The Ex Talk(33)

    DOMINIC YUN: It’s not in our notes. Because I want to hear your honest answer.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Perfect. You want to ad-lib during our first three minutes on the air?

DOMINC YUN: Never mind. You’re building it up too much. There’s too much suspense.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Dominic Yun, I will walk out of this studio right now if you don’t—




Dominic laughs.

    DOMINIC YUN: Okay, okay. What I really want to know, since we’re talking about, you know, our relationship, is what you’d change about me, if you could. Assuming I’m not a flawless human being.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Oh, I definitely don’t need notes for that. Okay. So the first thing is that you’d only be able to talk about your master’s degree, like, once a month. Preferably never, but I’m not sure your ego could take it.

DOMINIC YUN: My master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern?

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Yep, that’s the one. You also—you do this thing where you lean against a wall and crane your neck to talk to people, and it feels really condescending sometimes. Like you’re literally talking down to them.

DOMINIC YUN: You do realize you’re, like, five feet tall, right? Am I not supposed to look at you when we’re talking?

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: I am five two. Respect those two inches. No, but this is my special magical world where I can change anything about you. You didn’t say it had to make sense.

DOMINIC YUN: You could just make me shorter.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: I like how tall you are. I mean—so you can reach things for me when I don’t feel like climbing up on a counter.

DOMINIC YUN: So my worst traits are my height and my advanced education? This is scathing.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: You also have that ball on your desk you’re always throwing around when you’re thinking, and it drives me bonkers. So I’d take that away. And now you’re going to tell me what you’d change about me?

DOMINIC YUN: Only if you can handle it.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: You know I don’t have emotions while I’m at work.




Dominic snorts.

    DOMINIC YUN: Well, first, you’d have to get taller. It’s just creepy for an adult to be as small as you are.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: I got carded at an R-rated movie last weekend.

DOMINIC YUN: And you didn’t you tell me? I could have spent the past week making fun of you.

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: We’re getting off track. Tell me more things you don’t like about me. Drag me, Dominic. That’s what the cool kids say these days, right?

DOMINIC YUN: Yeah, the cool kids in 2016. Okay, I’ll drag you. Let’s see . . . sometimes you think there’s only one right way to do things, so I guess I’d make you a little more flexible.




Shay coughs.

    DOMINIC YUN: Do you need some water? Or do you need help reaching it?




Shay coughs more violently.

    SHAY GOLDSTEIN: No, I—okay. I’m fine.

DOMINIC YUN: So, any of those things you wanted to change about me—do you think if I’d changed, we wouldn’t have broken up?

SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Well . . . no. And I think I see what you’re getting at. You’re trying to say that even if we changed those things, we still wouldn’t be right together. And as much as I hate to admit it, you make a good point. If you’re expecting your partner to change, you may not be in the right relationship. Smart.

DOMINIC YUN: Well, I do have a master’s degree.





11




I wake up the next morning scrunched on the edge of my bed. Steve is spread out in the middle, tiny whiskers twitching in his sleep. Progress. How such a small dog takes up so much space, I’ll never know.

He usually wakes me before my alarm, so we’re often on a walk before I have a chance to check social media. Today I relish the extra few minutes with my phone, arranging myself so I’m semi-spooning my dog, trying not to disturb him.

And . . . wow.

I was just shy of a thousand followers on Twitter, but now I’m past 2K. My mentions are a mess, and I wince as I swipe over to them, waiting for what I’ve always feared would happen if I ever got on the radio.

But that doesn’t happen.

Because they’re nice.

There’s a bit of unavoidable internet vitriol, but overall, people loved the show. Loved. I’m not exaggerating—the word is all over social media.

Relief sinks me deeper into my mattress, and I fight a smile. For weeks, I’ve been carrying around this panic that we wouldn’t be good enough, that no one would listen, that I’d screw up live on air. But this—this is a powerful feeling, and it’s much stronger than I thought it would be.

The hour started slowly. Dominic sounded calm, smooth, completely anxiety-free. Either he’s great at hiding it, or his stage fright really did go away once we went live. I was shaky at first, laughed a little too much, but then I gained my bearings. We had our intro scripted out, a he-said, she-said choreographed dance that he immediately threw a wrench into. Improvising with him wasn’t as difficult as I worried it might be, although the whole time, I was aware the stories we told about Dominic dropping a candle while lighting the menorah on his first Hanukkah and our very public fight at an Olive Garden, the one where we tested the limits of all-you-can-eat salad and breadsticks, weren’t about us. That I never actually branded him an honorary Jew. That it wasn’t Dominic in the story about ice-skating at Seattle Center when “The Time Warp” came over the speakers and both of us knew the dance.