“I’d like a Tight Snatch.”
“I am going to have a Ginger Bush.” Kristin wrinkles her nose and purses her lips. “On second thought, make that a Creamy Pussy. Could you add a splash more Tequila Rose, though?” She hands her corporate credit card to the bartender. “You can start a tab. Thanks.”
We’re grabbing post-workday drinks at our favorite cocktail bar. Vesper has a chill vibe even though it’s super swank. It was a theater during the Golden Age of Hollywood. The owner, the only daughter of an Academy Award-winning director, is an influencer with serious clout. She dropped a wad restoring the place. The banquettes are plush, the low amber lighting gives you flawless selfie-filter face, and the salaciously named drinks are super strong. The beautiful people come here to spill tea while getting drunk on top-drawer booze. Kristin and I come here to watch trends and abuse the company AmEx.
“You haven’t told me what happened with Michael.”
Michael is a music producer I met at the gym. After weeks of fitness flexing and flirting, he finally asked me out. We went to a Post Malone concert, hung out at his studio, worked out together.
“Yeah, hard pass on the hard body.”
“Why? You were having fun with him.”
“I was until he took me to dinner at Circé.”
Kristin stares at me blankly.
“He ordered salmon.”
“I didn’t know you had such an aversion to salmon. Is it freshwater sockeye, Chinook, or all species of salmon that offend you?”
“Ha-ha! He pronounced it sall-men. Once he said it, I couldn’t unhear it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope.”
“You broke up with a tall, dark, spicy snack because he mispronounced one word?” Kristin raises her glass in a toast. “Congratulations, Marlow. That might be the stupidest reason you’ve ever given for breaking up with a guy.”
“We didn’t break up because we were never together.”
Kristin finishes her cocktail in one swallow, sets the empty glass on the table, and rolls up her sleeves. It’s about to get real.
“You broke up with the real estate agent because he drank milk with pizza.”
“That’s just weird.”
“The guy from New Jersey?”
“The accent.”
“Fair enough. I’ll give you that one.”
“Thank you!”
The bartender brings Kristin another cocktail.
“What about the pilot?”
“He serenaded me.”
“Awww.” She tilts her head and gets the same dewy, dopey look she gets when she watches Titanic. “That’s so romantic.”
“He sang a Lady Antebellum song.”
“Not…”
“Yep,” I say. “‘Need You Now.’”
Kristin groans.
“While playing the banjo.”
“Shut up!”
“Serious.”
“What about the boat broker?”
“Clammy feet.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
“Nope.”
“The homicide detective?”
“Girl, that’s dead, that’s done.”
She groans and rolls her eyes. “I’m worried about you, Marlow.”
“Worried? Why?”
“You haven’t had a serious boyfriend since Terrell.”
Terrell Rose was my first love. We met my freshman year in the dorms. He was an upper-class football player with a muscular brown body, chocolate eyes, and a smile so sweet it made my teeth ache to look at it. He graduated, was drafted to play for the New York Giants, and blew out his knee in the fourth game of his first season. I went to see him in the hospital, but he was in a dark place. He told me he was over me, that I should go back to school like a good girl and find a guy that was going somewhere other than physical therapy.
“If a serial dater is someone who enjoys getting to know new people and isn’t motivated to seal the deal with a wedding band and a four-bedroom in Santa Monica, then yes, I am a serial dater.”
“Do you think you will ever be in a long-term monogamous relationship with someone who isn’t your hairdresser?”
“You have like six skazillion television channels, right?”
Kristin shakes her head. “What does that have to—”
“Ride with me, here,” I say. “Remember when you were recovering from your rotator cuff surgery and I took care of you? We were chilling on the couch, trying to find something on the telly. We flipped through all the local stations, movie channels, educational channels. Fuck me! We even tried Hallmark, and that cringe film about the American exec who went to Ireland to open a factory and fell in love with a pixie whisperer.”
“Chasing Leprechauns,” she says. “And she was a pixie charmer.”
“How can you possibly remember the name of that movie?” My bestie has a brain like Wikipedia, crammed full of facts and useless minutia. “We only watched, like, ten minutes.”
“Yeah,” she says, sniffing. “I might have watched it the next time it was on.”
“Who are you?” I shake my head. “If you tell me you’ve developed an affinity for cheesy, low-budget, made-for-cable romance movies, I’m going to block every channel except Skinemax. Don’t make me do it. I’ll force you to watch Hollywood Sexcapades and Taxicab Confessions.”
“You say that like it’s a punishment,” she deadpans.
