Comedic Timing

Chapter VI

VI

I stumble down the subway steps to catch the train to work, but it is already speeding away from me by the time I make it through the turnstile. With five minutes to spare until the next one, I type out a message to Sofia.

Naina: hey, glad you got the sweatshirt. hope all is well.

I consider saying more, but I want to be measured.

Sofia and I met when I was a sophomore in college, and she was a graduate assistant. At our Gender and Sexuality Resource Center on campus, I often spent time studying and lounging on the dusty university furniture with other undergrads. I felt safe amongst other queer people—free to be myself, no questions asked—but I also needed the validation. I felt gawky about my queerness, so internally gay but never sure if it translated externally.

I think Sofia sensed I needed to be brought out of my shell. I’m still grateful for it, and I probably always will be. We had a lengthy honeymoon phase for a year and a half, most of which was just hooking up and going on romantic dates without a label for our relationship. It seemed like everyone knew about us—our friends, the students who spent time at the center, even some professors who’d seen us holding hands in the early morning, walking from her residence hall to the café.

She had a shag haircut back then, dyed jet black, and her sharp blue eyes sparkled beneath her bangs. Before we ever talked, I snuck glances at her body: long and lean, her chest flat. I’ve always been envious of women with small tits; I constantly felt like I was wrangling my boobs into clothes before I fully embraced proper bras. She wore European League football jerseys or linen button-downs. In the winter, she tucked herself into sweatshirts layered over turtlenecks. I never saw her in skinny jeans or anything formfitting. When we got together, I relished taking off her baggy clothes, having her on top of me, running my hands down her tight waist.

She never formally asked me to be her girlfriend. Being in a committed relationship with her felt like the inevitable outcome, especially when she told me she wasn’t seeing other people. We only started having problems when we moved in together, three years into dating. Our lives had become enmeshed, and at first, that felt like a pure, unconditional love sort of thing. But our lack of boundaries triggered the worst in us: my tenacity, otherwise known as grudge holding, and her pessimism, which often arrived in the form of criticism.

It hurt to no longer have access to her—her life, her thoughts, her friends. Plus, the idea of Sofia out there having sex with someone other than me burned. But experiencing these emotions felt unfair, especially when I was the one to end things. She deserved to be happy, and ultimately, I wanted her to move on.

I reread my message, a nothing response to hers. I hit send.

“David is definitely into you,” Jordan says to me over the phone. “Don’t be naive.”

“I’m not being naive,” I insist, louder than intended. A man walking past me on the sidewalk flashes a curious stare before disappearing forever.

I’m walking back to work from grabbing lunch, starving after arriving early as promised. A motorcycle roars past, and I plug one of my ears, screaming into the phone. “I just feel like we have more of a friend vibe right now. Which is what I need, I guess. And like I told him, I’m not into men.”

“No offense, but you’ve known him for, what? Over three weeks now? And he’s going out of his way to give you a ride at two in the morning? When you could take a car? Either he’s into you or he’s friend love bombing you.”

“ Friend love bombing?”

“It’s a thing. That’s what I did to you.”

I laugh. “That’s different! Friendship is different!”

“It’s a relationship,” Jordan says. “And a bomb is a bomb. Here’s my question. How into him are you, exactly? What is your level of attraction?”

I think about David’s scent for what feels like the millionth time. It’s like I can still smell him if I try hard enough. I think about his silver ring, sort of improperly fitted, squeezing around his thick finger. Him tearing parsley leaves off the stem, holding his breath. The veins snaking up his forearms. The way he crosses his legs when he’s listening hard or stretching them out onto anything—the coffee table, the ottoman—when he’s relaxed. His cautious way of driving.

“I know this sounds crazy, but when I think about him, I don’t think about the way he looks. I mean, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind.”

“What do you think about, then?”

“The way he asks questions, or how intense he gets when he’s sharing his opinions.” I step off the curb and smile to myself. “And he smells really good.”

Jordan laughs. “Pheromones, baby. Your body is telling on you.”

David and I make plans to meet at a random comedy show.

When I ask Chloe if she wants to come along, she sighs.

“Do you know if Christian will be there?”

I shake my head.

“He and I went on a sort of date recently, and it was honestly amazing, so good. But then I didn’t text him back, so now I feel bad, but I also am avoiding him.”

I laugh and shake my head. “You’re playing games, Chloe.”

