Avery

It seemed unnecessarily cold for a February, as I walked home from the office that night, and my fellow New Yorkers were especially impatient and grouchy. It was almost as if New York was trying to tell me to stop being a neurotic idiot and start getting excited about going to a tropical island to be with a man that I adore, for fuck’s sake.

What is wrong with you?! I could hear my sister’s imagined voice echoing through my head even louder than the street noise. You can pull your sorry ass out of bed for a client meeting when you’re knocking at Death’s door with the flu, you can wrap a cashmere scarf around your neck ten different ways, but you can’t wrap your head around a last-minute all-expenses paid Bahamas trip?!

Nope! Some people are good at working hard and playing hard, all in the same day even. Some people are good at having relationships while simultaneously pursuing a career. I didn’t have a fucking clue how they did it, I was not good at it, and smart people choose not to do things that they’re not good at. Am I right? I’m pretty sure I’m right. I passed a group of women my age—gloriously high-heeled, fake-eyelashed, Snapchatty late twentysomethings who were going clubbing on a Wednesday night, who still cared more about having fun than being right, but you know what—that’s their journey good for them. They seemed so happy it made me want to go back to the office.

It’s not that I hadn’t tried to have fun. I’d tried dating—when you live in Manhattan you have to—this is not a town for homebodies. There’s so much to do here and so many people asking questions about your love life. I had fun for the first few years while I was an assistant. I went out with the cute baristas and waiters who were impressed by my sweater sets and my permanent job at a fancy company, and I went out with the executives who took me to fancy restaurants and didn’t pay attention to my answers when they asked how my day was. It was all fine. On Mondays I could tell people what I’d done on the weekend, and there was never a fear of getting derailed by someone that I’d fallen head over heels in love with, because I didn’t fall for any of them. I had my eye on the prize, and the prize was financial independence—for life.

Once I’d gotten promoted to junior manager, two years ago, I became more selective about who I went out with. I had to be. I had less free time, less bandwidth to devote to anything other than my job. But when I started working with Luke a year ago, I felt so satisfied that I didn’t have the drive or the desire to flirt with anyone else. I was getting paid to flirt with a beautiful man while I worked and I didn’t even have to shave my legs and he’d be none the wiser! I just had to look good from the waist up, sound good, and write smart, witty messages. It was perfect!

I had one brief, understated fling with a neighbor, about half a year after I’d “met” Luke, once I’d found out that the guy was moving to Brazil within a week. That fit into my schedule, and I was able to reassure myself that I could indeed have a sex life with a human male who was actually in the same room with me if I’d wanted one. When my neighbor started looking at me all misty-eyed and holding my hand while I ate a bagel, I got nervous. When he told me he was reconsidering moving to Brazil because he thought my sudden interest in him was a sign that he should stay here, I had to pull out the big guns. I did some quick Googling while he was taking a shower, and while he was drying off, still naked and feeling vulnerable, I told him that if he was serious about us being together that it was important for him to know that I was an alien conspiracy theorist because I was abducted—twice—as a child. I told him I’d be happy to give him a pamphlet for the Transhumanist Party that I was a member of, and that he would probably really dig what my favorite philosopher, who goes by the name of Zoltan, writes about in his blog. Amazingly, he left for Brazil a day early! I decided to keep Zoltan in my back pocket for when I was really feeling emotionally cornered.

And then there was Mr. Potter. I had introduced my older sister Jackie to my Magic Wand once, several months ago, when she had repeatedly asked me how it was possible that I wasn’t dating anyone and yet also hadn’t eaten all of the cupcakes in Manhattan or climbed the side of the Empire State Building while crushing small airplanes. In other words—how was it possible that I was still in a good mood most of the time?

“You’re going to die alone,” she said, when I held up the unassuming white and blue device.

“I’m not going to die alone, I’m going to die with Mr. Potter,” I told her.

“No, you’re slowly dying inside because of Mr. Potter. Do you see the difference?”

I plugged it in, held it up to her and turned it on the high power setting. She jumped like a startled cat. The high power setting can be felt through ski pants, and it’s like being made love to by a jackhammer with a tennis ball stuck to the end of it. It ain’t for sissies.

