Chapter 7
One day I’ll get you to admit defeat on extra hyphens in so many of your words. I’m trying to not be too amused by the fact that your error this week was thinking “overdoing” was “over-doing,” since adding in that hyphen was really overdoing it.
Too cheesy? Sorry, can’t help it. Grammar nerd. And I definitely can’t relate to this week’s column because I don’t think I could ever get a tattoo. Not that I wouldn’t want something permanent for someone I loved. But I’m fairly certain I absolutely could not pull it off. Someone who recently referred to themselves as a grammar nerd probably isn’t going to look cool with whatever word-related tattoo they choose (see now that, by the way, is a great use of a hyphen). But now, thanks to your column, I have another reason to feel happy I never got a tattoo, because I wouldn’t want to make a new partner uncomfortable. I think your advice was solid—after all, we don’t burn every photo of an ex once we break up, but we would respectfully take the photo off our bedside table. Permanence is a choice every single day. Just because stasis is the path of least resistance doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.
Anyway, well done on this one. (By the way, word-nerd alert that I just can’t resist: “Well-done” actually does get hyphenated if it’s a compound adjective, like describing a well-done steak, but otherwise it stays as two separate words. You’re welcome).
Well, if I’d wanted a kick in the pants, he couldn’t have said anything more obvious. Reminding me that stasis isn’t the right choice just because it’s easy is probably the clearest blinking light of a sign anyone could write.
I usually look forward to Tuesday mornings, but because of my chat with Ari a few days ago, I woke up with an uncharacteristic trepidation, knowing the time had run out on my promise to her about telling J about London. While it’s easy enough to say something while sitting in a room with your therapist, it’s quite another to take action when you know that action is waiting for you on your laptop.
I’d buried my head under the pillow for a full five minutes when my alarm went off. But ever the dutiful Nora, I pulled myself up, dragged my laptop over, and was once again instantly floored by the prescience of what J had taken the time to write me.
And I know it’s time to take a leap for myself.
I take a deep breath, and write a response.
I think if you got a tattoo it would have to be the words “Grammar Nerd” in some very simple sans serif font. You heard it here first.
On another note, I’m coming to London in August when they’re having that reception for the new boss. I don’t know if this is weird but ... do you want to grab coffee or something? If you’re too busy I totally get it.
I close out the document and stand up from my bed. That document, that note , feels like a ticking time bomb. I could erase my response now, quickly, if I really wanted to. But once he looks at it, it’s over. I can’t unsay it.
But I need to say it. I have to keep reminding myself to take action over this one piece of my life, even if it’s scary.
I quickly shut my laptop and make myself step away from it, knowing that if I’m close enough to erase my response, I probably will. I practically haul myself into the shower so I don’t change my mind. I take my time, as though if I stay away, then maybe it’s not real. I finish my morning routine without looking at my laptop—clothes on (a secondhand marigold shirt with shoulder pads that I think I can pull off), toast eaten, hair brushed, my minimal daily makeup on.
It’s only when I’m ready to go that I stare at it. I do usually take a look before I leave, since often J will have responded to me as quickly as he gets the notice that there’s been a change to the document.
I open the laptop again, gingerly, as though it might explode. And there, staring back at me, is a phone number. And another note:
I’d really like that actually. This is my number—shoot me a text on WhatsApp, and then we can coordinate without having to use a technology that feels like waiting for a carrier pigeon.
I’m a little shocked it was that easy. I save his number on autopilot, only getting briefly stuck at trying to remember how to type the plus sign for the +44 to indicate his British number. After, I stand there for a moment, waiting for something to change or perhaps for a monster to jump out of the closet and say Just kidding! But I shove that notion aside and go to work.
My phone is burning a hole in my pocket the entire day. I’m listening to my patients, but I’m also wondering what on earth to say to J. Can I simply text him now? Say hello and talk about a trip to London that’s almost two months away? Will we run out of things to say? Was he just being polite?
At around three, I decide that this obsession is insane, and I need to stop letting myself spiral. I convince myself to dive in before I can change my mind, so I type something out quickly and hit Send.
Hey, it’s Eleonora. Now you have my number too.
I look at the green bubble, with its unread check mark. I read and reread it and immediately regret it. First of all, ugh, Eleonora . I couldn’t just have said, Hey, it’s Nora from the column ? Second ... my first text was Now you have my number too ? As though he needs it? And when he said to shoot him a text to coordinate, did he actually mean, like, months from now, when I’m actually in London? And not expecting a random text from a person who he has a professional relationship with and isn’t even potentially seeing for quite some time? Why did I send that? If I unsent it, would he see it?
My next client walks in, and in a fit of panic, I just ... turn off my phone. Almost like if I can’t see it, then it isn’t there.
I’m reminded of the first time I ever told a boy I liked him. I can still picture it with crystal clear mortification to this day. I was walking out of the library with my friend Ian, and out of the blue I said, “I think I sort of like you.” He stood there for all of one second, obviously taking that minuscule time to consider what I’d said. But before he could react, I bolted. I fully bolted from the entire situation and then basically avoided him for months. It was the most fourteen-year-old-with-a-crush move I could’ve possibly made. But in the moment, I just had to get out of there.
