and Eleanor confidently advising me on how to ask out the cute guy in my stats class. There was the night a bird had flown through the open window, leading to much shrieking and flapping of towels, and another when Mikki, insistent that Trader Joe’s two-buck chuck wasn’t as awful as Eleanor believed, had set up a blind taste test, complete with classical music and a classy array of cheeses. (Eleanor had sniffed out the cheap stuff instantly.)
“We were so dumb,” she remarked. “Who was that friend of yours you were in love with? And we’d spend all night texting with him, pretending it was just you?”
“That’s right—Devin! I saw he’s engaged now. He moved back to Chicago.” I watched the strings of bubbles in my glass shimmer like tiny pearl necklaces.
“You were so much cooler than him.” She took another delicate sip. “Have you started dating now that you’re back? You on all the apps?”
I froze and thought back to just a couple months ago—the giddy state when my brain wasn’t my own, when every sight or sound or conversation funneled my thoughts back to Chris. Chris would find this hilarious. Chris has a crazy story about four-wheelers. The glorious addiction, the pink flashes of desire. And now, the pain in my chest like a sickness.
Chris will never, ever speak to you again. Chris is the reason you know how ambulance lights look carved up through winding country roads.
“I don’t really have time to date right now,” I said, like every single single person in history.
“I totally get that. And you have way more interesting stuff going on than worrying about stupid boys.”
“For sure.” Like my secret book proposal. There was something I’d been meaning to find out and I finally gave up on nailing a natural segue: “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“What’s up?”
“I’m not sure how to phrase this.” I rested the glass on my knee. “So in Michigan, I wrote a couple op-eds based on what I was seeing at rallies and stuff. And, like…as a female tech reporter, I’m used to sexist bullshit. But the level of vitriol…the effort people would put into finding ways to contact me, to tell me what an ugly bitch I am—it stunned me. Obviously I was just blocking people like crazy, but it was hard—there’s still emotional labor in seeing that hateful shit, you know?”
Eleanor was nodding while hitting me with her most earnest, empathetic face. I paused and she set her hand on mine.
“I’m just wondering how you deal with that. I got a tiny slice of it for, like, twenty-four hours the two times I wrote editorials. But you must deal with it nonstop, right?”
She nodded, looked away. “It’s hard because there’s no model out there for what to do. It’s this incredibly psychologically damaging thing, and yet we’re not supposed to talk about it because that might lead to more trolling, so most people have no idea.”
“It’s like when guys are so bewildered when you tell them you feel afraid walking alone at night.”
“Exactly.” She sighed. “It’s hard. You do get a thicker skin over time, and I know some other female CEOs who can commiserate—we have a WhatsApp group. But mostly you just do your best to ignore it. Sometimes I fantasize about throwing a spotlight on it, though. Posting all the awful stuff I get. Or even having this big event where we try to show men what it’s like, the lived experience—” Her phone jolted on the bar and she glanced at it.
“Sorry. Daniel’s on his way.”
“Yes! I’m excited to see him.” I tried to steer the bus back around. “An event to show men what it’s really like—that’s a wild idea.”
“I know. Except I think it’d end in bloodshed.” She smirked. “If guys had to deal with the shit we put up with every day—”
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you.” Two women stood before us shyly, both with blond highlights as evenly spaced as rows of wheat. The taller one giggled self-consciously. “Are you…you aren’t Eleanor Walsh, are you?”
Eleanor smiled magnificently, magnanimously, all her Teleanor charm aimed like a tractor beam at these strangers. “I am! It’s nice to meet you!”
“Jocelyn. And this is Nicole.” They shook Eleanor’s hand gleefully. “We’re visiting from Missouri, and we were having an argument over there about whether or not it was actually you! We’re both big fans of Gleam.”
“How sweet of you to say hi! And this is Katie Bradley, she’s an