Yes, And…

Chapter 1

“MY NEW, PURIFIED SPIRIT”

Improv comedy is supposed to be unplanned, but from what I’ve learned in the last few weeks, there are rules to it, and they include the following:

you are not supposed to start kissing someone during an improvised scene, and

whatever happens between you and your scene partner, you aren’t supposed to take any of it too seriously.

Let me paint a picture first. Imagine a group of grown adults standing around after a few glasses of wine, pretending to be something they’re not.

It’s a typical night out in your thirties, perhaps, complete with white lies about the fun jobs people pretend to have, the trips they didn’t really enjoy, the romances that aren’t quite living up to expectations.

Then imagine that everyone is doing this cheerful prevarication as a planned activity.

They are gathered in a snug living room in a remote city in Canada, willfully lying to each other for their own entertainment.

That will give you a picture of the Newfingers, Newfoundland’s premiere (only?) improv group, getting together for a practice.

Mark, Lisette and I arrived at Paul’s house at 7:30 sharp that evening for improv practice in his living room.

Paul is in his mid-thirties, a couple of years younger than me, and his place is very typical of downtown St. John’s: a wooden clapboard rowhouse from the 1920s, painted a bright yellow outside and small and cozy inside—thoroughly Canadian right down to the antique snowshoes on the wall and the wood stove in the corner.

You could practically be living in a Canadian period TV drama when you’re at Paul’s place, complete with wartime yearning and hand-written love letters, if it weren’t for Paul’s extensive DVD collection of 1990s action-comedies.

The improv exercise we were practicing was simple: Paul and I were supposed to act as two characters with different goals, and we would be given a location and an object by the other members of the group.

“Okay, a location,” Lisette said, pursing her fuchsia-tinted lips. Lisette is tiny and bleached blond, with a narrow face and pointed chin; she looks like a grubby Victorian street orphan who got dressed at a punk rock show. “How about a café?”

Paul nodded, and I smiled at him with the adrenaline rush that you get when you know you’re about to embarrass yourself.

“What’s their object, Mark?” Lisette asked.

Mark, the other member of the group, sat back and considered the question like he was a smug political commentator on a news show, sliding a thick hand across his five-o’clock-shadowed chin. “A cassette tape of Miles Davis.”

“Great,” I replied dryly. It was a very Mark choice: irritatingly specific and calculated to be nearly impossible to include in a café scene. Good luck with that, said his dry little smile.

We had to incorporate both elements into our scene, ideally with humor and surprise.

Humor is one of the big goals of improv, but it’s also the most elusive one, because you can never achieve it if you’re trying to be funny.

You know that feeling when you make a joke and the people around you fall silent, the room sinking into a painful mix of embarrassment and pity?

Doing bad improv feels like that, distilled and bottled into an eau du parfum.

Kissing definitely wasn’t on the list of scene requirements, so what happened next was probably my fault. I decided to pretend to be Paul’s ex-girlfriend, trying to get back together with him. That would be easy enough for creating conflict, right?

That was my first mistake. Paul is handsome in a quirky way, tall and thin with an unruly cap of curly light brown hair.

He has a lopsided smile and boundless energy, and it would have been safer for me to pretend I was his eye doctor, perhaps, or his disgruntled garage mechanic.

I’d only known Paul for a few weeks, but I was pretty clear on who he was: one of those charming guys who totally wants to be friends with you and puts up sturdy fencing around the edge of that friendship.

The polite heartbreaker. Mr. This-Is-Definitely-Not-A-Date.

Paul started the scene neutrally, sitting at his dining table a couple of feet from us, acting like he was silently meditating. I watched him for a moment and then made my approach.

“So you’re back,” I began. Not the strongest opening line, but that can be a good thing. It leaves the scene room to grow.

“From the monastery, yes,” he said.

I was still pretty new to improv, but I knew enough to take whatever Paul said and run with it. ‘Yes, and…’ is the unofficial rule of improv. Don’t argue with someone when they introduce an idea. Don’t say that they weren’t at a monastery. Say yes to the monastery and add more.

“Well, you look good,” I said. “It looks like you lost weight there.”

“We ate eight hundred calories a day. Near-starvation focuses the spirit.”

“Is that why you ordered a hamburger?” That was my attempt to bring in the café location again. Well done, me.

“I’m not going to eat the bun,” he replied defensively, and Lisette laughed.

