Lauren Barbato
The Great Renunciation
Winner of the 2025 American Literary Review Award in Fiction, Judged by Kimberly Garza
When Lian traded the dharma for a baby, I’d just hung up my heart for good.
It wasn’t anything special. I returned home from work one Thursday evening, and Lian sang out from the kitchen: I have some news. I found her seated at the black card table that doubled as her writing desk, legs crossed in light blue jeans, the linen robe she wore daily now draped over the pantry door. I called another nun this afternoon, Lian told me. A nun from her former monastery, the one nestled in the mountains circling Hangzhou. After a few incantations delivered over speakerphone, Lian was free.
You didn’t even Zoom? I asked.
Why would I?
I should’ve seen it coming. Lian had recently purchased a wig off Amazon, an espresso-brown bob with short, feathery bangs. Make sure it’s not cheap, I said. You want real hair. And it was cheap, around thirty dollars, but that was not so cheap according to Lian’s standards. She only wore the wig around the house, hastily tossing it over her bald head while frying eggs for breakfast and researching her manuscript on sixteenth-century Buddhist pilgrims. The shiny bob glided in one swift motion whenever she moved, as if the synthetic strands were sewn together at the ends. Some evenings, I caught her lingering before the bathroom mirror, fluffing the bangs with her fingertips, slick with green gel.
I just want normal hair, Lian would sigh from her collapsible metal bed, which she positioned each night between the stove and the fridge. Your hair. She gestured to the frizzy black waves that tumbled past my shoulder blades.
I reminded Lian that I had a buzzcut many years before we met. An accidental buzzcut. I’d requested a hairstyle like Jean Seberg’s in Breathless. The hairdresser kept asking: Shorter? Sure. Shorter? Why not? I should’ve been more concerned when the hairdresser brandished her electric razor.
It’s fashion. That’s what I told myself then, wandering those icy Boston streets with a beanie pulled over my earlobes. It’s what I repeated to Lian now as she lay flat across her gray mattress, face pressed into a pillow. Remember that show about the Orthodox girl? Her bald head looked cool.
Oh, yes. Lian lifted her bare head and smiled. They loved her in Berlin.
The evening I encountered Lian in those light blue jeans, we tucked her linen robe inside the Amazon box leftover from her thirty-dollar wig and placed it in the basement alongside our collection of burnt-out air conditioners. When Lian straightened, I noticed she’d kept the extra button and thread that came with the jeans—the little plastic baggie and all—attached to the front pocket. You don’t wear that, I told her. You’re supposed to cut it off.
But Lian was nervous. I don’t want to lose it, she said. And so we hid that little plastic baggie with its extra button and thread inside Lian’s front pocket.
After eighteen months of living together in our North Philadelphia refuge, a bottom-floor one-bedroom apartment with hardwood painted scarlet, Lian and I were finally Mary and Rhoda: two single, never-married women trudging through their thirties. I joked that the only thing missing was some silk scarves for Lian—the Buddhist would be Rhoda, of course.
But Lian didn’t want any scarves. I don’t have cancer, she would say.
I would sweep back her synthetic bangs, my hand hovering over her forehead. Just baby fever.
Days away from her thirty-sixth birthday, Lian couldn’t talk about anything else. She dreamed of traveling to Tibet and riding a yak with a baby swaddled against her chest. Lian Zoomed with a friend in Dallas, an immigrant who’s old like me. This friend had quit her Ph.D. program after meeting an aerospace engineer; nine months later, she had a baby. This friend recommended dating apps, advised Lian to use an American name—nothing too old-fashioned, nothing gender-neutral, think 90210 and Saved by the Bell—and suggested a diet of beans and walnuts to stimulate fertility.
What about your research? I asked.
I’ll write with the baby on my lap.
I sat across from Lian at our dining-turned-writing table and ruffled through her paper manuscripts. Remember what the Buddha said: little shackles.
And Lian groaned, flipping her keyboard into her computer monitor. The Buddha hated women.
It’s true the Buddha wasn’t much of a feminist. Nuns and monks may have begged alongside one another as they trekked across Dharamshala, but only monks could teach nuns. Never could a nun stand before a robed man, her bald head mirroring his, and preach her dharma talk. What would the nuns see? Sex was not so much a temptation for the monks as it was a trap that resulted in child support. Rebirth yielded more suffering, and rebirth as a girl was certain to produce another futile samsara.
On Lian’s thirty-sixth birthday, I went to the pharmacy and selected a glossy card featuring a tabby cat loafing atop an open laptop: Wishing you a Happy Birthhdasdghjk I browsed the make-up aisles and tried to remember what filled my Caboodles at sixteen—frosted-pink lip sheen, electric blue mascara. Everything was different now; the girls liked thick brows and plump upper lips. I silently debated between two matte lipsticks, Penelope Pink or Nude Kate, finally settling on the hue that would suit both Lian and me. Outside the store, I signed the card against the brick facade: To the new you, to your next samsara!
I found Lian bouncing around the kitchen, cradling her cell phone between her ear and shoulder. Do you have the HPV vaccine? She breathed into the receiver.
