Sweetbitter(80)

“And it was like, out in the open, and Simone was putting in her notice without putting it in, like a six-month notice, but still.”

“And what?”

Will shrugged. “How does that phrase go? Married men always leave their wives?”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s not how the phrase goes.”

“Poof be gone,” Sasha said, and snapped his fingers. “You fuck the servant, you don’t take her to Connecticut, ’kay?”

“I think Samantha lives in Connecticut.”

“Bravo, doll,” Will said. “So a few years later, along comes Samantha—she and Simone fall hard for each other, like schoolgirl style.”

“But Eugene and Samantha fall even harder. She wasn’t even here long enough to get a voucher. She and Simone had some bizarre falling-out after the wedding. It just broke Simone for a minute.”

“Wait, Ari,” I said. “Simone doesn’t get broken. Especially by shit like that. She’s not like, looking to get married or get validated by a man. She’s in her own circle.”

Ariel slammed her hand on the bar. “Are you fucking blind?”

“Baby Monster, you need a bathroom break.”

“It’s like you fucking own me,” I said to Sasha, standing up automatically and getting in line with him. I waved to Scott who sat in his corner.

“Back at it?” he said. Mocking and cruel, as if he knew that I didn’t want to be here again, in a cycle of nothing nights.

“Like riding a bike,” I said and turned to Sasha. “What about Jake?”

“What about my Baby Jakey? He picking up all the Simone pieces like always.”

“What about him and Samantha?”

“Why you ask that?” He grabbed my chin and looked in my eyes.

“She mentioned him,” I said. But that wasn’t it. It was that Simone was so upset by Samantha I felt like there had to be more to the story. A black aura of heartbreak shrouded Simone now. Her poems that no one read, her apartment that she could never leave, her expertise so niche it was skeletal. She hadn’t made a choice. Someone else had.

We locked ourselves in the bathroom and he took out his bag. “Sugar Face, you better off just assuming that Jake fucked everyone. Where’s your key?”

“Sasha, when are you going to be happy for me? Also I don’t have a key on me.”

“Oh look who all grown up!” He pulled out his wine key and took a bump and handed it to me. “You know, you the worst kind, you want to marry the artist and live like squalor, but you wait, in five years you be like, Baby Jake why we eat ramen noodles every night? You a hustler, don’t blind me, I see.”

The cocaine was an illumination, the bathroom florid, filtered. When I looked at our reflection in the mirror we looked like a photograph. I could see that we were just playing. The degree to which I took myself seriously was laughable. “God, Sasha, it’s so dark here. You guys are so fucking dark. Do you not see that?”

“Oh, Baby Monster, please show me the light!”

“I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be like this.” I checked his nose and teeth for him and lifted my head for him to do the same. He flicked something off my nose and I grabbed his face and kissed him on both cheeks. “This isn’t Mother Russia. It’s America. We believe in happy endings.”

“Get me the phone, lemme me call my mama, Jesus fucking Christ, ’cause now I really fucking heard everything.”





III


THE HUNGRY GAP appeared, spreading like a rattled plane in front of us. We extended our use of the word local, bringing up soft-shell crab and asparagus from Virginia, blood oranges from Florida. The guests, the cooks, all of us anxious, still shell-shocked from winter and bucking against the restraints. It wasn’t spring fever, not yet. We didn’t fully have faith that it was coming but we had no choice but to move forward into the protracted promises.

The sun came out for a moment. I stopped and stared at the ends of the branches, willing them to bud. I had just left the Guggenheim and clouds blindfolded the sun again as I walked toward the train. I felt like a stranger again, like I could disappear into any intractable diner or bodega or train station.

I got out at Grand Central, hallowed ground of anonymity and flux, and followed signs for the Oyster Bar. It was a strange impulse—he had been saying that he was going to take me, it was one of his favorites. I don’t know whether it was a Kandinsky or a Klee that gave me a curious detachment from my life, but I decided not to wait for him. Simone assured me it was an old wives’ tale, but someone said that you were only supposed to eat oysters during months with an r in it. So maybe it was the impending warmth, the loss of the chilly r months, but I knew I should take myself to lunch.

I got the last seat at the low counter, under a vaulted dome of tiles. I was prepared with my book but I stared at the ceiling instead, inhaled the velvet scent of shellfish and butter, watched the servers and busboys, then looked at the guests, slowly realizing that I was singular in the room. I had nothing in common with the suits and their lunch breaks and BlackBerrys. I belonged, but not because of my age or my clothes. I belonged because I spoke the restaurant language.

“Excuse me,” said the man sitting next to me. He was midway through a bowl of clam chowder. He was broad shouldered and fine featured, and I did a double take because he had blue eyes. I raised my eyebrows at him.