precisely because they didnât need one. Newcomers to their circle always assumed they were a couple, and they delighted in trotting out their origin story, complete with an ongoing debate about who had been better in bed (the greater the alcohol, the greater the detail). Lately, Richard had been indulging in an ongoing riff about how Mike was leaving him in the proverbial dust, and joked about moonlighting as a handyman in her office (this coming out of the wall-hanging incident).
She checked her Facebook page, supine on an ab roller. In yet another instance of clairvoyance, Richard had replied to her wall posting a few minutes earlier with a YouTube link to Morrisseyâs âWe Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful.â She responded with a link to the Verveâs âBitter Sweet Symphonyâ and tried him on his cell. He didnât pick up. It wasnât even nine yet; there was no way he was working, so he wasobviously screening her. Bastard. She wondered if he was still hungover from the weekend. Saturday had turned into an epic bender to celebrate the commencement of the Decent Proposal. At some point Mike had asked half-seriously if she could sit next to him and his mystery woman on their first date, to watch the farce play out firsthand. There had been an awkward pause and she had been forced to say, âIâm joking!â Afterward, sheâd sucked down more shots than usual, and heâd matched her for every one.
Mike switched from the ab roller to an exercise ball. She decided to text him instead, knowing heâd write back immediately:
            y u gotta dis me like that yo?
(They often affected a faux âstreetâ patois in their informal communications, which she found a little exhausting, if not embarrassing. But there was no breaking the pattern now.)
            chill
he wrote back a few seconds later,
            was thinking deep thoughts
            like what
            like y all asians r such bad drivers oops . . . awkwd
            r u DRIVING?!
It was almost a lost cause at this point, but she still tried to get him to put away his phone whenever he was driving.
            . . . maybe . . . dentist appt, woohoo obamcre!! but stopped at light awl good
            going now dumbass have fun singing your little <3 out
She knew he loved singing along to his horrendously cheesy homemade mix CDs. When he was drunk enough, he even did it in front of her.
She headed to the locker room to shower and change.
EVEN WITH TRAFFIC, Mikeâs commute was gloriously brief, and today she flew down Washington Boulevard. Square Peg Pictures had been in Culver City since 2001, before it was a hip neighborhood. The founding partner loved to tell the story of how the Chamber of Commerce brought cookies to their door, thrilled that a legitimate business had set up shop adjacent to a cockfighting and prostitution ring fronting as a bar on one side, and a leather sweatshop on the other. But a year ago the debut of a swanky restaurant across the street had been written up in the New York Times , and now the leather sweatshop was the Pilates Sweatshop. Culver City had its own strip nowâa restaurant row of fusion eateries with backlit bars where young professionals sampled fancy grub and drank overpriced cocktails with punny namesâand though Mike hated being party to the gentrification process, she had to admit the new Culver City was much more her speed than the old one.
She pulled into the gravel lot and broke sharply, crossing herself with lightning speed while descending from her Jeep. Since college, sheâd made amends with the Korean Presbyterians, and come
She checked her Facebook page, supine on an ab roller. In yet another instance of clairvoyance, Richard had replied to her wall posting a few minutes earlier with a YouTube link to Morrisseyâs âWe Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful.â She responded with a link to the Verveâs âBitter Sweet Symphonyâ and tried him on his cell. He didnât pick up. It wasnât even nine yet; there was no way he was working, so he wasobviously screening her. Bastard. She wondered if he was still hungover from the weekend. Saturday had turned into an epic bender to celebrate the commencement of the Decent Proposal. At some point Mike had asked half-seriously if she could sit next to him and his mystery woman on their first date, to watch the farce play out firsthand. There had been an awkward pause and she had been forced to say, âIâm joking!â Afterward, sheâd sucked down more shots than usual, and heâd matched her for every one.
Mike switched from the ab roller to an exercise ball. She decided to text him instead, knowing heâd write back immediately:
            y u gotta dis me like that yo?
(They often affected a faux âstreetâ patois in their informal communications, which she found a little exhausting, if not embarrassing. But there was no breaking the pattern now.)
            chill
he wrote back a few seconds later,
            was thinking deep thoughts
            like what
            like y all asians r such bad drivers oops . . . awkwd
            r u DRIVING?!
It was almost a lost cause at this point, but she still tried to get him to put away his phone whenever he was driving.
            . . . maybe . . . dentist appt, woohoo obamcre!! but stopped at light awl good
            going now dumbass have fun singing your little <3 out
She knew he loved singing along to his horrendously cheesy homemade mix CDs. When he was drunk enough, he even did it in front of her.
She headed to the locker room to shower and change.
EVEN WITH TRAFFIC, Mikeâs commute was gloriously brief, and today she flew down Washington Boulevard. Square Peg Pictures had been in Culver City since 2001, before it was a hip neighborhood. The founding partner loved to tell the story of how the Chamber of Commerce brought cookies to their door, thrilled that a legitimate business had set up shop adjacent to a cockfighting and prostitution ring fronting as a bar on one side, and a leather sweatshop on the other. But a year ago the debut of a swanky restaurant across the street had been written up in the New York Times , and now the leather sweatshop was the Pilates Sweatshop. Culver City had its own strip nowâa restaurant row of fusion eateries with backlit bars where young professionals sampled fancy grub and drank overpriced cocktails with punny namesâand though Mike hated being party to the gentrification process, she had to admit the new Culver City was much more her speed than the old one.
She pulled into the gravel lot and broke sharply, crossing herself with lightning speed while descending from her Jeep. Since college, sheâd made amends with the Korean Presbyterians, and come
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