I lingered in the doorway, watching her salt a pot of water simmering on the stove. Are you having sex? I followed her around the kitchen, from the stove to the pantry, where she pulled out a can of black beans, the phone still nestled to her ear. I nudged her free shoulder; she wore one of my old college crewnecks, which swallowed the waistband of those light blue jeans. Who are you having sex with?
Lian ignored me. Where can I get it? She jabbed a knife into the metal cover, roughly carved along the rim. Rite Aid? She scooped the entire can of black beans into the now-boiling water.
I flinched away from the splashing water. Lian!
Okay, thank you. Lian hung up and continued stirring the water with a rubber spatula, refusing to look at me as I unloaded the birthday card and lipstick canister onto the table.
I rolled the plastic canister between my fingers. Who are you having sex with?
No one.
Then why do you need the HPV vaccine?
Lian moved to the counter, where a handful of walnuts were spread across the bamboo cutting board. She crushed the walnuts one by one with the back of a tarnished gold soup spoon. I want to have a baby.
With who?
I don’t know yet.
Using Lian’s computer monitor as a mirror, I dabbed the fresh lipstick onto my lips and quickly kissed the grease-tinged air. What you really need is birth control.
No. Lian pointed the gold spoon between my eyes, walnut dust scattering over the kitchen tile. I want a baby.
Soon, Lian began donning her thirty-dollar wig to FaceTime strange men. She would yank a brush through the bangs, shake a can of hairspray over the staticky wisps. After buttoning a buffalo-plaid shirt to her collarbone, she would curl around the owl-shaped pillow on our seafoam green couch and hold the phone at arm’s length, just slightly above her shoulders, her chin tilting downward so her fluttering eyes commanded all the attention of her heart-shaped face. She had seen me do this before.
Your bangs are crooked. I motioned from the doorway.
Lian ran her fingers through her bangs just as a man’s voice answered—a Delco boy affecting Main Line charm. Hey there, Kate! Love that hair! I slunk into the kitchen and placed the tea kettle on the stove, the gradual rumbling of the water acting as a buffer. Lian had left the lipstick canister on the counter beside the opened birthday card; shaky beige lines streaked across the card’s inside flap.
I’m sorry, Lian was saying in the living room, I don’t understand.
The tea kettle squealed, and the man nearly shouted.
I’m sorry, she repeated. I don’t understand.
Was that a lie? I asked once Lian finished the call.
Still curled around the owl pillow, Lian tilted her chin toward the ceiling, beige cream bleeding from the corners of her lips. I really didn’t understand him.
I blended away the smears with my thumb. I think you need to see a therapist.
No. Lian collapsed back-first onto the couch, her knees rolling to her chest. I know what I want.
I’d offered to have a baby for her. I even drove to Princeton, to a grand red-brick Colonial that once housed a bank. A neon yellow sign glowed between the columns: MettaBody. In the sunny parlor, waiting among bespectacled couples in chestnut leather jackets and matching woven ballet flats, I thumbed through glossy brochures even though I read all that I needed to know online. Metta means lovingkindness. We encourage our patients to reflect this gift of lovingkindness back onto themselves. After drawing two vials of blood, the nurse spread me open, her messy auburn bun bobbing above my bare knees, and asked if I had any past pregnancies. Yes. Any live births? No. Miscarriage? Abortion. How many? I flashed the nurse a peace sign.
But Lian didn’t want an artificial baby. She wanted things to happen the natural way: love, sex, pregnancy, childbirth. She wanted all these things until she learned that you had to be naked to have sex and then, if the time comes, give birth.
How else could you do it? I asked.
I don’t want everyone staring at me. She massaged her stubbly scalp, a tip she discovered from some Reddit forum on hair growth. What about a C-section?
They slice you down the middle.
But I’ll be asleep. No pain.
You forget the pain of childbirth.
Really?
Yes. At least, that’s what I’d been told.
While Lian slept, her head inches from the stove door, I sat at her computer, munching on leftover walnuts and perusing assorted wigs on Amazon. I wondered about all the other types of pain you could forget. I thought I’d forgotten heartbreak, that clichéd sensation of dragging your booze-soaked body into oncoming traffic only to wake fully clothed in a pile of damp bedsheets. I still feared mornings, those thirty seconds where I suffered from lock-in syndrome, reconciling beneath my cracked ceiling that once my nerves reignited, I would have to roll over and do this whole thing all over again. Cyclical existence is a bitch.
Before that Thursday evening, when she trekked alone to Kohl’s and purchased those light blue jeans, Lian understood this, too.
I refused to call myself an exaholic. I’d spent the duration of my relationships waiting for the breakup; my boyfriends were exes from the start. Three years ago, I would have rattled off a list of carefully observed reasons for these half-hearted relational transactions: fear of intimacy; sexual and physical assault; and a checkered, intergenerational history of alcoholism and addiction.
