Mrs. Fletcher(28)

Amanda understood that this was a bad idea, not to mention a blatant violation of her recently instituted no-hookup policy. Tinder was like tequila—fun today, sad tomorrow—but sometimes you didn’t have a choice. That unexpected reunion with Trish Lozano had really messed with her self-esteem. The thought of going home and eating a salad in front of the TV had triggered a wave of self-pity that bordered on rage.

That’s the highlight of my day? A fucking salad?

It would have been fine, or at least marginally tolerable, if Trish had still been Trish, a grown-up version of her teenaged self, cute and predictable, flaunting a tacky rock, bragging about her fratboy stockbroker boyfriend. At least that way Amanda would have preserved her sense of intellectual superiority, the illusion that she was an adventurous bohemian who’d chosen the road less traveled.

But Trish—Beckett—was a completely new person, living the kind of life Amanda had always imagined for herself. My fiancé’s a cinematographer! How the fuck did that happen? It just seemed so unfair—the girl who’d been deliriously happy in high school was the one who’d reinvented herself, moving to a glamorous city and falling in love with an artist who loved her back, while Amanda, who’d dreamed of nothing but escape, had ended up right back where she started, with only a few stupid tattoos to show for all her trouble.

I work at the Senior Center. They have a pretty good lecture series.

She’d felt so stupid saying that, she’d wanted to die. And then Trish had had the gall to hug her, to fucking apologize for her happiness, which was way worse than bragging about it.

I am so getting laid tonight, Amanda thought, before they’d even let go of each other.

*

Her match arrived in less than an hour, knocking furtively on the front door. She studied him through the peephole, amazed, as always, that this was even possible, that you could swipe at a photo of a stranger, and the flesh-and-blood person would show up on your doorstep. This one was a little heavier than she’d expected—he claimed to be an avid cyclist—but he bore an otherwise reassuring resemblance to his profile pic, which had been taken in an apple orchard on a sunny day. It showed him standing beneath a fruit-laden tree, squinting into the camera, smiling in a way that made him look worried rather than happy.

His name was Bobby and he seemed charmingly ill-at-ease in the living room, like a teenager picking up his prom date. He wanted to know if it was all right to keep his shoes on, and asked permission before sitting down on the couch. He said no to her offer of a beer, then changed his mind a few seconds later, but only if it wasn’t too much trouble. Middle-aged men were often like this, tentative and overly polite. The guys her own age had more of a swagger, as if they were stopping by to pick up a well-deserved award.

“How was the traffic?” she asked.

“Piece of cake,” he said. “Only a problem at rush hour.”

“Well, thanks for making the trip.”

“Thanks for hosting.” He surveyed the décor with a skeptical expression, taking in the matching gray furniture, the gas fireplace, the vases and baskets full of dried flowers. “This your place?”

“I’m house-sitting. My parents are on a cruise. They’re coming home tomorrow.”

This was the lie she always told, because she didn’t want any Tinder dudes ringing the doorbell at two in the morning, drunk and looking for company. Besides, the real story was too complicated—her mother’s unexpected death from a heart attack at the age of sixty-two; her own return from the city to make the funeral arrangements and deal with the legal and financial crap (she was the only child of divorced parents, so it was all on her); and the fact that she’d just stayed, because life in the city had gotten complicated—she’d broken up with her boyfriend and was living in a temporary sublet—and here was a whole house that suddenly belonged to her, though she couldn’t bear to redecorate or even clean out her mother’s closet. At some point, if the opportunity arose, she’d tell Bobby that her dad was a retired cop, also not true—her dad wasn’t retired, wasn’t a cop, and in any case was no longer in touch with Amanda—but certain precautions were advisable if you were going to invite strangers into your home and have sex with them.

“I went on a cruise once,” he said. “It wasn’t that great.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough,” she told him.

When he finished his beer, they went out on the back deck to smoke the joint she’d asked him to bring. She wasn’t a big pothead, but weed worked faster than alcohol, and had the added benefit of making everything seem a little more unreal and a lot funnier than it would have been otherwise, which was definitely helpful in a situation like this.

“Nice night,” he said, nodding at the sky. “Moon’s almost full.”

Amanda didn’t reply. She wanted to keep the small talk to a minimum. That had been her mistake with Dell—they’d talked for an hour before taking their clothes off, and it had ended up feeling a little too much like a real date, which was probably what caused all the confusion when they ran into each other at yoga class.

“I’m divorced,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

At least he could take a hint. They smoked the rest of the joint in a strangely comfortable silence, as if they’d known each other a long time and had exhausted every possible topic of conversation. For a moment—it coincided with the realization that she was very high—she imagined they were a married couple, committed to spending every remaining night of their lives together, until one of them got sick and died.