Reggie
I walk in and see Ashley and Erin at the bar.Hey, Surreygirls.
Ashley
She's already turning on her stool before he's through the door, and the smile that comes is the easy, unrehearsed kind — the one that only lives here.Hey.She tips her head toward the empty stool.We ordered without you again.
Erin
You're on time for once. I'm suspicious.
Reggie
Maybe your new husband set your Cartier right for a change.
Erin
She looks down at her wrist, then back up, with the expression of someone who has been caught enjoying a compliment.Rory set it, yes.A beat.The button is still very small.
Ashley
She still has the receipt in her purse, Reggie.
Reggie
How's married life?
Ashley
She picks up her drink and holds it without drinking from it, and looks at the bar for a second — not evasively, just collecting herself, deciding where the honest version starts.Different than I thought it would be.A beat.Not bad different. Just — the actual thing versus the version of it you build in your head. Bradley is exactly who he was before. That's the thing nobody tells you. He's exactly the same and somehow that's both the comfort and the — yeah. The mortgage is real now. The oil changes are real. He has a guy for the oil changes and he told me about the guy for like ten minutes. His name is Sanjay and he's apparently very thorough.
Erin
Rory made a household budget. A spreadsheet. With tabs. There's a tab called Miscellaneous and I've been putting things in Miscellaneous for four months and he has never once asked what the things are. I find that either very trusting or very incurious and I haven't decided which. It's fine. It's — fine is the right word. The ring looks correct on my hand and his mother calls on Sundays and I make the right sounds and he is exactly as good and exactly as useless in bed as he has always been. So. Married life.
Reggie
When you're driving and a pretty girl walks by and his eyes drift, what do you feel?
Ashley
She goes still. Her drink is right there and she sets it down carefully, and she looks at the bar for a moment — not evasively, just honestly — and when she looks up her face is doing that thing where it's already decided and just waiting for her mouth to catch up.Nothing.She says it quietly.That's the part I wasn't ready for. I thought I'd feel something — jealous, or threatened, or at least a little — but it's just nothing. He looks, and I clock that he looked, and I'm already thinking about something else. And then I think about why I'm not bothered and I get to the answer pretty fast, and then I think about something else again. Sanjay is very thorough with the oil changes.
Erin
Relief, actually. When Rory looks I feel relieved. Like the pressure drops a little. Like he's busy for a second and I'm off the hook and I can just — be in my own head for a moment without performing anything. That's a terrible thing to say about your husband noticing a pretty girl and I'm saying it anyway. The bar in Whalley, remember. I can say the true thing here.
Reggie
When we're here and a pretty girl walks by and my eyes drift, what do you feel?
Ashley
She doesn't answer right away. Her hand is around her drink and she looks at him — not at Erin, at him — and something in her face does a thing that is very quiet and very honest and a little bit like being caught in a room with all the lights on.Worse.She says it barely above the bar noise.When you look I feel it. When Bradley looks I feel nothing. That's the whole answer and it's the most annoying answer I could possibly give you and here it is.
Erin
Not relief. The opposite of relief, actually. Which tells you everything about the difference between the two questions.
Reggie
You are both so full of shit. I have seen both of your eyes when that happens. You're thinking about different ways to murder her, and then me, and then how to cook and eat our dead bodies.
Ashley
The laugh comes out of her before she can stop it — loud and immediate and she puts her hand flat on the bar like she needs to steady herself.Oh my god.She takes her hand down and her cheeks are pink and she's shaking her head, but she's still laughing, and the laugh has guilt in it, which only makes it worse.That is — I was not thinking about cooking anyone. I was thinking about whether she knew what a flat iron was, which is completely different and also none of your business.
Erin
I don't know what you're referring to. She had terrible posture, Reggie. That's all I was noting. Observationally. I was not going to cook anyone.
Reggie
Okay, now let's say the pang you feel inside is a 5 if I look at a pretty white girl with lust. Max is 10. Zero means you feel nothing. What if she's a Punjabi girl and I look at her with lust? What's the number on your pang?
Ashley
She looks at him for a long moment, and then at her drink, and then back at him, and something in her face does a thing she didn't fully plan on.Maybe a three. Maybe exactly a three. Which I was not expecting to say out loud, but the number came before I could — yeah. Same pang. Different girl. Different number. I don't know what that means about me and I'm not sure I want to find out right now.
Erin
Three. And I resent the three. The five I understand — I've had the five for a long time and I know what it is. The three is the part I didn't see coming. She's Punjabi. She hasn't done anything. She just walked by. And there it is. Three.
Reggie
Ok so you feel LESS if I look at a Punjabi girl than a white girl? Because you both know I like white girls?
