Page 36 of So Thirsty

I’m rambling. Whatever. Killing time. Just killing time. Just talking. Nothing else is happening here. Or going to happen. He’s strange and arrogant and I’m married. I look over at him, and he looks back at me.

I really like the way he looks at me.

“Is there a name you think would better suit you?” he asks with such genuine interest, I regret not having kissed him already.

When was the last time anyone made a genuine attempt to know me? Beyond the checklist of basics. When was the last time anyone made any effort to gain insight into my interiors?

This is wrong. This is bad.

This is platonic. It has to be.

“That’s a good question,” I tell him. “Maybe something simple and old-fashioned.”

“Like…?”

“Hmm. Like…Eleanor. Or Esther.”

He laughs his giant-nerd laugh, snorting at the end. “You are not an Esther.”

“Not now. But I could be. If I chose to be. Like you chose to be Henry.”

“I suppose names are only part of our identities. Not all of them.”

“They’re foundational.”

His lips pull to the side, brows sink as he thinks. “Did finding out my name change your opinion of me?”

My turn to think. “Yes. But every new thing you learn about someone influences your opinion of them.”

“Do you form strong opinions of people?”

“Generally, yes. Do you?”

He nods. “Most people are predictable. I observe them, come to my conclusions, and give them the opportunity to prove me wrong, and they never do.”

“Never?” I shift in my chair. I wish it were closer to his. We’re separated by the coffee table, a valley between us.

“Very rarely.”

“Have I proven you wrong?”

“No,” he says, wearing a smile I haven’t seen before. “You bewilder me.”

My cheeks sizzle; I’m blushing so hard, I can likely be seen from space.

“That’s why I brought you up here. Tried to engage you in playground games. You’re an enigma. I can’t quite figure you out.”

I open my mouth to dispute him. Tell him I’m not an enigma. I’m ordinary. My life is tedious at best, sad at worst. I take an Epsom-salt bath every Tuesday night while listening to true-crime podcasts. I vacuum and do laundry on Saturday mornings, then go to Wegmans around noon, where I buy the same things every week, maybe switch up the flavor of seltzer. I batch cook Bolognese sauce once a month. I stare at the soup recipe that’s been saved to my desktop for two years and I know I’ll never make but for some reason won’t delete. I waste hours researching eye creams. I call Naomi. I call my parents, FaceTime my brother maybe once every couple of months. I keep in touch with friends who live far away via text, and sometimes I get coffee with acquaintances who live nearby, but it’s always surface level. When anyone asks me what’s new, the answer is always Nothing.

I work remotely as a project manager for a food distributor, and once a quarter I fly to Chicago to go into the office and see my coworkers face-to-face, and we’ll go out to dinner and I’ll walk back to the hotel afterward, mellowed from exactly two glasses of wine, and I’ll stop in a 7-Eleven for an electrolyte drink so that I’m not at all hungover in the morning.

Joel and I go for hikes in the summer, to the movies when it’s cold. We go to the local diner, where we talk about finances or retirement or things we need to do around the house. He goes to the gym, goes out with friends, goes out. Travels for work. I stay home, and I read, and I cook, and I bake, and I garden, and I clean, and I watch TV, and I breathe. That’s all I do. Breathe.

But Henry doesn’t need to know any of that. We agreed to be honest, but I can be honest without telling the whole truth. Why not give him his mystery?

I say nothing.

He stands up and slowly comes toward me. The way he moves, the way he walks…he has this supernatural grace.