This is why I busted my prepubescent ass to make Kristin Bitter my best friend. Besides having a wicked cool name, she’s been a spectator to my dramatic outbursts since we were seated next to each other in sixth-grade English class, and she’s never batted a long black eyelash. Not once. She’s funny even when she’s stone-cold sober and one of the few people who keeps me on my conversational toes whether we’re debating climate change, discussing Hemingway’s influence on American literature, or trash-talking about celebs.
“Look at my girl fronting.” I laugh, putting my hands to my face and peeking at her through my splayed fingers. “You watched Fifty Shades of Grey with your hands over your eyes. Skinemax After Dark would drive you to a nunnery.”
“Marlow!” Her porcelain cheeks suffuse with the prettiest rose blush. “What does my cable television line-up have to do with your inability to commit to a man for more than cocktails and…?”
“Cock?”
“Ew.” She wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”
I laugh. Shocking my bestie with my dirty girl humor is probably my favorite pastime—after sex. “My love life is like your cable television line-up. I can’t find anyone who holds my interest.”
“You’ve certainly flipped through enough channels. Like loads and loads—”
“Thanks.”
“—and loads.”
“Loads. Got it.”
“No judgment. I’m not slut shaming.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She gives me a side hug, squeezing me tight. “I don’t care if you sleep with every man in a fifty-mile radius, as long as you’re safe and happy, but I’m not sure you are happy.”
“You’re right.” I fake sniffle. “Dating a gorgeous guy and dumping him before the honeymoon stage wears off, before he’s standing in my bathroom, scratching his ass while taking a piss with the door open, is making me so miserable.”
She tilts her head and looks at me through the thick fringe of her black bangs. “Would you be real for three minutes?”
“Three, huh? That’s an arbitrary number.”
“Marlow!”
“Fine,” I say. “What do you want me to be real about?”
“Admit dating a different guy every month isn’t satisfying anymore.”
I bust out laughing. “Okay, Boomer. Straight up, Kris? You’re sounding like my mom right now.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Give me three reasons cycling through guys faster than Lance Armstrong on the Tour de France makes you happy.”
“Again with the number three?”
She arches a brow and holds up one finger.
“Okay, fine.” I sigh. “One. I can flirt with the hot barista at Starbucks or bang a high-key gorgeous suit in the Air France lounge bathroom whenever I want.”
Her eyes widen. “Did you?”
I let my grin be the answer. “Two. I can leave his message on read if I’m not feeling it.”
She holds up three fingers.
“Three. I can look at thirst traps on Insta and I don’t need to do it on the downlow. Nothing ruins a good wank bank like a jealous boyfriend stalking your Insta follows.”
“Lowkey? I can’t argue with your reasons.”
“Sweet! Because I could have said research has shown single people are more physically fit, mentally healthier, more productive at work, and better with their finances.” I shrug out of my jacket and toss it onto the banquette beside me. “I never have to sleep in the wet spot. I don’t have to fight anyone for the remote. I don’t have to share the last bowl of Häagen-Dazs. I can wear flannel pajamas all weekend—”
“Marlow Ann Donnelly! You don’t own flannel pajamas.”
“I know”—I flick an imaginary piece of lint off my trousers—“but if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have to hide them under my thongs and bombshell bras. Besides”—I pull my iPhone out of my pocket, open Instagram, and hand the phone to my bestie—“this guy just slid into my DMs—”
She turns her face away. “I will not look at another one of your Instagram thirst traps until you promise me you will go to Ibiza and interview Ian Chapman.”
Honestly? I changed my mind about the Love Guru gig when one of the interns said she went to Ibiza for Spring Break and met loads of cute Spanish boys. If I’m completely honest, I would have agreed to take the assignment even without the temptation of meeting a Latin lover because it seems important to Kristin.
“Fine,” I say in an exhalation. “I will meet your Love Guru.”
She looks back at me, smiles, and claps. “Yay! You leave in a week.”
“Can’t wait.”
“In the meantime, maybe you’ll meet a guy at Taylor’s wedding.”
Taylor makes up the third in our trifecta of besties. She’s getting married to a much older rando she met at a salsa class.
“Negative, goose. You’re a stellar wing woman, but if I wanted to date a geriatric, I would take a cruise for seniors or join a gardening club.”
“Marlow! He’s not that old.”
“He’s ancient.”
“He’s forty-two.”
I shudder. “He wears jeans from Banana Republic.”
“So?”
“He smells like Old Spice and he has ear hair.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Harry is nice.”
“Harry! Even his name sounds old.”
“Prince Harry?”
“Balding before thirty-five,” I sing. “Just saying.”
Kristin rolls her eyes.
“Look, I’m sure Taylor and Harry will be happy clipping groupons together for the early bird special at the Olive Garden, but I am not Taylor and I do not look for my rides on Silver Singles.”