I’d delivered this list to the ex-boyfriend while drunk on a twin bed on a college campus neither one of us had attended. The ex-boyfriend was different; I’d felt myself drifting toward him in the smallest ways. We’d spent Thanksgiving together in some Colorado hot spring and Christmas Eve in Rome, naked in a hotel room overlooking Saint Peter’s Square. In any other story, this would have been romantic. A confirmation, even a proposal. My married friends cooed, You’re going to be just like us. They’d meant stable and partnered with a companion who wasn’t the twenty-two-year-old busboy at the local dive.
I showed up to the Exaholics Anonymous meeting five minutes late. I didn’t need to chain-smoke menthols in the parking lot at the meeting before the meeting; this was no time for small talk. I wasn’t here to make friends, casual or lifelong. After a respectable span of sobriety from booze and pills, I decided I was still powerless over my thoughts and emotions about the ex-boyfriend.
Step Twelve. A twenty-something woman read from an oversized laminated index card pinched between her French-manicured nails. Having had a spiritual rebirth, we present these healing steps to exaholics who are enmeshed with their exes and trapped in emotional pain.
Thank you for reading. The meeting’s chairwoman rested her elbows on the dais. I’d imagined this dais would be fancier, perhaps veiled in a floral tablecloth or adorned with paper chains. But it was just like all the other twelve-step meetings I’ve attended: a generic rectangular folding table erected at the front of a yellowing, low-ceilinged hall that, during the day, housed a Christian preschool.
The chairwoman scanned the room and continued. Anyone new to this meeting?
I didn’t plan to introduce myself, but the women all turned to me at once. I was stuck at the back of the room with a fish-eye view of row after row of exaholics tapping their gladiator sandals against the linoleum. It was early summer, the Northeast swathed in that always-on-the-verge-of-a-storm humidity, and every woman here dressed in swingy racerback tank tops and ripped jeans cropped at their ankles.
I raised my hand and repeated what I had practiced on the drive over: Hi, I have a desire to stop thinking about my ex.
Before we get started—the chairwoman fought to explain over the earnest din of Welcome, honey! Glad you’re here!—we’ll open this space for any burning desires to contact your ex.
Several hands raised. The exaholics said some things I expected and some that I didn’t. One exaholic had recently relapsed. Their ex didn’t respond well; in fact, this ex accused the exaholic of being a harasser. At the sound of that word, all the exaholics flinched—a collective familiarity.
Once the exaholics settled, I raised my hand. I haven’t contacted my ex in six months, but lately, I can’t stop thinking about them, I breathed quickly. I followed my ex on Twitter. And then I unfollowed them after a week because they didn’t follow me back. But my ex didn’t block me, which I think is a good thing. I was aware of how I sounded, so I left the meeting to smoke a menthol.
Two women followed me outside. They had identical haircuts, long barrel waves framed with curtain bangs; one was dyed honey-blonde, and the other was a natural, ashy brunette.
I’m Nora, the brunette said.
And I’m Olivia. The blonde extended her hand, her acrylic nails painted coral. But you can call me Liv.
I stalk my ex on Twitter on the reg, Nora said.
I’m banned on four dating apps, Liv added.
Nora gestured for one of my menthols. How many days has it been?
I look at my ex’s Twitter every day, I said. Does that count?
The exaholics glanced at each other, Nora still mid-light. Come out with us, Liv commanded.
Diner?
Roller skating, they replied in unison.
The exaholics weren’t kidding. They caravanned to an open-air roller rink, the colorful centerpiece of a pop-up carnival steps from the Delaware. Young couples waved spindly inflatable aliens over their heads as they skated to Meek Mill.
I pointed to the neon aliens. Where’d they get those?
Water balloons, Liv said as she laced up my skates.
She means water guns, Nora corrected.
The exaholics pulled me into the rink, arms linked through mine.
Is your ex a guy? Liv asked. A girl?
Non-binary? Nora chimed in. Genderqueer?
Guy.
When did you two break up?
I shrugged myself free from the exaholics and promptly tripped over the tops of my skates, catapulting into the rink wall. It’s embarrassing, I grunted, gripping the side panels as my straddled legs slid further and further.
Liv hooked my waist. I used to stalk my ex’s new girlfriend.
Nora wrapped her arm around my shoulders. Girlfriends, she again corrected.
Like, I literally stalked them. One was a burlesque dancer—
She dragged me to her burlesque show. Twice!
The show was just okay, Liv said.
Then why’d you go twice? I asked.
Nora shrugged. We got better seats the second time.
I told the exaholics I wanted an alien. We fired plumes of water into the O-shaped mouths of white-faced clowns for three rounds until I won. I selected a metallic green alien, draping its plushy legs over my shoulders like a letterman’s jacket. We weaved between bossy psychics and hyperactive break dancers, only stopping for fried Oreos and zeppole before claiming a corner of the wooden pier. The exaholics fed each other tufts of fried dough, powder sugar sprinkling their ripped jeans.
I hugged the alien. Its arms and legs wrapped around my torso, protecting me from the river’s crosswinds. People on Quora say it’s an obsession, I said, squeezing the alien until it puffed.
The exaholics plopped a hot zeppole in my mouth and licked their white fingers clean. Well, Nora said, we’re not those people.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to Exaholics Anonymous, so I did what any other addict does: repeat the same damn thing over and over again, praying for a different result.
