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Chapter one
“CouldIgetthechicken fingers please?” Lainey’s boyfriend, Josh, requested. He closed his menu and handed it to the waitress, who smiled brightly and nodded. She placed the menu under her arm deftly, her writing pad poised in her other hand.
“And for you?” she asked, turning to face Lainey. Lainey, who had been drinking a mimosa, tried to swallow her sip quickly. She coughed a bit as some aspirated in her throat and pointed to her selection.
“Bagels and lox, please,” she said, her lips pressed together in a flat smile, and passed her menu over as well.
“Great choice! One of my favorites,” the waitress chirped.
“Right? Can’t go wrong with smoked salmon.”
“No, you cannot. All right, you guys, I’ll go ahead and get these orders in, and I’ll check on you in a bit to see if you need any refills.” She twisted on her heel and awkwardly shuffled away, stuffing her pad into her apron pocket.
“Did you really just order chicken fingers at this place?” Lainey asked Josh, laughing.
He sipped his soda from a straw, his eyes raising to meet hers from under his eyebrows. “Yeah, and?” He had that defiant look in his eyes, the one he got when he felt attacked. Lainey usually tried to refrain from asking questions that could be interpreted as on the offensive, but sometimes, like right now, he seemed to be on a permanent ledge, making it difficult.
“Josh, that was on the kid’s menu,” she chided, her voice laced with more than a hint of annoyance in return. She hated when he got like this and pulled her into a fight that she hadn’t tried to ignite.
“Okay? It’s not like the kid’s menu is literally for only kids.”
“Is it not? Are the words ‘kid’s menu’ for decoration?”
“They must be because they let me order off it.”
“Well, sure, because they’re not going to argue with a grown man over chicken fingers.”
Josh set his jaw, and she saw his tongue lick along the top of his gumline under his lip. “I can eat what I want.” A dribble of soda fell onto his shirt, and he swiped at it with his hand, succeeding only in smearing it into a wider dot.
“I mean, sure you can, as in it’s not illegal, but it’s embarrassing. You’re not a kid, and this is a classy place.” Lainey dabbed a napkin into her water and handed it to him, but Josh ignored it, cocking his head and staring at her with those beautiful blue eyes that usually made her forgive anything he did. So many things—leaving wet towels on the floor, forgetting to turn the lights off when he left the room, using a politically incorrect term in polite company—were forgiven in the name of blue eyes.
“Classy?” Josh scoffed. “Just because a place is expensive doesn’t make it classy.”
“Fine, nice then. It’s a nice place.” Lainey felt herself turning her knees away from him. She was acutely aware of her body language, the betrayal she felt that she couldn’t control it. She desperately wanted to reel this conversation back into something that resembled a celebration again. She forced herself to turn her feet toward him. She reached for his hand, and when he pulled it away, she sucked on her cheeks. Through gritted teeth, she said, “It’s a nice place, and I just want to have a nice time.”
“That’s just it, though, Lainey. It’s not. You came here for the bottomless mimosas.” He laughed bitterly. “Everyone did. What’s classy or nice about day drinking?” The volume of his voice was rising. “Just because they gave it a fancy name and called it brunch, that makes it, like, so much more acceptable than eating chicken fingers?” He put his head in his hands, looking down at the table while he held the brim of his cap over his eyes.
“I think it’s more that mimosas are for adults, and you’re a grown man eating off the kid’s menu,” she snapped back, giving in. She hated herself when she did this. She knew this was what he wanted. If she gave in and had an emotional reaction to his attitude, he felt a sense of accomplishment, she knew. But he was winning, so she added with a hiss, “Because you’re afraid of change.”
He had been poised to strike, ready for that statement. “I am not afraid of change just because I stick to things I like, and there is no age limit on chicken. It’s just marketing to get you to order more expensive shit because of peer pressure or embarrassment or something.”
“Well, it totally worked because I’m. Embarrassed.” Lainey’s head swiveled in a way she knew was condescending as she clipped the last two words.
Josh blinked at her exaggeratedly. “Okay,” he said slowly, emphasizing each syllable, “but Lainey, and I want you to seriously think about this, what gives you the right to be embarrassed of me?”
“The right? It’s just a feeling. I have the right to feelings.”
“No.” His volume continued climbing upward. Lainey looked around to see if anyone had noticed and found that they had. Furtive glances were being thrown her way with forks poised above meals. “You have the right to be embarrassed of something you do or say. You don’t get to be embarrassed of me. Because you’re not better than me, Lainey. You get that, right? What if I said I was embarrassed that you decided to get drunk at two p.m.?”
“You basically did.”
“No, I said it’s not, like, fucking classy to get drunk at two p.m., but I didn’t say it embarrassed me. Because I don't wake up thinking about how to be classy, and I don’t load all my self-worth onto what a bunch of strangers at a restaurant think of me. We’re on Broadway Avenue, you get that, right? Like, I’m sure if we turned a corner, there’s someone vomiting in an alley right now.”
“Okay, so that means we can’t just have one nice meal? Pretend we’re classy?”
“I’m just trying to eat ‘brunch,’ not impress you or anyone else here.”
“Great. Well, as long as you know no one’s impressed.”