“Holy shit, Ave!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to wear your clit out with this thing! Seriously—you may as well have a steel vagina—you’re never going to achieve orgasm from contact with human flesh again. You’re going to pulverize it!” She went on. “One day there will be pink dust in your panties and you’ll be all ‘what’s that?!’ and then you’ll call me crying because your clitoris has turned to sand and you did it to yourself with this…tool.”

“You’re a tool for not using one,” I said, waving it at her.

She swatted at it with her handbag. “I have a flesh and blood husband who pounds away at me twice a week—and we already spend way too much on electricity and batteries so trust me—I do not need another toy in my apartment!”

I was dying to talk to Jackie, but I already knew exactly what she would say. I knew what she would say, I knew she’d be right, and I knew I’d refute everything she said even though she was right. It was our thing. As soon as I walked through the door to my glamorous, cramped little one bedroom apartment, I immediately went to the closet to grab my garment bag, which was always ready to go, with three Ann Taylor outfits that are suitable for any business occasion hanging inside of it. I got my cosmetic bag from the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom, which was also forever at the ready for emergency work trips.

I pulled the slate grey Diane Von Furstenberg carry-on luggage out from the back of the closet. It was a gift from a client and I loved it so much I wanted to curl up inside it, but I was suddenly overcome with panic. How the hell am I supposed to pack for this trip? I felt lightheaded all of a sudden.

Having realized that I hadn’t eaten more than a protein bar and a salad all day, I went to the fridge. I knew I wouldn’t find anything decent to eat. My refrigerator was where organic kale went to die. Approximately once a month on a Sunday, after browsing some healthy babe’s blog, I’d go to Whole Foods, determined to cook and freeze healthy meal portions for the coming week. Then by the time I got home, I’d be so tired of carrying groceries, I’d realize I’d forgotten to buy bay leaves or shallots or whatever and that I don’t own an immersion blender (whatever that is), and I’d order greasy Chinese because I was starving. I’d just shove everything into the fridge, sometimes without even removing them from the grocery bags.

I was about to pick up my phone to call Jackie, when I received a FaceTime call from her. Jackie lives in an affordable three-bedroom apartment in Queens, with her husband and my niece and nephew. She has always had a knack for calling me exactly when I needed to talk to her but didn’t want to call and admit that I was freaking out. She’s three years older than me, and had for the most part treated me like an annoying little sister while we were growing up, but after our mother died suddenly when I was in my final year of university, she instantly became the kind of big sister I’d always longed for her to be—she gave me all the tough love and sass I needed and then some.

I accepted the video call and bit into a floppy old carrot while being welcomed with a blurry shot of her cleavage, as she looked for something in a cupboard. She got the awesome knockers, and I got the half-off rack. It’s so unfair.

“Hi hang on,” she muttered, then called out to her kids. “You know what just have pudding—one each!”

“Oh that’s healthy.”

She peered into her phone at me. “Oh I’m sorry—this from a grown woman who’s eating a limp carrot?”

I took one last bite of the thing, then tossed it into the waste bin, and went back to my bedroom to pack. “Did your boobs get bigger?”

“I’m retaining water and I accidentally shrunk all of my bras in the dryer. It’s been a great day. Your niece would like to speak with you.” Jackie aimed the phone’s camera at her five year-old daughter Franny. Franny was hugging a stuffed bunny rabbit that was about a foot taller than she was. The rabbit was so big it took up half the width of their kitchen. It would never fit inside Franny’s room. I knew my sister would kill me, but it was available for Same Day Delivery, and I just wanted to buy it. But Franny looked like she was madly in love with it and she was so happy she was jumping up and down and screaming—although to be honest, she was almost always jumping up and down and screaming.

Franny looked up at the phone and screamed directly into it. “THANK YOU AUNT AVERYYYYYY! I love him I love him I love him I love him I love him!”

I would love to love anything as much as that girl claims to love Mr. Bunny, I thought to myself, as I turned the volume down on my phone. “You are so welcome, sweetheart! I saw Mr. Bunny in a store window at lunch today and he waved at me and said ‘take me to Franny’s house, I want to live with her forever!’”

She didn’t stop jumping as she frowned at me and said, “You did not—you got him on Amazon!”

“I love you too, Honey, put your mom back on!”