Lian had begun practicing her nightly meditations in a quasi-headstand, her bent elbows propelling her arched body onto the mattress, anchored there by her stocking feet. To…stimulate…fertility, she sputtered.
How? I asked. Gravity?
Lian flopped backward onto her knees, her cheeks flushed. What a joke, she exhaled.
After Lian slipped beneath her comforter, I reheated a mug of coffee and Googled the ex-boyfriend. It was disarming to see him on social media. He’d declared when we first met: I’m not friending you. It was our joke, one that didn’t involve our past (or present) lives; it was the longest-running joke we had. We wanted to be different; we weren’t setting ourselves up for trouble. I kept to my side of the Mississippi, and the ex-boyfriend kept to his. When we were together, whether at a dive bar on my side or a speakeasy on his, the ex-boyfriend would stroke the faint veins along the back of my hand and purr Be with me, sweetie, as I scrolled through endless Instagram posts.
Recently, the ex-boyfriend created new social media profiles; his ex-wife didn’t follow him, but his new girlfriend did. They created their Twitter profiles in the same month. She liked every one of his tweets, retweeted every bit of news about his latest book. This is incredibly exciting, honey!!! She tagged the ex-boyfriend’s Twitter handle, and the ex-boyfriend liked the tweet. She was the type of girlfriend to repost fun facts about the brain, advice from best-selling spiritual gurus, and Mary Oliver poems. You do not have to be good, the new girlfriend quoted, adding a blue heart emoji.
You do not have to be good, I repeated as I attempted to friend the ex-boyfriend on Facebook. I composed a message: I figured it’s time that we’re at least social media friends. Hah. A reconciliation disguised as an inside joke. I glanced at the sleeping Lian, swathed in that fuzzy blue computer light, and deleted the hah.
I’ve tried to figure out what made the ex-boyfriend so special. We were breaking up since the start. I assumed that happened when you fell in love with a man who was married and separated but acted like he wanted to be neither. Or perhaps it was the unfortunate yet necessary downfall of my drinking life, a means to end the cycle for good. My former A.A. sponsor would massage my back while I cried into my matzo ball soup: Honey, you didn’t know people who’ve just left marriages are crazy and shouldn’t be touched for years. One alcoholic claimed I was codependent. Another alcoholic chalked it up to being burned. Others simply called it grief.
But I was beginning to think differently. You break up with all the boys, Lian would say. A polite way to reiterate that yes, it was me.
The exaholics wouldn’t stop calling, and neither would the strange men. Lian would rotate between her buffalo-plaid button-down and a gauzy cream blouse that ruffled at the collar—the sole item she purchased during our four-hour-long King of Prussia shopping spree. Even in this increasingly sticky heat, Lian preferred long sleeves; ten years of shaving her head, and she was too exhausted to repurpose her straight razor for her underarms.
You could always free the pit, I told her.
But what do the men like?
The men liked to give Lian their opinions on atheism and populist libertarian movements, the ethics of museum collections, and why she should or shouldn’t invest in cryptocurrency. They worked at pharmaceutical companies and car dealerships on the Main Line. You never bought a car, Kate? They offered her driving lessons, proposed trips to Wildwood, Rehoboth, and the Poconos. They wanted to meet for craft cocktails or locally brewed IPAs, but Lian told them she was sober. Like you, she said to me. When the men asked why, she told them she never acquired the taste.
What’s soaking? Lian asked me one night as I refreshed my Facebook page on her computer; my friend request to the ex-boyfriend still pending.
I minimized the webpage, leaning around the computer monitor. Where did you learn that?
Lian loosened her plaid shirt and pulled a stool beside the inflatable alien propped upright in a folding chair. She stuffed a walnut into her mouth before shaking the alien’s three-fingered hand. Kevin, she said between bites.
Who?
The salesman.
Which one?
Lian paused. BMW.
What did he say about soaking?
Oh, she sighed, they all talk about sex.
I thought you wanted to have sex. I poked the alien’s shoulder. You even got the vaccine.
I’m not so sure anymore.
What about the baby?
Lian stood and lifted the alien. Oh, she said, wrapping the alien’s flimsy neon limbs around her body, I still want the baby.
I watched her shuffle back and forth across the kitchen, soothing the alien like it was coming down from a tantrum. Do you tell them that you were a nun?
They don’t need to know.
But what if you meet someone you love?
Why would they need to know that?
I reopened Facebook and clicked on the ex-boyfriend’s profile. The ex-boyfriend had changed his profile photo; the image was obviously cropped, revealing only his face and the top of his shoulders. I spied strands of long golden hair in the bottom right corner of the frame. I think you share everything in love, I told Lian.
The ex-boyfriend would say I told him things he never needed to know. When we fought, he would resign with frustrated disdain: It doesn’t matter; you’ll just say whatever is inside your head, anyway. When the ex-boyfriend prepared to leave me, he compared me to a cat: You have an inability to be anything but yourself at all times. The ex-boyfriend believed this was an affirmation—even admiration.
