Chapter 27
Gen said that she had something for her.
Could Emily meet up? Gen suggested a new place near Emily’s apartment called Eat Me / Drink Me.
Emily arrived early to find that the restaurant was very New York: a visual brag, from the twining vine wallpaper to chandeliers flickering pink above an empty dance floor.
The tables were crowded. A Cheshire cat had been painted on a photo booth near the bar—photo booths, Emily guessed, were a trend that year.
She recalled the black-and-white photos of herself taken on the day she had met Gen at the diner.
She had hidden the strip of photos in a book.
She would occasionally examine the strip, then tuck it carefully back between the pages as if it had been sleeping and she was sorry to wake it.
Emily stood with a cluster of people by the host. It would be an hour-long wait for a table.
Gen brought the cold with her: a whoosh from the opened door.
Instead of saying hello, she touched cold fingers to Emily’s cheek.
Then Gen slid past to talk with the host, who, after their indistinct conversation, told Emily that two seats at the bar had just opened up.
Emily resisted the urge to press her hand against her cheek, which tingled as though slapped.
“I didn’t know what a zoo this would be,” Gen said as they sat at the bar.
“Paul recommended it. He’s a foodie and to be honest I stop listening when people describe what they had to eat.
It’s like listening to someone narrate a dream.
I can’t enter the experience. So all I really absorbed was that he loves it here—which he would, he is such a maximalist—and that it’s close to where you live.
” Gen looked at the menu. The dishes were named after cards.
“I should get the King of Hearts. Right? It’s so me. ”
“Not the Ace?”
“Well, we don’t have to announce it. Let me be a little incognito.”
“I notice that you magicked us to the front of the line.”
“I called ahead.”
“And gave them your full name.”
“Was I supposed to give a fake one?”
“Your ‘off-season’ theory of fame doesn’t really hold. Or you have misrepresented things.”
“I was speaking relatively . Relatively, for now, I’m easy to ignore.”
“Hmm.” Easy to ignore had never been one of Gen’s main attributes and it certainly wasn’t now. Gen’s eyes were even darker than usual in the low light from the bar.
“What?”
“Never mind. You said you had something for me?”
Gen gave her a yielding, butcher-paper-wrapped package that had been tucked inside her coat. “From Gran.”
It was a crocheted green hat with a matching scarf. Emily rested her hands on the soft pile. She started to speak, swallowed, and then said, “This is so nice.”
“She’s glad we met up again.”
“She said that?”
“Not quite those words.”
“What words?”
“Will you try them on? She chose green to match your eyes.”
Emily touched the scarf around her neck. “She remembered.”
Gen was quiet, then said, neutrally, “The color is very memorable.”
“Tell her thank you.”
“Can we take a photo? She’d like that.”
Emily took out her phone.
“No, I want to mail it,” Gen said. “She likes real mail.” They ordered food, left their coats on the barstools, and went into the photo booth.
Emily considered saying that she’d taken her own photo that day at the diner, and why, but when Gen pulled the curtain shut and moved to sit next to Emily, fitting snugly against her, Emily lost her breath.
Gen slung an arm over Emily’s shoulders.
Instead of facing forward, Emily turned to look at Gen’s sharp profile.
Despite Gen’s chummy posture, her expression was unsmiling. The camera flashed.
Outside the booth, Gen took the photo strip and watched it develop. The restaurant was loud. “How do we look?” Emily said.
Gen muttered something.
“What?”
“We look like good friends,” Gen said shortly. She folded the strip and tucked it into her shirt pocket. “We didn’t order drinks. Do you want a drink? I want a drink.”
At the bar, Gen asked, “Where’ve you been lately?”
“Here.” Gen had been the one traveling. Soon after her return from Ohio for the holidays, Gen had gone to Arizona for a 1500-meter race, less to win the purse—which she won—than for the competition practice. “I’ve been around.”
“I meant I haven’t heard from you much.”
“Oh. I’ve been writing.” Emily described the project as Gen drank her gin and tonic. The music grew louder. “You know how something feels all-consuming when it’s new?”
Gen set down her glass. “Yeah.”
“It’s been like that. Except this idea isn’t entirely new. I wrote a version of it before.”
“Why are you writing another version?”
“The other one was a sort-of fresh copy of someone else’s story.
This time, I want to make it mine. Unusual.
Voice-y. Less like a plot, more like a memoir.
