Chapter Text
“This is your soulmate, Tahani.”
When Eleanor’s so-called soulmate walks in and honest-to-God poses in the doorway, she almost loses it right then and there. Michael has to be punking her. Her soulmate would never be this lame. (The only flaw in this theory is that Ashton Kutcher would never be in The Good Place.) But then she takes a real look at Tahani and suddenly she’s willing to let it go because whoa mama, that’s one hot lady.
Honestly, she’s a little surprised by it. Eleanor never believed in the concept of soulmates – it’s not like her parents gave her any reason to, and it always seemed like hokey B.S. designed to sell those matching heart necklaces where one half says ‘soul’ and the other says ‘mate’ – but if she’d been forced to guess who her soulmate would be, she’d have said “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, or some guy who kind of looks like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.
This, though? She can work with this.
“Bring it in, man!”
Yeah, Eleanor definitely doesn’t hate this.
Eleanor hates this.
As it turns out, meeting Tahani Al-Jamil was the moment Eleanor’s afterlife went straight to hell. She may be tall and just improbably sexy like if the Empire State Building were personified and drawn by Rob Liefeld, but she’s also a monster. Not a cool, fun monster, like when everyone was all, ‘Eleanor, you’re a monster,’ after she crashed one of Sean Penn’s kid’s birthday parties and stole the cake. A real monster. The kind who holds tea parties.
It quickly becomes clear that she cannot tell this woman she doesn’t belong here. It complicates things, because she can’t let Tahani figure out she isn’t Heaven-material, but she really, really wants to put bleach in her shampoo. This ‘pretending to be nice’ thing blows.
It gets worse when Tahani decides they’re going to throw a ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ party.
“Not here, of course,” she says disdainfully, in that stupid, perfect British accent. Why does she still have that accent here? We get it, you’re British, Eleanor thinks. Go back to Downton Abbey. “I mean, this place is so… charming, what with the clowns and whatnot, but it’s simply too small to hold all the guests we’ll need to invite. It fits you perfectly, though, my—bite-size soulmate.” She smiles phonily. “But don’t worry, I’ve already procured a venue!”
“Uh-huh,” Eleanor says.
Tahani begins to talk about decorations. Eleanor wonders what would happen if someone killed themselves in the afterlife.
“Yoy knuw whah,” Eleanor says, mouth full of delicious, delicious shrimp. They have put her in a remarkably better mood than she was five seconds ago. She swallows. “I retract my statement. This party is poppin’.”
Tahani grimaces. Whether it’s at Eleanor referring to her fancy soiree as poppin’ or at Eleanor talking with her mouth full, the world may never know. Eleanor would wager it’s probably both. She’s judgmental like that, or… so Eleanor assumes. She doesn’t actually know her that well beyond her pretentiousness and Britishness, but she’s just got a sense about it. Tahani? Definitely. Evil.
“Do try to leave enough for the guests. You wouldn’t want to pop out of that… adorably ridiculous dress. So chic, by the by – the ironically homely is all the rage right now, or so my close friend Jean Paul Gaultier has told me. I was his muse for many years, you know. I suppose there’s simply something about me that draws the attention of creative types, billionaires, world leaders…” Tahani says it with a smile, but Eleanor can tell she’s displeased with her. She grabs another shrimp and shoves the whole thing in her mouth without breaking eye contact.
So, that thing about not letting Tahani know she doesn’t belong isn’t going great.
There’s an awkward, passive-aggressive mood between them all night, but in the interest of keeping up appearances, Tahani keeps Eleanor at her side as she goes around the room to greet her guests. It’s exhausting. Everyone is basically a saint who died giving their kidneys to a newborn baby or got run over saving the last of a nearly-extinct species of animal. One of them spent all last summer building an orphanage in Nicaragua. And then there’s Eleanor, who spent all last summer watching Vanderpump Rules because she lost the remote and couldn’t change the channel. And then because she got kind of into it.
“Eleanor was a lawyer and human rights activist,” Tahani gushes, putting her hand on Eleanor’s arm. Eleanor forces the cheeriest smile she can manage. “Tell them about your trip to Ukraine!”
“Oh… I don’t like to. Brag. About myself.” She laughs. Fork you, Tahani.
“Please!” beg the couple they’re talking to. She thinks their names are Greg and Amelia? George and Emily? It doesn’t really matter. She’s nicknamed them Nose Hair and Garlic Breath. They look extremely interested in some stupid Ukraine trip she never even went on. She takes a deep breath.
