Four
I feel like I must have misheard him at first. And that seems plausible, too, because this conversation has been very complicated and fast-moving. In fact I would almost call it bantering, if we were somewhere more normal, like a bar, and I was something bonkers, like massively attracted to him, and he was something other than what he is, which is married.
Only then he sags against the wall next to his flat door.
And he says it again.
‘God, it feels good to be able to finally say to someone that my wife is fictional,’ he tells me. So now I have to reckon with the fact that he isn’t married at all. His marriage is not a thing. Most likely he is very, very single. And that rocks me enough that you can hear it in my voice when I protest.
‘She can’t be fictional. Mabel told me you were missing her like the dickens.’
But he does not give me a break.
‘Right. Because I told Mabel I was when she asked after her. And then I had to excuse myself so I could go puke up one of those delicious shrimp sandwiches you get from that amazing grocery store you guys have – what’s it called again? I think it might be Marge something. Marge and Stencil. Anyway, long story short, I didn’t make it to the bathroom, and wound up doing it in a potted plant that never really recovered after that,’ he says in a way that almost sounds like he’s talking to himself. He’s just moving through the maze of his own memories.
While I stand there, feeling absolutely lost somewhere at the centre of them.
Because yes, he did just say that he has invented a wife. But somehow, all his other comments are almost as weird and startling. I’m struggling to stay focused on one – which is probably why I end up blurting out: ‘It’s not Marge. Or Stencil,’ in a voice that sounds just a little bit dazed.
But thankfully he does not seem thrown by this.
‘Well, then, where in the heck did I go to get my dinner?’
‘Yeah, we just call it M&S, usually.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, lemme just write that down.’
He holds up a finger. Then I am forced to watch, amazed, as he actually gets out his notepad from his back pocket and opens it, and starts writing with a little stub of a pencil. Just as he did with the apology note, I think, only this time I find myself noticing way more details. Like the fact that he is a lefty. And his nails are incredibly well-kept. Oh, and finally, and most important:
His hands are fucking massive.
And yet somehow, at the same time, I have never in my life seen anyone write as beautifully as he does. I swear, it’s like watching a concert pianist play, using a pencil and paper. He practically makes love to every loop and swirl and slash he puts on the page. Every letter looks like art, looks like someone lavished hours of love on it. I’ve seen famous paintings that aren’t as pretty as what he produces.
And I won’t lie, it makes me marvel just a little bit.
How did Mabel never wax lyrical about this , I find myself thinking, before realizing that I should really be paying attention less to how he’s writing things, and more to what he’s actually writing. After all – this is what I see, above the paragraph he’s crafting about M&S:
Under no circumstances must you ever use the word fanny when you mean butt, and especially in a sentence like ‘Well, come on over and plant your fanny here,’ because people will definitely think by here you mean your face, and by fanny you mean their vagina.
Then, just as I’m done reading, he looks up at me.
Like he’s waiting for me to continue, even though I can’t.
‘I feel like this cannot be reality,’ I say, because that’s all I can muster.
It’s okay though. He’s already answering me.
‘You know, I said that very same thing to myself after I first invented a wife. But then after a while I had to accept it was, because in order to keep up the fiction that I had one I was forced to practically make it my second full-time job. That is what I do for a living now. Edit books in the day, and then spend all night trying to make sure this elaborate house of cards I’ve constructed doesn’t fall apart,’ he says, in so practical and straightforward a manner it’s impossible to believe it’s anything but what is actually happening.
In fact, it even makes other things retroactively make sense.
‘So that’s why you’ve got all the weird questions scattered everywhere and the cut-out faces of probable fake wife contenders and that serial killer conspiracy board up on your wall,’ I gasp. And I expect the nose touch again.
But instead his face drops about three feet.
‘Oh my goodness, you thought my fake family tree for the wife I don’t have was some sort of mass - murdering victim tracker ? Okay, you gotta let me make up for this trauma somehow. I need to at least make you a nice apology mix tape, or bake you an even more elaborate cake, or run you an incredibly soothing bath,’ he says – and then, as if that isn’t enough, I can see him doing something as he does it.
