Expiration Dates: A Novel (6 page)

Her comedy isn't centered around jokes, exactly—it's centered around revelation. For every laugh she gets, and she gets a lot, it's a laugh imbued with the natural comedy baked into the exposure of uncomfortable truths. The things we pass by and don't notice, or at least, don't call out. It's a comedy of relief, it turns out. It feels good to hear the things you think but don't say out loud. It feels good to just be spoken to honestly, for once. So much of our current moment seems to be pandering—she says that, too.

Vie does ten minutes, tops, and then exits the stage. I feel like I could watch her all night.

“I love her,” I tell Jake.

He responds by slipping an arm over the back of my chair.

There is a twentysomething comic who goes by the name Trey Ire, who is also very good. My favorite part of his set is about LA traffic: “LA traffic is so bad. I once stayed in a relationship just so I could use the carpool lane.” Then: “I mean, I can't turn left in Pasadena because someone changed lanes at LAX.”

Next up there's a short guy I recognize as a character actor from the 2010s.

“Wasn't he in
CHiPs
?” I ask Jake.

He nods.

The guy is fine, but his comedy feels a little dated. I stifle a yawn. Jake notices.

“You want to duck out of here and get something to eat?” he asks me.

“Seinfeld?” I mouth.

Jake runs his tongue over his top teeth. “Yeah, about that,” he says. “Seinfeld isn't coming.”

“For sure?”

“Pretty certain,” he says. He looks guilty, spits it out: “He was never going to.”

His face is arranged into a tangle of emotions—I can see he's not sure how I'm going to take this and preparing for a variety of outcomes. It's also clear he is not a person who lies often, or well.

“You dangled Seinfeld to get me to go out with you?”

Jake nods. “I mean, there was a slight possibility, but honestly, it was slim to none.”

“How do you even know I like Seinfeld?” I say. “Maybe it would have been a deterrent.”

Jake stands, then offers me his hand. His palm is warm and calloused. “No way,” he says, handing me my jacket. “Everyone loves Seinfeld.”

Jake takes me to Pace in Laurel Canyon, a restaurant I have loved since I was a kid—my dad would take me here if we ever found ourselves on the east side. It's this Italian place that does a really solid dinner menu—but the main draw is the atmosphere. Midway up the canyon, Pace sits on the right side of the road, and in recent years the restaurant has taken over the parking lot and adjacent dry cleaner's. The best seats in the house are the ones by a heat lamp and glass window with a sign marked
WASH AND FOLD
.

“The canyon kind of reminds me of home sometimes,” Jake says. “It's the only place in Los Angeles I can smell nature. Woodsy.”

“Except when it burns.”

“Right, then it just reminds me of hell.”

The comment gives me whiplash coming out of Jake's mouth.

“Dark,” I say.

“Sorry,” he says. He looks it, too. “Just trying to keep up with your banter level. I think I missed the mark.”

“You're genuine,” I say. “I like it.”

He smiles. I see his cheeks tinge pink.

We're eating—him, a red snapper. Me, a bowl of linguini.

“Do you go back home often?”

“I try to,” he says. “It's not so far, but life gets busy. I wish my folks would come out more, but they don't love to travel.”

“I get that,” I say. My parents think Florida is leaving the country.

“We used to travel when I was younger—my sister and me and my folks. We went to Europe two summers in a row, and Costa Rica for the holidays one year. But as they've gotten older they've been less interested. My mom likes to garden, and my dad has his golf game.” Jake shrugs. “They enjoy their routine.”

“It sounds like they really enjoy each other's company,” I say.

Jake takes a sip of his wine. “That too.”

We never traveled much when I was a child. We'd go to Palm Springs for Christmas and Tahoe for the Fourth of July and that was pretty much it. My parents are liberal, sophisticated people, for the most part. You think they would have prioritized even Mexico, maybe, but travel was expensive, and it wasn't a part of what made our life distinct.

“How is your pasta?” Jake asks. He peers forward at my bowl.

“Good,” I say. I look at him. “Do you want a bite?”

He nods. “Yes, please.”

Jake is not a man who is afraid to say how he feels. To peer into a bowl of pasta and accept a bite.

I twirl some noodles onto my fork and then hold it out to him.
He doesn't hesitate, he puts his mouth around the fork and grabs hold of the linguine.

“Delicious,” he says, red sauce on his lips.

I laugh and shake my head.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say. “You're just so honest.”

Jake smiles. “I'm going to take that as a compliment.”

