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I met Shoshi at Alice’s Tea Cup on the Upper East (that was how she said it—the Upper East, like it was its own continent), which appeared to be an entire restaurant based off Wonderland. I liked it despite myself. The clientele was made up of what Shoshi snootily referred to as Park Avenue princesses (as though growing up one block over was oh-so-different) and young women who looked exactly like me. I watched them in anthropological fascination. Well-dressed and well-mannered, they bent toward each other over French toast stuffed with berries and topped by Chantilly (which was, apparently, whipped cream) and had intense discussions about topics I’d read about that morning on the feminist blog Today Media ran.
Shoshi had sleek, perfect curls and a cute nose I would’ve killed for, and also an ease around people I doubted I’d ever cultivate. She threw her arms around me as soon as I arrived, smelling richly of roses. “So who are these people you moved in with?”
“I don’t really know,” I admitted. “The lease-holder’s a grad student, and she told me what she studied, but it was one of those things that didn’t make sense to me, so it didn’t stay in my head. ”
“So how do we know she’s not an ax murderer?”
I slowly sipped my mocha. Heaven. “I looked her up online and she won some scholarship and her hometown newspaper did a story on her. Sounds legit. ”
“Well, if you wake up and she’s wielding an ax you can come stay at my place. As long as it’s not for more than three nights. Apartment rule. ”
I laughed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, the commute’s a straight shot to the Flatiron District, and I figure it’s worth a funny situation in return for a good commute. ”
For half an hour, we gossiped about our family and what I should do here and what she’d been up to, and I decided she wasn’t going to bring up the one topic I wanted to avoid. Until she returned from the bathroom. I opened my mouth to comment on the conversation I’d been eavesdropping on while she was gone, only she beat me to it as she dropped back into her chair. “Okay. So I have a thing for you. ”
I tore myself away from the debate next door, which had something to do with American Girl dolls. I’d had Molly, which I was sure said something about my personality (that I was a nerd? Was Molly a nerd simply because of her glasses? Causation or correlation), and I’d carried her around so much that her arm had fallen off—or, more accurately, the rest of her had fallen off, leaving her arm clutched in my tiny hand. “A thing?”
She looked down at her low-fat, whites-only omelet, and then straight back at me, nodding and putting her fork down. “There’s a speed-dating thing in two weeks. ”
I dismissed that out of hand. “I’m not doing speed-dating. ”
“Yes, you are. Look, it’s for twenty-one—to twenty-nine-year-olds, so it’s not creepy or anything. It’s hosted by my temple. ”
I stared at her in absolute disbelief, and then shook my head. “I am not doing Jewish speed-dating. ”
She leaned back in her chair. “Come on, Tam. I’m just worried about you. We all are. ”
That raised my hackles. I liked Shoshi, but God, she could be patronizing, especially for someone all of twenty-eight months older than me. “Who’s we?”
“My mom, your mom, me. ” She went on, flippant as though we were discussing weather. “You’ve never had a boyfriend before. That’s weird. ”
I had had boyfriends before. Sort of. Well, almost. Fine, not during high school, as it was possible I was a little too hung up on Abe. But in college. Well, at least there was that boy in astronomy whom I spent all my time with for a semester, and everyone assumed we were a thing, even though we never actually kissed. I didn’t know why that never worked out. And then there was Alan Kim, the French horn player that I drunk made-out with at the beginning of junior year, and then continued to drunk make-out with for several months. And I couldn’t forget Patrick, the guy I’d been somewhat hooking up with this last summer, after we’d both ended up teaching SAT prep courses.
Though neither of us had been all that broken up when I got the Sports Today job. Patrick was like, cool, have fun, and I was like, yup. It was actually a bit of a relief to get away from his squirming tongue, though his hands definitely knew what they were doing.
So, okay, fine, maybe I hadn’t technically ever had a boyfriend. So what? “It’s not weird. ”
“Yeah, it is. ” She hesitated. “You’re not still hung up on that football player?”
I swallowed the last of my water and slammed my glass down. “Can’t I just have not have had a boyfriend yet? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Or you know what? It actually does. It’s mean I’m pretty damn comfortable in my own skin, and I know exactly who I am. And until I meet a guy who’s just as comfortable with himself, I’m really not interested. ”
She stared at me, and then burst into laughter. After a stunned second, I joined her, and folded my head over to rest on my folded arms.
Shoshi rubbed the back of my head. “Don’t worry, Tam. You’re twenty-three years old, you have an income and you live in the center of everything. Trust me. This is going to be the best year of your life. ”
* * *
The thing was, I knew people thought like Shoshi.
About me not dating, about me being hung up on Abraham, about everything.
After a lazy dinner in front of Hulu, the airport people brought my lost luggage by, and I started unpacking. I found places for my miscellaneous books and papers. I’d also brought prints that I theoretically wanted to frame and hang, but for now I stuck them to the walls with white tacky clay. And Ellie the Elephant, of course, got her own place on top of my cheap wardrobe, where she could survey her new domain without interference.
Mom called around eight, and I put her on Skype so I could keep moving around the room. She wanted to know all about my flight and apartment, so I gave her the full flood of details, including what family gossip I’d gleamed from Shoshi.
“And what about Abe?” she said near the end. “Have you talked to him yet?”
I moved out of the camera’s sight while I rolled my eyes. “Mom, I’m sure I’ll see him at some point, but I just got here. ”
“I know, but he plays football. I don’t understand why you don’t want to see him when he could help you with your job. ”
“Mom, I’m not going to use my childhood friend as a leg up at work. That’s weird. ”
Mom sounded long-suffering. “That’s networking, Tamar. That’s how people make connections. ”
Even so.
When I stepped out into the living room a few minutes later, a girl sat on the sofa with a computer in her lap. She had dark hair and skin halfway in between mine and Lucy’s. I lifted my hand, and then felt silly for waving inside our own apartment. “Hi. I’m Tamar. ”
She looked up. “Oh, hi, I’m Sabeen. Nice to meet you. ”
I gingerly sat on the edge of a chair. “So how long have you been living here?”
Her eyes flew up. “In America?”
I shrugged, embarrassed she thought I’d call her out on her accent after eight words, but curious nonetheless. “I actually meant in this apartment, but yeah, both I guess. ”