Everything's Fine

by Cecilia Rabess

Why did her success have to be predicated on perfection instead of, say, a vague sense that she was someone people would like to have a beer with?

“You really don’t forget anything, do you? Do you have a dossier of shitty things I said when I was in college that you’re going to use against me every time we talk?”

“The desire to belong is one of the most irreducible human instincts. We’re cognitively wired to want to fit in.”

More than luxury macarons or designer shoes, she wanted one thing: for people to take her seriously. If she had a million dollars—that was her number—maybe people would stop assuming, that she had nothing to offer or that she wasn’t someone to be reckoned with or that she was a fucking secretary.

“But the problem is that success—money, power, opportunity—follows a power law distribution. So, there’s an asymmetry. Systematic distortions—institutional sexism, racism, discrimination—that exaggerate the skewness. There’s data to prove it. Researchers have done simulations that show the relationship between IQ and success is disproportionate and highly nonlinear. So, if you think we’re lowering the bar… your math is wrong.”

“the hallmark of an agile intellect is the ability to continuously accommodate and integrate new information. To regularly and systematically update one’s mental model of the world. It’s the scientific method.”

“but do you really want to spend your Friday nights watching him snort cocaine off of his ab roller?”

“What is it going to take to get your clothes off?” And Jess said: “A date.”

To make up for so many centuries of oppression, Josh buys Jess lunch.

“We can share,” he says. “I’m wearing lip gloss.” “I can see that.” “I mean… you don’t mind? Lip gloss on the can?” “I don’t mind.”

He looks at her, puts his mouth to the can’s mouth, over the lip gloss print, and tips his head back. In that moment, despite everything, Jess decides she would kind of like to sleep with him.

Nice

“Strawberries?” “They’re my favorite.” He smiled.

Strawberries sometimes gave her hives, made her throat itch. But she ate them anyway—she’d read something once about exposure therapy—because they were her favorite, too.

“I’m not speaking to you.” And then she doesn’t, even though it kind of sucks.

I walk by and look inside it makes me think of you.” She leans across the table and is only a little surprised how flirtatious she sounds when she says, “What else makes you think of me?”

Photos of Josh as a little boy. At an aquarium, blowing out candles, his feet dangling into a swimming pool. It occurs to Jess that he was a child once, that he didn’t fall from the sky socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Equality and justice are fundamentally economic problems and the more we get distracted by identity politicking and virtue signaling the less we actually accomplish in terms of addressing structural inequality.

They split up and fan out, a trick they learned in college, in order to maximize their chances of finding trouble: the good drugs, the hot boys, the best booze.

“Why would you do that?” She is standing over him, looking down. She sits. Looks at him. Waits. “Jess,” he says, “come on.” “Come on what.” He elbows her lightly. “You know why.” “No, why?” she asks, genuinely perplexed. “Because… I love you.”

“We just started… hooking up. You don’t even know if you like me. What if I turn out to be a crazy bitch who, like, texts you twenty-seven times before you text me back. Or gets mad if you pee standing up. Or makes you hold my purse at concerts.” “I would still love you.”

“Jess, I see you every day. We’ve been friends for, what, two, three years? Enemies for a year before that?” He flicks her arm, grins, and says, “I know you, Jess. I like you. I love you.”

“You could move in with me.”

NICE

Where would she start? With the job she got fired from? Or the boyfriend who voted for Mitt Romney?

She is pissed off. It doesn’t matter that his shoulders are smooth and muscled and that he smells like aftershave.

“Josh…” and moves her hand higher on his arm, her fingers resting almost proprietarily on his bicep.

First of all…

He winks. Her heart flutters.

Tenley is trying to be nice. Jess wanted her to be bitchy, aloof, superior, beautiful. But pitying? That’s so much worse. As if Jess is someone who needs to worry about her boyfriend. Who needs to be reassured.

AAAHHH

He wants her to break up with Josh, probably so he can be with Tenley, his beautiful blond niece. Then he can give Josh his fund without reservation and they can all get on with their perfect, tax-free lives.

I’d just… not really gaf idk

“So… you’re asking me to break up with him?” Gil says, “I’m asking you to consider his future.” “But I’m part of his future.”

Ate

“You’re extremely cute when you’re mad, you know that?” “Are you kidding me?” “Like a feral bunny.”

I’d have to shoot him

Either way, I don’t exactly lose sleep over what he thinks about my personal life.”

Ykw… hell yeah

“You’re not small to me, you know that, right? To me, you’re… everything.”

“You’re right. That was lame. I was just trying to say that… I feel connected to you, on a level that feels cellular to me, I really do, but… it was lame. That was a lame thing to say.”

Honestly.. there’s nothing that could happen that would make me not believe we’re in love

“If we ever break up I’m going to kill myself… and then I’ll kill you.”

“What do you think it would look like?” “The murder scene?” “No, us, when we’re old… er.”

How much of her he sees. Wonders if, to him, she’s fully real. Wonders whether the aperture of his mind is wide enough to accommodate her in her entirety.

While he’s away, Miky and Lydia come over. They drink margaritas and play pop music in every room in the loft. In the bathroom they make a mess, giving themselves Korean face masks and manicures, spilling makeup and margaritas, while Miky screams, “Girls’ night!”

NEVER kill yourself

You’re the one who’s changed. And not for the better, frankly. Ever since you got this new job all you do is post these bullshit articles and spout this bullshit left-wing propaganda.”

AAAAAHHHHHH she has to kill him actually

You’ve lost your mind. Where did my cool, fun girlfriend go?

Fuck off

You want all of this too! You can’t have it both ways. You’re a hypocrite because this is what you want too, Jess. All of this”—he gestures at the gleaming marble, the windows, the view, the floors, all of it, and Jess feels sick.

…. Shooooooot

“We’re exactly the same. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you were in my position. You don’t have a problem with the system, just your place in it.”

FUCK HE IS EATING

“Jess, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I hate fighting with you, I’m sorry.”

Good.

The hat is still on the floor where Jess dropped it. She picks it up and flings it hard at his chest. He is momentarily startled but catches it. And then—and this will haunt Jess—he takes it by the brim and smacks it twice against his thigh, shaking away dust. Such a casual gesture. He then sets it on the desk as if it’s something he’s planning to pick up again. As if it’s any old thing to leave around the house. As if the past twenty minutes never happened. As if her feelings don’t matter.

“Jess, please, come on.” She ignores him and instead jabs at the elevator button, impatient and fuming, tears running down her face.

YKW YEAH FUCK OFF

Outside her phone buzzes immediately. I’m so sorry, please come back I didn’t mean it, I was upset I love you Don’t go

Good.

“He’s going to vote for Donald Trump!”

😭😭

“We hate to say it, Jess, but at this point is it even ethical to be dating him?”

“So you’re saying it’s fine?” “What’s fine?” Dax asks. “That Josh is kind of, like, I don’t know, a product of his environment? This archetypal conservative guy? Like he is who he is and that’s it?” “It’s… not surprising.”

Josh was who he was and Jess couldn’t change it. She could pretend it away, maybe, for a while, but not forever. It was a form of denial, she knew. Of avoidance.

“You know you have to speak to him eventually.”

Do I?