Chapter 18 #3
“But if….” I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the cool cotton blanket. “But if you believe there is more than one right person for you, then why not just move on to girl C?”
“Come on, Elizabeth. Finding girl C, being who I am, what I do….” He sighed. “I guess it’s possible.” I almost threw the phone, but then he continued. “But honestly, I don’t really want to.”
“Why not?” I held my breath.
“Because one of the reasons girl B and boy A would never have worked is because I’m—he’s still in love with girl A.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and felt a burst of something potently warm spread through my limbs. But then a sudden thought halted the delightful feeling. “Is he still in love with girl B?”
“No.”
“But he is with girl A? He still loves her? That seems strange.”
“I don’t think so. You should know better than anyone how hard it is to let go of someone when you’ve loved them most of your life.”
“But I did. I let Garrett go.”
“Have you?”
Have I?
Have I really?
I waited for a stab of pain or an ache. Again, I felt only a numbness where something used to be.
I answered honestly. “Yes. I have. I’ll always love him, but I’m not carrying a torch for him like I used to, like I did for years.
I don’t think about him hourly or even daily—not anymore.
I don’t…pine for him.” Like I do for you.
GAH!
I hoped he didn’t detect my unspoken words, because I wasn’t quite ready to admit them to myself let alone to him. I needed to spend more time in my petri dish to culture in the bacteria of possibility. Or, in Star Trek Borg terms, I needed a cycle in a maturation chamber.
We were silent for a moment. I was about to ask him if he believed me, but Nico surprised me by continuing his story. “So, back to boy A and girl A. I haven’t told you the end of the story.”
“There is an end?”
“Technically not an end—just a final statement. Boy A, although he’s pretty sure girl A is for him, isn’t certain that he is for her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, if he were for her, wouldn’t she have already done something about it?”
“Maybe she needs time.” Stop speaking. Stop talking right now.
“Maybe….” He didn’t sound certain, and I was feeling borderline mortified and completely confused. I was worried any additional conversation might cause me to lead him on. I didn’t want to lead him anywhere false, especially to hope.
I abruptly sat up. “Well. Thanks for telling your story, and the take-home message, I’m surmising, is that you like to tell math problems disguised as stories.”
“No, the take-home message is that your dad is allowed to have a girl A and a girl B. In fact, he’s allowed to have a girl C, D, E, and F. He’s allowed to have an alphabet of women. And so are you.”
“Oh, I bet you’d like it if I had an alphabet of women.”
“I’m not going to lie; it’s something I might warm up to on a cold night.
But you know I meant that you have an entire alphabet of people for you—and not people who you can use, but people out there who want to share a life with you.
Maybe not what you and Garrett had, but something new; something great.
Don’t give up on your alphabet.” I could hear the teasing in his voice, which had grown raspy and sleepy during our long conversation.
“Don’t give up on my alphabet.” I smiled. “I will keep that in mind.”
“Life is alphabet soup, Elizabeth. Eat that soup.”
We spoke again on Saturday—three times in fact.
I didn’t have much time to think about our discussion before we were on the phone with each other again.
The calls also had the maddening effect of placing a virtually permanent, ridiculous, goofy grin on my face.
I didn’t even see Meg. She may have been working, she may even have talked to me at one point, but my good mood was impenetrable.
I kept meaning to bring up the mix-tape, but I always got sidetracked by something he said. It always felt like we never had enough time to talk. Therefore, when Nico brought it up during our Sunday lunch conversation, I was a little blindsided.
“You haven’t mentioned anything about the mix-tape.”
“Oh!” I jumped then fidgeted in my seat, “Yes…the tape.”
“Did you listen to it yet?”
“Yes. I listened…to it.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“I think…” I paused to gather a breath, but also to stall. If the ladies were right, and I was one hundred and ten percent positive that they were, then what was I supposed to say about the tape? What right answer could I give?
I settled for honest and benign. “I think that it is full of some really good music.”
He was very quiet for a long moment then he said, “I feel like this is a huge step forward for you to have admitted that.”
I released a breath. “I never said I didn’t like good music; I just said I preferred boy-band music.”
“Which song did you like the most—wait, actually, which songs did you not like?”
“Um….”
“Were there any songs that you didn’t like?”
“I don’t know that I didn’t like them so much as…this is hard to talk about.”
“Yeah, I thought it might be.”
“Well, the song, I guess, that was the most difficult to listen to, even though I recognize that it’s a really good song, is the one by Death Cab for Cutie about someone dying.”
“Ah, yeah. I thought that might be the one you were going to say. I was hoping you were going to mention a different one, but, yeah—that’s a really good song.”
“It is.”
“It actually helped me. When it came out, it helped me work through some issues.”
“You use music to work through issues?”
“Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Music helps us feel things that we’re not ready to feel, or that maybe we’re blind to.”
I decided to avoid the implications of his last statement in favor of the simple truth about me and music. “No. I don’t use music for that.”
“Right. Obviously. Because nobody is using boy bands to work through issues unless it’s about copping your first feel or dealing with morning wood.”
“Nico!”
“Because what issues could boy bands help you work through? Lingering questions about how to remove a bra? Hey, when did the boy with a premature ejaculation problem arrive to the party? I’ll give you a hint: he came too early.”
I barked a laugh, and I knew he was smiling as he continued. “You listen to boy bands to avoid issues.”