I hate that I have the same feeling today. I said the words out loud, and now I have to run away from them.
I’d tell a patient that it’s okay, understandable even, to feel nervous around emotions so delicate. Romantic interest isn’t always reciprocated, and it would be foolish not to worry on some level that by starting a conversation, you might eventually be rejected in the future. Especially in a situation as unusual as this one, where I’ve never even laid eyes on him.
But I’m harsher on myself than I am on any patient. I should know better. I should be able to handle myself better.
But I’m only human. So my phone stays off all day.
“You just texted him and then turned your phone off ?” Dane shakes her head at me and leans over the pool table to shoot her shot. She sinks the first ball into the pocket without even looking away from me. Show-off. “That’s the wimpiest thing I’ve ever heard and not a good reason at all for you not responding to my texts all day,” she says. “Give me your phone.”
“What? No?”
“It’s late anyway in London. You can write him back, and he won’t even see it until the morning,” she suggests.
But I smugly take the out. “Yeah, but that means it’s too late over there. It would be rude at this point to text and potentially wake him up.”
Dane gives me a look that only a best friend could get away with. Disbelief mixed with pity.
“What?” I say, hand on my hip, like that’ll give me more stature.
“I’ve spent years hearing you wax on about the interesting perspectives of your copyeditor. Your therapist finally gets you to admit you’ve got a raging hard-on for an invisible man, but now you’re spooked?”
“I’m not ‘spooked,’” I counter.
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” she flicks back. “I said ‘invisible man,’ not ‘a ghost.’” She ignores my groan and takes another shot. “Actually, scratch that, because you’re the ghost. You basically made the man give you his number, you texted, and now you’re ghosting him !”
She laughs and goes back to focusing on pool. I don’t have any quick retort, so I stay silent; I just sit back and drink my beer while I watch her practice.
Even when she’s lightly teasing me, I’m at ease in her presence. Dane makes me feel comfortable because she never requires anything of me. Like tonight, while she’s practicing at Amsterdam Billiards before her rec league starts for the evening, I can simply hang out, say nothing if I want, and we can both be exactly who we are, but together. I’m always the quiet, even-keeled sidekick with everyone in my life, but with Dane that role feels like a privilege.
She lives, inexplicably, in black combat boots and cardigans, and she’s always topped with an Indiana Pacers baseball cap. She’s from New York but started wearing the hat when she was a kid, because her dad was a huge Knicks fan and she loved trolling him with their most bitter rival at the time. The rivalry is functionally irrelevant now, but it’s become so much of a staple for her that I can barely remember a moment when she wasn’t wearing it.
I think she wears all the exterior armor so she can claim to be antisocial. But then again, maybe it’s actually less that and more just decisiveness—after all, she sure wormed her way into my life and stayed put. Even though from the outside we seem different, our personalities were instantly simpatico. I take my reserve and use it to listen, keep out of the fray. Dane’s version of being reserved is not giving a shit what anyone thinks and just living her life without talking to too many people (she prefers plants, anyway, which is why she chose to channel her talents into urban gardening as a profession).
Neither of us are the life of any party, but we’d always choose being alone together anyway. We both have steel spines, but I use mine to keep order and she uses hers as a warning. She wears her combat boots, and I wear my obsessive retro finds—like tonight’s white tank top with a billowing seventies bowling shirt that I changed into post-work that I keep waiting for Dane to notice.
“I’ll never understand how you can come here and not play,” Dane finally says, after she’s easily sunk every ball and decides to rerack and start again.
“I don’t have the coordination to hit a ball with another ball and make it go where I want it to.”
“Dude, it’s just practice. It’s muscle memory, not rocket science,” she points out.
“Says the woman so obsessed she carries around her own pool cues,” I laugh.
“Well, that’s just common sense,” she mutters seriously, leaning back over the table to break the rack and play against herself once again. After a few minutes of practice, she looks back at me. “You need a hobby.”
“I have hobbies,” I whine, not wanting her to go all best-friend-protective on me like she always seems to do.
“You have so few hobbies you’re hanging out with me at my hobby before the actual fun part of the hobby even starts.”
I take a large swig of my beer, as though it’s an act of defiance. “Oh please, once the league people show up, you’re so in the zone you don’t talk to anyone. That’s fun for you, but not exactly when I want to come hang out with you.”
“Right, and when they show up, you inevitably leave to go home,” she points out.
“You know with small talk I always just end up sharing random facts and embarrassing you,” I say. I want to add that she knows I’m awkward around random people. When I’m at work, I have a task; that social anxiety around new people doesn’t come out when there’s a purpose to the interaction. Without a direction I have a hard time. But I don’t want to get into all of that tonight.
“I’m not saying you can’t leave. You do you.” She shoots me a look, and I know she means it. Dane never judges me even while she’s razzing me. She grabs her own neglected beer and takes a sip. “But I’m just saying that when you do leave, that’s when a hobby would be nice.”
