Such a Fun Age(26)

Kelley held his arms up behind his head, then quickly removed them as a waiter stopped by to deliver their plates. “So I think it’s time you told me about the losers you dated before you met me,” he said.

Emira laughed. “Oh, it’s that time?” She set her beer back on the table.

“Mm-hmm. And also what they’re doing now and how miserable they are without you.”

“Oh wow, okay.” She readjusted in her seat. “Well . . . I dated someone this summer for a few months, which was fine for a minute. But then he started to send me motivational quotes all the time . . . ? And I was like nuh-uh, I can’t do this shit with you.”

“I need to see at least one of them.”

“I probably deleted them.” Emira cut into her enchiladas and tried to remember. “But yeah, he’d text me all these pictures and quotes that were like, Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team, and I was always like . . . okay, and?”

“Alright, so no quotes for you. Do you want another?” Kelley pointed to the bucket of beers and Emira nodded.

“I dated a musician for a year in college and that was fine but dumb. I think he’s touring with some band now and tuning their guitars.”

Kelley finished chewing and said, “Why do I feel like that band is like, the Red Hot Chili Peppers or something?”

“Please, I know who that is.” Emira smirked. “And then I dated a guy for like, ten months from high school into college. But it was long distance for the second half so that was dumb, too.”

“Huh.” Kelley wiped his face with his napkin and set his hands on the table. “So you haven’t had like, a long, serious relationship?”

Emira smiled as she chewed. “Well, I haven’t had a long, serious life, so no. Is this you tryna tell me that you were married with kids or something?”

“No no no . . . why do I have the impulse to say, ‘Not that I know of!’”

Emira faked a gag and said, “Please don’t.”

“I know. Ignore that.” Kelley shook his head and started over. “My last girlfriend and I met in college but dated years after. She now delivers babies on a reservation in Arizona . . . I had a girlfriend for two years at the end of college, and we say Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas sometimes. I think she lives in Baltimore. I had a girlfriend for a little while during my freshman year. We’re still cool. And . . . you went all the way back to high school so I guess I gotta play, too. When I was seventeen I had a girlfriend who was the richest girl in town.”

Emira crossed her legs. “How rich are we talking?”

Kelley raised a finger. “I’ll tell you how rich. We took a school trip to Washington, D.C.—she was in the grade above me—and like thirty of us were on the same plane ride. She was the first one on the plane and I was right behind her. And after she found her seat, she set her luggage down in the aisle, and then she just sat down. Without putting it away.”

Emira’s head dipped and her ponytail swung. “Did she expect you to do it for her?”

“No.” Kelley leaned into the table. “She expected people on the plane to do it. I opened the overhead and she was like, ‘Don’t mess with the plane!’ She’d never been on a plane where the staff didn’t put your luggage away for you.”

“Are there planes like that?”

“Evidently in first class.”

“Oh shit,” Emira said. “Does she own her own plane now?”

“Probably. I’m fairly certain she’s in New York. I just remember that like, well, this sounds weird, but it was one of those loss-of-innocence moments where things kind of click, you know? And I had a lot of moments like this with her—that’s another story—but I remember that most of my classmates had never been on a plane, and probably wouldn’t again for a long time. And here’s this girl who travels in first class and doesn’t understand why there’s no leg room. And my seventeen-year-old mind was like, ‘Oh hey, people live very different lives.’ Do you know what I mean?”

“Mm-hmm,” Emira said. “Yeah. This is like, the opposite, but when I was little, I went to this girl’s house for a sleepover, and when I went into the bathroom there were three huge cockroaches in the middle of the floor. I screamed, but this girl was like, ‘Oh, you just shoo them out of the way.’” As she said this, Emira flicked her napkin gently in imitation, as if she were cutely herding very tiny sheep. “And I was like, you do what? And when I think back I’m like, okay yeah, that girl was mad poor. I think she and her sister slept in the same twin bed. But at the time the cockroaches seemed like a bigger deal. It shook me, I was like, ‘You live like this?’ And now I’m like oh, wait, most people live like this.”

“Eeek, exactly. That’s a really good one.” Kelley wiped his mouth, cringed, and nodded. “Okay, yeah, I have another one. When I was little, my little brother loved that show Moesha. Do you remember that show?”

“Of course I remember that show.”

“Yeah, that makes sense ’cause you’re closer to my little brother’s age.”

Emira made a face and said, “Cool, Kelley.”

“Sorry sorry sorry. So yeah, anyway . . . my whole family was sitting around the table at dinner, and out of nowhere my little brother, who was like six, goes, ‘Mom, why is Moesha nigger shit?’”