“I feel like shit for asking this right now,” John said, “but can I borrow some money?”
No, I thought. No, no, no. Possible to rewind the tape so we could try that again? “Some money for what?”
“I have a back-taxes payment due and I’m not getting the next part of my advance for another six weeks.” John freelanced as a ghostwriter, writing memoirs “by” D-list reality TV stars. He saw ghostwriting as a way to pay the bills while his real life’s work was a novel spanning two centuries, about the wreck of the Medusa in 1816 and the cannibalism that ensued among the survivors, a British couple stranded at sea in the 1970s who survived by eating raw turtles, and a young boy coming of age in a coastal town in the early ’80s, alienated from his peers and grieving his dead mother. If he could just finish the nine-hundred-page manuscript, if he could just somehow get a copy to Kenneth Lonergan, he knew his life would change.
Then last year, John had his biggest commercial success yet, with a memoir by a handsome house-flipper, about his transition to life as a single dad after his wife died in a mass shooting. This led to a temporary bump in income (and taxes) and similar assignments. The novel was once again put on the back burner.
“Ask Devin if she’ll lend you money.”
“I’m not asking Devin,” he said. “Are you joking?”
“I don’t know, am I?”
“Babe,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders so we were looking right into each other’s eyes. I loved his eyes. I couldn’t go into my bank of email scripts and send my “politely decline” template to his eyes. “I love you. I hate asking you. I wish you were the one asking me for money.”
“I’ve never asked to borrow money from you.” Even when I was at the nonprofit, I would charge groceries to my credit card before I asked for any favors.
“I know, that’s my point. You’re better at adulting than I am.”
“You’re forty-one years old,” I said. “I think technically it’s illegal for you to use that word.”
“I’m just trying to speak your language,” he said.
We walked down the road until we found a couple bars of cell service, so I could log in to my Chase app to see how much I had in checking ($1,242.18) and then Venmo him a thousand. My money was like my time—it always seemed to spend itself, with little oversight or control from me.
“Everything is going to be okay,” John said, kissing my forehead. “If Richual keeps scaling at this rate, you’ll be at two million monthly active users by when, the end of this month? Ten million by the end of 2017?”
“The worse this administration gets, the more women need self-care.” That’s what I would say to VCs.
“Once you’re acquired, you can walk away,” John said. “You can do whatever you want. We can buy a yacht.”
“What if we get lost at sea and run out of food?”
“I give you permission to eat me. I want you to live, no matter what.”
* * *
...
That night, John lit a fire and we sat around the hearth in our pajamas, taking videos of the crackling logs that our future selves could watch through the lens of nostalgia. Devin played me a gif of Winona Ryder’s disturbingly elastic face at the SAG Awards and then my boyfriend held up his phone long enough for me to take a hit of a Times headline above a picture of the press secretary, whose saggy under-eye bags were the consequence he paid for his complicity. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to check on my internet, too.
“What’s the wifi password?”
“Don’t tell her,” Devin said.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Babe,” John said. “It’s for your own good.”
“I hate my own good. Ruin me. Please. Shoot me up. Shoot it into my neck.”
“Lawdy,” Devin said.
“This is what we do at home,” John said. “Intervention roleplay.”
One of the logs on the fire popped. For a few seconds, no one looked at their phone. I finished a glass of wine I’d forgotten to count.
“This is actually nice,” Devin said, stretching her legs across my lap on the couch. “We should do this more often.”
“What do you think?” I asked John. “Should we become a throuple?”
“What does Devin bring to the relationship?”
Money, I thought. She brings money.
“I have a very positive attitude,” Devin said. “I notice how people bring out the best in each other. Like the way you finish each other’s sentences.”
“I can’t believe—” John started.
“—he’s our president,” I finished. “What else?”
“And how John feeds you pieces of cheese when he thinks I’m not looking.”
I couldn’t solve the riddle of why Devin was single. I could only imagine that men were intimidated by her: she was beautiful, the size of a stalk of asparagus, scented like an expensive bouquet. Maybe she went out with insensitive dicks who underestimated how many self-empowerment books she’d read. Or maybe dating in New York was the problem: it was like being at an exclusive party with someone who was always looking over your shoulder. John and I were together because it was easier to remain a couple than it was to ask ourselves if this was what we truly wanted.
“Who do we know?” I asked John. “Let’s set Devin up with someone. Someone really hot. But also nice.”
“My personal trainer?”
“Who’s your personal trainer?” Devin asked.
“He’s joking,” I said. “Have you seen him?”
John stood up. “I’m going to the kitchen now to eat my feelings. Anybody want anything?”
“Please and thank you,” I said, handing him my empty glass.
When John was gone, I ran my hand slowly down Devin’s shin.
“Now about that wifi password . . .”
“You’re sick. Seriously.”
“What are the top three qualities you want in a boyfriend? Go.”
Devin lay her head back against the couch and let out a dramatic exhale.
“It’s not a checklist, Maren. It’s a feeling.”
“But how will you know where to look for the feeling if you don’t define some criteria?”
“I don’t believe algorithms make love.”