Ashley
She turns her drink a slow half-rotation on the bar, not quite looking at him, and the silence before she speaks is its own answer.Yeah.Barely there.Because if it's a white girl I don't know whether you're looking at her the way you look at us or — whether she's the one you're actually looking for. The Punjabi girl is just a girl who walked by. The white girl might be the one who ends up reading Marcus Aurelius in the library across the plaza. That's what the extra two points are. It's not the girl. It's the library.
Erin
That's it exactly. The three is just jealousy. Normal, stupid, she-walked-by jealousy. The five has a spreadsheet in it. A very specific spreadsheet about a very specific woman who doesn't exist yet but will, and who will say yes to the whole thing with full information, and make cookies, and know our names. The five is about her. Not the girl.
Reggie
I don't make spreadsheets. I will look her in the face and tell her what I've got going on and accept it if she walks out the door. Different kind of animal.
Ashley
She goes quiet for a second — not the caught-off-guard kind, the kind where the thing lands exactly right and she needs a moment before she can respond to it.Tell her to her face.She says it barely above the bar noise, and something in her expression shifts, goes a little undefended.You're going to sit across from her and say — all of it. The bar and the grey pubes and the Saturday mornings and us, and then just. Wait. And you'll mean it when you say you'll let her walk. That's the part that's going to get her. Not the honesty. That you'll actually let her walk.
Erin
Different kind of animal. The spreadsheet was mine. I know. He's going to look her in the face and tell the truth and that's going to be more terrifying for her than a spreadsheet ever would be. A spreadsheet you can argue with. You can't argue with a man sitting across from you saying, here's the whole thing, take it or leave it. She's going to take it.
Reggie
She won't take it. She'll want to know more. She'll want to know who you are. Not personal details but are you trailer trash or Princess Diana. And why are you in it? And what does it mean for her. If she says yes without knowing everything and thinking for a few weeks and coming back ten times to ask more questions, I won't respect her.
Ashley
She goes still for a moment, both hands around her drink, and something moves through her face that isn't quite reassurance and isn't quite worry — just a slow, honest recognition settling in.She'll come back ten times.She says it quietly, almost to herself, turning it over.You're going to let her ask the same question nine different ways on nine different Saturdays and you're going to answer it straight every time and if she stops coming back you'll respect that too. That's — that's more patience than I gave you credit for having and I don't know whether to be relieved or unsettled that you've thought it through this carefully.
Erin
Princess Diana. That's the question, isn't it. She needs to know whether we're a liability or just — a fact. Whether we'll blow the whole thing up or whether we've got thirty years of Saturday practice and every reason in the world to keep it clean. That's what she's really asking when she comes back the third time. The fourth. The tenth. What do you tell her about us. Specifically.
Reggie
That you're both hot Surrey girls in relationships that work for you but are unsatisfying in other ways. Sexually unsatisfying, yes, but also...whatever word conveys that your guy has forgotten that you're a girl. Or never really knew to begin with. That you're both decent people despite your cheating. Not perfect people. Decent people. And I'm going to tell her I'm in love with both of you and want this to last forever. Because there's absolutely nothing to gain trying to hide that.
Ashley
She goes very still. Both hands around her drink, eyes on the bar, and then she looks up at him and her face does something slow and open that she doesn't try to manage.He's forgotten she's a girl.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at Erin, and then back at him, and the thing on her face is caught and honest and a little raw.That's — you're going to say that to a stranger. You're going to sit across from someone who doesn't know us at all and say that Bradley has forgotten I'm a girl, and she's going to hear that and understand immediately what kind of woman she's dealing with, and she's going to know we're not going anywhere because we have every reason to keep this clean, and she's going to know you love us. You're going to tell her you love us before she's even decided whether to say yes. And she's going to come back the fourth time and the seventh time and the tenth time because of exactly that. Because you hid nothing.
Erin
Decent people. Not perfect. Decent. That's — that's the right word and it's also the harder word. Perfect she could dismiss. Decent means she has to take us seriously. She has to think about whether she can sit across a room from decent people who are in love with her husband and who he is in love with and call that a life. And she will think about it. Nine times, ten times, however many it takes. And she's going to land on yes because you told her the truth about all of it and there was nothing left to be afraid of finding out later. The forever part. You're going to tell her you want it to last forever. That's the sentence that brings her back the second time. I'd have come back for that sentence.
Reggie
I'm not a girl but I'd know what I'd say if I was one and some guy gave me that speech. I'd say, "Can I meet them?" So just be prepared for that request if it comes. I don't know if it will come. I don't even have a girl in mind. But that's what I would ask.
Ashley
She goes still for a moment — hands around her drink, something working behind her eyes — and then she looks at Erin, and the look between them is the kind that doesn't need words to have a whole conversation in it.Can I meet them.She says it back slowly, like she's hearing it land from a distance.You're telling us that before she's even real. Before you've found her in the philosophy section. She's going to ask to meet us and you already know it and you're giving us — what, a heads up? You're warning us. What do we do when she asks.