“I shop.”
“Browsing vintage stores isn’t an actual hobby. It’s just an expensive distraction.”
“All hobbies are expensive distractions. Mine just clothes me and is good for the environment,” I retort.
“Yeah, you’re a real Captain Planet,” she scoffs.
“I read,” I continue, ignoring her. “Reading is a hobby.”
“Reading is not a hobby.”
I scoff back, mortally offended by this comment. I know she’s riling me up for her own amusement, but I’m honor-bound to take the bait. “Reading is the ultimate hobby! I’m Captain Planet and Reading Rainbow ! Reading makes you empathetic to other human experience. It takes you to other worlds! It teaches you about other places, careers, people, regions, cultures. Your hobby takes you to the same place every single time. My hobby changes every single night.”
“So you admit, Captain Rainbow, you’re at home reading in bed every single night.” She smirks, knowing she got me game, set, match.
I can’t help but laugh and playfully shove her as the smirk grows wider.
“I’m also baking,” I point out, handing her the neatly wrapped strawberry-rhubarb cornbread I made with all my wares from the market. The smirk turns into a goofy grin, and I know I’m getting out of this conversation.
She particularly loves this tart-sweet combo, and every year she starts texting me about it the minute the strawberries begin popping up at the market. There’s nothing like making something seasonal that seems like a hard-won prize every single year, when warm weather finally takes root. They live in the moment, unable to respond to our spoiled anything-at-anytime lifestyle. And the fluffy nuttiness of the bread combined with the zing of two flavors that meld seamlessly is something I’ve perfected over the years.
She rips open my aluminum foil–and–plastic wrap container swiftly, shoving a crumbly piece of bread into her mouth. The sigh that emanates from her whole body fills me with a deep satisfaction. Dane gives me so much that being able to wordlessly give her something back is one of the reasons I love baking so much.
The fact that I only have one person who I’d actually consider a close friend isn’t really a result of being shy, the way some people assume I am, since I come across quite obviously as reserved. I think it’s more an introversion that would rather go deep. I’d rather have one person who really knows me and understands me than try to spread that out across people. I like my job, and I enjoy untangling other people’s problems in a rational and focused way, but I don’t necessarily want to do that with multiple people whose personal lives I’m more invested in. Being with Dane always feels easy, and that’s a powerful thing.
But of course, it also means that she never forgets anything, since we’re both kind of only invested in each other’s lives.
“What’s happening with grandma-privilege boy?” she asks suddenly. Her mouth is still full of cornbread, but she’s clearly unable to stop the thought once she’s had it. I snort at her description of Eli.
“Weirdly nothing, actually.” I frown. “If I haven’t heard anything about it for two weeks, I should assume maybe he decided to not go after me, right?”
That same disbelief-pity look beams back at me. “You’re joking, right?” It’s hard to take her seriously when she’s stuffed her mouth so full.
“No?”
“Men like that don’t just slink off when they’re challenged. I’d be more scared that he’s gone silent.”
“‘More scared’?” I whisper, trying to ignore the dread pooling across my insides at the thought. I break off a corner of Dane’s cornbread to try and wash the fear down with carbs.
“ Hey ,” she says, pulling the cornbread back toward her. She’s the most generous person I know, except when it comes to sharing my baked goods. But then she turns back to the conversation at hand. “Yeah. The kind of man who can be pissed at his therapist instead of himself when his girlfriend leaves him is not having some kind of self-reflection about whether he should pick a fight with a neighbor, you know what I mean?”
I sneer a little bit at the thought. “Yeah, probably,” I admit.
“And, as I’ve said to you before, he has all the actual legal rights to the space. So even if he’s going about it kind of in a dickish way, you don’t actually have any leg to stand on.”
“Thanks, Dane,” I reply sarcastically. “Super helpful.”
“Honesty is helpful,” she says while I try not to be too obvious about my desire to sulk. “You should definitely still try to stop it since, yeah, having people come in and out of your hallway at all hours of the night is annoying. I don’t blame you for trying. But I’m just saying, he absolutely has not given up. He’s clearly got something up his sleeve if he went silent. Don’t pretend like this is all going away simply because you want it to.”
“A girl can dream,” I grumble.
“A girl can dream, but a girl should also be prepared. When he makes his plans known, send them to me. I can flag anything that doesn’t look kosher, from the soundproofing of his flooring materials to the drainage for his plants. And if he doesn’t have that level of detail, you can call him out on that too.”
“I thought you said I have no leg to stand on?” I remind her with a small grin, touched by her commitment to my lost cause.
“Oh you don’t, but let’s still make it as onerous and lengthy for him as possible. He doesn’t get to be mad at you for literally doing your job! Men with egos like that need to dance a little bit before they can get exactly what they want.”
She winks at me and takes a last bite of cornbread. Then she’s up and reracking, and I’m perfectly content for my hobby tonight to be watching my favorite friend prepare herself for her own battle of her weekly pool rec league. We both have to have hobbies, after all.