J can hear voices in the background.
“Are you still at work?” he asks.
“It’s only eight here. Of course I’m still at work.”
Male voices. There are male voices in the background.
“Is Thor there with you?”
V sighs. “No. He’s out with Meta.”
“Meta?”
“I told you about Meta. The NYU student?”
J sincerely can’t remember any NYU student being mentioned. But he doesn’t always remember everything V says when the conversations happen after midnight.
“I’m not sure you’ve told me about Meta,” he confesses.
“Well, Thor’s in love. With an NYU student. Named Meta. In her defense, her name predates Mark Zuckerberg’s appropriation of the word.”
“So she’s old-school meta, then. How’d they meet? A warehouse rave?”
“They met in the park. Thor was walking his dog, and Meta is, apparently, a sucker for mutts, so they started talking and now they’re out at Momofuku while I’m still at the office.”
J knows it’s not the point of the story, but he gets stuck on one of its secondary facts.
“Thor has a dog?” he asks.
V sighs again. “Yes. He adopted a dog from a shelter last week. He’s still trying out names, to see which one she likes best. We have a betting pool. I chose Cherry. I’m not even sure why. She just seems like a Cherry.”
“Is she a small dog or a big dog?”
“She’s a medium-size dog, but she’s still growing. Why does that matter?”
J tries to control his breathing. “V,” he says, “nobody—not even someone as cloud-headed as Thor—adopts a dog if he thinks he’s going to be moving back home in a few weeks. He’s not planning on coming back.”
This time V doesn’t sigh. But J can sense her shaking her head.
“Is this why you called? To have this conversation?”
“No! I didn’t know anything about the dog when I called. I was going to tell you about this couple that wants me to sing at their wedding. But now you’ve mentioned Thor’s dog and there’s no going back.”
“Have you been drinking?”
In his most sober tone, J says, “No, I have not been drinking. Do I sound like I’ve been drinking?”
“No. You sound tired. Go to sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“You haven’t argued my point.”
“What?”
“You haven’t said, ‘No, just because Thor’s adopted a dog, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be staying here.’”
“Do you seriously need me to say that? To prove to you that Thor’s impulsive behavior is never an indication of anything? The fact that Thor adopted a dog means that, at one singular moment, Thor wanted a dog. It’s not a part of a grand plan. Thor doesn’t have a grand plan. That’s why he has the rest of us, to turn his impulses into a grand plan.”
“And the grand plan still involves you returning here in a few weeks?”
