sounds weird, but it actually…it kind of helps? I mean, it sounds awful to say it makes me feel better, but, like, it reminds me that life is still life, and ticking those boxes doesn’t magically make everything better.”
“We all have our shit,” she agreed. I did feel better, and I struggled to home in on whether or not that was a betrayal. “I mean, especially with all this crazy Edie stuff.”
“I’m fine,” I told her again, pierced by the change of subject. “I’m okay.”
* * *
It wasn’t until I was changing into my pajamas that something hit me, a breaker of fear and fury, horror at Alex, jagged resentment and disgust and those barbs of jealousy toward Edie, dead and gone and still messing with me anyway.
“Fuck this,” I whispered aloud, because I was done, done scuba diving in the past, unearthing horrible things about my friends that I couldn’t share and would never unknow. Suddenly I was crying so hard that it was like I’d never existed outside of this cry. I smeared the tears so they stung, then flopped down and slept with the yellow lights on overhead.
Chapter 9
Around noon the next day, my phone chimed. “Hey, it’s Josh!” it read, exclamation point standing tall. “How’s it going?”
I was supposed to wait—Edie would have demanded it, she’d been my flirt-texting Cyrano back in the day—but I figured this kid might as well know now that dating a thirty-three-year-old does not leave room for bullshit games.
“Hey!” I texted back. “Just at work. How are you?”
I stared at the screen until I saw he was typing back.
He stopped typing. Fuck me.
“Just walking in Brooklyn Bridge Park.”
Now what? Tease him for making it sound like he’s jobless? Say something about the park? Why hadn’t he asked a follow-up question? What Would Edie Do?
“I can see DUMBO from my building,” I typed. “Wave.” I’d have to actually enter a conference room to look east, but, technicality.
No response. Two minutes passed, then three.
Then: “Ha, nice, you in FiDi?”
“Yep. How are things on your side of the river?” God, I was bad at this.
“View’s better from here. You’re only one ferry stop away.”
What did that mean? An invitation? A statement of fact?
Then he wrote again: “I’m by Ignazio’s. Come have pizza with me.” Three pizza-slice emojis to underscore his point.
Something pitched in my chest. Damien walked by just then, so I pulled him in.
“Wait, who is this?” he screeched, delighted.
I blushed as I scrambled for something to say—I hadn’t mentioned that I’d been stalking Edie’s ex and couldn’t think of a suitable meet-cute for a guy ten years my junior. Damien had moved on from the Edie mystery and I didn’t want him to know how fixated I’d remained.
“He’s waiting!” I spat, handing him the phone. “He’s a dude I met. Answer now, info later.”
Damien scrolled. “Well, do you want to have pizza with him?”
“I mean, sure! Yeah.”
“Hmm.” He stroked his chin stubble.
“Can I just say that? Pizza, sure?”
Damien looked up, eyes sparkling, and I dropped my face into my hands. “I am horrible at this.”
Damien started typing. “What kind of pizza do you like?” he asked.
“What?”
“Damn it, Lindsay, this is not a drill! What kind of pizza!”
“Uhhh, I don’t know! Pepperoni!”
He hit send and handed the phone back to me just as my cheeks started to hurt from laughing. He’d written: “Meet me at the dock. I’ll take pepperoni.”
“What the hell, Damien! He’s supposed to bring me pizza to go?”
“I’m really glad you said pepperoni. Because it’s phallic.” He leaned on my desk and sighed happily. “Mystery man, bring me your big, hard pepperoni.”
“Jesus Christ. He’s writing back.” We both leaned in to watch.
“You got it. Be there in twenty or I’m eating both slices myself.”
Damien whooped. I gathered my things, ignoring his screeching request for more explanation.
“If you’re not back in an hour, I’m calling the Coast Guard,” he called as I hustled to make the 12:30 ferry.
* * *
I stepped onto the dock in DUMBO and spotted Josh, back behind the gate and clutching a greasy white bag. We waved hello when I was still twenty feet out and then he lifted the food up near his head; I gave a dorky thumbs-up. Finally we were together and he gave me a one-armed hug hello, with one of those little air pecks somewhere near my ear. He was handsomer than I remembered, tall and broad-shouldered. Why did he want anything to do with me?