Shelly Oria - New York 1, Tel Aviv 0

Wednesday

On Wednesdays, Sophia was a volunteer. Every few weeks she would choose a new organization, because the thing about Sophia is, she gets bored easily. One sure way to make Sophia smile is find a not-for-profit she hasn’t heard of, because what happens when you volunteer Sophia-style is that you run out of causes.

Here’s why I said if Sophia doesn’t want to discuss something she won’t: the day Anna left was a Wednesday, and I woke Sophia up two hours after we’d gone to bed because she was supposed to be at Cooper Union, selling tickets for a PEN festival event. Sophia said, I’m not going. I looked at her and didn’t know what to say; Sophia was usually very strict about her weekly routine. She said, I’m totally hungover, I need to rest, and the PEN people will be fine without me; it’s not a shelter for homeless children with AIDS, you know, so don’t look at me like that. She must have read my surprise as criticism, which couldn’t have been further from the truth; the rigidity of her schedule always made me feel superfluous somehow, and now I was thinking maybe change is possible, maybe from now on Wednesdays will be something new, maybe Anna’s visit is actually a story with a happy ending. I called in sick to the gallery — which I had never done before, because I believed excelling at that job was my best shot at becoming a real New Yorker — and said to Sophia, Maybe we can spend the morning together. I put all the stuff in the blender to make our special hangover juice, and she made a face but drank it all, which made me hopeful, as if this somehow meant I was wrong to be worried about Anna. In a moment I will ask Sophia, and she’ll laugh and say, Anna? Really? Oh, Booney-Boo, you’re sweet when you’re insecure, and our happy ending will begin.

The thing about Sophia, you can’t show her jealousy or she’ll remember why she hates commitment and explain it to you until you lock yourself in the bathroom to make her stop. The truth is, in any relationship someone at some point is locked in a bathroom. It isn’t the end of the world. But it is better to be smart, and with Sophia a way to be smart is, when you ask about other people, pretend you’re asking something else. Say, Anna reminds me of someone but I can’t figure out who, or, How come Anna isn’t over more often? You two seem really good friends. For it to work, Sophia needs to pretend right along with you, though, and that Wednesday the hangover made her too tired for acting; I shouldn’t have brought it up just then, but there was something like an itch in my neck where I feel urgency, and it was not the kind that would go away if I went to the gallery and tried to focus on work.

Sophia said, Boon, I love a lot of people, I share my life with a lot of people, I told you this the very first night. She was being honest, and it scared me, but you don’t start a talk like that and then change your mind. I said, This is different, though, with Anna, right? I spoke very quietly but it still sounded loud in my head. And childish. Sophia said, Anna is from another life, another time. I nodded. We have a history together, she said, the kind that makes you dependent. Sophia didn’t usually say things like that. She seemed exhausted, and for a minute I thought maybe we were together inside her dream. Then she closed her eyes, and I knew that when she woke up she would wonder, at least for a moment, if this conversation truly happened.

Thursday

Thursday mornings Sophia and I went grocery shopping, and on the Thursdays when we hosted a party at night, grocery shopping was a thing that took its time. When Sophia first got me the job at the gallery, she said, But you can never work Thursday mornings — that’s when we get food for the week. She was talking to me as a roommate; I’d just moved in. I said But maybe if I work the morning shift we can go in the afternoon, and she said, Tell them you can never work mornings on Thursdays, and don’t say why; it will only make them appreciate you.

Thursday was Sophia’s favorite Party Night, and we usually went out dancing or invited a bunch of people over, who brought music and amplifiers and drugs and called Sophia Gorgeous and Goddess and Sophia Loren. Hey, Sophia Loren, awesome party. At these parties, people often had sex at different locations in our apartment, using things like kitchen supplies as props.

A good time to talk about the sex: we had a lot of it, except at the end, and it was always good, except when it wasn’t. This is when it wasn’t good: on Thursdays, when other people were in on it, and especially when Sophia assumed I had my own interests for the night. I did not, because that’s the thing about Sophia: she gives you the kind of freedom you don’t want.

Before I met Sophia, I never thought of myself as a woman who could be with women this way, and maybe I’m not, maybe it’s only with Sophia. But my sense is, it’s the kind of thing that once you let it in, it is going to play itself out.

When I called Lydia to let her know I was all settled in, as we’d agreed I’d do, she said, Well, has she fucked you yet, and I said, What do you mean, you said she’s a nice and generous person. As I said before, I knew but I did not yet want to know. Lydia said, I’m talking about sex — have you had sex yet, and she sounded tired like I was an assignment she had to complete. I said, No … I’m not gay, Lydia, and Lydia said, Right, right. Then she said, Do you know what a rollercoaster is? And I knew she didn’t mean the regular kind so I said no and she said, Why don’t you ask Sophia about that.

I did. I asked Sophia, and she laughed her Lydia laughter, like that first day in the hallway: head tilted all the way back like she was trying to reach the floor, and something liberating like relief emanating from her lungs. We touched each other for the first time that night until the outside looked purple and small butterflies were flapping their wings against some inner wall I never knew I had. We lay in bed after, me facing the window, where Sophia had the strangest-looking plant; its leaves had a redness to them that made the whole thing look plastic, and I had the urge to touch it and see whether or not it was real, but I couldn’t reach it. I sat up, wings still fluttering in me, and said to Sophia, I’m not a lesbian, though, and Sophia smiled a new smile and said, Sweet Booney.

Friday

For the first few months, every Friday was City Lessons Day. Before I moved in, Friday was something else, but I never found out what. So Fridays we would take out a map of Manhattan, a subway map, and sometimes maps of other boroughs too. I also had a blue spiral notebook for tips that seemed important. Sophia started this tradition because, one day in the Village, walking east, I asked how much farther we had to walk to hit Central Park. She looked at me then like maybe I’d just turned out to be a mistake. This look had a sting and I thought, when someone looks at you this way you’ll never get to go with them to their dark places, and all I ever wanted, since that first moment in the hallway, was to be the person Sophia reached for when she cried. I said, I don’t even know how long I’ll live here, so I just don’t bother with the city. Sophia nodded, and I knew I’d said the right thing. I was just starting to learn then how to be a woman who intrigued her. Then she said, But will you let me teach you, Boon? I mean, you do live here for now. I said Maybe. She liked that answer. Then, the following Friday: the maps, the spiral notebook, and Sophia saying, Tip number one, in New York City, if you reach Chinatown you’ve gone too far.

Saturday

Saturdays we’d have brunch at Curly’s, and, more than any other place and more than any other time, I felt envied at Curly’s, because I was Sophia’s Saturday-morning person, and everyone knows that’s something you can’t beat.