“What?” I asked her, releasing the cushioned AirPods Max circumaural cup from my right ear, automatically pausing the AI-generated podcast about the Holocaust I’d been listening to. “Sorry, I couldn't hear you.”

“I said...” she said, “I said this isn’t even good. This food is worse than any restaurant. You would hate this food if it were served to you in a restaurant. But because we’re in the Air Canada Lounge, you’re acting like this is, like, something really special.”

“It’s beautiful in here. I’m not saying this is the best food in the world, but this—given the situation we’re in—is the nicest possible room we could be sitting in.”

“What does that even mean, given the situation we’re in, this lounge is part of the situation we’re in.”

“Well I just mean, given the delay, and given that the Centurion lounge has a wait time equal in length to our delay. And like I said, they gave me a choice of a voucher to the Air Canada Lounge, or the United Club, and The Points Pimp says this Air Canada Lounge here in Terminal B really punches above its weight. So I wanted to try it.”

“Look at what you’re eating. It’s disgusting. The Chili’s Express would have had far better food.”

I looked down at the plate I’d fixed myself from the salad bar, a handful of kalamata olives, two halves of two different hard boiled eggs, cubed chicken breast, sprinkled with bacon bits. “Not everything is about food. It’s about how we’re in here, and everyone else is out there. We’re in here with the civilized people, no riff-raff. Everyone in here either has a credit card that carries an annual fee of nearly four figures. Or they’ve booked business class. And there’s probably a pretty significant overlap between those two groups anyway. So I’d say we’re doing pretty well. Compared to everyone out there, we’re doing just fine. And so I’m happy. It’s called relative deprivation theory. Steven Pinker talks about it.”

“Just stupid,” she muttered, shaking her head dismissively and standing up to go to the bathroom.

I’d hoped this trip would be nice, our first time going on vacation since I’d been promoted to Junior Manager. I’d hoped it’d be a chance to show the sorts of niceties we’d be able to afford now, a chance to prove, like, materially, that my new hours and responsibilities would come with rewards that she could partake in, too.

On my iPad Mini, I took another look at the big surprise I still had up my sleeve: an upgrade to the Phil Spector Suite at the Hard Rock Hotel in Punta Cana. "She's gonna love it," I thought to myself. I took a bite of a warm chocolate chip cookie and smiled, pressing play on my podcast.

MATTHEW DAVIS is a writer based in New York City. His debut novel, Let Me Try Again, is available now from Arcade Publishing.