Yes, I’d replied then. But what if who I am is the problem? The ex-boyfriend didn’t respond; he had already said too much.
And when the ex-boyfriend told me that he’d loved me, once—but I don’t love you anymore—I repeated those words to my mother for three days straight. My mother eventually drawled: No one needs to know that.
I guided the cursor to the corner of the frame, wheeling it around the pixelated golden strands in tiny, counterclockwise circles; the strands were silky and smooth, not a flyaway in sight. Do they notice your hair? I asked Lian.
Lian caressed the alien’s head, her fingers lightly gliding from its crown to where its spine would begin. They like the bangs, she said.
Are you going to show them who you are?
Lian repositioned the alien on the folding chair. This is me. She pointed to the alien’s gleaming oval-shaped head, which reflected our distorted faces, and we laughed.
Did the Buddha ever wonder who he was without his robes? He sliced off his black ponytail and wandered naked and starving in the forest for seven years. He spent forty-nine days battling the demon Mara, rebuffing his four temptress daughters, only to come to the same conclusion as Mary Oliver.
Whenever the exaholics called, I sent them directly to voicemail. Hey, just checking in! Did you go no contact yet? Did you block him? When you feel an urge, call me instead! Here’s my Insta—follow me! We’re going bowling after Friday’s meeting! We’re going to the Greek place before Saturday’s meeting! Come with us, please!
Lian would pause her dating app, swiping after each ring. Is that a boy?
Kinda.
Oh, is it a—Lian hesitated—non-binary?
No. I declined yet another call from Nora. Just spam. So much spam. I returned to my iPhone Notes, where I’d begun drafting a letter to the ex-boyfriend. At first, I apologized for friending him on Facebook. Then, I apologized for apologizing. Finally, I apologized for over-apologizing and wasting his time.
I pasted the letter into a text message to the ex-boyfriend, then deleted the text message and pasted the letter into an email draft. But I couldn’t decide on a subject line. The last email I sent to the ex-boyfriend was titled: Amends. Before that: Connecting. Other times, I’d left the subject line blank. What would an apology even mean to someone who only wanted to be left alone?
As Lian slept in that fuzzy blue computer glow, I stole the alien from the card table and carried it to the living room. Huddled together on the couch, we listened to Nora’s voicemail. Do you know this Mary Oliver poem? Nora began. That one that warns about being good? She’s right—we don’t have to be good. She paused. Because where’s the fun in that?
The day Lian told me she had a first date, in real life, she emerged from the bathroom wearing a new wig: soft black waves swung past her shoulders, complete with layered side-swept bangs.
Very cool, I told her. Very chic.
You think so?
I jutted my hips to the left, striking a supermodel pose. You’re fashion.
Lian shook her head, letting the waves dance. I’m fashion.
Lian began applying the Nude Kate lipstick in small, swift dabs, as I had taught her. You’re going out with Kevin? I asked.
No, David.
Who’s David?
The salesman.
Drugs?
Lian smacked her freshly painted lips together. Insurance.
Where are you going?
The park.
Stay around people, I advised. Maybe even share your location with me.
But Lian responded promptly: Let me make my own decisions.
I’m just worried about you.
Lian affixed her now-discarded bob onto my head, gathering my own black waves by the handful and twisting them into a shapeless bun at the nape of my neck. She took a step back to admire her work and then placed her closed fists onto the waistband of her light blue jeans with the plastic baggie hanging out. Let me make my bad decisions, she declared.
When Lian was ready, dressed in that gauzy ruffle-neck blouse, her synthetic black waves pinned behind her ears, her faux side-swept bangs freshly sprayed, and that plastic baggie hidden inside her front pocket, I guided her outside to our covered front porch. I lit a menthol and watched her wander down the block, fidget with her wallet keychain, and step toe-to-heel onto the city bus. She wobbled down the rubber aisle before choosing a seat in the last row of the bus. You do not have to be good, I reminded myself, wiping the bob’s wispy bangs away from my eyes. And then I called the exaholics.
The exaholics met me that afternoon beneath the oxidized copper pretzel statue at the center of our neighborhood park. They wore matching rose-tinted aviator sunglasses, their parted hair slicked back into swingy ponytails. Nora immediately asked for a menthol. Nice wig, she said, nodding at Lian’s bob, which I’d secured to my hairline with a collection of hastily stuck bobby pins.
Liv pulled out her iPhone. Give us the deets.
Salesman, insurance, West Philly.
Insurance salesman in West Philly? Liv’s aviators slid down her pointed nose. Something’s off.
West Philly’s for anarchists, Nora explained.
And ENM, Liv added.
Nora nudged my shoulder. Her ex is Mr. Polyamory Philadelphia.
Are you poly? I asked Liv.
No way. I’m too codependent for that shit. Liv handed me her unlocked iPhone. Here you go. Person of Interest Number One.
The exaholics and I scrolled through the LinkedIn page of David the Insurance Salesman from West Philly. He had verifications, a bachelor’s degree, and 289 connections. But no volunteer experience, Nora emphasized. His profile picture was one of those overly saturated company headshots that always appear glazed: a navy blue suit and solid red tie popping out against a pearly white backdrop that matched his edited, even teeth.