Without the buffer of a plus-one, I worry about the tone of this meetup—that it will feel like a date. That I might want it to.

When I get to the venue, concealed in the basement of a three-story building, I recognize a few people from the party in the audience, squeezed into rows of four. I catch sight of Margot, who flashes me a smile. I wonder if she would be as warm if she saw me with David.

I wait for him at a small table at the back of the audience, nervous I chose too intimate a seating arrangement. He finds me, and when he leans down over me, I feel awkward about the way our arms try to arrange themselves into a hug and how my body responds to this amicable form of contact.

“I just saw Rana’s ex,” he whispers as he sits down, conspiratorially pulling his chair close. “They just broke up.”

“Oh wow. Were you friends, you and her ex?”

“Sort of,” he says. “But honestly? I’m glad they broke up. She seems relieved. She’s also deeply avoidant. Took forever for her to even get together with him. Not that I’m one to talk.”

His last sentence, although offhanded, makes my chest clench. I note my discomfort, and the word detach echoes in my mind, like some sort of protective spell I’m casting over our friendship. I would hate to be on the other end of what I assume to be David’s self-proclaimed avoidant tendencies.

After the show, I exchange another glance with Margot, who doesn’t smile this time.

David and I could have easily parted ways, since he brought my laptop with him, but instead, we’re taking the subway back to my place. I don’t know who initiated, just that neither of us resisted.

His various subway stances are comically masculine. Sometimes he stands with his arms crossed, hands tucked under his armpits, balancing despite the train’s lurches. Other times he extends his arm over his head, hand white-knuckling the subway bar. My neck hurts from looking up at him. I am nearly pressed up against him, thanks to the late-night crowd packed into the train car. The smell of him radiates off his armpit, deliciously human.

“My boss, Alice, said she finds improv cringey,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes.

“She’s clearly never had a cringe phase.”

I shrug. He goes on: “To become a ‘cool person,’ you need to be okay being weird and sharing those weird parts of yourself with other people. Your boss is hating because she’s uncool.”

“She’s definitely uncool.”

The train pulls to a stop, and I lose my balance. He steadies me by gripping my right bicep.

“Naina, just hold the pole. What’re you trying to prove? Anyway,” he continues, “everyone has to figure themselves out, you know, what kind of person they are in this world. But to do that, we have to embarrass ourselves over and over again. Take risks. Find out what we like and don’t like. That’s the journey to coolness. Cool people rarely cringe. Because they know what it’s like to be cringe.”

I wonder about David’s relationship to his past versions of himself, what he deems as uncool in retrospect.

When we get to my place, I’m relieved Jhanaki is in her bedroom. She accepted my apology, but since then, our conversations have been stilted.

David hasn’t been to my apartment before, and he seems nervous. He sits on my couch, and his chattiness comes to an abrupt halt.

I busy myself unwrapping the deli sandwiches we picked up along the way and break the silence with the question I’ve been thinking all evening. “Is it weird to see your ex? Margot?”

Surprise sweeps across his face, but he quickly conceals it. “Not anymore. It used to be.”

“What’s the story there?”

He shrugs. “We dated for a couple of years. It didn’t work out.”

“How long ago?”

“Like two years ago?”

“Why didn’t it work out?”

“Just not compatible.” There is an evasiveness in his tone that feels strangely out of character.

“Right. Well, my ex texted me yesterday,” I say, hoping my honesty will make him feel safe enough to share more.

“Really? What did she say?” He shifts his body on the couch, settling in.

“I mailed back a sweatshirt of hers. She thanked me and told me she missed me.”

“What did you say?”

“That I hope she’s doing well.”

“Cold.”

“Not trying to be.”

“You don’t miss her?”

A wave of emotion rushes over me. I remember how it felt to put my head on her lap, have her rub my scalp. Her bony back facing me in the mornings, the warmth of her pressed against me under the covers.

Anger arrives quickly, unforeseen in this private moment of nostalgia. In hopes of getting somewhere deeper with David, I exhale and tell him the truth: “I stayed in the relationship for too long out of fear. I felt resentment toward her, but I was scared to let her go. I seethed in my own anger, a lot. Then I started to resent myself .”

I take in David’s expression. I didn’t scare him off. He is looking at me in earnest; he is here with me in this moment, head cocked to the side, taking in every word I am saying.

