Page 19 of The Match Faker
“Trying to make my ex jealous.”
“Sure. Right.” I’ve spent much of my life pretending I don’t care; being unserious even about serious situations is its own sort of therapy. But I can’t be anything but serious about this, or maybe I just can’t pretend. Not tonight. Not this week, with the loss of Moonbar and my trip home looming over me.
“Please don’t,” she says, her tone quiet, her head lowered.
“Don’t what?”
“Make fun of me.”
Fuck.
“Hey.” Chest tightening, I squeeze her wrist between my fingers. Regardless of how I feel right now, I made a promise to this woman. This equal part fearless and shy, strange, beautiful woman.
“I’m sorry. I think I’m just…nervous, too. Had a shitty week.”
She pulls her hand from mine. “What happened?” she asks as a family of three plus grandparent runs through the Great Hall and down the ramp to the Concourse Hall to catch their train.
I hesitate, shifting in my Chelsea boots. My job has made me good at listening to other people’s problems, but I’m still incapable of sharing my own.
For a long moment, she’s silent, giving me time. When I don’t respond, she shrugs. “We should know stuff about each other. How our weeks went. That kind of thing. Since we’re supposed to be dating.”
She’s right. And yet, that doesn’t make it any easier to share such a big personal and professional failure.
“Okay,” I say, nodding toward the Front Street exit and the Royal York Hotel across the street where the engagement party is about to begin. “I’ll tell you on the walk.”
It’s a short one, so I won’t have to get into too much detail. Unfortunately, it’s also colder than Kris Kringle’s asshole.Jasmine’s teeth are chattering before we can even cross the street; her coat is long, but she isn’t wearing gloves or a hat. I pull off my gloves—an old leather pair I stole from my parents’ front closet years ago and have somehow managed to hang on to all this time—and hand them to her. She takes them slowly, like she expects she’ll have to trade something for them, but when I simply continue to tell her my tale of woe, she slips them on.
“Do you have any savings? Investments?” she asks, curious more than judgmental.
That doesn’t stop the defensiveness in my voice. “I have some savings.”
“Some?”
“I was thinking of starting a retirement plan…?” Not that it’s any of her business.
“Most financial advisors suggest contributing to an RRSP as soon as you begin earning a full-time salary.”
“You wanna see my tax returns next?”
She stops at the bottom of the steps to the hotel, shuts her eyes tight.
“Sorry,” she says. She opens her mouth like she’s about to say more, but shakes her head and trots up the steps instead.
“What are you going to do, then?” she asks after we finally push through the revolving doors at the front of the Royal York. I don’t even take the door for an extra spin, which feels like personal growth.
I sigh. My only option for a loan—and it’s a long shot—is my dad. “Hope for some help from generational wealth, I guess? Though, that’s unlikely.”
“How come?”
I catalog the opulent details of the lobby, the dark wood ceiling and crystal-and-gold chandeliers. I listen carefully to the muted rhythm of our steps as we cross from the marble tiled floor to the carpeted sitting area, anything to facilitatedisassociation while I explain my father and his expectations of what “success” looks like. To Dad, professional success is informed, improved, by family. Both building one’s own and listening to the one already in existence.
The party is hosted in an event space off the main lobby that is inexplicably still called the Imperial Room.
Classy.
In the room sponsored by white supremacy, a live band plays the kind of instrumental music best described as pleasant, in that it’s the perfect volume to exchange pleasantries. The lights have a soft purple glow that reaches through the open doors to reflect into the marble foyer.
I turn back to Jasmine and find her watching me, her eyes bright and her lips turned up. While not an unwelcome sight, it is surprising.