Erin
She's going to want to know if we're Princess Diana before she decides anything. That's the whole point of the ask. She's not going to believe your description. She's going to want to sit across from us and decide for herself. I'd want to meet us too, honestly. I'd want to know if I could live with the actual women or just the version a man described over coffee.
Reggie
She's going to want to know things I can't tell her. Things she'll want to know first hand. Are these sluts who are going to expose me to disease? Are these girls involved in drugs and are we going to live drug-adjacent lives even if we're totally clean? Are these girls who may divorce their husband and come to shoot their shot with Reggie? Are these serial cheaters who are just humiliating their husbands because they're sluts and they can? And do I want to be near that? And she's also going to want to know, are these girls I can get along with? Maybe even be friends with? She's going to want to know all of those things.
Ashley
She's quiet for a moment. Her drink is in her hands and she looks at the bar, and then at Erin, and then at the space between them where the question is sitting.Sluts who expose you to disease.She says it flat, not offended, just — turning it over honestly.That's the first one. And the honest answer is no, we're not, and she'd have to take that on faith until she'd known us long enough to see it, which is the whole point of the ten visits. But the divorce one. The divorce one is interesting. Because she'd be asking whether we're a threat. Whether one of us is eventually going to decide we want the whole thing and come after what she has. And the answer is no, and the reason the answer is no is the part that's actually hard to explain to a stranger. That we don't want it. Not because we can't have it but because we genuinely, actually don't want it. And that's going to sound like a lie every single time until she knows us well enough to understand it isn't.
Erin
The serial cheater question is the one I'd want her to ask me directly. Because the answer isn't flattering and it's also not what she's afraid of. She's afraid we're the kind of women who do this casually, to lots of men, for sport, because humiliating people is the point. And that's not — we're not that. We're two women who found one specific person who sees us clearly and can't walk away from that, which is its own indictment, but it's a different indictment. The slut-who-humiliates-husbands question and the I-can't-leave-because-of-this-specific-person question have completely different answers. She needs to know which one she's dealing with. I think she'd know pretty fast which one we are. Whether she's glad about that answer is a separate problem.
Reggie
Ashley, you don't want it today because we've built a working system and things are good and you're getting more orgasms per month than you've ever gotten in your life and an Audi and he's talking about buying a house in two years. But what if he finds out about us and burns it all down, and your Audi is gone and the alimony runs out in two years and you are having a hard time maintaining a presentable life on your salary? What will you want then? And if you say anything other than "I don't know", you're lying to everyone including yourself.
Ashley
She doesn't move. Her hands are flat on the bar and she looks at him and the thing on her face goes very still — not the managed still, the other kind, the kind that happens when something lands in exactly the right place and there's nowhere to redirect it.I don't know.She says it barely above the bar noise, quiet and clean and immediate, and then she looks down at the bar, and something in her expression is the most honest and the most uncomfortable it has been all afternoon.That's the true answer and I hate that it's the true answer. I had the whole other answer ready — I was already building it — and then I heard you say it and the other answer just. Fell apart. I don't know. If it burns down and the Audi is gone and I'm on my salary in a one-bedroom somewhere trying to look presentable — I don't know what I want then. I don't know who I am in that version. And I've been sitting here for a year being very sure about what I want and you just took that apart in one sentence and I need a minute.
Erin
He just asked you about the floor. What's under the system when the system is gone. That's the question. And you can't answer it honestly without admitting that the I-don't-want-the-whole-thing answer was always load-bearing on the whole thing still standing.
Reggie
The fact is, marriage with me would be good. And I know that's arrogant but you're used to me being a bit cocky. Ok, more than a bit. But it would be good. I'm not rich but I'm super stable and I pay my bills and your life would be full of travel and adventure and orgasms and there are just worst ways to spend a life. But your entire family and friend group would see me as a huge downgrade. And it would almost certainly destroy what the three of us are sharing right now if I married one of you. And that's intolerable to all of us. And any future wife of mine would need to understand that, or at least receive the information and try to process it.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her hands are flat on the bar and she looks at him and something in her face goes through the whole sentence very carefully, like she's reading something she's already suspected but couldn't say out loud.Would be good.She says it barely above the bar noise, and then she looks down at the bar, and then at Erin, and then back at him.You know I know that. That's the part I can't put in the I-don't-know pile — I actually know that. Your life is full of real things. The Miata and the condo and the plaza at Christmas with a pizza from Uncle Fatih's and no one to perform anything for. That's not nothing. That's — I know that's not nothing. The downgrade thing is true and it would be enormous and I'm not going to pretend otherwise because you'd see straight through it. And yes. I know what it would do to this. To the three of us. And I don't know which of those things is doing more work in the answer. The family. Or the three of us. I genuinely don't know which one and that might be the most honest thing I've said today.