Franny went back to screaming and Jackie went into the living room. “I take it by the size of the gift that you won’t be attending the party on Saturday.”

“I’m so so sorry—something came up.” I removed six pairs of my sexiest undergarments from my panty drawer and placed them in the suitcase.

“Something always comes up.”

“Hey man, I was just there on New Years for three hours!” I removed the sexy undergarments from the suitcase, put them back in the drawer and packed sensible cotton underwear instead.

“Where are you off to this time?”

“The Bahamas. It’s a nightmare.”

“I think that’s their official slogan. Come to the Bahamas—it’s your worst nightmare!”

I replaced the sensible undies with the sexy ones, and added an extra couple of pairs for good measure. “I have no idea how to pack for this.”

“What are you so worked up about?”

“I’m not worked up.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing, shut up.”

“Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Tell me.”

I sighed. “Luke Mason is going to be there.”

My sister caught her breath and her eyes widened. “Jackson—watch your sister! I’ll be in my office for five minutes!” She retreated to the bathroom and shut the door. “This is so amazing! I mean, you said you were sad because this transatlantic deal was almost wrapped up and you might not have an excuse to Skype with him anymore.”

“When did I say that?”

“During the unbearable three hours you spent here on New Years.”

Damn you, wine! When will you learn not to tell my sister everything?!

“Do you have a slutty bikini?”

I was rifling through my bathroom drawer, looking for a razor, three ounce perfume, and red lipstick. “Why would I have a bikini? I haven’t taken a vacation in ten years.”

“A tankini? A burqini?”

“I have no ini wear of any kind.”

She waved her hand, dismissively. “You can get something at the airport. This is thrilling. Why are you so freaked out about seeing him?! He’s basically your best friend.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“I’m your sister, I have to put up with you. He answers the phone when you call him at four a.m. and sends you your favorite kind of marmalade for your birthday even though you haven’t had sex with him.”

It was true—I had once mentioned that my local British grocery store stopped carrying my favorite brand of marmalade, and a month later I came to my office on my birthday and found a beautiful gift basket filled with jars of marmalade and crumpets and English muffins. I was able to convince myself that it was a classy business gift and a tax write-off for him, but Jackie instantly proclaimed that he was in love with me or at the very least expected and deserved a picture of my boobs. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to believe, but regardless, it was incredibly sweet and thoughtful of him.

“You communicate with him every day.”

“Not on weekends or holidays.”

“He’s your best friend,” she went on. “Why are you so afraid of being in the same room as him?”

“Well, it’s complicated. We just get along so well.”

“Uh huh.” I was acutely aware that my sister was urinating while we discussed this, and that she was simultaneously tidying up the magazines and books around the toilet with her free hand.

“And he’s ridiculously handsome and funny and he has an amazing English accent.”

“And you’re desperately in love with him.”

“Obviously I am not in love—it’s strictly business.” I grabbed the small, unopened box of condoms from my bedside table—the one on the other side of the bed from where I kept Mr. Potter. They expired in a month. I figured I might as well pack them, in case somebody else on the island needed them, so they wouldn’t go to waste.

“You’re packing condoms right now, aren’t you?”

I gasped. “You witch!”

She flushed the toilet and put the phone down on top of the vanity while she washed her hands, then took a moment to gargle with mouthwash, wipe down the tiles and tidy up around the sink. The Davis women are natural born multi-taskers.

“You don’t know me!” I sighed very dramatically. “This is the biggest contract of my career, we’re still technically in the post-integration phase, which is critical. I have to stay focused. I can’t get sidetracked.”

She spits out the mouthwash. “Honey, you need to get sidetracked—hard—multiple times. You need to get snogged and shagged and buggered senseless. You gotta seal that transatlantic deal. You need to ride the ol’ Union Jack flagpole if you know what I’m saying. You need to integrate with his post!”

I had to sit down, I was laughing so hard. “Stop! Oh my God! Seriously, this is not part of the plan. I need to become a manager when I’m twenty-nine so I’m on track to make partner by the time I’m thirty-five, marry a nice, un-ambitious but totally respectable and responsible man when I’m thirty-six and adopt an Asian baby that my husband can stay at home to take care of while I start my own firm.”