His eyes graze my face—moving down to my lips and back up. I feel something come to life between us. The space that was once open, mild, if not inquisitive, is now kinetic and charged.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake says.

“That's a trick question.”

He raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything.

I take a sip of wine. “Yes,” I say. “Of course. Ask away.”

He looks at me. His eyes don't move off mine. “What are you looking for?”

I blink back at him. No man has ever asked me that before. At least, not a man who I was sitting across from on a second date. Other people have asked. Friends; friends of my parents; once, a local underground matchmaker. But never him.

“What everyone is looking for,” I say.

“And what it that?”

I think about how to say it. Because
love
doesn't seem good enough, it isn't really what he's asking. He wants to know if I want something serious. He wants to know if I want to let someone in, all the way.

“To meet the right person, to be with someone I want to see in the morning and naked. To not be afraid to have a bad day around them. To be happy, I guess.”

Jake nods slowly. I can't tell if he likes the answer. He does not seem disappointed or relieved.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, although I expect I know.

Jake holds my gaze. And then I can tell. I can tell he is about to tell me something that he doesn't want to. People always look a little sorry when they're about to say something that hurts. “I was married once,” he says. “We were very young when we got together.”

I don't react, just let him keep talking.

“We were high school sweethearts, and we got married pretty soon after we graduated college.”

“In Seattle?”

Jake nods.

“Beatrice,” he says. “But everyone called her Bea.”

Something cold spreads across the back of my shoulder blades. I feel it circle around and flood my sternum.

“You didn't get divorced,” I say.

Jake shakes his head. “We were just twenty-seven. It was an aggressive diagnosis. They gave her eighteen months, but she only made it a year.”

I see tears fill his eyes. He's so vulnerable here. So open. My hands begin to tingle. I tuck them under me and cross my legs.

“I'm very sorry,” I say. “That must have been devastating.”

He swallows. He's not trying to hide his emotion, but he's not trying to have them boil over, either. I am familiar with this dance, the space between being open and being a liability. The fine art of dating.

“It was the hardest thing I've ever been through,” he says. “Obviously. And I still miss her every day.”

“I'm sorry,” I say again. I'm not sure what's appropriate to say, or how to say what is. And I feel something else, too. Some withdrawal. I want to remove myself from what he has just shared. It's only our second date. Maybe this is too soon, too much. It feels private.

The thing no one ever wants to say about dating is this: It's hard to be real, sure. It's harder to let someone else be.

And then it's as if he can tell because I see him pivot, reorient himself. And for a brief moment I hate my inability to handle this. That I have failed to meet the moment, and now it is gone.

“You know what they say about a man with a dead wife?”

I brush myself off. “Great in bed?”

He laughs. It's genuine, full-bellied.

“Great for perspective.” Jake takes my hand across the table. His fingers are warm even though the night is cool. I want to grab his hand and hold on. “I'm sorry if that's heavy.”

“Life is heavy.”

“Does it scare you?”

I consider the question.
No, yes.
“Should it?”

“I guess it depends,” he says. “One thing I'm not so good at anymore is casual.”

I think about the piece of paper. All that blank space. I think about Martin in Paris and Noah in San Francisco and Hugo in Los Angeles. I think about all the canceled plans and missed texts and miscommunications. I think about every time someone said
I just didn't think it was such a big deal.

“So, serious,” I say.

Jake shrugs. “I don't think the opposite of casual is serious, actually.”

“What is it, then?”

Jake looks at me. His hazel eyes appear almost gold underneath the light of the heat lamp—tiny specs of sunlight. “Depth,” he says. “The opposite of casual is deep.”

Stuart

Stuart and I met in high school. He was Mr. Advanced Placement—the kind of kid the teachers are scared of because when he challenged them, he was usually right. He had the highest IQ in our class (we took IQ tests, I guess, which seems kind of problematic, looking back). He also took the best notes; they were legendary. Color-coded, broken down by exam and cross-referenced with textbook page numbers. Rumor had it they were still in circulation. Naturally, Stuart was responsible for organizing the study rosters, if you were lucky enough to be in his classes.

I wasn't. I was more focused on getting kissed than getting into college. I'd been curious for a decade, and it still hadn't happened. Between the fifth grade and the eleventh I did not receive a single piece of paper. Stuart was also a senior, and we'd become
fast friends. We were both on the debate team, and we were both frankly excellent at it.

