We Are Not Like Them(8)

A cop? No way in hell would I ever date a cop. But I obviously can’t tell Jen that.

“And he’s hot. And tall, we know that’s a must! Kevin says you two would hit it off. We should double! I mean, Kevin/Kayvon. It’s too perfect.”

“I have zero time to date right now, Jen.” It’s my stock response—offered reflexively as a defense and an excuse. “I’m so busy. I need to—”

Jenny stops me with a raised palm. “Riley. It’s time. How long has it been since you’ve had sex? Your vagina probably has cobwebs by now.” She playfully makes as if to lift my skirt, but her tone is laced with concern.

“I’m focused on other things. And I’ve got time.” Though some days it doesn’t feel like that at all. Some nights I’m wrenched awake at 3 a.m. with the unsettling sensation that time is speeding past me and I’m so behind I’ll never catch up. I know what Jen’s going to say before she opens her mouth. Because it’s a lecture I give myself at least once a week.

“C’mon Rye. You can’t be single forever. It’s time to move on. To get back out there. You need to—”

I put my hand up to stop her before she gets to the part about how all the “good ones” are going to be taken.

Even though she may have a point. At Jen’s urging I went on two dates since moving back to Philly, with people she’d swiped for me on Tinder. One guy talked about himself the whole time and then when I called him out about it said, “I’m just trying to help you get to know me.” And the other one told me I must think I’m “big-time” when I told him about my job and then just eyed the check when it arrived, waiting for me to pick it up. I had little faith third time would be the charm.

“I can’t take the idea of getting back out there, Jenny… starting from scratch with someone new, letting someone see me naked for the first time….”

“So you’re just going to be celibate forever? No way. Here, give me my bag so I can get my phone. Let me show you his picture. You’ll want me to make this date happen tomorrow.” Jen goes to grab her purse and then winces sharply.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine, this happens all the time,” she says, waving off my concern.

“You sure?”

“Just a kick. Right in my ribs. You want to feel?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabs my hand and places it to the left of her belly button. There’s a series of little jabs, quick and insistent. I fight against pulling my hand away from the little alien boxing in my friend’s belly.

Jen finally finds her phone and pulls it out triumphantly.

“Ugh. Kevin’s texted a bunch.” Her stubby fingers swipe the texts away and scroll through her photo album. “Here, I found him. Kayvon. Hot, right?” Jenny holds up the screen.

Kayvon is attractive, with his buffed bald head and sprinkle of stubble. In the photo he’s dressed in his buttoned-up blues and wearing a sly kind of smirk, like he could be up to trouble. I see him giving me that smile across the table in a dimly lit restaurant and then I see him slapping handcuffs on teenagers and wrestling them to the ground. I chase both images away with a swig of my drink.

“Okay, true story. He is good-looking. So maybe… we’ll see.” I’m hoping Jen just drops this, even though I know better.

“No, no maybes. This is happening. It’s been like a year since Corey.”

Actually, it was fifty-six weeks to be exact. Hearing his name out loud, my stomach turns over on itself. I should be over this by now. It makes me crazy that I can still have this reaction to just hearing his name. Or finding one of his socks tucked in the back of a drawer, like I did last week, which threatened to wreck my whole afternoon, until I marched out on the balcony, threw it into the air, and watched it flutter onto the hood of a delivery truck.

I hold my breath and wait for Jen to ask me again about what happened between us. She’s never been satisfied with my vague answers. But she seems to register the pained look on my face and switches gears. Corey is a bear we do not poke.

“We need dessert,” Jen says, and we let the subject dissipate like smoke after fireworks.

“Okay, you have to get the bartender’s attention though; he’s not giving me the time of day. Look pregnant and hungry and sad.”

“I can do that.” As Jenny juts out her lower lip and bats her eyelashes at the bartender, her phone buzzes and “Hubby” lights up on the screen.

“Seriously? It’s like I go out one night and he can’t stop texting me.” She rolls her eyes, but I know she loves this about Kevin, that he needs her so much.

“Oh, text him back. You’re pregnant. He’s probably worried about you.”

She swipes to open the message. “Or he’s bored. He always texts when he’s on patrol and he’s bored. I told him to start playing one of those games where you kill birds—”

In almost thirty years I’ve seen about every expression Jenny can make. I know her face like I know my own. But the look she has right now, as she reads Kevin’s message, is one I’ve never seen. I grab her arm. “What’s wrong? Is Kevin okay?”

She doesn’t respond, too focused on opening the Uber app. “I have to go.”