Nice teeth, Nora said.
They’re fake, I countered.
But straight, she said.
There’s a company profile, a college alumni profile, and some golf tournament listing, too, Liv offered. Oh, and an Instagram.
I nodded to Liv and Nora. Let’s check the Instagram. After a moment, I announced that the account was Private, and the exaholics exhaled, Goddamn.
Now what? I asked, returning the iPhone to Liv.
I think we need more evidence, Nora said.
Liv surveyed a couple in matching black joggers, Wayfarers, and striped tennis shoes, walking their short-haired mutt. They clung to each other’s waist, their hands caressing the other’s waistband before vanishing completely, while the mutt scraped his snout along the dark gravel. Where did they go? Liv finally asked.
The park. I shrugged.
Obviously not this one, Liv grunted.
I got an idea. Nora practically tap-danced around us. What do you say, girls?
Not long after her disrobing, I’d tried to ask Lian about the incantations. What do you say to jumpstart the unraveling of your life? When the ex-boyfriend retracted his love for me, I dropped to my hands and knees and pressed my forehead against the asphalt. I would have kept crawling, my head hung low like that short-haired mutt, unwilling—unable, even—to look anyone in the eye. I would have crawled across this whole scorched Earth until the ex-boyfriend retracted the retraction. But what do I know of self-determined denouncements, the kind you make when there is neither a certain nor uncertain way forward? The Buddha had proposed the Middle Way, an alternative to both excess and excessive restraint. Yes, perhaps I was always trying to split this difference.
Liv said we should first scout Fairmount Park, halfway between our cluttered Northwest hamlet and West Philly, but Nora insisted that we start small and sexist. I mean, does any guy meet a girl halfway?
True, Liv admitted. They like to set the time and place now. Have you noticed that? They always know a place—
In their neighborhood, Nora said.
Around the corner—
That they’ve always wanted to try. Nora rolled her eyes. As if they don’t already know what to order.
We rolled along the Schuylkill on the city bus, the exaholics trapping me in the center of the very last row. Whenever the narrow road curved with the river, the bus ping-ponged my body between the exaholics, who pushed me into the other, laughing.
Do you ever use the apps? Liv asked.
Never.
Liv sighed. You’re still thinking about that ex, huh?
Did you block him yet? Nora asked, shifting closer to me.
Yes, I lied.
Everywhere?
Of course, I lied again.
Nora thrust her open palm beneath my nose. Show me.
Nora! Liv leaned over and batted Nora’s hand. Trust, accept, and let go.
That’s for the men.
Including other people’s men, Liv said, and Nora sunk lower on the bench, her chin dipping into her crossed arms.
So why are you banned from four dating apps? I asked Liv.
She made a bunch of fake profiles, Nora promptly answered, perking up.
Liv shrugged. I catfished my ex.
How’d you do that?
Easy. I made a fake profile with photos I stole from OnlyFans.
Did it work?
Liv removed her aviators, gripped one of the rubber legs between her little shark-like teeth, and smiled. It got me a restraining order.
Once we arrived at Clark Park, Nora suggested that we split up. We loitered at the shaded entrance, where the sidewalk branched into three separate paths that wound through the octagonal park. The park’s not that big, I shrugged.
It’s not that, Nora said. It’s about being incognito.
Liv nodded. She’s right.
You go west, Nora told Liv. I go east. And you—she flicked my bob—go north.
I stumbled forward. Which way is north?
Just go straight, she commanded, and Liv and I did what we were told, veering off on our respective trails. I weaved between strollers and fruit salad vendors, squinting between the tree trunks for any semblance of Lian’s black waves over the heads of tattooed undergrads sharing joints on patterned blankets, and soon lost sight of the exaholics.
As I rounded the northernmost corner of the park, I tried a walking meditation that Lian and I used to practice throughout our neighborhood. We would circle our block at twilight, taking slow, calculated steps. Keep your eyes closed, Lian had directed. I paced blindly up and down the block, learning to measure my paces without numbers. You need to match your breath to your steps, Lian reminded me. We liked to walk in opposite directions, see how long it took before our paths crossed—if we could even tell that our bodies were grazing one another’s. Sometimes, I would open one eye to catch Lian mid-step, and in my blurry gaze, I found that even Lian would forget to breathe.
My phone vibrated, interrupting my meditation. A text from Nora: Come here now. West side of the park. I followed the path until I reached a modest clearing of sallow grass, where a thirty-something man sporting khaki cargo shorts and a Phillies cap waited on a bench.
The exaholics knelt between the oak trees, their hands curled into makeshift binoculars. Manspreading and taking up the whole damn bench, Liv muttered.
I squatted behind them. Any sight of Lian?
Liv shook her head. But it looks like he’s texting someone.
We didn’t know how long we would wait there, surveilling David the Insurance Salesman and his half-empty bench. When I called Lian, her phone went directly to voicemail, and my text messages went unanswered. Every so often, a diminutive woman in jeans would turn down the path, and David the Insurance Salesman would perk up, his back straightening. Each time, the woman would pass the bench without a second glance at the cargo-shorted man.