I guess I’m saying that I want to write the memoir of a god.
Which sounds arrogant. But not boring. Not what’s already been done. Anyway, the first manuscript is gone.”
Some people moved to the dance floor. Seats cleared at the bar.
“Gone, how?” said Gen.
“Jack took it.”
“What?”
“He destroyed it.”
“Wait.” Gen held up one flat hand. “When did this happen?”
“When Connor was a baby.”
“Before Stella was born?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“I know what you think you see, but it’s more complicated than that.”
“It really isn’t.” Gen caught the bartender’s eye. “Can I have another?”
“You don’t get to drop into my life after fifteen years and act like you understand everything.”
Gen finally looked at her. “I understand nothing.”
“Then let me explain.”
“?‘Be careful.’ That’s what Gran said. She told me to be careful.”
Emily felt as though the barstool was no longer solid beneath her—like one of its legs had a slightly different length than the others or that there was a dip in the floor.
“I don’t need to hear the rest of this story,” said Gen. “You might want to tell me. You might want to explain how your husband took something important from you and you went back to him and had another child with him, but it’s not good for me to hear.”
“Can I have this seat?” a man asked Emily, pointing at the free stool next to her.
“Sure,” she said, impatient. To Gen, she said, “Then what would you like to discuss? Your pathological need to date and discard women?”
“So,” the man said to Emily, “how come you’re wearing a hat indoors? Is it a fashion thing, or are you cold?”
Emily pulled the hat from her head.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You were adorable. I liked the pom-pom. Can I buy you a drink?”
“No.”
“We’re having a conversation,” Gen told him.
The man noticed her for the first time. “You look familiar.”
“I’m not.”
“Do I know you?”
“You don’t.”
“Maybe a dance?” the man asked Emily.
“Classic,” Gen said with a flick of the hand that paintbrushed the space between the man and Emily.
The word could have labeled only the man were it not for the disdainful gesture.
Emily, too, it seemed, was classic. Conclusions had been reached.
Verdicts delivered. Emily thought about how the largest number in ancient Greek was a hundred million, or myriad myriad, which was written as a double Mu with an overbar: MM .
Gen had a way of making Emily feel like the highest known number, a peak of great intensity.
Gen could say one word— classic —and it was as though she had scratched an overbar above Emily.
She was too angry to speak. She grabbed her things, flung on her coat, and stuffed the green hat into her pocket.
Gen dropped a pile of cash in front of the bartender, but Emily didn’t wait for her to settle the bill.
She pushed through the crowd. Walking into the cold of the street was like walking into a wall.
“Hey! Wait!”
Emily quickened her pace, but of course it was easy for Gen to catch up. She wasn’t even out of breath. This made Emily angrier. “Go away.”
“Why’d you leave? Why did you say that about me? You think I’m some dick who brags about her conquests?”
“ You say it. You think that. You talk that way about yourself all the time.”
“As a joke!”
“And ‘classic’? Was that the same kind of joke, the kind you actually mean?”
“That guy? Don’t defend him. He was classic, and yeah, not in a good way. He was a straight cliché.” Gen weaved around a group of NYU students waiting in line to get dosas. “Won’t take no for an answer. Oblivious to anything but what he wants.”
“You meant me, too.”
“What? No.”
“You think I’m a straight cliché, too.”
“I don’t think you’re like him.”
“What are you doing, Gen?”
“I’m walking you home.”
“What are you doing with me ? You’re playing some game. You say you want to be friends, then avoid me. You shut down conversations. You act like I have more in common with a random idiot than I do with you. You’re being a brat.”
“A brat!”
They entered Washington Square Park, where the dead fountain was empty of water. Trees were scribbles against the night.
“Listen,” said Gen, “I do not think you’re a straight cliché.”
“I wasn’t gay enough for you even when we dated.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“You make it into one.”
“To tell the truth, you’re a bit of a princess.
You are! Like, yes, of course if we go out, a man will hit on you.
It is classic. And yes, it is classic you.
People want to get close to you. All the fucking time.
They want you to like them. It’s not even just because you’re beautiful.
You’re smart and kind and secretly weird.
So they teach you poker. They take your side.
They give you things. My gran gives you things.
You need a place to live and it just so happens a friend has a free apartment. ”
“I pay for it now. You advised me to take it.”
“Well, you do the princess thing to me, too.”
“I’m not doing anything to you. I never asked you for anything.”