Page 8 of The Flirtation
Chapter 3
Avery
It seemed unnecessarilycold for a February, as I walked home from the office that night, and my fellow New Yorkers were especially impatient and grouchy. It was almost as if New York was trying to tell me to stop being a neurotic idiot and start getting excited about going to a tropical island to be with a man that I adore, for fuck’ssake.
What is wrong with you?!I could hear my sister’s imagined voice echoing through my head even louder than the street noise.You can pull your sorry ass out of bed for a client meeting when you’re knocking at Death’s door with the flu, you can wrap a cashmere scarf around your neck ten different ways, but you can’t wrap your head around a last-minute all-expenses paid Bahamastrip?!
Nope! Some people are good at working hard and playing hard, all in the same day even. Some people are good at having relationships while simultaneously pursuing a career. I didn’t have a fucking clue how they did it, I was not good at it, and smart people choosenotto do things that they’re not good at. Am I right? I’m pretty sure I’m right. I passed a group of women my age—gloriously high-heeled, fake-eyelashed, Snapchatty late twentysomethings who were going clubbing on a Wednesday night, who still cared more about having fun than being right, but you know what—that’s their journey good for them.They seemed so happy it made me want to go back to theoffice.
It’s not that I hadn’t tried to have fun. I’d tried dating—when you live in Manhattan you have to—this is not a town for homebodies. There’s so much to do here and so many people asking questions about your love life. I had fun for the first few years while I was an assistant. I went out with the cute baristas and waiters who were impressed by my sweater sets and my permanent job at a fancy company, and I went out with the executives who took me to fancy restaurants and didn’t pay attention to my answers when they asked how my day was. It was all fine. On Mondays I could tell people what I’d done on the weekend, and there was never a fear of getting derailed by someone that I’d fallen head over heels in love with, because I didn’t fall for any of them. I had my eye on the prize, and the prize was financial independence—forlife.
Once I’d gotten promoted to junior manager, two years ago, I became more selective about who I went out with. I had to be. I had less free time, less bandwidth to devote to anything other than my job. But when I started working with Luke a year ago, I felt so satisfied that I didn’t have the drive or the desire to flirt with anyone else. I was getting paid to flirt with a beautiful man while I worked and I didn’t even have to shave my legs and he’d be none the wiser! I just had to look good from the waist up, sound good, and write smart, witty messages. It wasperfect!
I had one brief, understated fling with a neighbor, about half a year after I’d “met” Luke, once I’d found out that the guy was moving to Brazil within a week. That fit into my schedule, and I was able to reassure myself that I could indeed have a sex life with a human male who was actually in the same room with me if I’d wanted one. When my neighbor started looking at me all misty-eyed and holding my hand while I ate a bagel, I got nervous. When he told me he was reconsidering moving to Brazil because he thought my sudden interest in him was a sign that he should stay here, I had to pull out the big guns. I did some quick Googling while he was taking a shower, and while he was drying off, still naked and feeling vulnerable, I told him that if he was serious about us being together that it was important for him to know that I was an alien conspiracy theorist because I was abducted—twice—as a child. I told him I’d be happy to give him a pamphlet for the Transhumanist Party that I was a member of, and that he would probably really dig what my favorite philosopher, who goes by the name of Zoltan, writes about in his blog. Amazingly, he left for Brazil a day early! I decided to keep Zoltan in my back pocket for when I was really feeling emotionallycornered.
And then there was Mr. Potter. I had introduced my older sister Jackie to my Magic Wand once, several months ago, when she had repeatedly asked me how it was possible that I wasn’t dating anyone and yet also hadn’t eaten all of the cupcakes in Manhattan or climbed the side of the Empire State Building while crushing small airplanes. In other words—how was it possible that I was still in a good mood most of thetime?
“You’re going to die alone,” she said, when I held up the unassuming white and bluedevice.
“I’m not going to die alone, I’m going to die with Mr. Potter,” I toldher.
“No, you’re slowly dying insidebecauseof Mr. Potter. Do you see thedifference?”
I plugged it in, held it up to her and turned it on the high power setting. She jumped like a startled cat. The high power setting can be felt through ski pants, and it’s like being made love to by a jackhammer with a tennis ball stuck to the end of it. It ain’t forsissies.