I know you didn’t block him, Nora whispered after the third Lian look-alike passed.
I did.
Give me your phone.
Fine, I admitted, I wrote him a letter.
Stop! Nora slapped my knee. Handwritten or Notes app?
Notes, I said, regaining my balance.
Classic, Liv said. Did you send it?
Of course not.
She sent it, the exaholics replied in unison.
You should send it, Liv said. Go off.
What happened to acceptance? Nora grunted.
She is accepting—accepting that he’s an asshole.
Because that will get him back. Nora turned back to David the Insurance Salesman, peering through her finger binoculars. I think your friend is dead.
It has been a while, Livagreed.
Maybe it was a bad date, I shrugged.
Maybe he tossed her body, Liv replied.
Nora tapped my shoulder. Go talk to him.
And say what?
Liv slid her aviators over her eyes and tightened her ponytail. Get the deets.
And Nora twirled the ends of my espresso-brown bob, smiling widely. Flirt.
But what if he’s psycho?
What if he killed your friend? The exaholics shrieked, pushing me forward so I had no choice but to stumble onto the path. I regained my composure as I approached David the Insurance Salesman’s bench, and asked: Can I sit here?
David glanced up from his iPhone. Sure. He scooted over and then returned to his iPhone, typing out a lengthy message.
I love this park, I chirped, a little too quickly.
David paused. Me too.
Nora peeked around the tree trunk, twirling the air beside her ear. I ran my hand through the bob, the synthetic strands rolling, unfurling, rolling, unfurling around my index finger. You live around here?
Just across the street. David sent the message and then glanced at the empty space between us. I was supposed to be meeting someone, but I guess she’s not coming.
Oh, like a date?
Yeah, he nodded, a first date.
Oh no, I hope you weren’t catfished.
It’s happened before.
Really?
Oh yeah. There’s so many scammers on these things. David tapped his iPhone screen. It’s crazy. They’re always asking for money.
Do you send them any?
He laughed. Yeah, millions. His real-life teeth were just as straight and glistening as his LinkedIn profile picture.
You look like a guy that would have millions.
He laughed again. Just in student loans.
The exaholics had moved closer, striking bastardized yoga poses on the yellow grass, their sandals flung off and aviators flying. I avoided eye contact with Nora, who peered at me between her thigh gap in downward-facing dog. Was her name Lian? I asked.
The scammers?
No, your date.
David shook his head. Kate.
Who’s Kate?
David removed his Phillies cap, revealing a thinning blanket of hair strategically swept toward his uneven hairline. Do you know her? He asked, head cocked.
Maybe.
She said she lives up in Northwest. She has a roommate who’s a Buddhist nun. Super fascinating. You know Buddhist nuns shave their heads all the time?
I thought only monks did that, I said.
Fascinating stuff, David repeated. Says she spent her whole life in the monastery. She’s never even kissed anyone.
I bet she’s kissed some boys. I looked at him and smiled. Not all nuns are good.
He shifted his cap from hand to hand. His Apple Watch flashed a new text message. You sure you don’t know her?
I don’t know any Kates. Or nuns.
Oh. David placed the cap back on his head. He squinted at his Apple Watch, swiped away the message, and relaxed further onto the bench. So, what do you do?
I’m a scammer.
David again tapped his iPhone screen. Do you do these?
Never.
It’s so hard to meet someone genuine on them.
Human?
No. David hunched forward, gazing past the exaholics, who downward-facing-dogged forward until they were only an arm’s-length from the path. After a moment, David the Insurance Guy rechecked his Apple Watch and sighed. Just someone nice.
There was a time when I would have taken David the Insurance Salesman for his millions. He would make a nice husband for some simple woman. I imagined him with a pair of even-teethed children.
Yes, I would have taken him for his millions.
I bet the nun was nice, I said.
David chuckled, the brim of his cap vibrating. Maybe I should’ve asked her out.
I scooted closer, drumming my nails against the bench seat. Do you like my hair?
David surveyed the shiny strands, noticing the bob for the first time. It’s different, he said. Not many girls have…
Bobs?
Yeah. Only on Halloween, you know? He leaned toward my shoulder—May I?—and plucked a flaky, bean-sized clump ensnared at the crown. Hairspray? He asked, raising it toward the sun.
I patted Lian’s bob, ensuring it was still in place. Well, it was nice meeting you. As I started walking away, the exaholics somersaulted forward, calling after me, cursing David the Insurance Guy. Psycho! That psycho bastard!
David shot up. Who the fuck are they?
Scammers. I pointed north. Run.
David the Insurance Salesman backed away, slowly at first, and then pivoted directly into a clumsy jog down the path as the exaholics divided, Liv chasing David the Insurance Salesman, Nora chasing after me, shouting, Psycho bitch! I sprinted through the park, the bob sliding downward, the bangs tickling my eyelashes, and I didn’t stop until I reached the bus stop, where a trail of twisted bobby pins led me to a heap of tangled black waves splayed across the graffitied bench.