“To answer your question, I do miss her,” I add. “But maybe it’s just the familiarity.”

“I get that,” he says. “Resenting yourself for being complacent. I think a lot of people struggle with that. I know I do.” David, revealing his imperfections, only makes me fonder of him.

“Well, good thing you don’t live in Chicago,” he continues. “Familiarity keeps you trapped.”

“What does that mean?”

He rubs his eyes with his free hand and yawns. “I mean exes hooking up after the breakup. Makes it a lot harder to move on.”

“Says who?”

He shrugs at me. Takes a bite. I watch his jaw as he chews, his throat as he swallows.

“Give me an example,” I insist. “Of the incompatibility.”

He looks at the ceiling, blinking slowly. He has a smear of mustard on his upper lip, and I don’t know what to do about it. “Uh... well, I don’t get very jealous. But she was a pretty jealous person. I mean—we’d run into someone I dated or hooked up with in the past. Then there would be a lot of anger. It would build up, then explode, then we’d fight.”

Building up, exploding, fighting—this is all familiar to me, but not on the receiving end.

“Are you saying she was insecure?”

He teeters his head, comme ci, comme ca . “Sure, but I think people are allowed to get jealous. She wasn’t communicative. I also think I was fed up and couldn’t be... consolatory.”

“Ah, I can see it. Babe, it was just one time. Chill out! ” I lower my voice to imitate him, and he laughs one of his big laughs.

“That’s what I sound like?”

“I’m not an impressionist.”

“What about you?” he asks, crossing his legs. “How were you and Sofia incompatible? Or compatible?” He takes another bite of his sandwich and leans back into the couch.

I sigh. “I think we were compatible because she guided me out of being a baby gay. Okay, no, I’m not giving us enough credit. She was excellent at taking care of me, emotionally and physically. But she could also be very controlling and judgmental.”

I choose to omit my emotional outbursts. The word codependent rings in my head, but I don’t want to share that, either. I’m still working on owning up to my flaws.

He nods. “She was older than you, right?”

“By five years.”

“What do you think she saw in you?”

I wince, remembering. “I mean, I stared at her all the time. I fantasized about her. I definitely put the moves on her first.”

“Okay. But then what was it about you ?”

“I think she saw that I admired her. And was willing to love her. Can’t that be enough?”

“Maybe you’re not giving yourself enough credit, or her. I feel like there’s plenty of other things you could say.”

“Like what?”

He wipes his mouth with a napkin, and the mustard disappears. “I dunno. I mean, obviously we didn’t know each other back then, but I’m sure you were just as clever and ambitious. Hardworking. Intuitive. Great comedic timing.”

I twist my face to prevent a grin. He laughs. “It’s okay. Take the compliment. I’m only being truthful.”

Desire tugs at me. Do I want him? Or do I want his validation? Or is it both?

“Thank you.” I press my palms together and bow.

“You’re welcome.”

“So who are these other people, then?” I divert. “That Margot is jealous of?”

He sighs. “Just some women I dated casually. We were never serious.”

I’m both slightly annoyed and intrigued. So, David isn’t completely open. He has things he doesn’t want to talk about, too.

I push. “They’re not exes of yours? Just women you dated?”

He shrugs. “Hooked up with.”

“No other exes?”

“Not in New York, no. My last girlfriend before Margot was in high school.”

“That’s a long time to be single.”

“Yeah, but I was never actively single. You know? There’s a difference between hooking up with people, being noncommittal, and not participating in sex and romance at all. I’ve never really done the latter. Until this past year.”

I realize that though David is unguarded with his observations and opinions, he isn’t keen on explaining the events that brought him so much clarity and conviction.

“What about this high school girlfriend, then? Do you ever think about her? Is she the one that got away ?” I prod.

He looks wistful for a moment—younger, boyish—and nods. “I do think about her. But she’s no longer with us?”

It takes me a moment to grasp what he’s saying, mostly because he said it like a question. Then, I understand. Presenting the truth as a question makes the words feel less heavy, the grief less real.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s been years now. Obviously, stuff like that never leaves you, but I’ve picked up some coping skills.”

“My mom died,” I blurt. He raises his eyebrows. “Sorry, not trying to take away from your—I get it, is all. When did it happen?”

“Our senior year. We were together throughout all of high school. She was in a car accident.”

I think about his cautious driving. His alertness at the wheel, bordering on hypervigilance. The EMDR therapy.