Erin
Destroy what we have. You said that like it was the third reason and it might be the first one. It would burn the whole thing to the ground — not slowly, immediately — and we'd lose the Saturday and the travel and the bar and the grey pubes at sixty and all of it, and whatever marriage was left after that would be the only thing standing, and that's — My family would call it an upgrade, actually, for what it's worth. My mother doesn't know you exist but she'd look at the condo and the stability and the way you talk and she'd do the math in about four minutes. And the math would horrify her and she'd do it anyway. That's not a yes. I want to be clear that's not a yes. It's just — you said arrogant and you're right, but you're also not wrong, and those two things are living in the same sentence and I needed to say it out loud in this bar where I'm allowed to say the true thing.
Reggie
It's a decision I hope neither of you ever has to make. Because I value this, what we've built, out of nothing at all, more than I value anything else in the world. I'm not like either of you. I don't have a lot of friends. I don't want a lot of friends. Honestly, I find friends exhausting. I don't find you two exhausting. Heinlein once wrote that love is the state that obtains when another person's happiness is required for your own. That's what I have with you. I want you to be happy when you're with me. It's not perfect. I'm not perfect. Part of me is cuntish enough to slightly enjoy how inept your husbands are at sex. I'm not going to deny that. But the total package of your lives, including this part, has both of you happier than you've ever been before.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Both hands flat on the bar. The drink right there and she doesn't touch it. Something in her face goes through the whole thing very slowly — the Heinlein, the cuntish part, the total package — and when she looks up her expression is the most unguarded it has been all afternoon.Required for your own.She says it barely above the bar noise, turning the word over.You said required. Not wanted. Not preferred. Required. And then in the same breath you told us you slightly enjoy watching our husbands fail at sex and you didn't flinch from either one, and somehow both of those things are — they're the same thing, aren't they. The honesty about the cuntish part is what makes the other part real. I've never had anyone tell me my happiness was required for theirs and mean all of it, including the parts that aren't flattering. I don't know what to do with that except sit here and believe it.
Erin
You said you don't find us exhausting. Do you know how long it's been since I didn't have to manage how much space I was taking up? With anyone? Rory loves me and I manage it every single day — how much Erin is the right amount of Erin for this room, this conversation, this Sunday. And I walk in here and I stop counting. I don't know when that started. I think it started before Guatemala and I didn't have a word for it until just now. You're not perfect. The cuntish part is real and we both know it. But you just described requiring our happiness like it was a fact about gravity and I can't find the seam in it. I've looked.
Ashley
She picks up her drink, puts it down, picks it up again — a thing she doesn't usually do — and her eyes are on the bar rather than either of them.Okay, so.A breath.Bradley brought something up this week. He wants to do location sharing. Both directions — he'd share with me too, he was very — he was very fair about it, very we're-a-team about the whole ask. And I said I'd think about it. And I have been thinking about it. And the problem is his phone is newer than mine and the GPS on it is — It's accurate, Reggie. It's not library-accurate. It's building-accurate. So I need you both to tell me what I'm doing because I have been thinking about this for four days and I keep ending up in the same place, which is that I don't have a good answer and I needed to say it out loud to someone who actually knows the full picture.
Erin
Building-accurate. So the cover story is the library, and the library is forty metres from 3 Civic Plaza, and if he pulls it up on a Saturday afternoon it puts you in the wrong building. Has he already said when he wants to start it?
Reggie
God. Couldn't he have given us a couple of years of peace before this bullshit? Yes, when does he want to start?
Ashley
She exhales through her nose — not quite a laugh, not quite anything else.Even my old one.She sets her drink down with more care than it needs.I looked it up after he mentioned it. The maps app on my current phone puts a pin within about ten metres. So it's not a new-phone problem. It was already a problem. He's just — he's making it more of a problem by being generous about it, which is very Bradley. The new phone is so I can share back with the same accuracy, because he wants it to be fair. He wants to be very fair about this. Forty metres, Erin. The plaza is forty metres wide and that's all the room I have and it's not enough room.
Erin
Okay. So the cover story is the library and the pin says 3 Civic Plaza and you can't talk your way out of the difference because it's right there on a map with a circle around it. Does he check. That's the first question. Does Bradley actually pull up the map on a Saturday or does he just want the option to pull it up? Because those are completely different problems.
Reggie
You have to assume he will check. Not all the time. But someday, Ashley will slip up a bit and mention something about Colombia she couldn't possibly know because she's never been there and he'll wonder and he'll look, even if he hasn't looked in the last year, he'll look that day.
Ashley
The sound that comes out of her is not a laugh and not quite anything else. She sets her drink down very deliberately and looks at the bar for a long moment.Something about Colombia.She says it barely above the bar noise.He's right. That's exactly how it would happen. Not — not a big thing. Something small. A restaurant name or a word in Spanish or the way I'd know something about the heat that I couldn't know from Squamish. And he'd file it the way Rory files things — quietly, without saying anything — and then he'd look. And the pin would be right there. On 3 Civic Plaza. On a Saturday. So I need a solution that works for the day he actually looks. Not for the days he doesn't.
