Page 19 of All Our Almosts

On the wall to my right I notice a small white canvas with a vertical red line slightly off center. I lean in to read the artist statement, and it has lots to say about… the violence of menstruation? Jesus, deliver me. Okay this might be it. I take a few steps back to consider it from another angle, just in case there’s something I missed, but nope. Still a wiggly red line that’s supposed to be a statement about… “reproductive patriarchy” I guess?

I look around for Andy, trying to see if he finished early too, but when my eyes land on the back of his head I realize he’s been joined by a woman.

She’s tall and thin with a black french bob that looks incredibly chic on her but would make me look like I just got laid off from the Wonka factory. They’re standing side by side in front of a painting, but the woman’s face is turned entirely towards him. Unsurprisingly, Andy’s posture looks much less invested.

As his girl best friend, it occurs to me that it might be my responsibility to educate him on female expectations for body language in polite conversation. This poor woman is giving flirting her all, and Andy looks like he’s barely noticed.

Oh my god, now she’s giving him her card! She’s really going for it! You go girl. Andy takes the card from her and she walks away and wow, I couldn’t even hear what she said but I could tell it was smooth.

I raise one hand in the air, frantically waving him over to me, and when he gets within earshot I whisper-yell, “Did you just get that woman’s number?”

He shakes his head. “No, she gave me her business card.”

“Andy.” I take a breath, composing my patience. “Why do you think she gave you her business card?”

He shrugs. “I think she wanted to go to the contemporary art museum.”

“As a date.”

“She didn’t say it was a date.”

“Andy.”

“What?”

“You cannot be that dense.”

Andy cocks his head as if to say, how can you be so sure?

I raise my eyebrows to say, because I have two eyes and a brain.

Another fascinating layer to Andy’s personhood: he’s like catnip to women. Oblivious, elusive catnip. I have plenty of hypotheses about it, as someone who’s spent the better part of a decade studying him in action. There’s something about his stoicism and dry humor that makes people work even harder to win him over. And I kind of get it. Nothing makes your endorphins spike like getting a real two-dimple smile from him, knowing his smiles aren’t freely given but earned. Also like… he does look good. I don’t have to be into him to see he’s objectively cute.

In all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve only seen him make the first move with someone once—yes, once, ever—and even then I had to practically script the texts for him behind the scenes. If there was a gold medal for romantic inaction, Andy would win it hands down, no contest, cue the American national anthem.

But—and this is the really perplexing part—out of everyone in NASA, he has had the most relationships over the years. He’s always with someone, or seeing someone casually, or talking to someone, or getting asked out and not understanding that that’s what happened. It’s infuriating. Especially when I’m over here pulling out every tool in my arsenal just to get my boyfriend of three years to even notice me.

Ex-boyfriend, I mean. Elliot is my ex-boyfriend.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Andy’s voice pulls me out of my head.

“Nowhere, nevermind.” I grab his hand and pull him towards the wall. “Here, I’ll go first.”

When we stop in front of the depressingly wobbly red line painting, I start my explanation in the middle. “It’s not even that I hate it per se. I’m sure there’s something to be said for the artist’s intent. I just…” I stick both hands out towards the painting, then look to Andy to see if he gets it.

“It’s shit,” he says.

“It’s shit!” I yell. “Exactly!”

He lets out a single, surprised “Ha!” and it sets me off. In an instant I’m laughing too. Loudly. My hands come up to cover my face as if I could shove the laughter back in. Andy’s fingers wrap around my elbow, keeping me upright.

“It’s just—like—” I wheeze between giggles. “I could draw a red line on a canvas and call it menstruation and no one would hang it in a museum.”

“Ah but you didn’t,” Andy retorts. “That’s the thing about art, you have to actually make it to get credit.”

“You are truly insufferable,” I say in response to my echoed words from earlier, but I haven’t stopped laughing and the words have no bite.

“Shhh!”