Page 60 of Isn't It Obvious?
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Yael,” Sanaa says, her voice flat. “You are my best friendin the fucking world. You live across the country with a difficult time difference, and we get to see each other like three times a year, maximum. You have two jobs. I take four business days to reply to texts that aren’t urgent. Talking constantly is just not realistic for us, so Iespeciallywant you to call me when you need help. Kind of rude that you don’t do it when your therapist is available, to be honest.”
“I want you to call me with your crises, too, you know.”
“I do. They’re just only once every two years because I’m aromantic and also the last living Gen Z–Millennial cusper without a diagnosable mood disorder.”
“I love you,” Yael says, sniffling into her laugh.
“Yeah, bitch, I know. I’m coming up to my office now so I’m gonna go,” she says, and hangs up at the beginning of Yael’s “Bye.”
On the way to work, Yael buys herself another canelé from Ken’s, this time to give her strength for the day ahead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ravi sits on the living room floor atop a few garbage bags torn at the seam and laid flat, cutting white fabric into the shape of dinosaur bones, coating it in glue, and passing it off to Mia to douse in glitter.
Yesterday, while Ravi was… otherwise occupied, Suresh put on a suggested YouTube video posted by the Chicago Field Museum of a young curator sitting in front of their fossilized T. rex. Mia was transfixed, and upon wakeup this morning demanded that Suresh do her hair like the woman in the video (she was Black and had big curly hair that, while beautiful, isn’t something Mia will ever achieve). Her devastation was only assuaged by Ravi agreeing to return the living dinosaur costume that hung in her closet and craft a new, sparkly-bones version instead.
Maybe he shouldn’t have given in so easily, but he and Suresh were both so exhausted. And he likes doing this kind of thing with her, anyway.
Mia laughs, and when Ravi looks up, he sees that she’s dumped half the tray of glitter into her lap—inevitable, and the reason for the garbage bag tarp. He laughs along with her, relieved that it’s not tears over the spill, and pulls out his phone to take a picture.
The message to Elle with the attached photo is fully drafted before he realizes that he can’t send it.
One day. It’s been one day.
He has a new email: Jami fromRenegadeconfirming their proposed call time for the Wednesday after next. A much-needed reminder. This thing that Elle has made—that he and Elle are making together—is special. It’s going somewhere, and he isn’t going to stand in the way of it.
WHENYAEL GETShome, she is a second dose of naproxen in and, as predicted, none of the headache accoutrements faded with the pain. There was no book club today, so Charlie isn’t back yet, and Yael has time to chug something with electrolytes and get a snack in her belly.
By the time Charlie walks through the door, the food and drink have helped only marginally. It would be nice not to feel so physically gross while she does this. It would be nice not to be doing this at all.
“Hey, Yael, you feeling better?” Charlie asks, toeing off his shoes and bending to place them on the rack.
“Can we talk?” she says. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay. Preparing to hate you,” he replies jokingly, rounding their coffee table to join her on the sofa. Their couch really pushes the size constraints of their living room, but they needed the deeper cushions to accommodate Charlie’s height. Usually, Yael likes how she can fold herself into the corner of it, but today she sits upright, turning to face him full on.
“This weekend, I answered a SafeRide call for one of the kids in my book club,” Yael says, “but when I got there, he had already called Ravi. And then he threw up on him, so Igave Ravi my Emergency Car Pants, and when he returned them to me after the club yesterday, we sort of…”Collapsed into one another at full force?“Kissed,” she says.
Charlie stares at her blankly. “You kissed,” he says.
“We made out?” she says weakly, the end of her sentence pitching up in a question. “I’m so, so sorry, Charlie. I know he hurt your feelings, and I did it without thinking. Which was so fucking selfish. I’m pretty angry at myself, and I understand if you’re angry at me, too.” Yael swallows, trying not to cry again. Her head pulses.
“Yael,” Charlie says, “is this what you thought I’d hate you over?”
She nods, afraid to say anything aloud. He stares for a beat before starting to laugh. Yael is stunned. “I thought you’d be upset,” she says. “You’re not upset?”
He shakes his head. “You made it sound like you did something terrible,” Charlie says.
“Didn’t I?” She thinks of what he said to her at Gina’s show, how Ravi was more a symptom than a cause. And maybe so, but she never wants to be the finger on his bruise.
“I don’t care who you kiss, even if I’ve kissed them, too. I haven’t even spoken to Ravi since that morning, and anyway, I’ve kinda been talking to my yoga instructor.”
Yael furrows her brow. “Did you start going to a new studio?”
“No,” he says.
