“Right.” She attempts to take another sip from the empty bottle.
From behind them, through the thin walls, the partygoers start chanting the countdown.
Ten…nine…eight…
“Aren’t you going to call your girlfriend again?” Ari asks. “Wish her happy New Year?”
“She’s three hours behind with the time difference.” He glances over his shoulder. “Don’t you want to ring in the new year with your wife?”
Five…four…
“We have our whole lives to ring in New Year’s together.” She stares into space, seemingly distracted, even disturbed, by the idea. “Like, sixty more New Year’s Eves,” she mumbles. “Shit, that’s a long time. And I don’t think I can get up right now.”
Ari and Josh watch the celebration at the roof party a few buildings over: the jubilant hugs and a few kisses shared between partners.
They turn to look at each other and the timing is both perfect and awkward. Should we? Just a peck on the cheek. A friendly thing.Not that they’re even friends.
But maybe…
Josh’s phone nearly buzzes out of his hand and through the fire escape grate. “My car’s here.”
Ari nods. “Right.”
Josh ducks his head through the window and back into the bedroom, fishing his coat out of the gigantic pile on the bed, praying that a dozen tiny bed bugs haven’t crawled into the seams.
“Well, happy New Year.” He adds, “See you,” even though he can’t imagineanothercircumstance under which they’d see each other again.
“Right!” Ari calls out. “Maybe next time, we can share that bottle of white zinfandel.”
Josh shoves his arms into the sleeves. “No, thank you.”
There’s a beat of silence. “Okay, then we’ll just share your girlfriend!”
Every muscle in his body contracts.“What?”
“Kidding,” she shouts. Then, faintly, almost out of earshot, “Unless…”
4
WHEN JOSH INITIALLY TOOK SOPHIEto see the loft, she’d been thrilled to find that it was just one building over from The Smile. The proximity to one of her favorite brunch places loomed large over the rest of the tour, casting some of the more questionable elements—the long and narrow footprint, the grubbiness of the building’s stairwells and elevator, the gut renovation that would be required—in a more positive light.
Sophie agreed that it had “a lot of character.”
With The Brod on the verge of a splashy opening, pulling the trigger on this auspiciously located property felt like the right way to say, “I love you, please relocate to New York and move in with me.”
Josh pictured waking up on Sunday mornings with Sophie. They’d completeTheNew York Timescrossword together. He’d do most of it (in pen) with his neat block lettering, and she’d pull the occasional stubborn pun from thin air. Afterward, Josh would go down on her and—scratch that, she would insist onshowering first andthenhe’d go down on her—and Sophie would return the favor but not in a sixty-nine configuration because it’s “distracting.” After that, he’d turn on NPR and make breakfast—baked eggs or avocado toast or lemon ricotta pancakes. Whatever she wanted.
He put in his best offer, using most of his inheritance, and they went downstairs to share what would be their first and only meal at The Smile.
—
SIX MONTHS LATER, THE SUNDAYcrossword puzzle is blank and buried under a mound of folded newsprint. No sex in any configuration. No lemon ricotta pancakes or renovated kitchen. No Sophie. And yet, there’s fucking Sunday brunch hipster bullshit right outside his front window, like a targeted assault. Even five stories up he can hear them: otherwise sane people spending hours of their weekend huddled in the cold, waiting for their names to be shouted by a hostess. All for the privilege of waiting forty minutes for a hungover line cook to spoon under-seasoned hollandaise over a couple of badly poached eggs.
If there’s one thing Josh can’t stand, it’s an improperly poached egg.
If he’s allowed a second thing, it would be women who take new jobs in Dubai when their boyfriends are in the middle of career implosions.
The wail of the buzzer reverberates around the cavernous brick walls, shaking him out of his half-hearted Sophie reminiscence.
