I’m not exactly sure why I’m motivated to go to Riverside Park today instead, except that maybe when I start out by playing “The River Is Long, the River Is Strong”—the theme song from Undersea—on my phone, it inevitably leads me to listening to the entire soundtrack on repeat. And that soundtrack doesn’t deserve a paltry mile-and-a-half run. It deserves a miles-long view of the mighty Hudson River, past marble tombs dedicated to legendary war generals, and beneath majestic branches of cherry blossom trees that have almost, though not quite, lost their last blooms. And I only spend a very, very small portion of it daydreaming about Mary Clarkson in that mermaid suit. And a smaller portion wondering if the Biscotti Bandit really does know her. That girl is a mystery wrapped in an enigma encased inside wonky arm warmers.
By the time I get back to Dylan and Charles’s, I’m out of breath and a sweaty mess. My watch tells me I ran seven miles. I used to do a daily five around Prospect Park, but that hasn’t happened in months since my former running partner got a monthlong “stomach virus” before dumping me. (In retrospect, I am really, really thick.)
I buzz up when I get to the apartment. Dylan and Charles have both been too busy to make me a key yet, and I’ve been too mopey to take it upon myself. Besides, I’m pretty sure the situation would have too much of an air of permanence about it for Charles (and maybe even Dylan), if they actually went to the trouble of making me my own key.
“Oh, God,” Charles says when he opens the door for me. “Are you crying?”
“It’s sweat,” I respond.
He peers more closely at me, trying to affirm that the droplets are, in fact, coming from my forehead. “Hmph. I guess,” he finally says. “Mind the runner. It’s antique Kermanshah.” He points to the dark carpet that runs down their hallway, which he carefully pads around in his corduroy slippers.
“I’m pretty sure we bought that at Target. Or maybe Overstock dot com,” Dylan comes over and whispers conspiratorially as I’m taking off my sneakers.
I smile at him as a bead of sweat drips down my nose and falls onto their dark parquet floor. Dylan grabs a tissue from the hall table and immediately wipes it up.
Dylan was my roommate in college, and he was a fantastic one. He was friendly, he was neat, and he never made a big deal of whether or not you were the same. He’s still all those things, only now he’s with Charles, which I think is only possible because he’s not overly attached to “nice” as an attribute in a boyfriend.
Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe Charles is perfectly nice to someone who hasn’t spent the past six weeks invading his personal space, sweating all over his possibly Kermanshah rugs, and filling his fridge up with half-eaten cartons of chow mein. (I always want it fresh, but then I hate wasting food, so the leftovers tend to pile up. It’s the ultimate millennial conundrum: determined to be conscientious while simultaneously wanting everything on demand.)
“He hates me,” I say as I stack my shoes neatly by the door. “He doesn’t hate you,” Dylan replies too quickly, which makes it hard to buy.
Oh, well. To be honest, I’m not sure Charles ever liked me. Maybe I wasn’t able to hide the “Wow/How” in my face when Dylan first introduced me to him. The moment Dylan, the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome—the ultimate wingman, since we were never competing in the same pool—walked into the bar, his face flushed and glowing with Charles behind him, I automatically assumed that he had gotten separated from the boyfriend I was supposed to meet by an older, balding, bespectacled gentleman. I craned my head to look behind him for the young, hot dude I was expecting.
Until Dylan put his arm on Charles’s and gave me a huge grin. “This is Charles.”
It was probably too late to stuff the look on my face back into the box, and Charles noticed. Charles notices everything.
Like last night, when I was trying to figure out what to order for dinner. Charles took one glance at the app I was on and chimed in with, “Let me guess. Chow mein.” I switched over to sushi, just to spite him. (Now there is half of a yellowtail/ avocado roll in the fridge, too.)
Last week, he must have seen my laptop opened up to three different tabs of Sudoku, a crossword, and KenKen because when I came back from the bathroom, he casually asked me how work was going. “Busy,” I lied automatically.
“Really?” he asked. “That second column is wrong by the way.”
And today, just as I’ve peeled off my shirt to hop into the shower, he leans against the wall and comments, “So you finally went for a real run today?”
I bite my tongue to keep from retorting something about how would he know what a real run is, considering the only bit of exercise he gets is running his mouth. I’m a guest in his home, I remind myself. Their one-bedroom home.
“Yeah,” I respond instead. “Riverside Park.”
He nods. “A city gem you discovered in You’ve Got Mail?” He grins evilly.
I give him the finger when he turns around. The thing is, how would he know Riverside Park plays a crucial role in You’ve Got Mail if he hasn’t also seen the movie? Huh?
He doesn’t turn back around but does let me know that, “You know the windows? They’re reflective,” as he looks me in the eye through one of them. I carefully fold my middle finger to join the rest of my fist.
By the time I’ve gotten out of the shower, Charles and Dylan have left for a work dinner thrown by Dylan’s law firm. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge,” Charles has scrawled on the magnetic whiteboard on the front of it. “Seriously. Just. Eat. Them.”
I open up the fridge and count the six white cardboard boxes, and the one plastic one of sushi. Aside from a neat row of salad dressing, raspberry jam, and a bottle of ketchup in the door, that’s all there is in their fridge. Neither Charles nor Dylan cooks. I used to, if you can call getting all the ingredients and recipes delivered to me in a box once a week real cooking. But since I currently don’t have a home to deliver said box to, that’s not happening so much anymore.
I hate to admit it, but Charles is right. I should eat the leftovers. I should just heat them up and eat them … but doesn’t a nice bowl of soba noodles and veggies sound pretty perfect right about now?
Good job on throwing dreamboat my way. I feel like I’m working on a spread for Vanity Fair. It’s a text from Aisha. As predicted, it had been pretty easy to sell Jude on her add-on the day after our initial meeting.
He genuinely needs your help, though, I respond. His pictures were doing him no favors.
I spoke briefly on the phone with him too, Aisha writes back. He sounds like Jamie Fraser.
I wrack my brain, trying to figure out who that is. When I don’t respond immediately, Aisha figures out my problem.
Outlander, she writes.
Ah, right, I write back. I cut the cord a while back so I haven’t seen the show.
Why does this guy need your help again? Aisha writes.
As soon as I get that message, my phone buzzes with another incoming one. Jude. Hey. So I’ve gotten an initial message from a girl I’m interested in. What’s my next step?
I write Aisha back quickly first. I guess we’re about to find out. I gotta go. Cyrano duties call.
Then I switch over to Jude’s window. Hey. Perfect. You free to get on a video chat? Easier if we talk through the first one together.