Chapter 2
Eve asks Danny if he wants to get dinner spontaneously on a Wednesday night.
Danny is working from a booth at Our Lady of Perpetual Breakfast, just ordered fries, had planned to work until ten or eleven.
Furthermore, he feels it seems a little desperate to accept an invitation on two hours’ notice. He says yes anyway.
She has to grab a piece of stray mail from her parents’ house, so she asks if he wants to meet her there.
Sure! He spends the ride on the C to the Upper West Side fretting about the fact that he is wearing five-inch-inseam floral-patterned shorts about which Chloe, his CMO, said, “Hey, hey, pool party people.”
Phillip, Julian and Eve’s dad, opens the door wearing slacks. He looks at Danny’s shorts and says, “Daniel! Well. Always a pleasure.”
Danny trails him through the entranceway. It has always seemed impossible to Danny that the Olsens’ house could be so bright while sitting wedged between buildings on either side. Everything is white and mirrored.
They find Cecilia, Julian and Eve’s mom, leaning against the island with her laptop open to an art website. All the art seems to be metacommentary—photos of paintings of sculptures—though what commentary this provides is unclear.
“Sweetheart, hello,” Cecilia says. She kisses Danny’s cheek. “Are you and Eve going swimming?”
“No, these shorts are just like that.”
Cecilia laughs. Does she know Eve and Danny are dating? Are they dating? Like, they’re going on dates, but are they dating dating? Julian has always said that Eve doesn’t get along with their parents, but still, this is the sort of thing one tells their parents, yes? Danny has told Cal about Eve.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Eve springs forth in a red sundress with sunglasses on her head. “Sorry, okay, ready, bye Mom, bye Dad, let’s go.”
On the way out the door, before they have quite cleared the threshold, Eve takes Danny’s hand. It’s the first time they’ve ever held hands. She wouldn’t do this in front of her parents if she didn’t like him, or so he assumes.
They go to a ramen place and the couple next to them spends the whole time breaking up. Eve keeps frantically texting Danny under the table.
Eve: omg do we think he cheated on her
Eve: holy shit with her bridesmaid??
Danny: I think it was with his groomsman
Eve: a queer love story!!!
Danny: But still cheating
Eve: pls be an ally danny
When they exit the restaurant, they walk with her arm around his waist and his around her shoulder. She says, “Please don’t cheat on me with a member of my wedding party.”
“Are we getting married?”
“I don’t know, probably.”
“Huge! Congrats to us.”
“Ha ha,” Eve says.
He kisses her temple, and she leans against his shoulder.
“Uh-oh,” she says.
“What’s up?”
“I’m very fond of you.”
“Is that an uh-oh?”
She wraps herself around him; buries her nose against his collar. “Huge,” she says.
When you know, you know—that’s the wisdom Danny has always heard, and this feels a lot like knowing.