I sat down across from him. “So have you been dating anyone since we split up?” There was a twinkle in Paul’s eye as he realized which direction I was taking things.

“Did I meet a woman…at the monastery?” He cocked an eyebrow at me—an expression he makes in real life when I say something particularly ‘American,’ or worse yet, particularly ‘New York.’

“Well, if you didn’t,” I went on, “I’m hoping maybe, now that you’re back, we could get back together.”

I waited for Paul to “yes and” back to me. He was supposed to say that we could get back together, but add some ridiculous stipulation, but Paul went the other way.

“I’m afraid I took a vow of chastity. It’s part of purifying my spirit.”

“I can think of other ways to purify your spirit.”

The corners of Paul’s mouth quirked upwards. “Kimberly,” (that’s not my real name), “I am trying to live a spiritual life now. If you want to meditate with me, that’s fine.”

“We can meditate in my bedroom. I have a Miles Davis cassette that’s very spiritual.

” I mimed pulling out a cassette tape, and I could feel Mark nod, conceding my victory.

You can’t bring in the cassette tape right away, because that’s too obvious, and when it shows up, it must feel organic to the scene.

“Seeing you here in a cafe is safer,” he said. “So I won’t be tempted to stray from my path.”

Now I was supposed to commit to my objective. “If you insist,” I said, sitting on his lap. “So how exactly do we start this meditation?”

That was my next big mistake. Don’t escalate a situation physically when you are not supposed to kiss the person.

There are rules for consent in improv, which Paul had outlined for all of us.

Don’t grope, don’t kiss, don’t make unwanted advances.

No problem, I thought as I sat down. Paul would keep us on the straight and narrow.

“Are you going to sit on my lap the whole time?” he asked.

“That won’t hurt your focus, will it?”

“My meditation requires a lack of distraction.”

“Right.” I looked him dead in the eyes, inches from his face. “No distraction.”

“And to completely free my mind from any thoughts,” he added.

“I don’t have a single thought in my head.” I could feel the others watching us, wondering where the scene would go.

“You’re trying to tempt me.”

“Only in a meditative way,” I said.

“It won’t work. I am completely focused on my inner peace.”

“So am I. Completely focused on your inner peace.”

Then we kissed, and my brain was tracking too many things at once: who had started the kiss, how his lips felt, and—very distantly—what I was supposed to be doing in the scene, and that two other people were watching us like we had turned into a bad reality TV show.

Paul pulled away gently and shook his head.

“I felt nothing,” he said. I could tell up close that this wasn’t true. His eyes were wide, and his breathing sounded like he’d lifted something heavy and was refusing to admit that he should probably put it down.

“Well, I’ll leave you with Miles, then,” I said, standing up and patting the imaginary cassette flirtatiously. “When you’re alone in your room, lying in bed, you can play this and call me, the next time you want to feel nothing again.”

And scene. Lisette applauded, and I felt the way I always did after an improv: I wasn’t sure whether it had been good, terrible, or completely silly, which is disorienting for me, since I usually have a pathological fetish about control.

I was feeling something else, too, and I needed to put some distance between Paul and me as quickly as I could. I crossed the room to slide into Paul’s green leather armchair. No big deal, my body language said. Oh, look, a magazine on the table! With trout fishing on the cover!

I caught Mark eyeing the two of us. Mark’s the cynic of the group—smart, dry, a few years older than the rest of us. He raised his eyebrows, and I gave a tight smile.

“Sorry,” I said after a moment.

“Totally your fault,” Paul said. “I blame you entirely.” I realized he was blushing; he has the kind of complexion that makes for a handy barometer of his social angst.

“I could write you a formal letter of apology,” I said.

He nodded, still not quite meeting my eyes.

“I’m going to need an essay about consent in improv.

Five paragraphs on my desk by morning.” He is a middle school history teacher during the school year, so asking for essays is not completely out of character.

He glanced around. “Mark and Lisette, you’re up. ”

“I’m not going to make out with you,” Lisette said as she stood up.

“We’ll just see where the scene goes,” Mark replied.

“No, that is actually a bad idea,” Paul said. “I’m sorry about that, guys. That was setting a bad precedent. I’m sorry, Abby.” That is my real name, though I noticed he still couldn’t quite meet my eyes as he said it.

“I’m sorry, too,” I repeated.