Page 69 of Bad Words

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 26, 11:00 PM

Re: Kavan Retrospective

34, Columbia, 5’9”. Next.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 26, 11:01 PM Re: Kavan Retrospective

I think I’m starting to understand. These late-night emails are a ploy to get more information out of me, which you’ll use to write a sequel to your fanfiction.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 26, 11:02 PM

Re: Kavan Retrospective

Pretty sure I’d have an easier time heisting information out of a bank vault.

I put down my phone, fighting off a smile. There was nothing to smile about. We were two bored people snowed into a city at a standstill while our friends and family were off enjoying their vacations. That was the only reason I would ever spend time emailing Parker Navarro, and the only reason he would email me.

Still, he presented an unexpectedly entertaining distraction. With City closed until the New Year, my social life had made its usual December transition from “quiet” to “borderline nonexistent.” Yesterday morning, I’d exchanged all of six texts with my cousins—Merry Christmas! Hope you’re surviving the blizzard! et cetera—before Peter and Amanda had made a polite exit, and I’d gone back to scrolling through a list of 100 Christmas Movies to Watch Before You Die.

Later in the day, arriving home from Rockefeller Center with my ice skates knotted over my arm, I’d had a short video call from Cassie. She and Jacob were sweet to make time, considering the scope of their family retreat. During the FaceTime, I’d seen an entire platoon of seven-to-ten-year-old nieces and nephews tearing past the rental chalet’s enormous stone fireplace, whooping, pursued by a pair of rippling basset hounds.

In that instant, as I’d watched the six-inch blur of color in the palm of my hand, a small part of me had wished I was in Vermont with them, although I’d never admit to the feeling. I already suspected my friendship with Jacob and Cassie could be described as codependent. Presumably they wouldn’t have done things like call on Christmas if I weren’t estranged from my parents.

Six texts, then, and a ten-minute video call. Besides these interactions, I’d had no human contact since Juliette’s event. So maybe it was this social quiet that had me mulling email topics to Parker Navarro the next day, while I stood, motionless, in the hardware store, contemplating shades of ivory paint for my apartment’s trim. I composed and rewrote sentences in my mind as I passed through the self-checkout and walked home. As I took the elevator up to my unit, a series of images came to me of Parker in some hypermodern apartment up in Greenpoint. Emailing me while he depressed the lever of his kettle. Reclining on some leather sofa. Sitting by the window, looking out, thinking about what to write.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 27, 12:38 PM Re: Kavan Retrospective

So, here’s something I wondered as I read These Extraordinary Times. Did the section about oyster-diving near the end originate as a short story?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 27, 12:40 PM Re: Kavan Retrospective

No. What made you think it did?

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Sent: Dec 27, 12:44 PM Re: Kavan Retrospective

To be honest, I thought the section would have made a good short story.