330 PM Richie #2
“He’s very nice and we have a good time together. He still has most of his hair, he makes pretty good money, I don’t totally hate his family, and I’m significantly hotter than he is. He’s great.”
Nina touched the stem of her wineglass but didn’t drink from it. Behind her a server set a plate filled with steak and greens on a two-top table.
Courtney said, “I’m sorry, I’m obviously a little drunk, but what I’m trying to say is that I think we’re getting to an age where you have to start making these kinds of calculations. Or, I don’t know, both of you are gay, and gay people have it easier, so maybe I’m wasting my breath.”
Richie coughed. He said, “Okay, I mean, I don’t really think that’s tr—”
“It is! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to yell, but it is.
Look, Geoff was a Gemini, so that’s on me—that was my mistake—but if I want to get married again and have kids, and I’m not talking four kids, like Suzanne McGinnis, but a kid or maybe two, if I’m lucky, then I needed to find someone and find them fast, and Kyle was the one I found.
So I guess that’s what I mean when I say you have to make some calculations.
You look at how old you are, and you multiply that by the probability that you have time to find someone better.
Would I have given Kyle a second look when I was twenty-four?
No, absolutely not, because back then I was one hundred percent sure I had all the time in the world to meet, like, the man of my dreams or whatever.
But guess what? I’m not twenty-four years old.
I’ll be forty next month, and I’m divorced.
And don’t give me that look—don’t tell me that a lot of people are divorced.
All of this is different for you two because you’re gay.
” Courtney closed her eyes for a few seconds.
When she opened them she said, “Jesus Christ, I made two hundred people fly to Mexico to watch me get married. Do you know how embarrassing that is? I made my mother throw away all the pictures, every single one, and I let Alison Liu convince me to do this humiliating ‘hashtag trash the dress’ photo shoot with my wedding gown that she posted all over Instagram.” She picked up her fork, then set it down again without eating anything.
She shook her head. “Whatever,” she said, “do either of you want any of these fries?”
Nina said, “No, thank you,” very brightly, and then, “For what it’s worth, I thought the trash-the-dress video was really empowering. I watched it, like, eight times.”
Courtney lightly touched her napkin to the sides of her eyes. She said, “Alison and I aren’t really speaking anymore,” and excused herself to the bathroom.
For a minute or two after she left neither Richie nor Nina said anything.
The rain continued to fall outside, and around them the restaurant was filled with the sound of voices and silverware clinking against plates.
At one point Richie reached over and took a few of Courtney’s french fries, which had come in a metal cup lined with wax paper.
They were crisp and salty, and as he reached over to take a few more, Nina whispered, “Is that what it looks like when someone has a stroke?” and five seconds later Courtney came back.
She finished what was left of her martini and looked over her shoulder for their waiter.
“Oh!” she said. “I meant to say this when we first sat down, but I ran into Adam Parker today.”
Richie pushed his chair out a few inches from the table, turning it to an angle that let him cross his legs.
“Oh yeah. He’s still banging around. Where’d you see him?”
“This fertility clinic in Norwalk.” Courtney set her fingertips on the base of her martini glass. “Kyle and I are, like, doing all that shit.”
“Why would Adam be at a fertility clinic in Norwalk?”
“Right?! I thought the same thing. I was walking out of my appointment and I heard someone say my name, and there he was, sitting on the couch, waving at me. At first it was, like, sort of embarrassing—like, not because it’s Adam Parker, but also because it’s Adam Parker, if that makes sense?
He’s the last person I expected to see after having a conversation about my ovaries.
” Courtney’s words were slurring. She ate a fistful of fries.
“I guess he was there to have his sperm count tested or something.” Slowly she smiled.
“Oh my God, can you imagine Adam Parker’s sperm?
I bet they’re all, like, Eagle Scouts already.
But yeah, he and Remy are both doing it. ”
“Rami.”
“What?”
“The husband’s name is Rami.”
“Whatever. Did you know they were having a baby?”
Richie uncrossed and recrossed his legs. In a bored tone of voice he said, “Of course I did.”