My parents loved Stuart. He wasn't Jewish, but he was everything else. Smart, sophisticated, and headed to an Ivy League school. It wasn't romantic; we just had the same interests—mostly that we thought ourselves better than everyone else. We loved Russian novels, dinner parties, and pretending we knew anything about wine. It wasn't until seven years later, when I ran into him in New York City, that he became a prospect.

I was there visiting my old college roommate, Alisa, and we bumped into Stuart in line outside at Sadelle's one Saturday morning in May. Stuart looked great. No, better than that. He looked
famous.

While in high school, he was pale, a bit doughy, with the kind of burgeoning intellectualism that borders on pedantic. Now, he looked like a banker who woke up at 4:00 a.m. to get in a workout before the market opened and had the number of the city's best florist on speed dial.

“Daphne, hi.” He gave me a warm hug and immediately introduced me to his dining companion, a significantly older gentleman named Ted. “What are you doing here?”

I explained that I was in town to visit Alisa—she quickly introduced herself—for the weekend, and that I still lived in LA.

“I don't miss it at all,” he said. “Can you believe it?”

I had temporarily moved back in with my parents. “I can, yes.”

We ended up ordering and eating together, and when we were finished, Stuart asked if I had any interest in dinner that night.

“Only if you have the time,” he said. “It would be great to catch up some more.”

I noted how his T-shirt pulled against his chest when he moved. How he stood up every time Alisa or I left the table to use the restroom.

“That would be great,” I said.

He picked me up at Alisa's at 8:00 p.m. She was living in the East Village at the time, in a third-floor walk-up she miraculously had all to herself. The dream of living in New York was one I had long resigned I would never have. Not because I couldn't see myself making it in New York, or because I didn't think I could figure out a way to be there on little money, but because it was clearly not the direction my life was moving in. As much as I longed to and would eventually put the 405 between me and my parents, I knew I didn't want half the country between us. I knew I couldn't tolerate that distance. I relied on them in ways I did not think a twenty-five-year-old should. But I wasn't sure how to get out of that, either. It would be another two years before I was assisting at the network, and it felt like all I'd done since college was float from one entry-level position to another.

But I still loved the city. The way things always felt like they were coming together. In Los Angeles things disperse, simmer, yawn. In New York they connect, spark, crash.

“You look amazing,” Stuart said.

I had on black, wide-leg pants, and a lacy white top that hovered just above my naval. Strappy black heels I had borrowed from Alisa and long, dangly feathered earrings.

“Thank you,” I said. “You too.”

He wore a button-down shirt and dark jeans, and he looked as good if not better than he had that morning.

Stuart took me to ABC Kitchen, this big, airy restaurant in the Flatiron District. He ordered for us: flatbread and grilled carrots with cumin and butter radishes and a market salad, french fries, and halibut. One bottle of cabernet.

Not only was Stuart now accomplished—I found out he, predictably, worked for a bank and had just been made the youngest partner. But he also turned out to be as interesting as I always suspected he might become. He had recently completed a skydiving certification. He was on a list to go to the Republic of the Congo and hike with the gorillas. And in his spare time he had founded and sold a tutoring start-up that was now worth about twenty million dollars.

“How's it going in LA?” he asked me.

In high school Stuart and I had bonded over the fact that we felt we were special, different, better than the run-of-the-mill girls and guys at our school who ate frozen yogurt from the Bigg Chill and carried Louis Vuitton shoppers as if there were only one standard of belonging. But now, Stuart had made good on all of that potential. He had something to show for it. I wasn't sure what to say for myself.

“Figuring it out,” I said. “After college I thought I'd maybe go to law school, but the LSAT was not my test.”

“Yeah, the lawyer thing,” Stuart said. “Not for me.”

“Me either, apparently.”

In truth, I feared my youthful bravado had stayed a little too long at the fair. It was past midnight and sloppy and directionless. It wasn't that I no longer had hopes and dreams for myself. At twenty-five there was a lot I wanted to accomplish, but I also
felt stuck. I wasn't sure what steps I should take next, or in which direction. It felt like people at thirty were just waking up with fulfilling careers, but I was only five years away, and it didn't seem likely that was going to happen for me.

“Whatever you do, you're brilliant at. You always were. You had that magic touch that people just wanted to be around. You were cool. You started a table tennis league and got kids to stay after classes for it.”

“Technically it was Ping-Pong.”

“See?” Stuart said. “Cool. In high school I had the biggest crush on you.”