His hand hovers between us at chest level, fingers spread, sort of straining a little. Then slowly, slowly, he seems to force said fingers back in, until what he has are two awkwardly clenched fists.
And I mean awkward, too.
One of his knuckles is still trying to escape.
I almost say to him: Are you having joint issues?
But thankfully before I can, the real explanation hits me: he wants to put a comforting hand on my arm. Yet quite clearly believes this would not be welcomed. As if he knows that I’m not really a touchy-feely person. Or is aware that it might be read differently coming from someone I was scared of a little while ago. Or maybe, my god, maybe he just understands things like consent and bodily autonomy, and so respects them even when he yearns to reassure someone.
Or all three, I think.
And I can’t deal with that possibility any better than I dealt with the revelations about his fake wife, or his lying motion sickness, or the inexplicably gorgeous way he writes things. So I end up saying yet another thing that’s completely beside the point.
‘I don’t have a bathtub,’ I tell him.
As if that fucking matters .
As if that’s the important thing here.
Fucking bravo , my brain says to me, as he chirps on, oblivious.
‘Well, not to worry, because I do. I just had a huge one installed, to accommodate all of this immense oafish bulk. So, you know, you can just come on over and borrow it any time,’ he says, and now I’ve got another million things to process. Like the fact that he called himself oafish . Even though he really isn’t.
He’s just incredibly burly.
Bearish, almost.
Like some big wholesome dork in the body of a lumber-jack.
But of course I can’t say any of that to him. It sounds like I find him sexy somehow, when I swear I absolutely do not. The constant contrast between those two things is just very startling, and unsettling, and I’m still not convinced it isn’t quite real somehow. I mean, what kind of person seriously offers someone a soothing bath?
‘You want me to come over to your flat and borrow bathing?’ I scoff. But he doesn’t even argue. He just kind of looks like he wants to say the word shoot again, then nods in this rueful, resigned sort of way.
‘Yeah, now I’m hearing it from you it sounds even creepier than the board.’
‘It doesn’t sound creepier. But it does sound like you’re trying to avoid telling me anything more than you’ve already told me. Maybe by offering me the sort of weird but extremely kind things I usually only experience in fantastical dreams about nonexistent men,’ I try, and I feel fine about it as I do. It sounds reasonable, in my head.
But then I get to the end of my sentence, and now he’s looking at me with this suddenly soft and sort of slightly collapsing expression, and oh no, oh fuck . I think I just suggested something I didn’t intend. Something about kindness, and how rare it is for me to get anything like that from men, and how much I long to be offered it. Even though I’ve never longed for that in my life .
I’m a steel door. A solid bulkhead.
I don’t spend my time mooning over the idea of being treated gently.
But just as I go to correct the record, he comes out with this :
‘In that case, I’m extra glad I suggested it.’
And with so much sincerity, too. So much earnestness . It’s honestly almost impossible for me to keep believing he didn’t mean it, or even that he was just using it as a distraction. I have to scramble for some other way out of it – and am relieved when I get one.
‘Of course you are. It means you still haven’t had to tell me anything else.’
‘Truthfully, it feels kind of incredible that I’ve told anyone anything. And doubly so when the anyone is you, my super-cool, smart, interesting neighbour who also happens to be best friends with Mabel Willicker, who could well be my favourite author. I mean, I couldn’t have picked anyone worse, and yet here we are.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Okay, bub, you’re not going to distract me with made-up compliments.’
‘I don’t know how you can even say that my compliments are made up while standing there in front of me with hair that intimidating. I mean, are those pink highlights? I didn’t even know pink highlights on dark hair could be a thing. Honestly, I think I’m being daring when I part my hair on the left instead of the right.’
He shakes his head, marvelling.
And over something I was honestly thinking of changing yesterday, because some influencer deemed unnatural hair colours cringe. All of which puts me in a very weird, wholly alien position. Because usually, in order to carry on talking to some man I’m maybe starting to like, I’ve got to convince them that I’m normal and cool and aloof.
But he is already convinced.
He’s too convinced, in fact.
He can’t even confess the rest of this, for fear of my judgementally stylish hair. So now I’ve got to do the opposite of all the things I usually try to. I’ve got to be honest if I want to find out what the fuck is going on here.
