Me: Maybe I could invent one. But then there’s always next week. Or the next. Or the next….
Wyatt: How much do you care about disappointing this friend?
Me: She’s in my class and about thirty times cooler than I am. I want her to like me.
Wyatt: Well then, I hate to say it, but you might have to go to whatever it is. Think of this like an anthropological expedition. You’re an intrepid explorer, studying hitherto unknown spiritual practices of the rare and oft-misunderstood New York theist.
I cringe so hard I can basically feel myself disappearing into my own bones.
And then I type the next bit anyway.
Me: Yeah, maybe. Only I wish it was as exotic as going to some Pentecostal speaking-in-tongues revival. But it’s just Jewish people, so, you know, I’ve been intrepidly exploring this particular brand of New York theist since birth.
Me: It’s for my capstone project.
Me: don’t hate me.
It does take Wyatt a moment to respond this time. Probably because he’s punching himself in the face out of sheer disappointment in me.
Then he starts typing. I stare at those three dots.
Finally:
Wyatt: I could never. Do it for the bagels.
Well, I can’t disappoint Wyatt. So I guess I’m going to Shabbos with Michal.
Just for the bagels, of course.
* * *
■
But when Friday comes, dread rises with it. Trepidation settles like sickness in my gut, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t ignore it.
Sorry, I’m not feeling well. I don’t think I’m going to make it tonight. Raincheck?
There’s not gonna be a raincheck. But still, it feels more polite to pretend.
Michal texts back about an hour later: Of course, no problem. Hope you feel better soon! Let me know if I can bring you some soup or something.
Her kindness only worsens the guilt.
But all I feel as I head home at the end of the day, crammed into a subway car with all the other exhausted commuters ready for the weekend, is relief.
* * *
■
Ophelia’s there when I get home that day. She’s perched on the sofa wielding a bottle of sparkly gold nail polish. Her fingers already glitter—she’s hunched over taking care of her toes, although she spares a glance up as I dump my bag on the island and head for the fridge to pour myself a glass of grapefruit juice.
“You good?” she says.
“Yeah.” I shove the fridge door shut with my hip. “Why?”
“Because you have this look on your face like you wanna claw someone’s tonsils out.”
I can’t help it—I laugh, because she’s probably right. “Sorry. It’s nothing. I made plans to hang out with someone, then I chickened out.” I down half the glass of juice in one go. “So. What are you up to tonight?”
“Diego’s friend Denni is throwing this party. East Village. Sounds like it should be fun. Parties with Diego’s crowd usually are; everyone he knows is an actor or a drag queen or some kind of performance artist who only speaks in whale sounds. Occasionally all three. Want to come?”
I can picture it now, some artist’s garret on Avenue C with sultry mood lighting and Bowie on repeat. The hazy miasma of weed smoke. Pizza going cold in boxes on the counter. The host’s overly affectionate cat crawling from lap to lap. Spilled beer, a stranger’s urine speckling the toilet seat. Kissing someone in a dark bedroom while the music thrums—indistinct—just outside.
It’s so far from my plans with Michal, so much so that the two experiences feel like they should exist in opposition to each other. Shabbos is candlelight and prayers in Hebrew and challah crumbs down the front of your shirt. It’s eating until you feel sick. It’s your uncle’s tone-deaf and wordless singing to an ancient tune that lives in your blood. It’s the Shabbos bride dressed in splendor, G-d turning his brilliant face to gaze on mankind.
And right now, frankly, I’ll take the pee toilet.
The place Diego brings us is a sixth-floor walk-up off St. Marks. By the time we make it to the actual apartment I’m already sweaty and out of breath; no place in New York has air-conditioning, not even in the pit of summer, which is a unique brand of awful. Clearly I’ve been cradled in the slothful embrace of LA traffic too long if an East Village walk-up can defeat me.
Even without the heat, I wouldn’t recommend taking the subway from Astoria to St. Marks. The train doesn’t get off at a super-convenient station, it’s a lot of walking, and the commute takes an hour of your life each way. Drunk tourist city isn’t worth it.
Ophelia looks infuriatingly perfect still, not even winded, her violet eyeliner just as crisp as it was when we left Astoria. “I go to a lot of spin classes,” she says when I ask.
“Addicted,” mouths Diego over Ophelia’s shoulder.
Diego doesn’t bother knocking. Not that I think anyone would have heard him over the bass of the music or the crescendo of voices talking and laughing beyond the door. Inside, the party is about how I expected, only there’s more than just weed smoke overhead—someone is burning sandalwood incense in a little golden bowl on the kitchen counter.
“Want a beer?” Diego offers, heading for one of the coolers sitting at the base of the island.
“Sure,” Ophelia says, right as I respond with “I’m good.”
Diego digs around in the ice and surfaces with two IPAs. “You sure, Ely? They’ve got cider too, if you have a gluten thing.”
Like I haven’t eaten five hundred bagels in front of him this past week. “No, really. I’ll get something in a bit.” Lukewarm tap water probably, but it’s not like I’m expecting craft mocktails. Ask a sober person what they have to drink, and they’ll show you a whole fridge full of twenty different seltzer flavors. Last time I asked a drinker for seltzer, they handed me a White Claw.
Diego shrugs as if to say, Your funeral, and passes Ophelia both the beers. “I can’t open these with my nails,” he says, flicking his fingers toward us to show off his rhinestoned talons. “Do you mind…?”
Ophelia rolls her eyes with plenty of gusto, but she does it. “I’m starting to think you just get those things so you don’t have to open your own cans. Or wash your own dishes…or scrub out the oven…”
“Hey,” Diego says. “We have a system. You do all that; I clean the bathroom and cook all the food and— Jesus, I’m not gonna list out the whole chore chart. We’re at a party. Come on.”