Chapter 4
“Olives, yes or no?” Eve says, holding up a jar.
“Eve.” Danny takes it from her and puts it back on the shelf. “I’d rather die.”
“Excellent! Maraschino cherries, yes or no?”
“Haven’t had one since I was of Shirley Temple–ordering age, but fuck it, I’m pro.”
“Hmm. So sweet, though.”
“We call that an efficient flavor.”
“You are so right. Consider me convinced.”
They’ve been wandering the aisles of the Lower East Side Whole Foods for a solid thirty minutes by this point.
Danny makes a mean pesto gnocchi (by which he means the New York Times Cooking app makes a mean pesto gnocchi), and, ostensibly, they’re shopping for ingredients.
Actually, they’re seeing how well their food preferences align.
Not to brag or anything, but they are so aligned.
“If you could only have one spice in your cabinet,” Danny says.
“Paprika. Smoked. Sweet paprika can get out of my face. What’s yours?”
“I don’t know, salt?”
“Salt is not a spice. Salt is a chemical agent.”
“Okay. Then I will also take the paprika.”
“Smoked or sweet?” Eve asks.
“Don’t patronize me.”
They finally get their ingredients and pack them into bags and begin the walk back to Eve’s apartment through the sunset-drenched streets, weaving around construction scaffolding and dripping air conditioners.
There’s something lively and perfect about the Lower East Side, or about being there with Eve.
The steady stream of day-drunk twenty-two-year-olds makes him feel like maybe he too graduated college just a moment ago.
He’s always felt an urgent rush to get to the next stage of life, like if he doesn’t hurry, he might miss his only shot, but this summer with Eve, he feels for the first time like there is something good about staying young.
Danny catches her looking at him from behind her sunglasses, so he asks, “What?”
“Just thinking you’re cute,” she says.
“Wholesome.”
“You are the prototypical boy next door.”
“Am I?” Danny says. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means you have dimples,” she says. “I bet all the moms wanted you to ask their daughters to prom.”
Danny scratches his jaw. “I was a kid detective. Is that the same thing?”
Eve stops on the sidewalk. “Shut up. Tell me everything.”
“Those are contrary requests.”
“You were a kid detective?”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny says. “Someone was stealing jam from Mrs. Weber’s stand at the farmers market, but Biscuit and I tracked him down. Old Man Davenport was pawning it off as his own because everyone knew he made shit jam.”
Eve presses her fingers to her lips. “This isn’t real. You had a friend named Biscuit?”
“Biscuit was my dog.”
“Shut up. This is a fake story.”
“This is not a fake story. Mrs. Weber was so grateful, she gave me a lifetime supply of jam. She sends it to me in the mail every month.”
Eve holds up a hand. “We’re verifying this right now. I will not be taken for a fool.” She pulls out her phone; puts it on speaker.
“Hello?” Julian says.
“Hi. Briefly, re: Danny. Does he or does he not receive a special gift in the mail each month?”
“Oh, Mrs. Weber’s jam? Yeah, totally. You’ve gotta try it.”
“Okay,” Eve says. “That will be all.” She puts her phone away and looks up at Danny. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I have a wholesome boy-next-door charm and a keen eye for clues,” he says.
At Eve’s apartment, Shannon is out—they have the kitchen to themselves.
Danny likes Shannon, but he is also slightly terrified of her.
She speaks like a California surfer (she called an ice cream “rad” the week prior) and then, disarmingly, asks if you’ve considered the perils of viewing technological advancement through a teleological lens.
She has a fern named Hannah, which Danny at first thought was quirky and fun, but alas!
The fern’s full name is Hannah Arendt, and Shannon would like you to speak to it about epidemic loneliness.
Which is all just to say, it’s for the best that Shannon has a date tonight.
Eve turns on music while Danny unpacks the bags.
They cook, they eat, and they queue a tense, high-stakes drama The New Yorker called culturally relevant on the living room TV.
When they settle back into the couch and press Play, Danny sets his hand on Eve’s knee.
She leans against his shoulder. The theme song plays. Eve slides her hand down his arm.
“Danny?” she says.
“Eve.”
“I have a hypothetical for you.”
“Sure.”
“What if, hypothetically, we did not waste an hour pretending to watch this show?”
“Good point,” he says. “We could just go straight to sleep.”
“Sleep is the best medicine, as they say.”
“Brimming with antioxidants.”
“God did not intend for us to oxidize,” Eve says.
He takes her knee and slides it toward him so they are facing, and then he kisses her. She exhales. She smells like sunscreen, which smells like summer, which smells like nostalgia.
In her bedroom, he puts his mouth between her legs while she twines her fingers through his hair. She says, “I love when you do that,” but there is a lag before the when, so you would be forgiven for wondering if she was about to say something else. She says his name when she comes.
When you know—well, you know.