop after stints with the city and at two global planning firms. Keeping in touch with her was good for his career; the problem with him was that he wanted to ask her out more than he cared about work—and wasn’t that confirmation of how shiftless he was?

  Given the curtness of her message, maybe it was about the interview. She’d been thinking about him, yes, and perhaps in asking around, she’d remembered that she had his CV. Or her partners had asked her to set it up.

  He couldn’t believe he felt disappointed at the possibility of a job interview.

  Oliver tossed the video controller on the couch and turned off the screen. He’d go to bed and call her tomorrow at a more reasonable hour, like a functioning human.

  She didn’t need to know he was only pretending to be one.

  Saturday

  “I was thinking we could walk up to see the old Harlem Fire Tower first,” Fay said. “It’s the oldest remaining watchtower in the city. And we’d get a fantastic view of the ground we want to cover today, too.”

  She flicked a glance at him to gauge his reaction but found him watching her.