Girl dinner, p.9
Girl Dinner, page 9
There was an almost imperceptible thrum of apprehension, or desire. Like the moment you know a kiss isn’t just a kiss anymore—it’s going somewhere. The presence of anticipation passed through the dining room like a shiver, a sudden shift in the wind.
Plates were carried out from the kitchen by the hired catering staff, several heads snapping toward the pair of servers. Next to Nina, closer to the center aisle between the tables, there was an odd, almost cartoonish glint in Tessa’s eye, a typewriter flick of unfaltering interest.
Amused by all this, Nina turned to find Dalil, who was two tables behind her, but Dalil’s gaze was fixed on a sophomore sitting across the table from her, whom Nina could see had begun to quietly pant.
Nina felt it again—the chattering teeth, the hum of inorganic stillness. The House’s true members sat coiled and waiting, a collective bow strung taut. There it was again, that presence of something. Of waiting. Hunting.
Within moments, Nina thought she might have understood what it was.
Dinner at The House was, to put it plainly, a feast. Directly in front of Nina sat a platter with a colorful array of bright, festive vegetables, each roasted with golden crusts of Parmesan cheese. Beside her, thick, crusty slabs of bread were heartily dipped in velvety sauces, raised to still-chatting mouths, visibly dripping with richness like cream. A beautiful ceramic bowl was filled to the brim with fresh, hand-cut pasta. The main course was a short rib so tender it melted like butter in her mouth, and Nina felt her eyes close almost unconsciously, the word savory materializing unsolicited in her mind. For the first time she could remember since she’d gotten a period, she didn’t think about her cramps at all.
“What if someone’s vegetarian?” she asked Tessa beside her, who chuckled sardonically.
“No vegetarians in The House. We don’t tolerate that sort of foolishness.”
It was obviously a joke, and Nina laughed. “Seriously though, nobody’s got any ethical hang-ups about meat? No religious oppositions?”
“The meat is all organic, butchered humanely, locally farmed, you name it,” Tessa said. “We accommodate everyone as best we can, but these dinners are sacred. Once a week, we live deliciously.”
“No allergies? No lactose intolerance?” Nina pressed, intrigued now. She wondered if her own occasional struggle with dairy would count against her on this particular occasion. Not officially, she told herself, either way.
“Nope,” said Tessa.
“Is it like this at every house?” Nina couldn’t imagine Adelaide eating this meal. Adelaide was vegan and struggled to keep weight off her thighs (according to her). Which wasn’t to say Nina didn’t have her own self-conscious moments, but she came from a household where food meant love, so she’d always simply lived with the existence of large celebratory meals where you ate until your stomach hurt. It was a philosophy she associated with immigrant roots, having a sort of inverse relationship to Americanness. Needless to say, Nina hadn’t expected to find that sort of kinship anywhere in the Greek system, which was about as American as she felt you could get.
“No, this is pretty unique to us,” Tessa confirmed, spooning more sauce onto Nina’s plate. Nina hadn’t even noticed she’d still been dipping her bread into it, physically unable to stop.
“Wait, there are no allergies?” she realized aloud, moving on to a completely separate pondering. “Nobody’s got celiac?”
Tessa set the serving spoon down and licked her fingers. “Nope.”
“No peanut allergies?” said Nina, slow to process whatever was mysteriously concerning to her about this, though Tessa’s arched brow told her that Tessa had already lost interest. Nina glanced around the room, abruptly shocked to realize she’d heard no sneezing, no coughing, despite the viral cold that had been the subject of the health center’s weekly email. “Is anyone on medication?”
“What is with these questions?” asked Tessa, though before she’d fully gotten it out, another House senior whose name Nina hadn’t committed to memory yet commented vaguely, “I used to be on Adderall. And Lexapro.”
“What happened?” Nina asked her, and she shrugged.
“Don’t need it anymore.”
Nina scanned the room again, still unsure what she was looking for. The girl who’d sniffed the air was now drawing circles on her empty plate with sauce, a strange, hollow look in her eye, like she wasn’t quite satisfied.
