Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
Ash
I couldn’t get home soon enough that night if I tried. It was 7 p.m. when I’d finally finished work. I arrived back at my apartment building and, instead of going to my place, knocked on my neighbor’s door. Anushka opened for me.
“Long day?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Come in. Ayaan is about to dish up dinner, if you want some. Nothing fancy.”
“Oooh, would love some,” I said quickly, knowing that “nothing fancy” actually meant “really fancy,” since they were both such foodies. I walked in and Petal came running up to me meowing, rubbing up against my legs. I bent down and picked her up.
“Baby girl, how was your day?” I asked rhetorically as I gave her some head kisses.
I was so grateful that Anushka and Ayaan loved Petal as much as I did and allowed her in their home. Well, they didn’t have a choice in the matter, really. Very early on, Petal had figured out how to move from my balcony to theirs and back again. I’d found Petal on the side of the road and had brought her home. I’d taken her to the vet and told myself I would hand her over to the SPCA when she was well enough. With my lifestyle, out all day, often away on shoots, it would be cruel to keep a cat. But when I mentioned I was handing Petal over to the SPCA , Ayaan and Anushka were having none of it. Petal had already wormed her way into their hearts, and that’s how she had become a kind of sharing cat between neighbors. They had her during the day and during my shoots, and I got to cuddle with her at night. Everyone won. Especially Petal, who got more love from more people than any animal I know.
I sat down at their dining-room table and Petal jumped onto my lap to cuddle.
“How was your guys’ day?” I asked. Anushka and Ayaan both worked from home running a growing online jewelry company. They had met in college where they’d both studied jewelry design.
“Cool! We have to show you what this client wants us to make as an engagement ring.” Anushka jumped up and raced into their home workshop, emerging moments later with a printed drawing. I took it from her and then turned it this way and that until I figured out what I was looking at.
“Wait, is that Darth Vader?”
“Made of black diamonds.”
“A black diamond Darth Vader,” I mused.
“They love Star Wars. Apparently, they met at a Star Wars convention.” Ayaan walked up to the table and began laying bowls out.
“That’s really cute,” I said, feeling a little twinge of jealousy. I’d grown up being the biggest romantic. I’d had these huge romantic plans and notions for my future and since the age of ten knew exactly what I wanted my wedding to look like. Sometimes, I think that my younger self’s expectations had been set way too high. Teenage me had been na?ve, way too idealistic when it came to matters of the heart, not to mention matters of that organ somewhat south of the heart. But, despite all the bad sex and bad dates, I still wanted that. I wanted someone to get down on one knee and present me with a black diamond Darth Vader ring because they were so in love with me and knew me so, so well that they knew that giving me a Darth Vader ring would be an absolute dream come true and that I would look down at that ring every single day and know how loved and special I was. Well, I wanted my version of a Darth Vader ring anyway, which in my case would probably be a block of yellow diamond cheese.
“Do you get yellow diamonds?” I heard myself asking out loud as I imagined this block of shiny cheese on my finger.
“You do, but they are very, very rare,” Ayaan said.
“Huh,” I said thoughtfully, imagining how awful a cheese ring would look, but simultaneously feeling that the sentiment would be so incredibly sweet. I sighed and popped a piece of salmon into my mouth.
“Mmmm, this is amazing,” I moaned.
“I added ponzu sauce in today,” Ayaan said.
“Oh my God, ponzu sauce for the win,” I said, and then passed Petal a little bit of salmon.
“And you? What’s new this week?” Anushka asked.
“Same-same, really. A lot happening at work and I had the most awful date last night, so nothing new.”
“Have you ever thought of going on a dating detox?” Anushka asked. “A friend of mine who’s also been having the worst time dating, going from one crappy relationship that lasted five minutes to another one, decided to actively not date for an entire year. No dating, no flirting, no sex, nothing. She went totally cold turkey.”
“And?” I asked, somewhat intrigued by the suggestion.
“Well, I guess it worked, because she’s now happily engaged.”
“Really?” I leaned over the table.
“Yeah, she said it was really good for her. She needed to break the destructive cycle she was in. She did a lot of work on herself too, read self-help books, went to a therapist, took herself out on dates and took up hobbies, like pottery.” Anushka pointed at a large and strange-looking vase behind her. “I didn’t say she was good at pottery,” she quickly said when she caught me smiling. “And she also did a lot of yoga to quell her sexual frustration so at the end of the year she also looked amazing. And supple. Seriously, she can put her leg behind her head.” Anushka raised her brows up and down at me, in case I didn’t know what she was getting at.
“Huh.” I mused on this notion for a while. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe a detox was just what I needed to reset everything. I’d never really tried one, not properly anyway. I’d sworn many times over the years that I was giving up on dating and men, but that had never really stuck. I’d never consciously tried to be single for a while. I was always actively dating or looking for a date—trying to break the damn curse—even if I was just sitting on my couch swiping left and right.
“I’ll definitely think about that,” I said thoughtfully, wondering if my pottery would look better than hers and what kind of dates I could take myself on. The yoga I wouldn’t need—I had Roger for that.