35. Noa
NOA
I park Ringo Carr in Aarti’s guest spot and loop too many Trader Joe’s bags around my forearms. The second I got her text inviting me over, I tore through my recipe box and landed on pierogi.
She didn’t mention a plan for dinner, so I’m hoping it’s not presumptuous to show up with groceries.
From what I’ve seen, Aarti rarely cooks for herself.
And however the meeting with Gretchen went, I’m a firm believer that homemade dumplings filled with cheesy potatoes will be the answer.
I knock on her door with my foot and as soon as she opens it, my firm belief in fried Polish food falters. She looks beyond depleted.
I let the bags fall from my arms and wrap her in a long hug.
“What is all this?” she asks from within my embrace.
“I’m making you pierogies,” I mumble into her chest, not ready to let go. I hear the little huff of laughter she lets out, long arms giving me an extra squeeze before she steps back.
“You’re incredible, Noa. Way, way too incredible.”
The way she says it makes me uneasy.
She scoops up half the grocery bags and I grab the rest, following her into the kitchen where she takes a seat at the counter.
“Uh, what does ‘way too incredible’ entail? Is that just, like, a terrifying new way of complimenting someone?” I ask as I begin unpacking ingredients to give my anxious hands something to focus on.
She chuckles but it’s halfhearted and sad. “No. I’m sorry for how that came out. You are incredible. I’m just feeling… very inadequate in comparison.”
I shake my head. “What happened? Talk to me.”
I get to work mixing the pierogi dough as Aarti relays the events of her meeting, from the whiplash of her enthusiasm about our Variety cover to the paparazzi shot from New York to the bomb-drop about Gretchen’s sexuality.
“She has a wife ?” I exclaim.
Aarti massages her temples. “I know. Quite the third-act twist.”
“Okay, so Gretch quashed the picture of us kissing, and she’s not mad about the photoshoot, so maybe we just count this all as a close call and thank our lucky Hollywood Boulevard stars that TMZ didn’t get to that photo first?”
Aarti shakes her head. “No, Noa. This isn’t just a close call we get to write off.”
I pause my kneading, dough sticky on my fingers. “What do you mean?”
“Gretchen made it clear that everything changes now. Before, there was this concept of… caution, I guess.” She laughs bitterly.
“Now it’s a mandate. No holding pinkies out of frame.
No taking you to my favorite restaurants and bumping knees under the table.
No being my date to events as ‘friends’.
Just kissing in this condo with the curtains drawn. ”
“Okay! That’s totally fine. I mean, who needs restaurants when you’re with a food scientist?” I laugh, rolling the dough with perhaps more vigor than necessary. “And sunlight is overrated. We can buy sun lamps and board up the windows for all I care!”
Aarti stares at me. “Noa–”
“No, seriously, I’m easy. A night like tonight, making you pierogies, holding hands without an audience, without worrying about other people. That’s all I need,” I reassure her.
She watches me work, expression unreadable. “You don’t have to be easy, Noa.”
“Oh, I’m not, don’t you worry. But for this, I am,” I insist, giving her hand a squeeze with my doughy one. “We’ll make it work. We have each other.”
Aarti gives me a smile for the first time tonight.
We spend the next hour preparing the pierogies together. I teach her how to stuff and seal them, and we move around one another in her kitchen with ease, as if we’ve always made dinner together.
By the time we’re sitting at her table with plates full of golden-brown dumplings topped with sour cream and chives, she seems marginally cheered.
“These are transcendent,” she says, and I can tell she means it.
“My babcia’s recipe,” I tell her. “She always said pierogies could fix anything.”
“Smart woman.”
We eat in comfortable silence, and for a moment I can almost pretend everything is normal. That we’re just two people sharing a meal, not two people negotiating the terms of our confinement.
When we’re both stuffed and groaning from carb overload, I see Aarti stifle a yawn.
“I should go,” I say, standing to clear our plates. “You need to sleep all this off, and I need to get up early to work on the flavor.”
Aarti walks me to her front door. I pull it open, then turn back for a goodnight kiss.
She pulls me back in, away from prying eyes, and pushes the door shut.
She presses me against it, kissing me like she’s trying to make up for every kiss we won’t be able to have in public.
Her hands frame my face, fingers tangling in my curls, and when we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“Goodnight,” she whispers against my lips.
“Goodnight.”
She reaches around me for the handle, opens the door just enough for me to slip through, and then I’m in the hallway, door locked behind me.