Nina shook herself, turning back to Tessa. “What about glasses?” she asked, realizing that although several of the girls were barefaced or had clearly stumbled down the stairs with little effort at presentation, none seemed to wear prescription lenses of any kind. “Or what about … I don’t know, asthma? Is everyone just completely perfect in every way? Or, like, does anyone else have—” She stopped.
“Have what?” Tessa asked, this time managing to resume her interest at the phrasing of anyone else.
Nina exhaled, regretting that she’d asked so many pointless questions, as she was now obligated to answer some of her own. Who cared whether anyone wore glasses or sometimes got the shits from dairy? Aside from her, who had ailments aplenty.
“Endometriosis,” she said, with what she hoped was casual disinterest. “Maybe. Or just, like, periods that kick the shit out of you, basically.” Since, depending on who you asked, Nina didn’t have anything that was a real condition, or even one that had a real name.
“Oh.” Tessa patted her shoulder, then slid Nina the butter knife and replaced her empty hand with another fresh slab of bread. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
Across the table, the senior snorted a laugh. “Doubt you’ll have to worry about that anymore,” she said, raising a piece of short rib to her mouth with her fingers.
The dining room was loud. “What?” said Nina, who wasn’t confident she’d heard correctly.
Suddenly there was a tap on Nina’s shoulder, distracting her just as she’d taken a large bite of rapaciously buttered bread.
“Hey! Just wanted to say hi.” It was Fawn, of course. Nina had seen her earlier, opening the evening’s dinner with a recitation that Nina hadn’t memorized yet. Not exactly a prayer before dinner, but not necessarily not, either. More like a pledge of allegiance. “How has your first week been? I’ve been meaning to check on you, I’ve just been so busy. You know how the start of the semester goes.”
“Oh, yeah, totally, of course,” said Nina meaninglessly, hurrying to finish her bite. She gestured to her mouth with a helpless, self-deprecating shrug; across the table, the senior who’d been chatting with them excused herself. “Sorry, I’m just—”
“No no, it’s my fault! I’m the one harassing you while you’re trying to eat. God, isn’t it delicious tonight? I always miss Monday night dinner during the summer. Nothing else compares.” Fawn sighed with contentment and Nina thought of silk sheets, clandestine poetry. The teeth-chatter of wanting, longing that pooled in her mouth.
“It’s really amazing,” Nina agreed, ecstatic to be talking to Fawn, wishing she could be sure her breath didn’t smell like garlic, admiring the whirl of heady satisfaction that came from being so pleasantly full. “Do you guys always eat like this or is it just to impress the new pledges?”
“Honestly, this is mid,” sniffed Tessa. “Like, no shade at all to Chef, but just wait until Thanksgiving. And solstice.”
“Solstice?” echoed Nina. She felt a look pass between Fawn and Tessa from her periphery.
“You’ll find out more about it after initiation,” Fawn explained. “But it’s the best dinner of the semester by far. We do one in December, one in May—”
“Supposed to be June, obviously, but we fudge it for the academic calendar,” said Tessa with a grin.
“It’s celebratory,” Fawn confirmed. “A night of total sisterhood. Something to look forward to,” she added, squeezing Nina’s shoulder and straightening with obvious intention to leave. “But until then, don’t forget to work on your rush bible. I saw you fumbling for words earlier,” she playfully accused.
“What—I did not!” Nina ineffectively protested, and Fawn laughed, giving her an air kiss and wandering back to the table at the head of the room, where Nina realized Fawn would have had to stare eagle-eyed at Nina to catch her struggling with the dinner rites. Had she really been looking that closely? More likely it was a lucky guess. Nina shoved the thought aside and took another bite of bread, looking up to see the table being cleared for dessert.
“Okay, I take back what I said about being mid,” said Tessa, who reached for the chocolate ganache cake with a look that bordered on orgasmic. “This is my absolute favorite dessert. Get your fill, because we only have it a few times each term.”
“Oh my god, I’m so full, though—”
“Shut up and eat,” said Tessa, piling a slice on Nina’s plate as she laughed. “Self-care,” Tessa added with a wink. “Good girls deserve a treat.”