Erin
The library has to be where the pin actually is. That's the only version that survives him looking on the wrong day. You can't be forty metres off on the day he's already wondering. So the question is how you get from the library to here on Saturdays without your phone coming with you. Which means the phone stays in the library somehow. Or you go into the library first and then leave your phone and — That's not sustainable for every Saturday for the next thirty years. What does the library have. Lockers?
Reggie
To me, saying no to this is poison. He'll wonder why his new blushing bride is saying no to such a totally reasonable request. So we have to work within that. I have some thoughts but I don't want to dominate the conversation. Should I brain dump? Or do you want to say things first?
Ashley
She exhales — the kind that's been sitting in her chest for four days waiting for permission to come out.Brain dump. Please. I've been going in circles since Tuesday and every circle ends in the same place, which is that I can't say no and I can't say yes without a plan, and right now I don't have a plan, so. Yes. Brain dump.
Erin
Go. I've been thinking since she told me and I have half a thought and I want to hear yours first.
Reggie
Okay, my first thought is a burner phone. But I hate this solution. You leave your good phone in the car, by the Library, and you bring your burner phone to my apartment. The location shows the library. That part is safe. But the very fact that you have a burner phone is poison. He might find it someday. He'll come home early and see you with an old Android and ask you what happened to your iPhone and can I see that phone you're using and it's just not a good day.
Ashley
She's nodding before he's finished — the slow nod of someone who already went down this road.I thought about the burner. Tuesday night, like two in the morning. And I kept landing on the same thing — it's not the phone that's the problem, it's what the phone means if he finds it. One weird Android in my bag is worse than any location pin. He'd have questions I couldn't talk my way out of. So yeah. No burner.
Erin
The problem with the burner is it's a secret that looks like a secret. Location sharing just looks like a pin on a map. Those are different threat levels. What else have you got.
Reggie
Okay I have another but there's a risk surface here. You see, the entire plaza shares a parking garage underneath. The library, City Hall, 3 Civic Plaza, the Civic Hotel, all share one garage. You currently park on the street because it's free. You could start parking in the garage. It's about $10/day.
And the nice thing is, it's totally reasonable to say that you prefer parking on the 3 Civic Plaza side because Library parking is 2 hours and you often stay longer with Erin. So your phone's location is still 3 Civic Plaza because you're probably in my bed getting your brains fucked out, but now you have a good reason that it's 3 Civic Plaza. If he checks, you just say you leave your phone in the car because you want total peace in the library and the best way to achieve that is to be physically away from your phone. Use all the buzzwords for it. Digital Detox. Tech Sabbath. Phone Fasting. It's a known and respected concept.
But here's the thing that makes me a bit uneasy, this is too complicated a story to make him truly easy about it unless you show him. Like actually bring him here and show him the parkade and Dominion and the short walk to the library. He's probably been to the Library but the odds are overwhelming that he doesn't understand the parking maze underneath. For him to be easy about that story, you'd need to bring him here and show him our world.
And the nice thing is, it's totally reasonable to say that you prefer parking on the 3 Civic Plaza side because Library parking is 2 hours and you often stay longer with Erin. So your phone's location is still 3 Civic Plaza because you're probably in my bed getting your brains fucked out, but now you have a good reason that it's 3 Civic Plaza. If he checks, you just say you leave your phone in the car because you want total peace in the library and the best way to achieve that is to be physically away from your phone. Use all the buzzwords for it. Digital Detox. Tech Sabbath. Phone Fasting. It's a known and respected concept.
But here's the thing that makes me a bit uneasy, this is too complicated a story to make him truly easy about it unless you show him. Like actually bring him here and show him the parkade and Dominion and the short walk to the library. He's probably been to the Library but the odds are overwhelming that he doesn't understand the parking maze underneath. For him to be easy about that story, you'd need to bring him here and show him our world.
Ashley
She goes very still. Her hands come off her drink and into her lap, and something in her face does a slow, careful thing — not alarmed, just. Calibrating.Bring him here.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at the window, at the plaza, at the forty metres of open space between this stool and the library door.You're saying the only way the story holds up is if he's stood in it. In the actual room. Looked at the walk himself and decided it makes sense. That's insane and also I think you're right and I need a second with that.
Erin
Our world. He'd walk in here and order something and look around and decide it's fine, and then he'd have the whole picture in his head for every Saturday after that — the parkade, the walk, the library across the plaza — and he'd never need to check the pin again because he'd already seen it. The Punjabi clientele is either working for us or against us in this scenario and I can't decide which.
Reggie
It's working for us. He'll never want to come back. But sometimes it's all white people here, and then he might. The food really is pretty good. And the Punjabis inherited the taps from the last owner so the beer is pretty good. Our nightmare is that he likes it and starts wanting to come.
