Pairing

When the neighbor scream-laughed, the wall shook and Alice reached to steady it. After a year of isolation—a purist’s sequestering: no sneaking out to the dentist or hair salon—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed. The friends she’d once known had morphed into their social media avatars. Groceries and aspirational purchases—free weights, red lipstick, a straw hat ringed by a long yellow ribbon—materialized on her threshold as though teleported. She worked in bed all day in pajamas, sending and receiving emails about inbound marketing and voice search tactics.

*

The hilarious guy from the phone was coming over. The neighbor, whom Alice had never seen but imagined wide-eyed and 25, a ponytail-and-pearl-earrings type, prattled on about him all afternoon. She was going to roast a chicken. What kind of wine went with chicken? “Never mind,” she added, sounding irritated. She must have been talking with her mother. “I’m googling.”

It was Ben’s birthday and Alice was trying to forget it. She wandered to the kitchen, scanned her bottles, opened a 2014 California Merlot. How she relished gripping the sturdy glass shoulders and working the screw from the cork. She’d only fallen in love with wine since moving into this apartment, the same week the virus arrived and confirmed the doomsday predictions. Could she ever adequately sing the praises of the sunny gold of Chardonnay, the rich garnet hue of Barolo? Back at the house where she’d lived with Ben, she’d drunk oceans of Diet Coke, but now caffeine made her morose.

“Stop, it’s fine,” the neighbor said, “we both got tested.”

On the next call, with a friend, the neighbor said, “I told my mom we got Covid tests. Is that bad?”

*

Alice was halfway through the bottle when the hilarious guy arrived, his knock so close, her heart leapt up. Dinner smelled warm and garlicky and earthy. Proud of the neighbor, Alice toasted her, tapping the lip of her glass to the wall.

“Should I have brought something?” the man asked.

The neighbor laughed uproariously. “Oh my god, just sit!”

Alice was disappointed but not surprised that the date wasn’t funny, that the neighbor rewarded him for merely existing.

She opened Netflix but knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. The date was holding forth about his work: “So they wound up delisting the stock.”

Alice closed her laptop, pinched the crystal stem, swirled the velvety red in its bowl. She was less interested in what he was saying than in how the neighbor would respond.

“Oh my god,” said the neighbor.

“Right? Super disconcerting, but at the same time, I was like, ‘yup, inevitable’.”

“You totally saw that coming.”

“I kind of did, huh?”

“Taste this.”

“Reminds me of…” Banging pots muddled the rest of his sentence. When the commotion ceased, he was saying something about “involuntary listing,” something about being “kicked out of the exchange.” He said, “They brought it on themselves.”

Alice imagined the people who had done the “kicking out” sunning themselves on a yacht, shaking their heads at the company’s misfortune: They brought it on themselves.

*

Ok, she was kind of drunk. But this was fun! The neighbor and her date had finished dinner. Alice selected a Lambrusco from the fridge, took a sweet, sparkly slug straight from the bottle. She couldn’t wait for the guy to leave so she and the neighbor could gossip about him.

Almost as soon as the idea arrived, she realized it was fantasy. Then came the flood of despair, the detritus of Ben contaminating the surface.

She’d always feared Ben’s leaving and suspected she’d manifested it, worrying so intently, her dread became the truth. Though “manifesting” sounded scientifically dubious, she knew after the year she’d had—the world population culled by plague, Ben shacked up with a “fitness influencer”—that nothing was impossible.

*

The date never praised the neighbor’s cooking. Alice had been listening for it. She frowned on those who felt entitled to the gift of beautiful food. Ben had never praised Alice, either. Nor had he liked to be praised. “He doesn’t see people as emotional regulators,” the couples’ therapist had explained, looking, quite frankly, impressed. As though it were noble to need nothing from anyone, to exist for years alongside one’s spouse as a self-sustaining ecosystem.

“Want some chocolate cake?” the neighbor asked after a minute.

“Later?”

“I got two slices at the bakery on 5th. They make it with espresso.”

The date didn’t respond.

“This is going to sound like a dumb question,” the neighbor said a few minutes later.

“Don’t say that,” Alice whispered.

“But do you ever get the feeling at work, like on a Zoom or whatever, that you just want to blurt out something personal?”

The date chuckled.

An ache squeezed Alice’s throat. She used to make the same move her neighbor was making, attempting to wrench Ben from his head and guide him toward his heart.

“Like, ‘good morning, everyone, I have explosive diarrhea’?” the date asked, and Alice laughed, surprising herself.

“Or, like,” said the neighbor, “‘I’m in a good mood because I had hot sex last night.’”

“Or,” said the date, still chuckling, “‘I’ve stopped believing in God.’”

“‘I’ve stopped believing in myself.’”

“‘I am a shell of the man I was.’”

“‘What if I’m unlovable?’”

“‘I’m scared.’”

“‘Terrified.’”

“‘Demoralized.’”

In the quiet of the kiss, the wall cooled Alice’s parted lips.

The banter continued after the pause: “‘I’m an existential no.’”

“‘I’m a moldy carbon footprint.’”

“‘Esteemed colleagues, I’m so lonely.’”

“Did you hear that?”

Alice listened closely before realizing what she’d done, how loudly, how enthusiastically she’d called out, “I’m right here.”