Even though being honest kind of makes my stomach turn.
For a second, I’m not even sure how to go about it. My brain runs through all the weird, boring things about me that might set him at ease, and tries to reject every single one. But then he looks at me. He looks at me, and he smiles, and the smile is just so... I don’t even know.
Oblivious to every calculation I’m currently making.
It’s a little confused and kind of reassuring and so happy .
And so it just comes out of me. ‘Look, if it helps you not be afraid to tell me this, I am really not an intimidating person at all. In fact I’m more the sort that secretly watches Star Wars, and actually hates books like The Crying of Lot 49 , and also one time I went to kick a ball back to some kids and accidentally flung my shoe up into a tree, then had to tuck my dress into my knickers to climb up and get it back,’ I say, all in a big rush. Like I’m ripping off a plaster over my own personality.
Only here’s the weird thing: I don’t feel that exposed, after I have.
Probably because he just looks even more like he’s marvelling than he did before.
‘Honestly, none of that helps at all. In fact, it kind of sounds like you’re just bragging about how cool you are, even when you’re not really trying. Because seriously, you climbed a tree? With your dress in your knickers? That is totally awesome. And so is hating The Crying of Lot 49 , considering how much it sucks. And honestly, I don’t understand anyone who doesn’t watch Star Wars, secretly or otherwise,’ he says, at which point I’m torn. Half of me wants to tell him that’s the most encouraging thing anyone has ever said to me. And the other half is so astonished that it wants to laugh.
And of course laughing wins.
‘But everyone hates Star Wars now.’
‘Not me. I saw the last movie twelve times.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Even though you’re a clever book editor type?’
‘Okay, first of all, I’m really not that clever. But even if I was, I sure hope that doesn’t mean I can’t like fun things. Or like someone who also likes fun things, and then tells me that they do just to set me at ease enough to confess the absolutely bananas situation I’ve gotten myself into.’
Damn , I think.
Mostly because he definitely is that clever. Oh, he is super smart under that air of wide-eyed farm boy from Kansas. He just doesn’t care about letting everybody know he is. He’s not interested in the usual things intelligent people are supposed to do, or be, or insist upon. It simply flashes through regardless, over things like guessing the game people are playing.
‘Caught that, did you,’ I say, and he doesn’t even look sheepish about it.
‘Oh yeah, I super did.’
‘And did it work?’
‘ Enormously .’
He gives me another big expression to go with that word. And this one is a hundred percent pure relief. It’s like watching someone’s face sink into a comfy chair after a thousand years at a job they hate.
So I feel pretty comfortable pressing him.
‘Let’s hear how it happened, then,’ I say.
And he doesn’t even hesitate. ‘Well, a certain colleague said, So are you married? And I said, Sure I am, what kind of man doesn’t have a spouse at the age of thirty-seven? Then it all just sort of massively snowballed out of control from there.’
‘And I’m guessing certain colleague is your nice way of saying a jerk .’
‘Oh, he’s not a jerk. He just keeps saying a lot of stuff until you panic.’ He chuckles at the end of that.
But the chuckle sounds super rickety. And it doesn’t hit his eyes.
No, they go even darker than they already are on the word stuff .
‘Yeah, but that sounds like something a jerk would do,’ I say because of it.
And the darkness stays, even though he keeps trying to smile.
‘Right. But I think he means well.’
‘Even though I feel like you definitely got the impression it was bad not to be married at thirty-seven from this jackwagon. Who probably implied horrible things like how much of a loser you are and all the terrible character flaws you must have, until you cracked and told a little white lie that you never imagined he’d keep forcing you to uphold.’
He goes to keep defending this total dillhole again, I think. Most likely because he’s so nice that he can’t even fathom someone else being as awful as the total dillhole clearly is. But this time, he stops mid-thought. Shuts that mouth he’d started to open.
And finally processes what really happened, in a way that practically dances all over his face. First there’s a rush of realization, then a flicker of hurt so raw and open it actually makes my still-suspicious heart ache, just a little bit. Then, finally, comes a kind of ruefulness. Maybe even pleasure.
Like he hates learning this.
But loves that I taught him it.
