The Ex Talk

36

I slide the WWAMWMD bracelet up and down my wrist. Ameena’s been sending me photos of her new apartment, and yep, it’s much bigger and cheaper than anything in Seattle. We’ve tentatively planned for me to visit in November, once she’s more settled.

Ruthie’s girlfriend Tatum works at a vegan café in North Seattle, and she supplies us with free food while Ruthie and I send out résumés and commiserate about unemployment. The free food helps. Free alcohol helps even more, but honestly, I should cut down on the day drinking.

My weekends don’t feel as empty as I thought they might, though maybe it’s because my weekdays are still a bit empty, too. I had a job interview earlier today as a copywriter at a marketing agency, which I was unsure I wanted—they just happened to be the first place that called me. In the middle of the interview, someone knocked on the door and asked to talk to the HR manager, and when she came back in, she was decidedly chillier than she’d been before.

“You could always come back to commercial radio with me,” Ruthie says, swiping a sweet potato fry through sriracha aioli. “KZYO offered me my old job, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to take it. I’m trying to see what my options are.”

I take a sip of my rosé. “Truthfully, I’m not sure I could handle the commercials.”

“They’re not that bad.”

She launches into a familiar jingle and Tatum shouts from behind the counter, “Is she singing the pickle song again? Because she’s not allowed to do it within fifteen feet of me, it’s a relationship rule.”

Ruthie holds a finger to her lips. “It pays really we-ell,” she singsongs.

“I’ll think about it,” I promise.

We return to our laptops, the clacking of our keys mixing with the surfer girl pop punk playing through the café’s speakers. The café isn’t busy—in fact, we’re the only two people here, plus Tatum and a cook in the kitchen.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, you’ll let me know, right?” I ask Ruthie after a couple minutes. It’s still strange, sitting across from her after spending five months lying to her.

Ruthie’s hands pause on her keyboard, her rings glittering in the afternoon light. “I’ve already told you a hundred times that I forgive you,” she says. “I have a feeling whatever you’re putting yourself through is enough. I don’t need to add to it.”

“You’re too good for this world.”

“I know,” she says. “I almost don’t wanna ask, but . . . any word from Dominic?”

I shake my head. “He was texting for a while, but then he stopped. To be fair, I wasn’t exactly responding.” I let out a sigh. “I can’t talk to him if he’s still working there.”

“I get it,” Ruthie says. “I’m so sorry. I really was rooting for you two.”

Suddenly, Tatum gasps from behind the counter. “Oh my god,” she says, racing over to our table, her long dark ponytail bouncing. She shoves her phone at Ruthie.

“Tweeting on the job?” Ruthie says, shaking her head and making a tsking sound. But her eyes grow wide as she sees what’s on the screen. “Oh my god,” Ruthie echoes. She wrenches the phone from Tatum’s grasp and scrolls down the page.

I lean forward in my seat, trying to see what they’re looking at. “What is it?” Working in a newsroom, you get used to these kinds of reactions when something terrible happens somewhere in the world: people crouched over a phone, hands over mouths. But the two of them seem shocked rather than upset.

“Turn on Pacific Public Radio,” Ruthie says, patting my laptop. “My battery’s dying.”

I spit out a laugh. “No thanks. I’ll just check Twit—”

“Shay. Turn on the fucking radio,” Ruthie repeats, with so much vigor in her voice that I don’t dare disobey her.

Begrudgingly, I navigate over to the PPR homepage and click the little microphone icon to start the livestream. Tatum turns down the café’s sound, and we all lean in to listen to . . . An NPR newsbreak, featuring a story about an alligator in Florida that was finally caught after escaping from a zoo earlier this week.

“Are we . . . into alligators now?” I ask.

Ruthie rolls her eyes. “Just wait until the end of the newsbreak.”

Tatum slides into the booth next to Ruthie, and we wait. When PPR comes back on the air, it immediately becomes clear they’re in the middle of a pledge drive, which sparks an odd twinge in my chest. I didn’t even register that it was happening this week.

“And we’re back, talking about how you can support great local journalism,” says a familiar voice. “Which also happens to be hour number two of my apology tour. If you’re just tuning in, here’s what happened.”

I can’t breathe.

“There was this girl,” Dominic says, and I think my heart might actually stop. “That’s the way these stories always tend to start, right? So. There was this girl, and she’s the smartest, most interesting girl I’ve ever met. We worked together at this very station. She’d been at Pacific Public Radio for ten years, and she’s fantastic at her job. She’s basically an NPR encyclopedia. We even got lucky enough to host a show together . . . but that didn’t exactly go as planned. The show was built on a lie—the notion that the two of us had dated in the past and were now teaming up to dole out relationship advice and hear tales of other dating misadventures. But it gets really, really complicated when you start falling for a girl all your listeners think you’ve already dated and moved on from. Especially when your desk is right next to hers.”