I exited the city bus one stop early and shuffled down the sloping block to the edge of our urban cliff, where towering cement stairs carved into the cliffside led directly to the Schuylkill. At the top of the stairs, I contemplated propelling myself through the vibrant green tunnel crafted from the vines weaving overhead. I switched out Lian’s short bob for the long black waves with the side-swept bangs, which I placed over my own black waves, moist and springy now from this daylong journey in the humidity. Perched on the top step, my angled body nearly disappearing into the lush backdrop, I snapped a selfie from above so that my face appeared heart-shaped, relieved of any sagging jowls and double chins. I opened my unused dating app, shuffled through the photo collage, and turned to my Facebook page instead, ready to update my profile photo.
For a moment, I thought about who I could be. All the first dates at which I had arrived dizzy and left deflated. All the booze, powder, and pills I chose over the ex-boyfriend. All the sleazy men I believed would love me more than the ex-boyfriend. What would have happened if I had given up the booze or powder or pills sooner, or if the ex-boyfriend had truly loved me more than he could? If I’d told that hairdresser in Boston: No, not shorter. If I told the hairdresser, the ex-boyfriend: No, actually, this is fine. If I had become a mother, would the ex-boyfriend have taken me to Mother’s Day brunch and told his friends: She’s a really good mom? If I’d told the nurse at the fertility clinic that none of this was by design. If I used blue heart emojis and enjoyed Mary Oliver poems. If I didn’t have the persistent urge to throw myself into the Charles, down these cement stairs, or into the Schuylkill. If I’d told the nurse, the ex-boyfriend: No, actually, none of this is fine. Ever since meeting Lian, I’d tried following karma, tracing its path down these stairs to the brown-tinted river, trailing it through our crowded neighborhood to Kohl’s, even trying it on like those light blue jeans. I, too, cherished that little plastic baggie for fear of one day losing the thread.
After deleting the selfie, I shook off the black wavy wig and lobbed it down the green tunnel.
Lian’s keys protruded from the front-door lock. All the lights were on, from my bedroom to the kitchen, where Lian stood at the stove in her light blue jeans, her ruffle-neck blouse replaced with my old college crewneck. The little plastic baggie hung openly over her thigh.
Did you have a good date? I asked over the whistling tea kettle.
Yes, he was nice.
Will you see him again?
Lian waited for the kettle to settle. I don’t know, she said, pouring steaming water into her tiny ceramic cup.
Well, do you want to see him again?
How do you know?
About the date?
No. Lian sat down at the black card table beside the alien, who still claimed its place on the folding chair, and blew onto her green tea. How do you know if you want to see them again?
I poured the remaining hot water into my own tiny cup. We’re never going to be friends. That’s what the ex-boyfriend had said to me before he was my boyfriend. It wasn’t a retraction at all, I realized now, but a vow.
If you want to get to know him, I told Lian. And if he wants to get to know you.
Lian stroked the alien’s back, which had begun to collapse. Should I see him again if I want a baby?
I sat across from Lian, offering her our depleted bag of walnuts; we only had about a handful left. Would you want him to see the baby? I asked.
Lian fished out the last of the walnuts and swooped her arms around the alien, squeezing its body in half and chewing silently. With her final swallow, she released the alien, its body unfolding with a languid hiss. No.
Then that’s how you know.
Later that night, once Lian finished her nightly meditation, I decided to ask again about the incantations. The ex-boyfriend had not only rejected my friend request but also blocked my account. I stared at the Account Unavailable page, which Facebook politely described as an error. Something is wrong; this page does not exist. After several minutes, I clicked the Settings tab and deactivated my account.
What did you say to your sisters, I asked, rising from the card table, to be free?
Lian remained in the half-lotus position, eyes still closed, yet her open palms quivered, her fingernails filing against her thumbs. When I first entered the monastery, she said, I promised to seek refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the three jewels. I promised to live out my training and to train others.
What now? I asked.
They had me renounce my training. Lian opened her eyes. The three jewels. The dharma.
And the Buddha?
Lian unfolded her legs but did not lie down on the mattress. Instead, I followed her to the bathroom, where she rocked before the rectangular mirror, smeared with toothpaste residue, and ran her fingers through her black hair, thin and natural and spiking like newly cut grass. Oh, what did the Buddha know? She sighed. He had wives, he had kids.
And a palace!
Lian jumped up and down in her sockless feet. He had a palace! Her voice broke into a cackle, and I laughed, too.
We lingered there, Lian wedged between the vanity and the bathtub, me anchored to the chipped doorway moldings until our red faces emitted only soundless gasps. I nodded to Lian’s reflection. Okay, I sputtered, and now I understood. I would let her break up with the boys this time.
Lauren Barbato is a writer based in New Jersey. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Blackbird, North American Review, Cola Literary Review, Phoebe, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cosmopolitan, Ms. magazine, Necessary Fiction, and XRAY Literary, among others. Lauren is currently a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Temple University and teaches religion, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Delaware. She also holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark and a B.F.A. in screenwriting from the University of Southern California.