Ren and my dad are next to us, discussing an upcoming golf tournament.
My mom frowns as she examines me. “You look exhausted,” she says.
“Just what every girl loves to hear,” I say, lifting my glass toward her.
“You’re still beautiful even when you’re tired,” she says. “But what’s going on? You never answer my calls. Maybe I can help.”
“I don’t know, how about I flew across the country this morning?” I take another sip, trying hard to pivot in a lighter direction. “And, might I remind you, we are a family prone to dark circles. It’s genetic. I look like this whether I’m sleeping or not!” I don’t mean it to sound hysterical, but it nearly does, wine sloshing against the sides of my glass as I gesture with it.
My mom peers at me in that therapist way of hers. “Honey. What if you took some time off? Come home for a while.”
I set my glass back on the bar, dig my fingers against the base of it. “I don’t want to take time off, Mom,” I say, choosing my words carefully. If I say too much, she’ll find something to latch on to,some way to make this a therapy session. One day I’ll think I’ve demonstrated that I’m fine, through college or my job or my move to New York, and suddenly she’ll be here, telling me I should come home because my under-eye circles look bad.
“Did you tell Stevie the same thing?” I ask, picking up my glass again. My mom casts me a confused look. “She’s overwhelmed with her summer classes. Did you tell her she should take some time off?”
“Grad school is different,” my mom says. “Stevieis different.”
I take a sip of my wine. Just because Stevie isn’t an anxious person, doesn’t mean she’s somehow more capable of taking care of herself than me. This is why I avoid my mom’s calls when I’m feeling stressed. Why I tend not to confide in her. Her worries just multiply mine.
I want to ask her to stop, to just talk to me like she talks to Stevie, but before I can say anything, Charlene is pushing through the crowd, calling my parents’ names.
My dad’s younger sister, Charlene, has always been one of my favorite relatives. With a booming voice that carries across the room, she’s been a river guide, a substitute teacher, drove a Zamboni at an ice rink, and now works at the information desk at a library, arguably her least physically demanding job and yet the one where she somehow managed to break one of the tiny bones in her foot dropping a hefty Sherlock Holmes volume on it, which led to her meeting and falling in love with her podiatrist.
When I reintroduce her to Ren, she hugs him. “As if I could forget that face,” she mutters to me after she’s let him go and pivoted to me. “Is he still single?”
“Nope,” I say, eyeing Ren as he angles away behind her, quickly checking his phone before he pockets it again. “Happily coupled. As am I.”
“Pity,” Charlene says. My brow creases, but she’s moving on to my parents, asking them to come say hi to Mavis’s parents.
When I turn back to Ren, he’s already looking at me.
“Yes?” I say after he’s watched me in silence for a minute. I scrub the back of my hand at the tip of my nose. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” he says, reaching up to lower my hand. “Just—” He tapers off, head tilting toward one shoulder. “Areyou tired?”
“Oh my god.” I slap both my hands on the bar. “Please. My mother is enough.”
“I’m not asking like your mother,” he says, bending his way into my line of vision. “Youhavebeen texting me at one in the morning a lot.”
“Why are you up at 1:00 a.m. to be texted?”
“You see, there are these things called time zones?” he says.
I knock his shoulder, roll my eyes as a smile creeps over my face, grateful that he seems to be coming back, engaging with me again.
“I’m also a bartender,” he says. “Ten o’ clock is when things slow down.” He leans in, arm pressing against mine, the warmth of it settling me. “But youusedto be asleep by that time. At least on weekdays.”
I rotate my glass in a circle of condensation. “I’m really okay,” I say. “Work’s just—”Never not busy, I want to say, but other people manage to leave at semireasonable hours. I’ve just felt like I’ve had to prove myself since I moved to New York. Like I need to show Ramona and the studio heads that I deserve my spot there, and maybe a better one; like I need to show everyone I can do this, that I’m not some fragile being that’s going to break at the smallest thing.
“There’s this movie,” I say. I lift a hand as if to erase that. It’s not actually a movie yet. It’s just an idea a few of us have been throwing around, and we need someone who’s actually in a management position to pitch it. “I’ve told you about it.”
Ren’s brow furrows, like he’s trying to remember. I scramble—haveI told him about the movie? Why I’m working late every night and pushing myself even harder than I usually do? I’m sure I have.
“It’s not—” I say, but have to take a sip of wine when my voice comes out hoarse at the prospect that Ren doesn’t seem to recall what feels like the biggest thing in my life right now. “It’s just this project I’m excited about.”
“No, I remember,” Ren says, but his vague smile is distracted, far-off. “Just promise me you’ll try to get some sleep now and again, okay?”
“I will,” I say, but as Ren glances away again, back toward the room, I don’t feel better. The terrible thought that this weekend is him fulfilling some kind of obligation runs through my head. That maybe it isn’t just work and Amanda. Maybe our friendship really isn’t what it was before.
