“So I got an assignment to write an article for the New York Standard,” I said, right as Raf bit into a glazed donut.
His eyes crinkled with joy, and he held up a finger and chewed as quickly as possible. “Jilly, yes!” he said as soon as he’d swallowed. Generally, I was a Jillian. As a child, I’d hated being called “Jill” so much that I’d spent a whole year telling people that, actually, my name was Gillian with a G (not coincidentally, this was the year I became obsessed with The X-Files and Gillian Anderson). When teachers expressed doubt, I doubled down, spinning out explanations of how there must have been a typo on the attendance form. Eventually, my mother had to ground me so I’d stop lying about it. Somehow with Raf, though, I never minded the affectionate shorthand.
“The New York Standard?” he said now, beaming. “That’s incredible!”
“It is!” I said, then continued with forced cheer, “It’s about that extremely exclusive social club that Margot belongs to. So all I need to do is get myself invited in, which should be a piece of cake because I’m very cool and have everything going for me right now.”
“Um,” Raf said.
“Yeah. At this party, can you please back me up on the stories I tell about myself? It’ll be bullshit, but bullshit that they probably can’t disprove.”
“I don’t like lying,” he said. “I’m terrible at it.”
“Well, you’ve gotta get some practice, or you’re never going to survive in New York City, baby,” I joked. He didn’t laugh. “So, okay, don’t think of it as lying. Think of it as helping your friend expose a potentially fucked-up system. And also helping her have the career she’s always wanted so that she’s not tempted to bash her head in with a rock.”
“Hold on, you’re not actually tempted to do that, are you?” he asked, concerned.
“No, of course not,” I said. “Well, only sometimes.”
He hesitated, then chewed on his knuckle. “What kind of bullshit are you going to tell them, then?”
I smiled. Good old Raf. “They can’t know that I’m still a journalist. So, here’s the plan.” I stood up and faced him like I’d done so many times in our childhood, offering up the contents of my brain for him to praise. “I’m going to tell them that I’d been getting disillusioned by the state of journalism anyway. Quill shutting down was just the final nail in the coffin—”
“Wait, what—”
“Oh, right, Quill totally combusted. Anyway, this whole time, I’ve been working on the Next Great American Novel. You know, The Great Gatsby meets John Steinbeck, but from a woman’s point of view.” I paced back and forth, the words tumbling out of me and taking shape in the air. “The manuscript’s not done yet, but it’s close. All the agents I’ve met with are salivating over it, convinced that six months from now, publishing houses will be bending over backwards to bid on it. And then, when the book comes out, I pledge to donate half of its profits to Planned Parenthood.” He was staring at me, his face reserved instead of open with his usual support. “This is the kind of performative feminism they eat up.”
“Are you okay?” Raf asked. “This is all a little intense.”
I sat back down next to him. “I know it seems that way, but let me reiterate, we’re talking about the New York Standard here.”
“I’m only saying this because I care about you, so don’t get mad at me, but you’re coming off as a little . . . manic right now.”
Manic? How dare he? His ambition ran as deep as mine did, even if he wasn’t as obvious about it. I prepared to angrily list off a million ways he was wrong, then realized that might prove his point. I took a calming breath. “Look, I get why you think that. But . . .” I scooted closer to him. “When you were trying to prove that you were worthy of your own restaurant, how many nights did you stay up until dawn, working on a recipe?”
“Um,” he said. “A lot.”
“Some people might’ve called that a little manic. It worked, though, so now you get to be all cool and bashful about it. But if you hadn’t succeeded, you would be burning up inside, wouldn’t you?” He nodded almost imperceptibly. “This is my chance to have the restaurant.” I took his free hand, the one that wasn’t holding a donut, and squeezed it, so that he’d look at me. “Please, Raf. You said if I ever needed anything . . . I need this.”
He shoved the rest of his donut in his mouth and chewed it slowly. Then he nodded. “Okay. Just—we’ve got to practice or something. Drill me on this. I’m not a good improviser.”
“Thank you! I will drill you all night long if you want!” I said, then paused. “Sorry, that came out way dirtier than I’d intended.” He reached for another donut, but I grabbed the box and held it out of his reach. “Speaking of, there is another part to the plan. One more thing that I think would really clinch it all.”
“What?”
I bit my lip. “I need you to pretend we’re dating.”
Now it was his turn to jump up from the couch, as if I’d goosed him. “Very funny.”
“I’m serious, unfortunately.”
“No. I don’t get how that’s supposed to help anything.”
“Because you’re getting famous now, whether you like it or not, so whatever girl you deem worthy of your homemade meals will be an object of curiosity. Especially if she’s just sort of regular-looking and not some gorgeous supermodel,” I said, pointing to myself, “she must be interesting. Worth getting to know.”
He fiddled with the cardboard cozy from his coffee cup, rolling it up, ripping away little shreds of it. “I’m not that big of
