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This is definitely the Good Place. Eleanor isn’t entirely sure who dropped what ball but pobody’s nerfect and if heavenly beings, or whatever, can’t make mistakes, who can?
Eleanor has made a lot of mistakes in her time and, to be fair, she wouldn’t have made most of them if she’d known she was being watched.
Anyway, Eleanor is definitely in the Good Place and she honestly doesn’t care if her soulmate is a golden retriever because Bruce is a good boy and no one is going to leave him in the backseat of her mom’s car.
It gets a bit weird, sometimes, because she spends whole days with Bruce and not really talking to other people but it’s okay.
She’s invited to Tahani’s palatial house but apparently Tahani’s soulmate is afraid of dogs which makes things super awkward. Eleanor would like Chidi but that seems like a massive character flaw and if anyone comes around saying that Eleanor is in the wrong place, she’s going to be pointing fingers at Mr ‘I don’t mind if they’re small dogs’ Ariana Grande.
The problem, of course, is that Tahani is a long drink of water and Chidi is weirdly endearing once he gets over himself and Eleanor actually likes spending time with them.
“Don’t you think it’s rather peculiar that you’re the only person without a human soulmate?” asks Tahani.
“I have a soulmate that loves me unconditionally and, also, can actually make a decision about froyo flavours in less than half an hour, so who’s really winning here? (Sorry, Chidi),” says Eleanor. “The answer is all of them, by the way.”
“It must be so nice to have a soulmate who just lavishes affection on you,” says Tahani and Eleanor doesn’t know if she meant to say that out loud.
‘Chidi not stepping up?”
Tahani blushes, the way she does everything else. Absolutely beautifully. Sometimes, she reminds Eleanor of one of the strippers at one of the men’s clubs in Phoenix. Saskatoon was, like, really classy. Eleanor was pretty sure she was only stripping because her dad gambled her inheritance away, or something, but she had legs that went up to her armpits and a sad look in her eyes, too.
“I’ve tried everything, you know,” says Tahani and, weird, Tahani is totally confiding in Eleanor, which is a little forked up, but she guesses they’re friends. Bruce leans against Tahani’s legs, because he’s a good bro like that and, also, he probably wants some of Tahani’s froyo.
“I seriously doubt that,” says Eleanor. “You definitely haven’t opened the Eleanor Shellstrop Seduction Playbook yet.”
“I daresay not,” says Tahani, holding her hand to her chest and, eyes up, Eleanor. Tahani is sad. Time to be a good bro, like Bruce.
“Okay, first off, Kevin Paltonik was totally gay, whatever Janet says, but maybe Chidi’s gay? Maybe you’re meant to have a platonic soulmate relationship like I have, with Bruce.”
“Bruce is a dog, Eleanor.”
“And he is the best dog.” Eleanor scrapes out the end of her ‘Cold Side of the Pillow’ flavoured froyo which is, honestly, the best. “Okay, so if Chidi’s not gay, have you actually talked about sex?”
“That seems a little impolite.”
Eleanor laughs but buttons it down pretty quickly. “Okay, so if you haven’t talked about sex, how have you tried to, you know, make your interest known?”
“Well, we went on a couple’s spa date, though there was this monk—”
Eleanor interrupts her with a snore. “Okay, what else have you done?”
“I look into his eyes, and touch his arm regularly.”
“That does not sound exactly hot,” says Eleanor, although she’s lying a little. Anything Tahani does is hot. “Do you at least flash the goods from time to time?”
“Eleanor, I can assure you that it worked on Zac Efron.”
“Okay, well. Good for you. I think I’m going to need to see it in action, though.”
“Are you sure?” asks Tahani. “It is very effective.”
Eleanor pushes her seat back, a little, and parts her legs, to manspread. “Come over here and fork me up.”
Tahani, to her credit, arches a perfect eyebrow and does a perfect hairflip. Eleanor doesn’t know if Tahani has played Gay Chicken before or, if like Eleanor, she has played Gay Chicken before and realised she really likes kissing girls. Eleanor has Saskatoon to thank for that realisation and she wonders who helped Tahani until she stops thinking altogether. Tahani leans in and glides a perfect hand up Eleanor’s arm. She leans in close and her perfect eyes flicker down towards Eleanor’s mouth and Eleanor’s lips feel dry even though she’s just gorged on froyo.
“Fork it,” whispers Eleanor to herself and she leans in, too.
It’s a very gentle kiss. It’s nothing at all like most of Eleanor’s experience of kissing people in the past, which has generally involved something stronger than froyo to get the mojo going. It’s gentle but then Tahani parts her lips slightly and she tastes a little like ‘Pink Star’ and Eleanor wonders how her lips are so soft.
She doesn’t realise that her hands are in Tahani’s hair until she hears what sounds like a strangled goat from somewhere above their heads.
It’s Chidi, standing there, with his eyes bugging out and clutching his cup of ‘Categorical Imperative’, which honestly has less flavour than vanilla, as far as Eleanor is concerned.
“Yeah,” says Eleanor, pulling back further. “Yeah, that works. Chidi, you are missing the fork out, my friend. Right. I better go. Tahani. Call me.”
Scraping her chair back, she whistles for Bruce, who’s licking the ground by Chidi’s feet.
She gets back to her scary clown house and wonders how badly she’s forked up. She likes Chidi, is the thing, and she likes Tahani, too. Honestly, if she had to pick between them, she probably wouldn’t know which one to— Who’s she kidding? Of course it would be Tahani, based solely on her five seconds of hands-on experience.
“What do I do now, Bruce?” she asks.
Bruce whuffs and stretches out on the ground.
“Smart,” she says. “Super smart.” She lies down on her couch and wonders how she’ll look Tahani or Chidi in the face again.
She’s fast asleep when there’s a knock on the door and, because it’s the Good Place, the door’s not locked, so Tahani and Chidi come in.
“Hi, guys,” Eleanor says as she sits up. Her hair’s probably everywhere and she feels sticky-hot after her nap. “I hope I didn’t—”
She didn’t. Chidi and Tahani are holding hands and smiling which is awesome. It’s totally awesome.
“We have to thank you, Eleanor,” says Tahani and she’s forking beautiful when she smiles and Eleanor is totally ready for The Talk, which Doug Connolly gave her when she made out with his best friend in front of him. It’s the bullshirt ‘thank you for helping us realise our feelings for each other, which don’t involve you’ talk. “It turns out that Chidi is very shy about this sort of thing and isn’t very good at making decisions.”
“No shirt, Sherlock,” says Eleanor under her breath.
“You see, Chidi felt very bad that you were on your own, wonderful as Bruce is, while we are so divinely happy together,” says Tahani.
“Chidi feels very had that he’s not doing any of the talking here,” says Chidi and his face looks like it hurts from smiling. “But we’d like to thank you for helping us realise our feelings for each other.”
Yep, Eleanor has heard this one before.
“And for you,” says Tahani.
Eleanor looks between them and they’re looking at her, excited as anything, and she can hardly believe it.
“Fork me.”
“Ideally,” says Tahani and she reaches out a hand towards Eleanor.
This is, Eleanor thinks, definitely the Good Place (and she wonders when the right time is, to tell her best friends and maybe-lovers that she almost definitely shouldn’t be here).