You borrow your friend’s car and park it behind our apartment. We spend the weekend sorting through our stuff, making a You pile, a Me pile, and an Us pile. We give the Us pile to a trusted third party, perhaps an aunt, who, in turn, threatens to cut each item in the Us pile in half. When one of us flinches and says we’d rather see the other have the thing than see it destroyed, this aunt sagely places the thing in that person’s pile. Then you take the You pile down to your friend’s car and scram, Jack.
Make a new profile on my Netflix account so that you can keep using it without my knowing. Call it something nondescript, like “Children” or “Admin”—something I’m unlikely to click, thereby preventing me from learning that you’ve been watching “Marriage Story” on repeat, or wondering why “Irreplaceable You” is showing up as a ninety-eight-per-cent match for me when all I watch are Nordic noirs and documentaries about tiny houses, Stan.
You don’t need to be weird around our friends, because we will make them choose sides, and we will each interact only with those friends who side with us. When our couple friends choose to side one with each of us, we will each interact only with our half of the couple, and only in neutral settings (i.e., no dinners at their house). Above all, when we do interact with one half of a couple, we will not spend the entire time complaining about how awful each other is, or asking them whether they’ve heard anything from their partner about what we might’ve said about each other. Something that, maybe, suggests we’re not over over, Roy.
Hop on the bus, and then, frustrated by traffic, hop off and walk for a bit. Walk through that park, maybe, the one with the fountain, where we went on that disastrous date all those years ago, before we properly got together. The date we re-created, ironically, years later, which was just perfect, and, I think you said, was the moment you knew we had a future together? Hang there for a while, in that memory and in that park. Then take a cab to Union Square. Go down into the subway and catch whatever train will get you to Grand Central, and from there, really, it’s up to you, Gus.
Just drop that thing I said about your mother, Lee.
You know that copy of “The Fountainhead” which I said I’d rather you have than see destroyed? On second thought, I think I’d rather see it destroyed. Can you give it back, Jack? And the cast-iron pot that you let me have—can you change your mind about that one? I’d like to see your aunt try to cut that in half.
In fact, while you’re at it, Stan, make some new friends, too—I don’t want to keep hearing about how well you’re doing. And find a new dog park. And join a new gym. And get a new dentist.
You really think we’re over over? Roy? I know you’re in there!
But maybe give me a clue as to where you went, Gus. Upstate? Uptown? Do you have a forwarding address? Is it snowing where you are? Remember, I’ll be waiting for you, a year from today, in our park, standing by our fountain.
Seriously, Lee, I’m warning you. Drop it. ♦