“Holy shit, Ave!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to wear your clit out with this thing! Seriously—you may as well have a steel vagina—you’re never going to achieve orgasm from contact with human flesh again. You’re going to pulverize it!” She went on. “One day there will be pink dust in your panties and you’ll be all ‘what’s that?!’ and then you’ll call me crying because your clitoris has turned to sand and you did it to yourself with this…tool.”
“You’re a tool for not using one,” I said, waving it ather.
She swatted at it with her handbag. “I have a flesh and blood husband who pounds away at me twice a week—and we already spend way too much on electricity and batteries so trust me—I do not need another toy in myapartment!”
Iwas dyingto talk to Jackie, but I already knew exactly what she would say. I knew what she would say, I knew she’d be right, and I knew I’d refute everything she said even though she was right. It was our thing. As soon as I walked through the door to my glamorous, cramped little one bedroom apartment, I immediately went to the closet to grab my garment bag, which was always ready to go, with three Ann Taylor outfits that are suitable for any business occasion hanging inside of it. I got my cosmetic bag from the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom, which was also forever at the ready for emergency worktrips.
I pulled the slate grey Diane Von Furstenberg carry-on luggage out from the back of the closet. It was a gift from a client and I loved it so much I wanted to curl up inside it, but I was suddenly overcome with panic.How the hell am I supposed to pack for this trip?I felt lightheaded all of asudden.
Having realized that I hadn’t eaten more than a protein bar and a salad all day, I went to the fridge. I knew I wouldn’t find anything decent to eat. My refrigerator was where organic kale went to die. Approximately once a month on a Sunday, after browsing some healthy babe’s blog, I’d go to Whole Foods, determined to cook and freeze healthy meal portions for the coming week. Then by the time I got home, I’d be so tired of carrying groceries, I’d realize I’d forgotten to buy bay leaves or shallots or whatever and that I don’t own an immersion blender (whatever that is), and I’d order greasy Chinese because I was starving. I’d just shove everything into the fridge, sometimes without even removing them from the grocerybags.
I was about to pick up my phone to call Jackie, when I received a FaceTime call from her. Jackie lives in an affordable three-bedroom apartment in Queens, with her husband and my niece and nephew. She has always had a knack for calling me exactly when I needed to talk to her but didn’t want to call and admit that I was freaking out. She’s three years older than me, and had for the most part treated me like an annoying little sister while we were growing up, but after our mother died suddenly when I was in my final year of university, she instantly became the kind of big sister I’d always longed for her to be—she gave me all the tough love and sass I needed and thensome.
I accepted the video call and bit into a floppy old carrot while being welcomed with a blurry shot of her cleavage, as she looked for something in a cupboard. She got the awesome knockers, and I got the half-off rack. It’s sounfair.
“Hi hang on,” she muttered, then called out to her kids. “You know what just have pudding—oneeach!”
“Oh that’shealthy.”
She peered into her phone at me. “Oh I’m sorry—this from a grown woman who’s eating a limpcarrot?”
I took one last bite of the thing, then tossed it into the waste bin, and went back to my bedroom to pack. “Did your boobs getbigger?”
“I’m retaining water and I accidentally shrunk all of my bras in the dryer. It’s been a great day. Your niece would like to speak with you.” Jackie aimed the phone’s camera at her five year-old daughter Franny. Franny was hugging a stuffed bunny rabbit that was about a foot taller than she was. The rabbit was so big it took up half the width of their kitchen. It would never fit inside Franny’s room. I knew my sister would kill me, but it was available for Same Day Delivery, and I just wanted to buy it. But Franny looked like she was madly in love with it and she was so happy she was jumping up and down and screaming—although to be honest, she was almost always jumping up and down andscreaming.
Franny looked up at the phone and screamed directly into it. “THANK YOU AUNT AVERYYYYYY! I love him I love him I love him I love him I lovehim!”
I would love to love anything as much as that girl claims to love Mr. Bunny, I thought to myself, as I turned the volume down on my phone. “You are so welcome, sweetheart! I saw Mr. Bunny in a store window at lunch today and he waved at me and said ‘take me to Franny’s house, I want to live with herforever!’”
She didn’t stop jumping as she frowned at me and said, “You did not—you got him onAmazon!”
“I love you too, Honey, put your mom backon!”
