Sara needed a plus one for a family thing. Pre-wedding lunch. Her husband was doing something with the groomsmen and she didn’t want to sit with her aunt who asks questions. “Just come,” she said. “It’ll be nice.” Sara’s version of nice and my version of nice have historically required some translation. I went anyway….
Sunday. Raining. I was cleaning my bag. Not for any particular reason – the bag just needed cleaning, which happens when you’ve been carrying the same one for three weeks because it’s the right size for everything and you keep meaning to switch and you don’t. I found the usual things. Receipts I didn’t need….
Noah called on a Tuesday. Not texted. Called. Which, as previously established, nobody does. I almost didn’t answer. I answered on the fourth ring. “I was an ass,” he said. No preamble. No hey or how are you or sorry to call out of nowhere. Just that. “Okay,” I said. “The club. I left you…
Claire wanted a debrief. Those were her exact words. Debrief. Which tells you everything you need to know about Claire. We met at the place near her office. The kind of place that does excellent coffee and charges appropriately for it and has the specific atmosphere of somewhere people go to have conversations they need…
Thursday was dinner three with Richard. By dinner three you stop learning the obvious things. The job. The money. The board memberships. You start learning the weird things. For example. Richard hates truffle. I know. I was as surprised as you are. The restaurant sent something expensive to the table – compliments of the chef,…
I went to Sara’s on Thursday. Not for any particular reason. That’s what I told myself on the way over. No particular reason. Just wine and the kitchen table and the baby already asleep and Sara in the specific way Sara is in her own home – unhurried, warm, completely herself in a way I’ve…
I expected a lecture. That’s the honest version. D had said eleven words on the bike and four of them were you should’ve called earlier and I’d spent the entire ride preparing responses to arguments he hadn’t made yet and counter-arguments to my own counter-arguments and by the time we got to his building I…
1:14am. I would like to formally apologize to whoever invented emergency contacts. I don’t fully remember sending it. That’s the honest version. I was in the corner near the bar and I had my phone open and I was looking at my contacts and I was trying to decide between get an Uber and go…
Noah promised a proper night. Those were his exact words. Proper night. I should have asked for a definition. I spent two hours getting ready. Not three – two, which for me is practically casual, except it wasn’t casual because I knew where we were going and I knew what that required and I own…
Noah invited me to a founders dinner. I want to be clear that I researched this. I wore the right thing. Said yes to the right car. Arrived at exactly the right time with exactly the right level of composed confidence. None of it mattered. The venue was the kind of place that looks like…