There were two glasses in front of him, both containing the same amount of water, and although he didn’t know which one was his, Richie selected one and began to drink.
Courtney began describing the side effects of FSH while Nina pursed her lips sympathetically.
Richie’s mind drifted from the conversation and his face became much warmer than the rest of his body.
He thought about when Mia told him that Adam and Rami were moving in together, and then a year later when Sasha texted to say they had gotten engaged—how on each of those occasions, it had been someone else to give him Adam’s news.
Of course, it was none of Richie’s business what he and Rami were doing with their lives, and as Courtney showed Nina the spot on her thigh where she had been instructed to give herself hormone shots, he tried to tell himself that he wasn’t actually that upset, but rather artificially upset—that he was only hurt because it was the sort of thing a person told himself he should be hurt by, even though he had no right to be hurt at all.
And yet, at the same time, the pain felt about as real as any pain he’d ever felt before, like a little piece had broken off from his heart.
Had Adam thought that Richie wouldn’t care?
That he would be jealous? That the news could cause him to become depressed and make bad decisions?
The last explanation hurt the most, probably because it was the closest to the truth.
He took another sip from his water and noticed Nina staring across the table at him.
Courtney said, “It’s not a big deal, I actually love needles,” as a waiter slipped their check next to the cup of french fries.
When they left, Richie hugged Courtney, smelling the gin on her breath.
He wished her good luck with everything, and as she stepped out into the rain, Nina hung back to ask him if he wanted to share a car home.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “The train’s, like, three blocks away.”
“I’m sorry if you’re upset about Adam.”
Richie laughed. He felt something crack in the back of his brain.
“Get a grip, Nina,” he said. “I’m fine.”
In the guest bathroom of Sasha’s home, Richie flushed the toilet and stepped out into the foyer.
Next to a black cauldron spewing dry ice fumes was a small child dressed as Moana, eating a handful of potato chips.
She gazed up at Richie as she brought a chip to her mouth, then spun around and rushed toward the backyard.
Theo’s band was still playing, though when Richie looked through the window, he saw that no one was paying much attention.
Mia still looked miserable in her huddle of women; Adam nodded at something with a concerned expression on his face.
Richie checked his watch: it was almost four o’clock in the afternoon.
He walked into the kitchen, where two teenage girls were whispering to each other and staring at a tray of black and orange Jell-O shots.
Richie watched them from next to the refrigerator.
He said, “You two look like trouble.”
The girls stopped whispering to each other. One of them looked at Richie and said, “We were trying to figure out what flavor the black is.”
“Really? Because I think you were trying to figure out how to take one without getting caught.”
One of the girls leaned over to whisper in the other’s ear. She looked at Richie, nodded, and laughed.
“Totally,” she said. And then: “Um, we’re leaving now.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Bye.”
They both howled, throwing their necks back as they left the kitchen and walked through the living room. Richie pulled his mouth to one side. Light reflected off the surface of the Jell-O shots, and the back door slammed. His phone rang.
“What’s up?” he said.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Nina sounded out of breath. There was a Lizzo song playing in the background.
“Are you, like, having a heart attack?”
“No, I’m on the treadmill. I’m at the gym.”
“Ah. Sorry, what was your question?”
“I asked why you were in New Jersey.”
“Oh.” Theo’s band had stopped playing. Its members were removing their guitars from their necks and joining the rest of the party. Richie watched as a guy in a gorilla costume stood up from the drum kit and removed its mask, revealing a man with a head of salt-and-pepper hair.
“Because Mia and Adam dragged me to this Halloween party that Sasha and Theo are having.”
Richie heard a series of beeps, and the sound of the treadmill slowing. The Lizzo song got quieter and quieter until it faded from the background altogether.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nina said.
“I wish I was.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t invite me.”
“You should be very thankful.”
“She didn’t invite me to her last two birthday parties either.”
“Those picnic things in the park? I skipped those.”