Nina felt woozy with pleasure, a little drunk, her cramps a steady, low-fi buzz, manageable and easy to forget. Punch-drunk and silly, she felt overwhelmingly fond of Tessa, and of Fawn, and of The House in general. It wasn’t, as Jas had said, just paying money to eat food with her friends. Where else would she find this kind of community—this degree of letting her hair down? She’d die before eating this way in front of a boy, and she had the feeling most of the other girls would, too. This was just for them. Wasn’t that feminist, and not just in its way, but generally speaking? Wasn’t this the benefit of feminine spaces, to exist in celebration, authentically, with no restraint?
Nina thought suddenly of Dr. Villanueva’s lecture from earlier in the week.
“There are, of course, countless ways to determine the proper form of existence,” Dr. Villanueva had said, “and as a matter of charting a course, there is no singular methodology. The nature of philosophy is not to determine a life, but a way of living. A definition of what it means to live, and to what end.”
His gaze lingered for a moment on Nina, who had been looking thoughtfully upward at the time. She’d always been one to crush easily, particularly on her teachers. Something about masculine authority was like competency porn, and Dr. Villanueva lacked for nothing in the physical realm. He remained of indeterminate ethnicity, though she’d tucked away a few more observations. His skin had a warm, olive tone, his hair falling casually in dark curls that he swept away from his deep, drowsy green eyes with apparent disregard for the outcome. When he caught Nina’s eye it was like a temporary snare, a hook around her throat. Like he was looking at her from across an expanse of crisp white sheets.
He’d gone on to discuss the nature of ethics, of vice, of a life built on what Tessa called living deliciously. But was it strictly sinful to eat well among other women? It wasn’t just the food, but the freedom. To eat among women unencumbered by shame was the actual delicious part, although the cake had admittedly been gluttonous.
For Nina, the decadence was in the company, in the collective, the shedding of the world and its narrow definition of reality for which the outer self was a constant and necessary performance. She had never before asked herself who she was when she removed the mask of backburning self-loathing, the one that called for self-deprecation and humility and constant, ritualistic assurance that it was not unpleasant or ugly, unfeminine or otherwise barbaric in its celebration of itself. Now, though, Nina understood that what lay beneath the theater of performative womanhood was a salivating desire for this—acceptance.
Rest.
She thought then that she understood what everyone had been waiting for, why the room had been so thick with tension. Everyone was hungry, simple as pie! But as the senior returned to her seat, distractedly avoiding Nina’s eye, Nina realized the tension hadn’t eased; the hunt, satiated, should have stretched out lazily in the sun, no longer so archly coiled.
But if anything, the frequency had intensified.
“So, anything interesting to report?” prompted Tessa, who was now licking ganache from her fingers with a ferocity that seemed unfulfilled; as if there was something else, something meatier she still needed, some cracked-open marrow she still craved.
Nina wanted to kiss the streak of chocolate on Tessa’s chin; to snatch up her hand in gratitude for the freedom to be unladylike, to simply and wholly consume. It lit a match inside her, an epiphany of inspiration, or maybe just permission to ask for more.
“I kind of want to fuck my philosophy professor,” she admitted, and Tessa laughed.
“To the fall semester,” she cheered, toasting Nina with a glass of ice water so refreshing it felt like mountain spring water, a crystalline slither down her throat.
Nina clinked her glass jubilantly against Tessa’s and looked up to find Fawn’s distant eyes on hers, Fawn’s glass lifting in quiet acknowledgment from afar.
13
Sloane, a creature of academia, was built on an operating system of deadlines and deliverables. Thus, living quietly in the back of her mind was the sinister ticking of a clock, the lofty presence of a mortgage. In order to achieve some semblance of long-term safety, she would need to advance from the position of mere short-term instructor, ideally by the end of the year. Which meant she ought to make herself valuable to her department, best accomplished by writing something publishable by the end of the semester, with chances of publication substantively heightened by getting the article submitted, pending revision, with a topic approved by Dean Wilson by midterms. She estimated about six weeks, then, to manage an impossible task. Then, in lieu of crying her eyes out, she simply told herself this would all happen, somehow, because alternatives did not exist.