“Fuck. I’m so, so sorry.”

“What about your mom?”

“She was ill. I was thirteen.” I leave it at that.

“That’s why the nightmares,” he says, recalling what I told him before.

“I can’t imagine losing a girlfriend,” I detract.

“I can’t imagine losing a parent.” He reaches for my fingers, draped over my knee, and holds them for a few moments like we’re completing a circuit.

We turn back to our sandwiches, allowing the surge of emotion to subside. As I clean up the wrappers and mayo packets, I ask him what he’s been watching lately, now accustomed to talking about television as a fallback thanks to Jhanaki.

I flop back onto the couch and close my eyes, tired from the day.

“Do you want to sleep here?” I ask David.

He stares at me blankly. I’m not sure what to make of the expression on his face. I decide to rush through what I want to say, unveiling a desire for this night to turn out differently than the others.

“We can share my bed. Unless you want the couch. It’s not that comfy, though. You don’t need to go, is all I’m saying. I actually have a lot of spare toothbrushes. The free ones from the dentist.”

He looks at his hands pensively.

“It’s not a big deal to me,” I ramble. “Unless it is to you, which in that case, I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

David bursts into laughter. “Yeah, yeah, I feel very violated right now.” He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, blinking at the space in front of him. “Sure, why not? We can get coffee in the morning, and I’ll give you a pep talk before work.”

My body surges with satisfaction. Everything around me has evaporated, and I realize I’m experiencing pure thrill, which I haven’t felt in a very long time.

David brushes his teeth while I struggle to find something to wear. You’re literally getting dressed for sleep, dumbass , I tell myself. But a little tank is too suggestive, and a full set of pajamas seems excessive. I’m still figuring it out when David enters my bedroom.

“What’s up?” he says.

“Going to change,” I reply.

“I give off a lot of body heat,” he warns. “If that influences your sleepwear.”

I blush, unsure if he’s somehow aware of my current dilemma. I shake my nerves off. “Good to know,” I respond, settling on an oversized Wieners Circle T-shirt.

I change in the bathroom. Scrubbing my face, I find myself unrecognizable in the mirror. I am jittery but also renewed: I admitted to wanting something, and I asked for it—or rather, offered it. This is the opposite of running away. I feel like I am sprinting toward something, full force.

When I reenter my room, David is sitting on the edge of my bed. He asks me which side I sleep on. He won’t look me in the eye. I point to the right, where the bed meets the wall. He yawns, and his watch beeps. “I can’t believe it’s already two in the morning.” He shakes his head.

He’s still on his phone when I crawl under the covers. I tell him to use my charger.

“I sleep in my underwear,” he says hoarsely, standing to plug his phone in. “Is that—”

“I figured,” I say.

“And without a shirt. But I don’t have to.”

“I think I’d prefer that.” He smirks in response.

“More than with your outside clothes in my bed,” I say.

“Right.”

He takes off his pants, the metal on his buckle clinking. I busy myself scrolling, but I’m not even looking at what’s on the screen. I’m sneaking periphery glimpses like a creep. I’ve never shared a bed with a man except for Jordan, I realize.

David’s forearms flex as he folds his shirt— folds it —and places it on my chair with his pants. He’s wearing boxer briefs. His chest is hairy. As he slips into my sheets, I pass him my phone to put on the nightstand. He takes his watch off.

“You can turn off the light,” I say, gesturing to the lamp. He flips the switch, and we’re in complete darkness, lying next to each other, shoulders touching.

“Thanks for letting me crash here,” he says.

“It’s no big deal,” I repeat. But it is a big deal. I know it is, because I can feel it in my body.

I’ve somehow forgotten how to breathe. Now inhaling and exhaling feels like a performance. I decide to count to one hundred, and when I get to sixty-something, I soften, and the idea of another body next to mine comforts me. Of David’s body.

I turn my back toward him and curl up on my side. After a few moments, I feel a weight on my back, and I wonder if David has placed his hand there.

I know it’s only my imagination when David’s arm—his actual, real-life arm—loops around me, over my chest.

“Is this okay?” he asks, whispering, and a surge of electricity travels up my spine.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Okay, good.”

I feel his breath on the back of my neck, rhythmic and steady, turning the spark that surged through me moments before into something more liquid. I press my back into him, and he responds with a low, satisfied hum. We fall asleep like that and wake up like that too.