“Yeah, but at least you were invited.” Nina’s voice caught in her throat, and Richie realized that she had started to cry. “What did I ever do to her? Like, I’m being serious. What did I ever do?”
“You didn’t do anything. She’s always been self-centered. I wouldn’t worry too much about it—honestly, she probably just forgot. I’d much rather be on a treadmill listening to Lizzo.”
A woman in a nurse costume walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator, removed a tray of cupcakes, closed the door with her hip, and left with the tray held in both her hands. On the phone, Nina let out a little jagged sob.
Richie said, “Stop overreacting—it’s one dumb party.”
“It’s not only about the party, okay? She treats me like I don’t even exist. And I thought I had been such a good friend to her—she even told me that I was. Like, I never told anyone that she was fucking Mitch Reynolds.”
“She was fucking Mitch Reynolds?”
Nina’s breath turned ragged again. “Yes! I walked in on them at your party in Amagansett, and we had this long talk about, like, motherhood, and how she only had time to herself when she took a shower or whatever, and how Theo was depressed because he had lost that job. I held her hand the whole time, and she made me promise that I would never say anything, and I didn’t.
I was a really good friend to her, Richie, and now she treats me like I don’t even fucking exist.” Nina took a sharp breath.
“Like, I help her cover up her affair and she can’t even be bothered to invite me to a Halloween party? ”
“I mean, yeah, okay, that’s fucked up.”
Richie looked out the window. Sasha’s hair was pulled back into a long ponytail, and her black eye-mask was looped around her wrist. The nurse arrived with the tray of cupcakes, and a woman standing directly across from Sasha took one and began to carefully unpeel the scalloped wrapper that encircled its base.
Sasha ran one hand along the length of her ponytail.
Her other hand drifted toward her waist.
“I think I’d rather cut my dick off than have sex with Mitch Reynolds,” Richie said.
“Please don’t say anything. I shouldn’t have even told you. I just—” She sobbed. “What is it about me?”
“It’s nothing, Nina.” Richie turned away from the window. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Sometimes people are assholes for no reason—it’s as straightforward as that. Listen to me, though: you are a good friend. Do you hear me? You are good, and kind, and you did nothing wrong.”
Nina was quiet. She thanked Richie, then told him she should probably go and finish her run, because the gym was crowded, and people were waiting to use the treadmills, and she had been behind on her step count for the past four days.
Before she hung up, she asked him if he wanted to come over that evening so they could order takeout sushi and rewatch season two of Emily in Paris, and even though he would have preferred to go home, Richie told Nina sure, of course, that he would love nothing more.
She stopped crying then. Thanking him a second time, she apologized for her outburst.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually a psychopath,” she said, and then hung up.
The kitchen was quiet. Richie returned his phone to his pocket.
He felt himself becoming angry at Nina for acting so hurt, and then sorry for her, and then angry again.
But this second anger was different from the first one.
It was directed not toward Nina but toward Sasha, and in this way was a transmutation of Nina’s pain.
He looked down at the tops of his hands.
The skin was lined with veins and shallow folds, the knuckles rough and wrinkled.
It was so easy to be cruel—kindness, on the other hand, required a tremendous amount of work.
It was important and necessary work, but it was work nonetheless, and sometimes Richie found himself wondering what, if anything, was the point.
What was the point of loving people if all they were going to do was lie to you, and betray you, and keep secrets from you, and not invite you to Halloween parties in Montclair?
What was the point of being good, if all good brought was grief?
Sitting in front of him was the tray of Jell-O shots, their orange surfaces translucent and slick.
He picked one of them up, and without giving himself time to consider the consequences, ate it, first digging a finger into the cup to release the Jell-O from its sides, and then swallowing its contents whole.
Placing the empty cup on the counter, he reached for another one, loosening it with the same swipe of his finger.
This time when he ate it he didn’t swallow immediately, but rather bit into it, the vodka spreading across his tongue.
The taste of it was bitter and familiar, like a memory he had tricked himself into thinking he had forgotten.
Outside the band played again. Richie heard the opening melody of “Dancing in the Dark,” and closed his eyes.