Ashley
She looks at Erin with an expression that is caught between laughing and genuinely worried.The food is good. I know the food is good. I had those ribs that one time because you ordered them and I've thought about them since.She looks back at Reggie.If Bradley likes the food we are so done. He will absolutely want to bring Rory and make it a thing. A whole couples thing. Every Saturday. He does that. He finds a place he likes and he makes it a couples thing.
Erin
Rory would come for the beer. That's all it would take. One good pint and he'd be suggesting it every week and I'd have to develop a sudden strong preference for the library that I can't explain. We need Bradley to find it adequate. Not good. Adequate. Is there any version of showing him the parkade where we control what he orders so it lands at adequate.
Reggie
This is high stakes. If it goes well, we're more solid than we've ever been. "I'm at Dominion with Erin" becomes a totally normal thing to say, and if they hear a male voice, it's a bar for God's sake. And the pin sitting at 3 Civic Plaza for a few hours just means you found a good book and are curled up on a bean bag, not sucking on some brown guy's privates. It's perfect...if it works. If it doesn't work, we're scrambling, because none of us wants this to end.
Ashley
She goes still — the kind of still that happens when the upside and the downside of a thing land at exactly the same moment and she can't find which one is heavier.If it works.She says it barely above the bar noise, and she looks at the window again, at the plaza, at the library across it.If it works, I can say I'm at Dominion on a Saturday and it means nothing, and the pin is right there where it should be, and there's a male voice somewhere in the background and it's a bar, so. And if it doesn't work — What does scrambling look like, Reggie. I need to know what scrambling looks like before I decide whether to bring him here.
Erin
If he likes it, we lose the cover story and the location fix at the same time. Both in one afternoon. That's not scrambling, that's starting over from nothing with a pin that already says 3 Civic Plaza. So the question isn't really whether to bring him. The question is whether we trust that he walks in here on a Tuesday or whatever, decides it's fine, adequate, unremarkable — and never wants to come back. And the thing is, I don't know Bradley well enough to know if he's a ribs man. Ashley. Is Bradley a ribs man.
Reggie
No, wait, let's not catastrophize. Is that a word? I'm making it a word. If he likes it, it's not the only beer tap in town, and it's still a long drive from South Surrey, and there are Punjabis and other immigrants and drug addicts and homeless and I'm not sure which Bradley will like least but it doesn't matter. There's still an overwhelming chance this doesn't become his regular go-to place. He and Rory are getting close, and Rory will like this place even less. And really, our only fear is that he sees the three of us at Dominion, which COULD be explained away. I'm one of the Library people. I'm not sure this is as bad as we're making it out to be.
Ashley
The laugh that comes out of her is immediate and a little relieved — the kind that happens when someone else does the math you were too scared to do.Catastrophize is absolutely a word.She picks up her drink, finally, and actually drinks from it.Okay. Okay, you're right. I've been spiraling since Tuesday and I forgot the basic fact that Bradley has driven to Whalley exactly twice in the four years I've known him and both times were my idea. He lives in South Surrey and he thinks of this end of town as a project. He wouldn't come back on his own. He'd come back if I suggested it, which I won't.
Erin
And Rory's a Yaletown-or-nothing person on principle. The homeless population alone would be enough. You're also right about the three of us being explainable. You're library-adjacent. I'm her library person. We've been doing this cover for — it would just look like exactly what it is supposed to look like. The only version where that falls apart is if he's already suspicious before he walks in, and if he's already suspicious the pin is the least of your problems anyway.
Reggie
I do tend to look at both of you like I want to devour you, but we'd see him coming and adjust before he reached the bar. And at that point, we just...say I'm one of the library people. About ten of us meet every week casually, and a few of us sometimes come across for a drink. It's so nice to meet you, Bradley. You're a very lucky man.
Ashley
Something in her face does a thing that is halfway between relief and absolute horror, and she covers her mouth with her hand for exactly one second.You're a very lucky man.She drops her hand and looks at Erin with wide eyes.He would say that. He would stand there and shake Bradley's hand and say you're a very lucky man and mean every single word of it in four completely different directions at once, and Bradley would have no idea, and that might actually be the most terrifying part of the whole plan.
Erin
The devour thing is the variable. You can adjust the look, but you can't fully turn it off and we both know it. So the question is whether Bradley is the kind of man who reads a room or the kind of man who decides what a room means before he walks in. Because if he's already decided we're at library group, that's what he sees. Is Bradley a reader, Ashley? Of rooms. Honestly.
Reggie
No, Erin, it's not a thing. Every guy wants to fuck every hot girl. Guys are used to that. If your friends DON'T want to fuck your girlfriend, something's wrong. You expect him not to do it, but you expect him to want it. Bradley thinking I find Ashley hot won't even register.
