Page 88 of Isn't It Obvious?
She’s breathing heavily now, her hand on her chest. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back, forcing herself to slow down. That text… He must be worried about how she’ll react to meeting him in person.
God, he has no idea. When Yael finally moves again, pangs of guilt compete with her nerves. She wishes she could warn him, but as she passes the windows, she catches his side profile. He has already been seated at a table, engrossed in conversation with a small white woman in a Sanaa-approved outfit.
Yael steels herself before pushing open the door. Inside, Jami catches her eye first, waving her over with a wide smile. She lifts her hand in return, making her approach.
And then Ravi turns toward her. Their gazes lock, and it only takes a split second for her smile to falter.
Heknew.
And the way he’s looking at her now, the trepidation in his eyes, the tic of his jaw—he knows she can tell.
For a moment, her mind empties. She’s not sure how long it takes for her to recover, but she prays that Jami didn’t notice. And that her last few steps don’t look as much like a march to the gallows as they feel.
Jami stands, offering her hand for a firm shake. “I’m so happy to finally meet you in person!”
“Me too,” Yael says, the room around her blurry.
“Do you still want me to call you Elle, or…?” Jami asks, her eyes sliding from Yael to Ravi.
“You can call me Yael,” she says, looking at the table. They’ve already removed the fourth setting; she has no choice but to slide in next to Ravi.
Maybe it would be worse to be looking right at him.
“Okay, great! I got the impression that you were collaborating virtually, so I wasn’t sure if you’d actually met in person yet,” Jami says.
Yael takes a sip of her water, feeling Ravi’s eyes on the side of her face. There are a few seconds of dead air, and then he says, “We don’t record together, no. But we’ve met.”
Jami’s eyes narrow a fraction. Yael guesses she can hear the tension crackling between them. She takes one more sip of water, giving herself the time it takes to swallow it to get her act together. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous,” Yael admits with a smile, hoping the partial honesty will buy herself some goodwill. “But we’re so excited about potentially working with you.”
“Pleasedon’t be nervous.” Jami grins. “Cards on the table, I got the go-ahead this afternoon. I’m here to convince you, and I’ve got my company card. Should we get a bottle of wine for the table?”
“Yes,” Yael and Ravi say in unison, and Jami lifts her hand to get the waiter’s attention.
RAVI WOULD GIVEalmost anything right now to be able to read Yael’s thoughts. The look in her eyes when she walked in was somewhere between hesitant and hopeful, but whatever she saw in his made her turn icy.
I’m sorry, he thinks at her with everything in him while she answers Jami. She doesn’t look at him when she doesn’t have to, and it’s so much worse than those two weeks she was ignoring him at book club. There’s a pain simmering under the surface. One that he feels, too, and he has no idea what to do about it.
The waiter comes with their wine, giving them a brief respite, then Jami turns to him. “And you, Ravi? What is your vision for the future ofThe Sophomore English Agenda?”
He pauses with his glass halfway to his lips. “I’m following Yael’s lead,” he says. “She’s already got such a strong vision. I just help with the parts that are easier for me than they are for her.”
Jami raises a brow. “There’s nothing you can think of?”
Ravi shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Em, a while ago, we talked about trying to expand the bonus-episode content. I think it could be cool to do some of the films that are shown in class a lot. Maybe as a miniseries on the main feed, I don’t know. It might be nothing.”
“I love that,” Jami says.
“Me too,” Yael says, her eyes flicking toward him before settling back on her glass.
“Interstitials in general could add some breathing room,” Jami says. “I mean, in theory, you’ll eventually run out of the classics, so filling out your content before you have to pivot would be helpful.”
Yael nods. “That’s something that’s worried me,” she says. “That there might just be an end point. I mean, will people still listen if I get too obscure?”
“My secondary school reading lists had some overlap, but many of the titles were new to me,” Ravi says. “I still love listening to you.”
Jami snaps twice and points at him. “Exactly.If it becomes something different, or you even move on to a new series entirely, a lot of your listeners will follow you, because you’re why they’re listening in the first place.”
Yael tucks her braid behind her ear. “That makes sense, I guess.” She takes a sip of her wine and does a quick roll of her neck as she leans back in her chair.
