An Ivy Leaguer with a passing resemblance to Sean Avery, Eric arrives 25 minutes late with a gym bag and a hard-to- follow story about a broken watch. He quickly surpasses my one glass of pinot grigio, then asks if I have ADD (I don’t), an accent (nope), and what I scored 12 years ago on my SAT II Writing test—being “naturally smart,” he reports, he got an 800. He then regales me with stories of high school successes (including, but not limited to, episodes of cruelly creative bullying) and his college frat (the “cool one,” naturally). The next day, he texts: Having checked out some of my work online, he’d guess I “at least broke 700 on the SAT Writing section.” Since he did not, however, ask a question that actually necessitates a reply, I do not send one. Two weeks later, I receive a crying-face emoji from him at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday.
