Chapter Six
What does it say about Ravi that what he’s most excited for on a Saturday night is an email from a client? He’d go out, but a week ago he was brushing arms with a hot guy on the Rontoms patio, and look where that had gotten him.
So here he is, after an evening of losing two out of five Connect Four games, sitting on the guest bed on top of the covers in a still scantly lived-in room, staring at his phone.
Since Wednesday, the Not Work Thread has been left untouched, though the exchanges about the website (now live) have been friendlier.
Or, at least they’ve felt friendlier to him in his head as he’s written them.
Elle has always been friendly, so it’s sort of hard for him to tell.
But he wants to talk to her again, and so after a good five minutes of internal debate, he sends her a picture of the plant he bought today: something called a “String of Turtles” in a tiny terra-cotta pot.
He captions it FINALLY GETTING AROUND TO DECORATING.
And now, pathetically, he’s waiting for her to respond.
Just as he’s convincing himself she must have something better to do on a Saturday night than talk to him, he gets the notification.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
Omg a plant that looks like turtles?? I bet your niece loved that. Tbh I am almost influenced, but my room is where plants go to die. I think I have a red thumb. When my roommate goes out of town, I text him daily to make sure that I’m watering his correctly.
Are you a plant person, or is this your first?
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Color wheel joke. Nice.
And, yeah, Mia loved it. I had to stop her from plucking a leaf off in her excitement.
I am, but more outdoor plants than houseplants. My old apartment had a shared rooftop space, and I had a garden bed there. Inside, I only ever had easy ones like snake plants and pothos. But it’s not gardening season now, and I figured I should put something that’s actually mine in here.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
Thought you’d appreciate it:)
Well, if it’s your first one in your new home, you definitely have to name it! Entirely up to you, but I would like to throw the cutest Pokémon into the ring.
What are your other plans for the space? I feel like you must be pretty good at decorating, since you’re a designer.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Snorlax? Not sure it fits. Too tiny.
Entirely different skillset. Maybe it helped with the art on my walls, but I never got the furniture to feel cohesive.
I panic-sold almost all of it on Facebook Marketplace before I moved in with Suresh, anyway.
I’m in what was his and Margot’s guest room, so everything is sort of blank, and I’m not sure how to build around it, I guess.
I get the sense that you’re someone who’d like decorating?
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
OBVIOUSLY I am talking about Squirtle. And then when you repot it, it can be Wartortle. And then Blastoise. Snorlax is third-cutest, after Bulbasaur.
Yeah, it’s one of my favorite things. I love going to consignment shops and looking at furniture and art and knickknacks, and, inevitably, some of it comes home with me.
I do have to force myself to dial it back sometimes, though.
If every piece is unique and elaborate, it can look more chaotic than eclectic if you’re not careful.
Maybe it’s good that you’ve got a plain base. You can go overboard everywhere else. Or, if that’s not your style, you could think about going back to Facebook Marketplace to switch some things out. Or even just get a new duvet—in a bedroom, that can make all the difference.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Squirtle it is. You seem to know a lot about Pokémon. Did you play as a kid?
That’s a nice way to look at it. Maybe I’ll take Mia on a walk to some stores so I can get some knickknacks of my own.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
Lonely only child, remember? Although I’m not sure I ever played the actual game.
I collected cards based on 1. creature cuteness and 2.
card aesthetics, and then I’d make them talk to each other like Barbies or action figures.
I think at one point, Snorlax and Meowth got married.
I had a holographic one that was my absolute favorite, but I never took it out of the plastic sleeve because the texture of the shiny part made my teeth itch.
I bet my dad and Pops still have a binder of them somewhere. Did you play?
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Everything I know about it comes from my one summer of Pokémon Go. Once I caught a Snorlax, I called it quits.
A few minutes pass with no response from Elle. It’s Saturday night. She’s probably gone out with friends or is having a night in with her partner. Ravi’s lucky she responded at all.
He runs his fingers through his hair as he rereads their last two messages, not yet ready to resign himself to another night of FIFA alone.
Elle is so funny and forthright, and he cringes at his own stilted responses.
Especially that last one, where he’s failed to ask her any questions.
Of course she has nothing more to say to him; he hasn’t given her the option.
Ravi pulls up the thread again, meaning to type another question about Pokémon, but he really has exhausted all his available knowledge. Instead, he writes a simple What are you up to right now? and presses send before he can reconsider.
It’s not much, but it does the job: A new notification comes not two minutes later.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
I am having a “me night,” which means I took a bath instead of a shower and now I’m in a fluffy bathrobe rewatching Bridgerton Season 2 by myself in my room. And talking to you, of course.
What about you?
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Just talking to you, honestly. Might play FIFA later. Thrilling, I know.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
Well, my Saturday night isn’t exactly raucous, either.
Is that why you sent me a picture of Squirtle? You were bored?
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Kinda? I don’t know. I just haven’t really had much of a social life since moving in with my brother and Mia. And I really liked talking to you on Wednesday. I’m not sure if that makes sense.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
It does. Lonely only child, remember?
Ravi stares at the message, blinking. Yeah, he’s lonely. Christ is he lonely. He has so little time to himself now, only these evenings after Mia and Suresh have gone to bed, and he feels hollow with the loneliness sometimes.
He hasn’t told any of his friends in New York about the move, because he knows they won’t understand why he did it.
Or worse, they’ll look at him with pity.
He’s kept in touch with one friend from childhood, Andre.
But Andre has a wife and kids of his own and isn’t a particularly emotional person.
When Ravi came out to him over a winter break during university, he’d said, “Weys, das cool,” and the two of them had gone back to playing FIFA.
It could have gone much, much worse, but it also wasn’t an invitation for anything more.
There was relief, then disappointment. Because who could Ravi tell about this if not Andre?
Then again, Andre had been the only Dougla person in their graduation year at their mostly Indian school, and he’d never once talked to Ravi about that, either.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
Still?
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
I think maybe it’ll always be a part of me. Also, making friends as an adult is so fucking difficult. Which is why I basically haven’t.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread
I’m surprised you feel that way. I agree, but you seem like you could talk to anybody. I’m not good at that. Every friend I’ve ever made approached me first, and now I’m not really meeting anybody my age.
To: Kevin Kisson
RE: Not Work Thread
You’re right, I am good at talking, but it makes me friendly with everyone, not necessarily friends with them.
I have Sanaa, who you know. I’ve known her forever, but we don’t live in the same city.
And I’ve technically known my roommate as long as I’ve known Sanaa, even though we didn’t become friends until college.
But he’s the only person I really ever spend time with socially, and he has this whole world outside of me with his close-knit architecture studio and rec soccer league.
He invites me to stuff with them, but I always feel like it’s so obvious that I’m a plus-one, not really a part of it.
And I went to college out of state, so I don’t have that in-person group anymore.
I guess I also have a friend at work. We’re close enough for a good time during the week, but she’s all about separating business and pleasure.
She’s casually invited me to her drag shows before, but it’s so clearly a “I spent fifteen minutes talking about this and now it would be rude not to extend the invitation” thing rather than a genuine desire for me to attend.
And that’s okay, really. I think I’m just kind of envious because I don’t feel like I have a community like that.
I have my work. And I like a lot of things about it, but I’ve been at the same job since I finished school, and I sometimes feel so …
stuck. Now I have this podcast, which helps.
But yeah, I’m a little lonely. As evidenced by the aforementioned Bridgerton Season 2 and emailing someone I’ve never met in person on a Saturday night instead of, you know, being with friends.
To: Elle Rex
RE: Not Work Thread