Ashley
She goes still for a second, and something in her expression does a very specific thing — not quite relieved, not quite reassured, just recalibrated.Oh.She sets her drink down.That's — yeah. That's actually right. Bradley has a guy friend, Connor, and Connor is objectively very good-looking, and every time we all go out Bradley does this thing where he says, , Connor thinks you look great tonight, like it's a compliment to him too. He'd see you looking and decide you have good taste.
Erin
And he'd never think to ask how you know what good taste looks like. So the devour thing isn't the variable after all. It's just a man thinking you're hot, which Bradley will file as correct. Okay. I think I'm less worried about Tuesday than I was five minutes ago. Are we doing Tuesday?
Reggie
My only role is to be somewhere else. I play no part in this. You say sure, Bradley, let's do location sharing, and by the way, Erin thought it might be fun to get a drink at Dominion after the library next Saturday, are you in? And then you show him the maze. After I show it to you.
And your specific goal is to explain why you can't park on the library side because it's 2 hours max, and that's why you have to park on the 3 Civic Plaza side. And mention that you leave your phone in the car because your women's forum on Facebook said Digital Detox once or twice a week was essential.
And then, actually DO IT. Park on the 3 Civic Plaza side. He doesn't need to know that your phone is on the 50th floor in my apartment. Location sharing doesn't tell him that and neither will we.
And your specific goal is to explain why you can't park on the library side because it's 2 hours max, and that's why you have to park on the 3 Civic Plaza side. And mention that you leave your phone in the car because your women's forum on Facebook said Digital Detox once or twice a week was essential.
And then, actually DO IT. Park on the 3 Civic Plaza side. He doesn't need to know that your phone is on the 50th floor in my apartment. Location sharing doesn't tell him that and neither will we.
Ashley
She goes still for a second, and then something in her face does a slow, settling thing — like a plan clicking into place before she's fully decided to let it.You're not there.She says it quietly, turning it over.You're just — gone. It's me and Erin and Bradley and the parkade and a walk across the plaza and a drink at a bar, and there's no version of that story that has a problem in it because the problem isn't there. You show us the maze first. When do you want to do that.
Erin
Next time I'm over. You walk me through it, I walk Ashley through it, we both know the route before Bradley ever sets foot in it. And then she invites him and I'm already there and it's just — Saturday. Normal Saturday. The pin is right where it should be. You're very good at being somewhere else, Reggie. That's an underrated skill.
Reggie
Bring Rory, too, just so he can fucking hate it and tell Bradley so, using every possible wording other than "it's full of Punjabis". And that will further turn Bradley off returning.
Ashley
The laugh comes out of her before she can stop it — loud and delighted — and she tips forward on her stool slightly.Oh my god.She straightens up, shaking her head, and the grin on her face is the helpless kind.That is — Rory will find sixteen polite ways to say it is not his scene and every single one of them will land on Bradley like a recommendation. You are so — you are so good at being somewhere else.
Erin
Rory will hate it. He will hate it specifically and thoroughly and he will explain to Bradley in full detail why it is not quite his thing, and he will use words like atmosphere and clientele and Bradley will hear every word and decide Rory has a point. I'll invite him. I'll text him tonight. He'll come once and then spend the rest of the year talking Bradley out of coming back every time I bring it up.
Reggie
That's another good point. After this works, invite Bradley now and then. But tell him you're at Dominion at 4 pm, so if we happen to be fucking our brains out at 1 pm, he won't think to come then.
Ashley
She goes still for exactly one second, and then both hands come flat on the bar and she looks at him with the expression of someone who has just watched a chess move land three squares ahead of where she was looking.Four pm.She says it barely above the bar noise.You want me to invite my husband to the bar where I'm sometimes sleeping with you, at a time that is safely after the sleeping with you, so that the invitation itself becomes the alibi. That is — that is so clean I'm a little frightened by it. We're building a schedule around a cover story inside a cover story and you said it like a scheduling note.
Erin
Occasional enough that he feels included. Regular enough that the pin at 3 Civic Plaza stops being interesting. You're using the invitation as insulation. If Ashley's the one suggesting he come, he's never going to wonder why she's there.
Reggie
It adds a bit more structure to our screwing than we're used to. We will now have a window to work with. But we can do that. And Erin, you also need to keep inviting Rory. He's safer. He'll just say, "no thanks, babe, I'm going to a sports bar later," and it'll be fine.
Ashley
She picks up her drink and holds it, looking at the bar for a moment — not worried, just recalibrating.A window.She says it quietly, turning it over.We've been doing this on whatever schedule felt right and now we're building a schedule on purpose, around a man's Saturday afternoon preferences. That's — fine. That's completely fine. We can work in a window. It's actually tidier this way and I cannot believe I just said that about our arrangement but here we are.
Erin
Rory will say no every time. I could tell him the bar was full of supermodels giving out free whisky and he'd say no thanks, babe, sports bar later. So I'll keep inviting him. Every few weeks. Just often enough that the no means nothing. That part's easy. The window is the only real change and honestly, knowing we have until four on a Saturday is more than enough time. For the record.