‘Darn it, you’re good,’ he says. ‘I think you might be totally right. I think that’s exactly what happened. Like, he would say things that seemed friendly, but after he had I would feel terrible and gross and then just end up confessing silly stuff.’
‘Right. And I bet this happened after you told him off over something.’
‘Well, I didn’t tell him off exactly. But he was rude to a female coworker, and I had a few words to say to him about it.’
‘And after that he wouldn’t leave you alone.’
Another pause happens while he connects the dots. Then: ‘Gosh, that is amazing. That is dead-on. So, you know, I’m gonna have to give you an A-plus on your essay, “Why Henry Samuel Beckett Is a Giant Dork Who Did This Really Inadvisable Thing.”’
And I know, after he has, that I should focus on the fact that he appears to have an issue detecting passive aggression. Or maybe roll my eyes at the ridiculous way he says stuff. But instead, I find myself thinking something very weird.
Like how nice that A-plus would be.
How wonderful written praise from him would sound. Bet he would use a sparkly gel pen , I think to myself, and this funny little tingly feeling happens afterwards. Almost like a sexual thing, even though nothing he said was sexual at all. And I absolutely do not fancy him.
I don’t.
I just keep liking all the odd things he does.
While wanting to know loads more about him.
‘Your full name is Henry Samuel Beckett?’
‘You bet it is.’
‘Like the playwright?’
‘No, like the Quantum Leaper,’ he says. And without so much as a hint of embarrassment about it, too. He doesn’t even hesitate. He just tweets it out. And then he keeps going, as enthusiastically as I have never been able to be a day in my life. ‘Which you are probably too young to know about, so lemme just give you a brief overview. Okay, so, theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator—’
And then he gives this dramatic pause, and I just can’t help it.
I want to, as usual. But I can’t somehow, with him. Like he’s given me permission to be a dork, of the kind that knows how that opening spiel ends. ‘And vanished,’ I say. Then I get the reason he makes me feel like permission has been given.
He looks delighted.
‘Holy moly, you do know it.’
‘It was my favourite show growing up.’
Until my mum made fun of me for liking something so nerdy and schmaltzy , I mentally add. But thankfully I don’t have any urge to blurt it out. Or even think about it too much, because he’s off on one.
‘Well, what do you know, mine too. I mean, more obviously for me because I’m old and my parents were clearly incredibly obsessed with it. But I guess you must have caught some reruns, maybe. If reruns are something that happens here.’
‘They are. But I was alive when it was originally on, too.’
‘You never were. You can’t be more than twenty-five.’
‘I’m thirty-one. I’ll be thirty-two next month.’
‘Gosh, really? Well, that’s a heck of a thing.’ He shakes his head, like he truly just can’t believe this astounding fact. But before I can finish feeling complimented by someone who isn’t even trying to compliment me, he’s on to the next thing. ‘And hey, happy almost birthday.’
‘Beck, there’s no such thing as an almost birthday.’
‘There is for a fellow Leaper.’
Then he makes the noise. The leaping noise.
With hand gestures, to emulate I dunno. Special effects, whooshing.
And it’s all just too much, on top of all the other weird, too-much things. Like, I’m finding it hard enough to process that someone has not turned out to be more evil than I imagined. The idea that he might not be evil at all, that he might in fact be on the level and sort of adorable... I can’t take that in, too.
It feels too trusting. Too much like I’m starting to like him.
And what happens then? I don’t know, I don’t know. But I am not enjoying the things it’s doing to me. Suddenly my chest feels all fluttery and messy inside and I can’t think rationally and oh god, I think I’m close to asking him inside. To do something bonkers, like watch Quantum Leap with me. And I simply cannot let that happen.
Instead, I tell him I have to go now.
Only I’m so flustered I can’t even come up with a good reason. I blurt out something about dinner and needing to do my hair and thinking maybe my phone is ringing. Then I flee the scene, like I committed some crime. The FBI are going to come around soon, and start surrounding my place with taped lines. We’ve got a textbook case of revealing too much to someone she might like here, boys , I imagine them saying, once I’m safe back inside.
Then I spend all night thinking of what I almost said.
But didn’t, because I’m this sort of person, instead.