He was right, of course. The fact that he knew me so well didn’t at all surprise me, although it did make me uncomfortable. I didn’t have anything to say in response to his probing, so I decided on the silent approach.
I should have known him better.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes.”
“Are you being quiet because I’m right?”
I squirmed a little. “Yes.”
“Is there any possibility that over the course of this conversation you will actually say the words, ‘Nico, you are right’?”
“No. That’s not going to happen.”
“Even though I’m right?”
“I’m always right. You don’t see me going around ordering people to tell me so.”
“Almost always right.”
His teasing rejoinder made me smile and melt a little. “Fine. I’ll admit that what you said was true.”
“So you’re fine with saying, ‘Yes, Nico,’ and you’re good with saying, ‘That’s true, Nico,’ but you are physically incapable of saying, ‘Nico Manganiello, you are right’—is that correct?”
“That is correct.” God help me, I was giggling. “First of all, you know I’ve never been able to pronounce your last name.”
“If you’d let me touch your tongue while you tried to say it, I bet we could fix that problem.”
I decided to pretend he hadn’t spoken although my body was having difficulty ignoring what he’d said. “And secondly, I could maybe say a word that rhymes with ‘right’, like ‘Nico, you are light or blight or sight or bite’.”
“Nico, you are bite? That doesn’t make any sense. How about, ‘Nico you are bright’?”
I was laughing as I said, “I don’t think I can say that either.”
He was laughing as he asked, “Why?”
“Because it’s a compliment.”
“So now you’re incapable of complimenting me?”
“I’ve complimented you! I told you that one time that you are funny.”
“Mmm-hmm…why is it so hard for you to say nice things to me about me?”
“Because I’m so used to saying mean things about you to you….” I glanced around the doctor’s lounge; no one seemed to be paying me any attention. Regardless, just in case, I lowered my voice. “Call it sixteen years of it being drilled in my head—by you—that you are the Romulan to my Vulcan.”
“You and your Star Trek analogies.”
“I’m trying to get used to this new kinder, gentler, softer Nico.”
“Softer?”
“Well, smoother.”
“Oh my stars! Did you just—was that a compliment? Did you just call me smooth?”
“Did you just say, ‘Oh my stars’?” I laugh-snorted.
“I’m just shocked you complimented me. I’m going to write this day down so I can remember it. Dear Diary, today I was complimented by Elizabeth Finney. I think she’s starting to like me. When oh when will she let me feel her up?”
I laugh-snorted again. “Very funny. That wasn’t at all smooth by the way. Just be happy I called you smooth and not slick or…or charismatic.”
“Hmm, I don’t at all mind slick…we should spend more time discussing that, and you think I’m charismatic?” I could almost see the devastating small smile that accompanied his question.
“Oh, please. You know you’re charismatic. Your superhero name would be Captain Charismatic. Your superpower would be stupid exploding charisma. I mean, you walk into a room and people, everyone, can’t keep their eyes off you.”
“You don’t think my TV show has something to do with that—the fact that they recognize me?”
“No. It’s you. If you put a paper bag over your head, people would still be looking at you.
Before you were famous, when we were in school, it was the same way.
You were always so visible, and I was always so…
invisible.” I hadn’t meant to say that about myself.
It just came out, and honestly, it startled me.
I swallowed a strange thickness in my throat.
“You were never invisible to me.” Nico’s voice was insistent, and for some reason, I felt that he was frustrated with me.
“Sometimes you made me wish that I was invisible to you.” I stared at the toes of my comfortable shoes, lost in an unpleasant memory from high school; specifically when Nico introduced me to a new class member as Skinny Finney, the brainiac boy everyone cheats off of.
There were so many hurtful things about that moment that I had difficulty settling on just one.
“Well…” Wisely he decided to sidestep my last comment. “I can compliment you.”
“Please don’t.” I sniffled, surprised to find my eyes tearing up a little. I blinked away the beginnings of unwelcome emotions.
“Why not?”
“Because….” I closed my eyes. “Because it makes it hard to talk to you.”
“As incapable as you are of complimenting me, I’m physically incapable of not complimenting you and how amazingly smart you are.”
“Nico.”
“Listen, you are. I remember in high school, we had classes together, in specific; biology, and you ruined the curve.”
“I liked biology. If you’d put me in public speaking, I would have gotten an F.”
“The other thing I can’t help complimenting you about—and that I wish I’d brought up at the reunion when we were dancing—is that you are funny.”
This statement caught me by surprise. I never really thought of myself as funny—sarcastic, yes; funny, no. “I’m funny?”
“Yes. You are very funny.”
I twisted my free fingers in the hem of my scrubs. “…really?”
“Yes. You’re witty. I love how witty you are. I love talking to you because you’re going to say something intelligent and hilarious. I love it.”
Warmth suffused my cheeks at the thought of Nico, The Face, calling me funny. He was, after all, an expert on the matter. In addition to being charismatic, he always seemed to know the right thing to say. It was aggravating and sexy.
“I like talking to you, too.” My voice was small because my words were sincere.
I could feel his exploding charisma through the phone. “Was that a compliment?”
I rolled my eyes but my smile widened. “Yes. Fine. I complimented you. I love talking to Nico Mangenigelino or however the heck you pronounce your last name. Are you happy now?”
Blast of charisma. “I’m getting there.”