I felt my body reactively flush. I had known that, of course I had. My parents had pointed it out, my classmates, even our Spanish teacher thought we spent way too much time together. But that wasn't how I saw him. Stuart was
the friend
, not
the guy
.

Years later, sitting across from him, I thought about how totally wrong I was.

“Come on,” I said. “We were buds.”

“Yeah, but I was still a teen boy. You were hot and smart, and you didn't give a shit.”

“I did,” I said. “I just faked it pretty well.”

Stuart leaned toward me. He lightly threaded my index finger through two of his own. “And now?”

“Oh,” I said. “Now I fake it
really
well.”

Stuart's apartment hung over the East River. It was comprised almost entirely of windows. There was a gray couch, white matching chairs, and more stainless steel than I remember seeing in
American Psycho
. But the view—the view was absolutely breathtaking.

He poured us each a glass of wine and then settled himself on the couch. “Come here,” he said.

I did.

He put his arm around me. I leaned my head into his shoulder and then picked it back up again. He smelled like deodorant—masculine and clean.

“I've thought about you a lot over these years.”

I pivoted to look at him. “You have?”

He nodded. “I always thought about reaching out, seeing what you were up to, but then life got in the way. Tonight sort of feels like kismet.”

It had been a long time since I'd felt this desired. I felt powerful, heady, full on the longing of all these years. I remembered how smart he was, how intelligent and caring.

“I'll be in LA next month for work,” Stuart said. “I'd love to see you again.”

I looked up at him. His face was inviting me in.

“But I'm here now,” I said.

Stuart leaned over me. He placed a palm flat against my cheek. “That,” he said, “you are.”

He kissed me—it was deep and good. A rooting kiss. The kind that lasts long enough that you start breathing through each other.

“I like you,” he said. “I like you a lot.”

“I like you, too,” I said.

A fantasy started to sprout to life in my head. Stuart and I, finding each other all these years later. Me, the wild, untethered,
still-searching girlfriend. Him, the consistent, successful, charming man. We'd host lavish dinner parties, now armed with all the knowledge we didn't have before. People would look at us and say:
Can you believe it? They met in high school.

The sex was good. Stuart was skilled. He rolled me on top of him and placed big, open-mouthed kisses on my neck. I could feel myself fold to him, hand myself over in a way I had not in recent memory, maybe not ever.

His hands moved down my back, kneading and releasing the muscles in my shoulders.

He kept his mouth on my neck and moved one palm over my belly and held it between my legs. I felt myself press down, wanting friction, something to move against.

“Hey,” he said, blowing the words into my ear. “We've got time.”

And then slowly he began moving his fingers in circles. I exhaled out everything.

When it was over I went to use the bathroom in his button-down. I splashed some water on my face, noting how rosy my cheeks looked. It really is true what they say: an active sex life does wonders for your skin. I was due to head back to LA the following day, but I was already thinking about extending my trip. I didn't have anything particularly pressing to return home for, and I thought I'd stay a few extra days. We could get to know each other again. Fill in the gap of the last seven years.

I swished some of his toothpaste around in my mouth and padded back into the bedroom.

When I got there Stuart was sitting up, setting his alarm. I climbed back in next to him.

“Hey,” he said. He kissed me lightly on the temple. “Listen, I have to get up super early tomorrow.” He showed me the alarm clock, like proof. “Would you mind terribly if I called you in the morning?”

I looked down at my body—his shirt, hanging open. My bare bottom. I cinched it around me. “You mean, you want me to leave?”

“You're upset. Don't be upset. I just sleep like an animal, and I barely get four hours as it is.”

“It's fine,” I said.

I gathered my clothes up as he watched. I yanked my pants on and pulled the shirt over my head, turning my back so he wouldn't see my naked chest. I slid into the heels.

“Have you seen my earrings?” I asked him.

“Ah!” he said cheerfully. He plucked them off his nightstand, handing them to me.

I reached to take them, and he pulled his hand away, using the other to grab my waist and drag me down into a kiss.

“This was a lot of fun,” he said. “I'm really glad I bumped into you.”

I strung the earrings through my ears. I felt all at once like a Christmas tree on December twenty-sixth.

“Yeah,” I said. “It was fun.”

He walked me to the door. He kissed me goodbye. There was no more talk of a trip to Los Angeles. There was no more talk of anything at all.

Outside, the night had turned cool. I hugged my arms to my
chest and started walking west, away from the water. After about a block I noticed something stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I teetered on the street, using my right hand to peel the paper off.

Stuart, one night.

I dropped the paper into my bag, and kept walking.