“…And when I saw those conjoined twins eat borscht for the first time, I knew that I had done a. Good, good thing. Because I am definitely a good person. Like everyone here! I think we can all agree we are all great people.”
All three of them – Nose Hair, Garlic Breath, and Tahani – clap in amazement. Eleanor excuses herself to get a forking drink.
So, by a drink, maybe she meant shots. And by shots, maybe she meant a lot of shots. By the time Tahani finds her again, she is drunk off her ash, and she’s cornered some monk dude who she’s pretty sure hasn’t said a single word. But that also might just be the shots.
“…Aaaand that’sh my ranking of the Kardashians,” she finishes, right as Tahani walks up. She holds a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh! Don’t tell Kylie!”
Weird Silent Monk Dude just stares back. He looks at Tahani. Then he leaves.
“Aw, maaan, you scared off my friend!” Eleanor whines. It was most certainly not her fault at all. “With yourrr… intimidating tallness. Your looming. Shtop looming over me!”
Tahani continues to stand there. Looming. Like some kind of idiot.
“Eleanor, you are—highly intoxicated. At an evening soiree! Decorum would state that one should be tipsy at the most.”
“Eleanoah, you ahhh hiiighly intoxicated,” Eleanor mocks.
“I think perhaps it would be best if you returned home. Trust me, you do not want to pull a ‘Joaquin Phoenix at the 2012 winter gala’. The tabloids were talking about it for hours until Kristen Stewart was photographed going to pilates!”
Eleanor pokes her in the shoulder. It loses some of its effect due to the fact that she has to reach up so high to do it. God, she hates how tall Tahani is. Just be shorter. “Newp. I’mma… Walking Penis all over yo’ face.”
“Joaquin Phoenix.”
“Juan King Felix.”
“No—”
“You know what I meant! Soooo, if you’ll excushe me, mama’s gonna go have some more shots.” Eleanor takes a step, then stops. “And I’m not gonna leave any shrimp for the guests.”
Tahani gasps. “You daren’t.”
“Oh, I dare’dstve.”
Eleanor gets home somehow. Judging by the fact that Tahani is forcing her into bed when she realizes where she is, Tahani’s probably the one who got her home. Probably because she was embarrassing her. She wouldn’t do it just to be nice. Not to someone like Eleanor, who’s so clearly beneath her, beneath everyone here.
As Tahani roots through Eleanor’s pajama drawer, she says, “They must have made a mistake. This sleepwear selection is clearly for a man. A very small, poorly-dressed man.”
Eleanor drunkenly snorts. “God, you are the Kylie Jenner of soulmates.”
“Is that good?” Tahani asks, and maybe it’s just the Everclear talking, but she honestly looks like she wants Eleanor to say yes. Does she just have to be good at everything, even soulmating? Too bad; she’s not. (Maybe she would be if she got matched with someone who actually belonged here.)
“Ask the hot monk.” She pauses, then laughs. “The hunk. Get it?”
Tahani eventually picks out a T-shirt and flannel pajama pants for her to wear, although it clearly pains her to do so. She turns around while Eleanor changes, although she makes it seem like it’s because she doesn’t want to see it, not out of politeness. It’s vaguely offensive. She’s no sexy Empire State Building, but come on.
“Were you really on a human rights mission in Ukraine?” Tahani asks afterwards. Eleanor’s heart stops. She supposes she hasn’t been doing a very good job of blending in, at least not around Tahani. There’s just something about her that makes her feel so inferior, insecure, angry. She wants to lash out because of it.
“No, Tahani, I was at Ukrainian Disneyland. Ya got me.” Eleanor makes sure to seem appropriately offended that her Good Person Cred is being challenged. “I totally helped all those people! Just becaushe I’m not fancy like you doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. We didn’t all have puhhh-fect lives, okay.”
Tahani bristles. “I never claimed my life was perfect—”
“You said the Queen told you that you were the daughter she wished she had.”
“Well, yes—”
“And that you gave Steve Jobs the idea for iPhones.”
“I can see how you’d think—”
“And that you dated half of the Avengers! Come on, dude!”
Tahani pauses. It stretches on for a bit. Eleanor thinks she might actually feel cowed. Finally, she says, “It was two-thirds, actually.”
Eleanor throws her hands up and covers her head with her pillow.