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“Okay. I don’t know. Definitely,” Jinny rattled off, answering each of their questions.
“Wait…” Penny frowned, looking up from her baby hat. She was constantly knitting baby hats, because someone in her enormous extended family was always having a baby. “He’s hot, but you don’t know if you like him?”
“I’m not sure we had chemistry.” Jinny leaned forward for her wine glass. “He kind of talked about himself a lot.”
“He could have been nervous,” Esther felt the need to point out again. Especially now that she knew for a fact that was the problem.
Jinny shot her a sideways look. “I don’t know why you’re defending him. You can’t stand him.”
Esther shrugged and looked back down at her knitting. “I’m just trying to be supportive.”
Vilma reached for a cookie. “Esther knows him?”
“He’s her neighbor,” Jinny said. “And she hates him.”
“Hate’s a strong word,” Esther said.
Jinny rolled her eyes. “A word I’ve heard you use about him on more than one occasion.”
“I was employing hyperbole. He’s not that bad.”
“Why don’t you like him?” Cynthia asked Esther.
She shrugged again. “He’s got these wind chimes on his balcony that keep me up. Which has nothing to do with his worthiness as a boyfriend.”
“And his cigarette smoke blows in your windows,” Jinny added.
Penny wrinkled her nose. “He’s a smoker?”
“Only occasionally,” Esther said. “And he doesn’t smoke inside his apartment. That’s not so bad, right?” Now she was defending guys who smoked, apparently. What was happening to her?
Penny shook her head, frowning like it was still pretty bad.
“Do you hate him more or less than Stuart?” Olivia asked Esther.
“Less,” Esther said. “Definitely a lot less.”
Cynthia looked at Jinny. “But do you like him? That’s what matters.”
Jinny shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to figure that out. He’s not as hot as Stuart.”
“Looks aren’t everything,” Vilma said.
“And Stuart cheated on you,” Olivia reminded her.
“I know,” Jinny sighed.
“Stuart’s still begging her to take him back,” Esther told them.
He was still texting her every day, although the frequency of his texts had decreased from somewhere in the dozens to only one or two daily, now that Jinny wasn’t responding as much. It was progress. Esther hoped maybe in another week or two he’d give up altogether.
“Are you thinking about it?” Cynthia asked Jinny.
Jinny looked down at her lap. “I’ve stopped answering his texts.”
Which wasn’t exactly an answer. She’d been equally evasive when Esther had asked her the same question earlier that day. They weren’t completely out of the woods yet.
“Tell him you’re dating someone else already,” Olivia suggested. “That’ll send a strong back-the-fuck-off message.”
