Page 39 of Isn't It Obvious?
“Shit, it’s gonna take me that long to get all this off,” Gina says. “I’m really happy you guys finally made it to a show. See you Monday, Yael!”
They say their goodbyes and rush out, and Yael hates the way her chest starts to tighten.
On the walk to Yael’s car, Charlie slings his arm across Yael’s shoulders. He’s tall enough that he has to lean into her as he does it, and she stumbles sideways a half step.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, laughing. “But you gotta spit it out.”
“Spit what out?”
“You’re sad,” he says.
“I’m not sad!” Yael protests, twisting out from under him and skipping forward. “It was a fabulous show.”
“You’re sad,” he repeats, “that Gina didn’t invite you to the postshow drinks.”
Sometimes having a friend know you this well is like being their favorite battered paperback. She has all these creases in her spine, and Charlie knows exactly where they are. Where she’ll fall open with the slightest flick of his hand. Yael picks up her pace, not wanting the streetlights to illuminate whatever expression she wears.
Charlie catches up to her in two quick strides. “Don’t run away, Yael. I’m not trying to be mean.”
“I didn’t think you were,” she mutters. “I’m just embarrassed. I thought… I don’t know, I guess I hoped that this would be the start of some big new friendship. And I think she does want to be friends, but maybe not that kind of friends.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m here. One tagalong isn’t so much trouble, but two’s a crowd.”
Yael wraps her arms around her stomach. It’s an entirely outsize reaction; she knows that. But the disappointment claws at her. “Let’s stop talking about this, please.”
“Okay,” he says.
“So… do you have any new crushes?”
Charlie looks at her with suspicion. “Why?”
Yael shrugs, and Charlie’s suspicion intensifies. “It’s just, you know. Ravi, and then Shane. It could be a lot back-to-back.”
Charlie fixes his sight on something in the distance. “They were more symptoms than causes,” he says.
“Fair.”
She’d offer to talk, but she knows he doesn’t want to. They walk silently in step the rest of the way to the car.
Later, when Charlie falls asleep in front of the movie they put on, Yael texts Kevin.
Yael
I think I’m bad at making friends in person
Kevin
What makes you say that?
The response came quickly, even though it’s a little after one in New York. She thinks of what he said once about how his evenings after Mia goes to sleep are his only time tohimself. Maybe he likes to extend them, especially when he can sleep in the next day. She was like that all through grad school. Revenge insomnia.
She texts with him for the next hour, and again when she wakes up on Saturday morning.
He sends her a picture ofMaking Friends as an Adult for Dummieswith the messagestudying up so I can tutor you. It makes her snort into her coffee. Which makes Charlie say, “Tell Kevin I said hi,” which, in turn, makes her blush down to her toes.
The rest of her weekend passes quickly—hanging out with Charlie and doing chores and texting Kevin, all while watching her podcast hang onto the charts by its fingernails.
On Monday, Yael wakes up to an email that nearly makes her drop her phone.
