Chapter Thirty-Six
Across a small table lined with bamboo steamers, Marisa has been gawking at me for the last five minutes.
She fails to acknowledge the older woman who rolls up with a cart, so I tell her in Mandarin that we’ll pass on the beef tripe.
After some time, Marisa finally lifts her chopsticks, but immediately sets them back down before blurting, “You and Parker?”
I pick up a shumai and bite into it. “Remember the Monosphere event? That was the first night.”
“First? There have been multiple instances?”
“We were sleeping together for three months.” I’d been nervous about having this conversation, but once I stammered through the initial confession, I realized the rest of it didn’t have to be as torturous.
Marisa’s perception of me has already been flipped upside down.
Giving up the details now is basically just housekeeping.
Frenzied eyes dart around the table. Then, a pair of chopsticks is pointed at me. “So, whenever you said you were working overtime at the office . . .”
“Sneaking off to his hotel.”
“This is a lot to dump on me over Saturday dim sum.” She props her elbows on the satiny white tablecloth and holds her head as if it were in danger of caving in.
“You take as long as you need to process this.”
The agreement I’d made with myself was that I’d tell her everything once Parker left New York. It would also benefit me by putting the whole thing to rest. But now, I’m not so sure what coming clean means.
“I noticed you didn’t use the word dating.”
I take a gulp of steaming pu’er tea. “It was casual.”
“That doesn’t make this any less messy.” There’s a pause, long and heavy, and I know she’s trying to determine whether to mince her words.
“I mean, sure, I’m proud of you. I’ve been saying forever that a little mindless sex would do you some good.
But I worry that you and Parker have too much history for you to come out of this unscathed. ”
How do I tell her it’s already too late for that?
It’s been three weeks since Parker left New York.
When I met him at the St. Regis for the last time, he was checking out of the hotel and returning his key cards.
A sobering moment for me to see the last three months packed up in a single suitcase and two bags.
All I could do was watch as Parker swept out of my life just as abruptly as he’d crash-landed in it. It left me feeling numb.
“Have you two talked since he left?”
“Of course. We’re still friends. He FaceTimed me the other day to show me the new air purifier he bought for his apartment. Apparently, my air quality propaganda actually works.”
Marisa blinks up from the feng zhao between her chopsticks. The chicken foot hangs dejectedly in the air, and I read her mind instantly: That’s not what I meant.
“We haven’t had a chance to have that kind of talk,” I frown at her. “We’ve both been busy with work.”
“In other words, neither of you wants to acknowledge that you can’t get your freak on when you’re three thousand miles apart.”
“You have such an elegant way with words.”
My phone lights up on the table, and I careen to take an anxious peek, but it’s a spam email. I deflate back in my chair. It’s eight a.m. in California. Parker must be at the gym getting his morning workout in.
Marisa glances between me and my phone. “You can’t be okay with not knowing. Maybe if this was some nobody off an app, but this is Parker we’re talking about. If you just leave things up in the air, then what does that mean for your relationship?”
“There’s no relationship,” I correct her.
“Look, I don’t even know when I’ll see him again.
We didn’t exactly make plans. But if this was never meant to be more than a three-month fling, then so be it.
Somehow, someway, this was always going to come to an end.
” The only variable was whether or not I’d be ready when it did.
Turns out I was not.
But I clench my teeth and chase that bad feeling away. I’d planned on telling Marisa the truth today, but it didn’t mean I was looking to be consoled just yet. I’d only recently accepted the reality check that three months of pseudo-dating wasn’t enough to change Parker’s stance on relationships.
“You’re not even going to ask him what he thinks?”
“I . . . hang on, sorry.” I take the obvious diversion as it’s handed to me—a plate of perfectly toasted egg tarts. “I’ve had my eye on this dan tat for a while now.”
Marisa spares me a disapproving sigh, but after a long sip of tea she says charitably, “Fine. Dropping it. But you know I have to ask how the sex was.”
Another cart lady chooses this moment to pull up by our table. She tries to entice us with a plate of tofu-skin rolls, and after going back and forth with Marisa, she gives up and moves along.
I wait for her to be out of earshot and lean forward. “It was like every man I’d been with before him was amateur hour, prepping me for the real thing. He showed me how they do it in the big leagues.”
Marisa grimaces. “On second thought, maybe I don’t really want to hear this.”
“I didn’t even know I could bend that way.”
“Moving on. Please.” A shudder wends through her body. “Have you heard from the new magazine yet?”
A sinking sensation pools in my gut. I suppose I have Parker to thank for sidetracking me.
Otherwise, I’d certainly be spiraling over the editor job.
When I showed up for the interview, only Alfreda from Vogue was there to receive me.
Unlike Estelle, she didn’t seem too charmed by my nervous blathering, and I couldn’t get a read on her.
It’s been a couple weeks now, and I haven’t received any news.
I poke at the abandoned dumpling in my bowl. “Nope. Moving on, please. Tell me all about the house hunt. You’ve narrowed it down by now, right?”
Success. Deflection completed. Marisa is suddenly much too excited about her own news to keep up her prying.
“Binghamton! It was right under our noses all this time. A gorgeous detached Victorian. And the best part is, I can do weekend trips to see you. Granted, it’s a three-hour drive, but that’s totally doable. ”
“Surely that’s not the best part of your future home.”
“You’re right, it’s the third bathroom.” She slides the last egg tart toward me. “I just wanted you to feel special.”