“I just mean he’s still functionally twenty-two. Did you see the way he held his spoon? Did you see the way he looked up at the buildings and the trees on the way to the beach? It’s like he’s been in college for a decade.”
“So what?”
“So we’re too old for them.”
“I didn’t realize we were auditioning for something.”
“Just, don’t you ever think about how quickly we’re getting older?”
“How ’bout we don’t have to talk about them anymore?”
“It just gets under my skin. I don’t get it in the winters, for some reason. But every spring, there’s a new neighborhood I feel out of place in. Don’t you? First it was the Lower East Side, then it was Williamsburg, now I don’t even feel like I can eat dinner around our fucking apartment, everyone’s such a baby. The ever-replenishing supply of fresh-faced models in the neighborhood.”
“We get older, they stay the saaaaame age…”
“All looking at me like I’m the one who’s lost. I fucking live here!”
“Who gives a shit? You don’t get some relief from it? Every year, as more things are shut off, as there are more things we’re not meant to do? At least it’s clarifying. Think about it: we’ll never have to check the Lower East Side box on StreetEasy again. That’s not so bad. I like knowing there’s stuff I can’t even fantasize about anymore. Pro surfer—gone. Lead guitarist, hedge-fund dipshit, wunderkind of any sort—gone gone gone. Makes me at least come to terms with what’s never ever gonna happen.”
“That bums me out. I wish you didn’t feel that way.” She sat on her hands, stared off into the bowl again. She didn’t say anything else. And so he tried it out for the first time in a while.
“In that case, maybe I’ll finally write a script.…Put all that dumb prep work to use. I realize it goes against what I just said about knowing what you can’t do, but maybe it’s, I dunno…”
“You sound like Jack.”
It slapped him, and it surprised him that it stung.
“How’s that?” Will said, flinching.
“That’s his big next plan, so he says. That’s his second act.”
“Aren’t we all a bunch of cliché assholes?”
“It’s not as easy as it looks.”
Will snorted and twisted on the bench. He hated her. “You’re telling that to me or you’re telling that to him? It better not be to me.”
“It’s more than just downloading Final Draft, is all I’m saying.”
“Are you taking it out on me because a petite blonde twenty-two-year-old made you feel twenty-nine last night? Is this your pressure valve for all that?”
The beers had gone straight to their heads, resuscitating the booze still sloshing around their soft pink brains.
“So you’re agreeing that I’m old,” Whitney said. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“What are you doing?” Will said, squinting through burning eyes. “Is this fun for you? I don’t know how we found her in a random-ass park in Barcelona, but I’m thrilled this Whitney decided to show up. Self-loathing Whitney. Envious Whitney. My favorite Whitneys through and through.”
“No bags under her eyes, no veins in her hands? Water balloons that sit up on her chest like she’s wearing a bra when she isn’t? Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what anyone would want? If that’s what you want, go for it—you have my permission.”
“You forgot all the to-the-manor-born elements of her upbringing, too,” he said. “All the easy thoughtless connections to art and culture and money and moviemaking. Friends with the sons and daughters of Hollywood royalty. We didn’t even talk about all that stuff yet—everything she told me in line for dinner. All your favorite old buttons. This explains a lot, actually. This at least explains the silence on the walk over here—”
“You weren’t talking, either.”
“—feeling nice and good about yourself after a night out with a girl who was raised with everything you weren’t. Here I thought you were just hungover.”
“I feel fucking fine now, thanks. Maybe you don’t, but I’m—”
“Then what are you talking about?!”
“They barely even blinked when we left,” she said. “In that club we were nothing more than, like, a breeze that passed through the place. Nothing changes whether we’re there or we’re not. We don’t change anything for them or anyone else.”
“Thank you for joining the party, Insecure Whitney! We were wondering where you were hanging out. Jesus, Whit, who gives a shit?! We’re not even supposed to be here. This isn’t our place—you get that? We’re here on bonus time. We’re not meant to make some big impression that changes the fucking lives of some strangers. And if being the coolest kids at four in the morning at a nightclub in Barcelona is important to you, I think we’ve been living the wrong life for a while—working the wrong jobs, hanging out with the wrong friends, and certainly dating the wrong people.”
She squeezed her eyes tight and held her hands up in concession.
“You’re right, you’re right.…I know that. This isn’t our life. But isn’t that the point? We are in bonus time. We aren’t supposed to be here. Which means it isn’t like real life, it doesn’t have to be precisely the same as it always is, you know? It’s this parallel thing happening. And it’s, like, a test, or something. The universe telling us: Go do the things you wouldn’t normally do. Find out if there’s a version of yourself you like more. It’s seeing if we’ll take up the offer.”
“I actually have no idea what you’re talking about. I hear the words, but it’s like your brain has gone scrambly. You’re saying: Drink one more drink at the club? Stay out one more hour? You’re saying: Follow those two home and watch them fuck?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she said. “All I mean is here we are in bonus time and we’re, you know, going to museums. It’s not the most excit—”
“It was your fucking idea! You wrote it on the napkin yesterday!”
“I should’ve known better. I should’ve known it
