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…
The door opened. D looked at me. I looked at D. Neither of us said anything useful. Then he reached out, took my wrist – not my hand, my wrist, which is a different thing entirely – pulled me inside and closed the door behind me with his foot. Not rough. Just certain. Like the…
Okay. So apparently a woman can spend seven stories building a strategic life plan and still accidentally give an Uber driver the worst possible address at 12:34 in the morning. I learned that Thursday. Against my will. Thursday was dinner with Richard. Which was excellent. Second dinner, same restaurant, same car, same Richard – attentive…
Claire says scarcity drives value. Claire says a lot of things that sound vaguely sociopathic until they turn out to be correct. So when Richard texted the morning after dinner I waited before responding. Not because I was busy. Not because I forgot. Because Claire said to. And because sometimes the plan requires sacrifice and…
Tonight was dinner with Richard. I spent three hours getting ready for a man I was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not emotionally invested in. The blowout held. The dress worked. The plan was intact. Which, in hindsight, should have made me more suspicious. The car arrived at seven forty-five. Not a cab. Not an…