“How was your weekend?” asked her TA, Arya, whose presence Sloane was gradually adjusting to. She liked him a great deal more than she expected, and interacted with him more often, too, given that he preferred to do his research work and grading at the frequently empty second desk in her office. Arya was older than the average TA, by Sloane’s estimation—too old to be paid such paltry amounts to attend to her tedium, but that was academia for you—and the fact that Sloane knew that, or knew much of anything about Arya at all, was due to Arya being so forthcoming with the details of his life that she couldn’t help but find herself fondly bemused by him—bewildered that he could share so freely, but also catching herself laughing nearly every time he opened his mouth.
It turned out that Arya had a family friend who was among the chosen few for The House—the sophomore, Nina Kaur. Sloane had mentioned her new faculty advisory position offhandedly to him after the contract had been left in her inbox, which Arya had seen. He’d chuckled and said he hadn’t thought her the sorority type—and while Sloane privately agreed, warily she felt it was some subtle form of misogyny, as if he’d caught her reading a bodice ripper. But when she’d pushed back, Arya had explained that his cousin—not technically a cousin, just a thing they called each other despite Nina’s twin, Jasleen, having given him a wolfish look since the tender age of twelve—was also among Sloane’s charges, and that Sloane would surely make valuable contributions to the cult of femininity, which Arya presumed to involve blood oaths, ritual sacrifice, and probably Ozempic.
Arya’s entire existence in her life was an invitation to be more forthcoming, but Sloane couldn’t quite muster up the same energy. “Oh, it was fine,” she answered vaguely with regard to the events of her weekend, and Arya, undeterred, proceeded to tell Sloane about a show he’d played with his band, showing her the latest damage to his phone screen as proudly as if he’d grown the placenta for it himself.
Sloane’s weekend had actually been, as all weekends now seemed to be, both better and worse than usual. Aside from her pulsing interior deadlines (each passing day another gash of red in the ledger) and having to wrestle the dog to the vet for long-overdue vaccines (Sloane was instructed to brush Frankie’s teeth more often, to which Sloane nodded enthusiastically as if she would definitely do this despite the fact that Isla was tugging at her blouse and then inevitably her hair and it was all so plainly a lie), Sloane had spent all of Saturday with Isla, which despite its ups and downs (Isla was, after all, becoming much more insistent on mysterious things, and often took over forty minutes to fall asleep for naps) retained a rosy glow of intimacy and pleasure for Sloane, who liked motherhood a great deal more than she had expected to. That felt a silly thing to say, given how miserable it often made her, but she had a newfound complexity, an ability to hold two things in her heart at one time. It was an indisputable fact that nobody made Sloane’s life more magical than Isla—and nobody made her more miserable than Isla, either. Though occasionally it felt like Max was vying competitively for the spot.
In their previous life, when Max had been a rising department star and Sloane had been comfortably admired at her smaller college a short train ride away, Max had taken long bike rides through the woods on Saturday mornings, such that Sloane became accustomed to attending brunches alone, or accommodating these bike rides into wedding attendance or weekend travel as a means of support and also resignation, understanding that Max’s outdoor proclivities made him who he was despite the fact that Saturday morning was a prime spot in Sloane’s social calendar. (This kind of flexibility made Sloane an ideal partner; a very chill person, a deeply cool girl.) And it wasn’t a terrible cost, not really. She loved a lazy morning with a book—even on weekdays, she liked to slowly adjust to waking by reading for thirty minutes in bed—but she also loved a trip to the farmer’s market, a long walk, the purchase of fresh flowers to then arrange in her favorite vase that everyone oohed and ahhed over, guessing it was vintage. Saturday morning had once been a lifestyle, one to which Sloane had committed and coveted despite lacking any sort of discretionary slush fund at the time. To Sloane’s thinking, just because her salary was barely enough to pay the rent didn’t mean she couldn’t revel in the riches of being young and healthy, and able to support the habit of placing petite wildflower bouquets in the Anthropologie vase she’d bought on sale.