“Fantasy.”

“Also he’ll be a really good cook and excellent lover and have a trust fund while still being very down-to-earth. Also I will magically maintain the same weight throughout my entire life without ever having to exercise!”

“I know you’re saying a bunch of words that mean a lot to you, but all I’m hearing is ‘blah blah blah I need to have sexual intercourse with an Englishman and also get a life.’”

“Yeah you know, one day I do hope to shag an Englishman, one in particular, well two in particular, including 2003 Jude Law, but I don’t have the time or the emotional bandwidth to deal with it at this particular point in my life. Maybe I can have a hot fling with Luke after I’ve made partner, right before I meet the man I will marry! Yes, I can definitely squeeze that in.”

“I am so sad for you right now. You should take that red dress you wore to that fundraiser last summer!”

I sucked in my breath. “I can’t take that! I look way too good in it! It’s way too sexy!” I went to the closet, pulled out the red dress and packed it into the suitcase, along with some strappy heels to go with them. “My body hasn’t been exposed to sunshine since we went to Florida with Mom. My skin is practically transparent.” I found a hot pink maxi dress in a dark corner of my closet and tossed it into the suitcase. It seemed like the kind of thing one would wear in the Bahamas.

“Well, Luke’s from England, he’s used to pale skin.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t look all that pale to me, but maybe it’s just good lighting.”

“He probably goes to Greece for the weekend or something.”

“I wouldn’t really know, we don’t talk about specifics when it comes to our personal lives.”

“Oh good that means you’ll have something new to talk about while you’re shagging.”

“Please. It is a work trip. Besides, we might not even get along in person—and also it doesn’t even matter because it’s a work trip.”

“Your sex life needs work.”

“Stop. I shouldn’t even be discussing this with you.”

“You should discuss how his penis works! It’s time for him to FaceTime with your vagina.”

I snort-laughed, and then suddenly froze up.

“What is happening? Did FaceTime freeze or did you?”

“Nothing. No. I’m fine. I just don’t think I’m emotionally prepared to deal with him in a tropical non-business environment.”

“Because you’re afraid you’ll fall in love with him and you aren’t capable of making a real commitment?”

“Excuse me, I am the most committed person I know—besides Luke.”

“Sounds like a match to me! Why can’t you let yourself be happy?”

“You honestly think I’ll be happier if I fall in love with a man who lives in London?”

That shut her up for three whole seconds. I guess part of me was hoping she’d convince me that I would definitely be happier if I fell in love with a man who lived in London—but that was a losing argument and my sister would never willingly lose an argument. “Answer me this: do you even flirt with anyone else at work?”

“Of course not! I basically glue my legs shut and stare at the floor when I have lunch or dinner meetings with men.”

“Exactly.”

“No, not exactly—it’s different when you’re in the same room with them.”

“So you flirt with Sir Flirty McFlirtson because you feel safe.”

I thought about it for a second. “Yes.”

“And did you feel safe because he was a million miles away and you figured you’d never meet him?”

“Obviously!”

Jackie went silent for a moment, in quiet big sisterly judgment. I busied myself with packing and braced myself. “You remember when you were in junior high and I wanted to take you to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with me and my friends and you were like, terrified and refused for months and even had nightmares about it because you thought it was some kind of horrific scary movie that psychos went to, and then on Hallowe’en Jimmy and I basically kidnapped you and you had the best time ever and wouldn’t stop doing The Time Warp for a year?”

I did remember. “I have no memory of that.” I knew exactly where she was going with this.

“It’s like that. Whenever you resist something or someone to this degree, you always end up going nuts for it.”

Exactly. I can’t afford to go nuts for this guy. Duh. “That’s not entirely true,” I said. “I hated kimchi exactly as much as I thought I would.” I sat down on my bed and suddenly went full-on drama queen. “I can’t handle a transatlantic relationship at this point in my life! You honestly want me to move to London to be with him?! I couldn’t just move in with him right away, you know, I’d have to get my own flat just in case things don’t work out, and rent’s even more expensive there than it is here—yes I’ve looked into it for my clients not because I was making plans—and what would I do for work? I’d need a work visa and I mean I barely even understand Brexit and the EUC, how can I be a business manager in England?! How?! I thought you liked me. I thought you liked having me around.”

