Fay held up her ramen bowl. “Cin-cin.”
She slurped her soup, which earned her an outraged squeal all the way from Seattle.
“You’re as gross as my children.”
“I’m sitting on the floor eating ramen and scraps of chicken and onion that I’ve rended with my own hands, Renata. You don’t know the half of it.”
“And you still haven’t made any progress with the unpacking, I see. You’re usually right on top of projects.”
Well, this conversation was not helping Fay maintain her buoyant mood. “Stop mom-ing me, Renata. I already have one, and she’s enough. Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf, trying to be more relaxed about everything. Maybe I’m tired. Besides, you’ll be happy to know that the reason I was happy was because I went out—and not to the office.”
“Good! Where?”
“The Mount Morris Park house tour!”
“That sounds like planner work.”
“It was fun! The houses are beautiful. I love looking at real estate, and I wanted to learn more about how Central Harlem has changed in the space of ten years—”
Renata made a warning noise.
“—And, Renata, you yourself were telling me that I should look around for ideas for my apartment.”
“I meant in magazines or on, like, Pinterest. God, did I just recommend Pinterest? Maybe I am mom-ing you. Not that there’s anything wrong with moms.”
“Well, this was a really great self-guided tour, and I got to see some beautiful things...except there was a guy who got way too aggressive about asking me out. Like, following me around and talking to me for a while, especially when there was no one else around—” Renata opened her mouth to say something, and Fay cut her off quickly. “But that turned out okay, too.”
“What, did you give him a right hook and send him backward off the porch? You did, didn’t you? That’s why you look happy. Is he dead? I knew this day would come, I have just the person to represent you. Let me get—”
From seemingly out of nowhere Renata hauled up her briefcase and set it next to her wineglass.
“No. No. No one’s dead—or hurt.”
“There’s a story here.”
“Not much.”
Renata lowered the briefcase out of sight again. Fay didn’t know why she was suddenly reluctant to share. Nothing had really happened, after all. “Oliver Huang showed up. I pretended he was my boyfriend and the dude backed off.”
“Oliver Huang?”
She cleared her throat. “Yep.”
“The one with the cheekbones.” Her friend was now peering hard at the phone, trying to read Fay’s face. Luckily the light was bad enough in her apartment that Renata probably couldn’t see Fay’s blush.
Renata said slowly, “Oh yes, I do remember him. He went to grad school with that colleague of yours when you worked at the city—what’s her name.”
“I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of it.”
“Funny you know him but you can’t recall her.”
“Hilarious. I’m sure I’m friends with her on Facebook or something. I should check.”
Not to be diverted, Renata said, “He’s a very good-looking man.”
“Yeah.”
“And nice. Remember Sofia’s wedding? Good dancer.”
“I get the idea—”
“He’s the one who rescued you from the bugs that other time.”
Fay shuddered. “Aided, not rescued. I don’t want to talk about that.”
“But you’ve reconnected.”
“It wasn’t a date.” And apparently it never would be. Fay turned red again. “He helped me out of a jam—that I could’ve gotten out of myself. But I was glad he was there.”
“Did you ask him out?”
Reluctantly Fay said, “No-o.”
“Well then, did he ask you out?”
There it was. “No.”
Fay had been sure he would. And she’d been prepared to say—what? Yes. She had been prepared to hesitate and then say yes. But now she was only embarrassed. “It’s not like that between us. We’re casual acquaintances. Friends,” she amended, “now that we’ve spent an afternoon together.”
“An afternoon in which you pretended to be boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Just for a few minutes.”
Well, it was longer than that if she counted the other times through the rest of the tour when they hadn’t contradicted other people who had assumed they were a couple—when she’d managed to fool herself that they were a couple. It felt good to be with Oliver. It felt easy to just let the mistakes pass without correction, to stand a little too close, to brush up against his solid, warm arm, and to pretend that it was all real.
Renata smirked at Fay’s silence and Fay found her irritation growing.
“I’m not interested in starting anything with Oliver Huang anyway. It would be awkward. I know too many people that he knows, and we’re in the same small professional circle. We have the same urban planner friends, and the same urban planner jokes and interests. People introduce and reintroduce us to one another all the time. To change that, that’s the definition of awkward.”
“You said that word awkward a lot.”
“I repeated it because I was afraid you weren’t understanding my important point. He isn’t what I need. I need someone who isn’t playing around, like Jeremy was—”
Renata snorted. “Jeremy was lazy. All talk, no action.”
Lazy wasn’t exactly correct. It wasn’t that she had been more ambitious than her ex. If anything, judging by all the high-flown ideas he’d had, his imaginings for what he could do and how much money he’d make, or what ideals he’d uphold, his aspirations went wide and far. Jeremy was the one who was sure of himself. He was the one who thought he could make things happen. He was the one who’d tried a handful of different careers, always putting in minimal effort and expecting success to fall into his lap, and when it didn’t, heading off in search of greener pastures.
But Fay was the one who had focused on one thing that she wanted to do and was doing it.
She continued as if she’d been uninterrupted. “I need someone who understands my perspective. Someone driven, who doesn’t just let me talk the whole time, or have me lead him around from house to house showing him things.” Although, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? She’d liked that Oliver let her take the lead, and she’d told him so. Maybe he’d been waiting for her to take the next step, too? “Besides, the moment is gone.”