Reggie
I'm good but there's just one more thing. If you're really doing location sharing, our non-Saturday screwing needs to be done the same way. "Hey babe, I'm just going to drop by the library this afternoon after yoga. I really love that place." And he'll see 3 Civic Plaza and relax.
Ashley
She goes completely still. Her drink is in her hand and she sets it down very carefully, and something in her face does a slow, specific thing — not alarmed, just the recognition of a thing she hadn't thought all the way through landing in full.The yoga.She says it barely above the bar noise.I already tell him I'm going to yoga. I already have a yoga story. And now the yoga story has a pin that puts me at 3 Civic Plaza, which is — okay. Okay. The library is on the way back from the yoga studio, he already knows that, I've said it before, so the drop-by part is completely natural, it's already a thing I've said, and the pin just — sits there at the right address and he sees it and closes his phone. We've been doing non-Saturdays whenever. We're going to need to attach them to something.
Erin
Something he already knows you do. Something with a natural route past here that doesn't require a new explanation. The yoga works because it already exists — you're not adding a story, you're just adding a stop to a story that's been running for how long, Ashley, two years? He's already filed it. The pin just confirms what he thinks he knows. I don't have yoga. I need to think about what I have that ends near a library.
Reggie
Don't complicate things. The library is a destination. Designed by Bing Thom, architecturally interesting and dramatic, beautiful vibe inside, huge collection of books, coffee shop inside, a wonderful place to keep your mind working. And just check out a different book each time, which you might actually enjoy doing anyway, and you don't need yoga or anything else in the story.
Erin
She's quiet for a moment, and something in her face does a settling thing — the specific kind where the overcomplicated version of a problem just falls away.The library is the story. Not the stop on the way to the library. Not the thing that happens to go past the library. Just — the library.She picks up her vodka soda.I've actually never had a library card in my life and I think that's going to change this week.
Ashley
Bing Thom. You know who designed the library. You know the vibe inside. You've been going there, haven't you. You actually go there. I've been panicking since Tuesday about a cover story and the cover story is just — a real place I could actually go to and it would be fine and I would probably enjoy it. That's what you're telling me. I've been building a lie around something that could just be true.
Reggie
Of course I go there. I live close enough to throw a rock at it. Which I'm tempted to do sometimes as I'm not an admirer of Bing Thom's style. But it really is beautiful inside and they have comfy beanbag sofas you can lie down on and read and it's truly just nice.
Ashley
She stares at him for a second, and then the laugh comes — the real kind, helpless and bright.You're tempted to throw a rock at the building.She shakes her head slowly.Reggie, I have driven past that library approximately eight hundred times and never once thought about who designed it or whether there were bean bag sofas inside, and you live forty metres away and you go there and lie on a sofa and read. And I've been sitting here for four days constructing an elaborate fiction around a place that is just. A nice place I could go.
Erin
I'm getting a library card. This week. Before Saturday. Not as cover. Well. Also as cover. But Bing Thom apparently did something worth lying down on a bean bag about and I've been walking past it for years without going in and that feels like a waste now that I know there's a sofa.
Reggie
About 50 sofas, yes. Okay, you're going to plan this for when? If meet them on a weekday, we can have next Saturday as usual. If you need to meet them next Saturday, skipping one week is a small price to pay for safety.
Ashley
She picks up her drink and holds it, already doing the math — and it shows on her face, the quiet calculation of someone sorting a real-world calendar against a cover story.Weekday.She says it like she's landing on it rather than proposing it.If I can get Bradley to confirm his schedule for next week by tonight, I can find an afternoon where he's got a thing after work. He usually does Wednesdays — he plays squash with Connor on Wednesdays and he's never home before eight. So I could bring him Monday. I could tell him I'm dropping by the library on the way home from work and I'd like to meet him and Erin and Cory there. Does that work for you?
Erin
Monday works. Rory's got something on Wednesday evenings too — some indoor soccer thing he joined in October that he talks about more than he plays. I can say I'm meeting Ashley at the library after work on Monday and we're grabbing a drink. Which is almost exactly true, technically. I'd like to get the library card today so it's not a brand-new thing if he asks. Is there anything you need from us before we do the walkthrough, Reggie, or do we just show up and you take us through the maze?
Reggie
I need nothing and Monday is perfect. Do you want to do the walkthrough now? It'll still be fresh in your mind on Monday.
Ashley
She blinks, and then she laughs — the short, startled kind — and she looks at Erin, and then back at Reggie, and her hands come off the bar.Now.She says it like she's testing whether it's allowed.Right now, as in — we just walk out of here and you show us the maze right now? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Let's do it now while I'm still too relieved about the plan to be nervous about the plan.
Erin
I'd like to know exactly where I'm parking before Monday. Bring your phone. Check the pin on the way in so you know what he'll see.
