Page 79 of Bad Words

“Thank you for more months of existential panic over my career.”

“Please. You’re an artist, Parker. If I weren’t the source of existential panic, you’d find it somewhere else.”

“Did you just call me an artist?”

“Yes. But in a pejorative way, not a validating way.”

He’d begun to smile. “You can’t do that in person. You can’t, like, edit your tone after the fact. I heard you.”

My lips were drawing outward, too, betraying me. “Fine. Yes. I don’t think you’re a complete hack.” I sipped my sake. “What would you rate the year?”

“I wouldn’t. Unlike some people, I’m not really into reductive judgments.”

I caught my laugh in my throat.

“What was that?” He turned his ear toward me. “Did I just hear—”

“You didn’t hear anything.”

“Sure. Sure.”

A weird silence elapsed. We both drank. I watched his left hand dip into the pocket of his jeans. He wore a silver ring on his fifth finger.

“So,” I said. “Do you have New Year’s resolutions?”

“Yeah. I do.” His lips hovered over the rim of his glass. “I’m guessing you think New Year’s resolutions are trite and meaningless?”

“Mostly. And I’m guessing you make little edits to your New Year’s resolution based on who you’re talking to?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Wow.”

“Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.”

“No, I … Yeah. I don’t know what it is with you.”

Our gazes brushed and I became aware of how close we were standing. My heels brought me onto his eye level. I could have been looking into a mirror. He had shadows under his eyes; a smile line was drawn down into his left cheek like a sculptor had taken the tip of a pencil and traced it gently onto clay.

At the same moment we looked back out at the city. Behind us, the party clinked and laughed, underscored by a looping orchestral sample and a deep bass thump. Across the river, the lights glimmered.

“I always wanted to live here,” Parker said. “Like, so much that it almost feels childish to actually do it.”

I looked over at his light-lined profile and for an instant saw through to someone younger. A confusing mishmash of images followed. The hillside he’d told me he walked in Daly City, south of San Francisco, where he’d grown up. The hammock he’d mentioned in his bedroom.

He gave me a guarded glance. “What?”

I shrugged and looked back at the skyline. “I came here when I was eighteen and assumed the city would fix all my problems. Childish, too.”

Slowly, Parker’s shoulders loosened. “Teenage Selina Chan’s problems.” He spoke quietly, but his voice pierced the noise of the party. “My imagination’s failing me here.”

I half smiled, my eyes still fixed across the river. “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”

“Write at least half of the next book.”

“You’re working on something new.”

“Yeah.” Parker leaned against the wall. “I actually—”

He cut himself off.