The Book of Jonah by Joshua Max Feldman Page A

motions put one in her mouth and lit it. As she took a deep drag, she looked at him from feet to moist forehead. “Remember, it’s good for your pores,” she said consolingly. “Do you want a tissue?”
    â€œNo, it’s okay…” he said, wiping his face again, guilt now taking a place among the doubts. She was so complicated and contradictory in so many ways that he was often caught off guard by how plainly nice she was to him. She was the closest thing to a Jewish mother he had ever had.
    She took another tug on her cigarette. “The star of one show you never watch is writing a memoir about his gay escapades with the star of another show you never watch. And Darla’s old roommate is an assistant to some agent in L.A., and she sent us the proposal. It’s mass hysteria up there, Yonsi, really, B-girls gone wild. I had zero time to answer your calls. The details are absolute pornography, and guess who has to write about it? That’s what I get for graduating magna from NYU. Tell me I have the most soulless job of anyone you know.”
    He glanced at his phone—he had only about five minutes left. Again he pondered reversing course. But he knew himself, knew that if he failed to do it now, it would be weeks before he put himself in a position to do it again. It was still the right thing to do, he reminded himself. So he took a decidedly calm breath and said, “Look, Zoey…”
    Her eyes immediately narrowed, she scrutinized his face suspiciously. Then she let out a disgusted sigh. “ Scheisse, Yonsi…”
    â€œZoey…”
    â€œPlease stop saying my name like you heard my cat died.”
    â€œI just think that we—”
    â€œYou’re doing this to me again?”
    â€œHow often has it been you doing it to me?”
    â€œYeah, but I always had good reasons.”
    â€œSylvia and I…”
    She rolled her eyes preemptively. “She does not qualify as a good reason.”
    â€œWe’re moving in together.”
    He had meant to deliver this piece of news more gently, but had found himself feeling immediately on the defensive, and so the most compelling rationale had come tumbling out. There had, of course, been many such revelations over the last ten years: new significant others, new seriousness with those others, new intentions of exclusivity. Only three months previously, Zoey had mentioned—with a certain grimness—that Evan had started making veiled references to possibly getting engaged at some point. But actually living with another person was something new to them—and maybe because it was new, Zoey looked puzzled when she first heard it, and her first response was, “But you said she didn’t even vote for Obama.”
    â€œI said I didn’t think she voted for Obama,” he answered, though the only reason he wasn’t certain was that he hadn’t wanted to ask and know for sure.
    She asked skeptically, “You really want to live with Schlampe ?”—this her nickname for Sylvia.
    â€œI don’t know,” he answered—more honestly, he realized, than he probably should have. “I can really see a future with her,” he added quickly. “And with us,” he went on, “it just isn’t meant to be.”
    This point seemed fairly obvious to him—self-evident, really. But as he watched, tiny tremors began in her lips and her forehead, a reliable harbinger of tears. Though her cigarette was only half smoked, she dropped it to the pavement, stamped it out with her toe as her hands began digging into her vast purse for another. “You have such a talent for saying the most hurtful things.”
    â€œZoey…” he began.
    â€œThere’s that word again,” she said into her purse.
    â€œYou know I never wanted to hurt you,” he mumbled.
    â€œThat must make you feel much better about all of this.” She didn’t look up