“Uh, first of all, take a deep breath and calm down. Secondly, we see you like six times a year in person, and we mostly communicate through our phones anyway so I’m not sure what the difference would be. And third, who’s talking about moving to London—just have a quickie fling! It doesn’t have to turn into anything and it doesn’t have to change anything. What happens in the Bahamas stays in the Bahamas.” She stared at her phone and watched my face, surprised to see that I was actually considering this, so she went a little easier on me. “Maybe you should just have sex with him once first, you know, and then worry about the rest of your life later. That’s kind of what people do in this type of situation.”

“Excuse me—it’s my job to consider the financial consequences of major life changes before people make them.”

“Well, it’s my job to encourage my little sister to get laid more often.”

I took a deep breath then exhaled. “I’m nervous. This feels like a big deal.”

“Okay,” she said, and I could tell she was changing tactics. “You know, some people look a lot better on camera than they do in real life.”

“This really isn’t helping.”

She dipped out of frame as she picked toys up off the floor. “He might be gay?”

“Well now you aren’t even trying.”

Her head popped back up as she said, totally straight-faced: “You’re forgetting the most likely possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“He might not find you attractive. He’ll be completely repelled by your neurotic American ass and won’t want to have anything to do with you.”

I went silent. I knew she was joking, but part of me was terrified of the prospect of being rejected by the one man on earth who’d held my interest for a full year. What if I really was just some silly American business associate to him? Surely he was used to dating countesses or European ballerinas or billionaire businesswomen.

“Hey,” she said. “I was one hundred percent kidding. He’s nuts about you.”

I stared into my underwear drawer. “I have to go.”

“Okay. Travel safe, let me know when you’re there. And don’t forget—if he talks about ‘soccer’ he really means ‘football.’ Or is it the other way around?”

“You’re the other way around. Love you.”

“Love you back…Hey, Ave?”

“Yeah.”

“This has been the longest phone conversation we’ve had in years and it was about Sir Flirty McFlirtson—think about what that means--love you bye.” She stuck her face up into the camera and made googly eyes as she ended the call.

I reached into the back of the drawer, and pulled out the lacy La Perla slip that I’d purchased two years ago for some future hypothetical special occasion. It had lived at the back of the drawer ever since. Well, if being with Luke in a villa on the beach at the Bahamas isn’t a hypothetical special occasion then I don’t know what is. Wearing it will not indicate the intention to have sexual relations with him, any more than him sending me jars of marmalade meant that he intended to have sexual relations with me. I should at least put my best “face” forward, and this item of lingerie will make my face look hot.

My phone vibrated while I was attaching it to the charger that’s always plugged in by my bed. It was a text, from Luke:

See you in the Bahamas?...Something I never thought I’d be saying to you…

I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face anymore than I could stop my fingers from immediately typing: Not if I see you first! ;-)

I instantly regretted hitting “send.” Maybe that doesn’t read as flirtatious. Maybe he’ll take it as obnoxious. That’s a perfectly professional winky face, right?

He wrote back: Not if I kill myself two hours into the flight because I can’t check my email. :-/

Yikes. Dark. Was he not looking forward to seeing me in person?

I got another text from him: Will be nice to finally meet you in person, though…

Dear God. Death by ellipses. If it weren’t for those three dots, that would have been a perfectly innocent sentence, but…

Again, my fingers worked faster than my brain: Indeed…And don’t worry, I promise not to email you while you’re on the plane so you won’t miss anything important. ;-)

Gah! Again with the winky face! I never use winky faces in texts—I hate winky faces! I am an emoticon-free texter. Maybe I was suffering from anticipatory jet lag. No wait, it’s the same time zone.

There was a very long, unfunny, excruciating, not at all flirtatious pause, which was at last followed by: Hah! Very good—see you later, then.

Aaaaand good night.

I gazed over at the bedside table drawer, where Mr. Potter lived, and then remembered to remove him from my bag and put him back there. Why can’t it just be you and me?

I didn’t expect to be able to sleep that night, because tomorrow I’d be seeing Luke Mason, face-to-face. But I slept. I slept so well, I suppose, because on some level I knew that meeting Luke in person would finally wake me up.