Chapter 4
“IT’S A TRICK WE PLAY ON TOURISTS”
After Lisette left to go stay with her handsome friend Paul, I spent the next couple of days entertaining myself by trying to figure things out about Charlotte, the woman I was subletting from, based strictly on her apartment.
Number one: she had a series of artsy photos of boats from somewhere called Makkovik, which I looked up.
It’s an Inuit town, so I’m guessing that’s where she’s from.
Makkovik is on the coast of Labrador, which is a spectacularly beautiful part of the Canadian mainland that is part of the same governmental province as Newfoundland.
My guess is that she came to St. John’s for work or college or a crush on a fisherman and decided to stay.
Number three: she kills houseplants. She has a small collection of succulents that are barely hanging onto life, and a big pile of empty flowerpots under the kitchen sink that hint at previous losses, like she’s some kind of horticultural Bluebeard.
I don’t think all that carnage could have happened under Lisette’s watch, either.
My guess is that Charlotte wants to be the kind of person who keeps plants healthy, but can’t quite manage it, which I definitely relate to; I went through a decade trying to keep various plants alive through the dry, overheated winter in my New York apartments before I discovered the power of humidifiers.
So I felt a wave of fellow feeling for Charlotte when I discovered her hidden graveyard.
Number four: she has a disproportionate amount of obscene, punny mugs.
A ‘Tits and Boobies’ mug with various birds on it.
(Get it, a tufted titmouse?) An ‘I Spread for Nutella’ mug with a drawing of Nutella on toast that manages to feel lascivious.
A soap dispenser that says, ‘Clean Hands, Dirty Mind.’ I wonder how many of them are gifts.
My bet is all of them, recalling my own birthdays in my twenties.
Number five: she is not a book reader, except for a couple of thriller novels in her bedroom: The Pelican Brief, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Gone Girl. Wait a minute, didn’t the Gone Girl movie have Ben Affleck?
I guess none of that really mattered, but it made me feel less lonely while I passed the time waiting for an improv show and an actual face-to-face conversation with other human beings.
I was so lonely that I even thought about texting Lisette so I could stop by the coffee shop where she worked, but that seemed a little needy.
This trip was supposed to be about figuring out who I was without my sister Laura, not seizing the first Laura-replacement that I found and hanging on for dear life.
I also did my second load of laundry and finally encountered Mrs. Mahoney in the flesh.
A few moments after I started the washer and was on my way upstairs, a wiry woman with short iron-grey hair opened her door on the first floor and said, without introduction, “You know that’s very loud.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I gave my best good-neighbor smile. “If you let me know a convenient time for you when it won’t be disturbing, I’ll do it then.”
“It’s always too loud.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that. Hey, do you know of any nice restaurants near here? I’m looking for a good place to order dinner.”
“You’re allowed to do laundry once a week, that’s it.”
“That’s probably how often I’ll do it.”
“That’s how often you’re allowed to do it.”
“Okay. Thanks for the help.”
Mrs. Mahoney gave me a look. She hadn’t offered me any help, so she wasn’t sure how to respond.
I smiled and headed upstairs. Take that, Mrs. Mahoney.
I have dealt with too many New York neighbors with social anxiety or rage issues to be intimidated by one grumpy Canadian.
I would woo and win her affection eventually; it was just a matter of time.
By the time Thursday rolled around, I was more excited than I should have been to be going to an improv show.
The show was being held in a small music venue called the Puffin Hut down by the waterfront.
I recognized the kind of place immediately when I walked in the door: the walls painted black, the small rack of ceiling pipes holding scant theatrical lighting pointed at a stage just large enough for a five-person garage band, the cafe tables with wobbly legs, easy enough to move aside for dance space, easy to slide back for a poetry reading.
There were about thirty people in the crowd—not enough to fill the room, but not empty, either.
I saw on the small hand-written poster for the evening that the Newfingers were wedged between a few other acts: someone named Lachlan Allen, someone named Raahid, and then someone I guessed was a singer named Amber Sorelli.
I was about to take my seat at one of the precarious little tables about ten feet from the stage, when Lisette spied me from where she’d been sitting in the corner and bounced over.
“You’re here!” She made it sound like she’d spotted a celebrity.
“Yes, I made it!”
“Come sit with us!”
“Don’t you have to get ready?”
“No. There’s a folk musician up first. And anyway, the whole idea with improv is that you don’t get ready. If you’re thinking ahead, you’re terrible.”
A folk musician? Of course. Suffering through improv would not be enough to fill an evening; I was getting a full, multi-course meal of cringing in my chair.
Lisette dragged me over to where she was sitting with Paul and introduced me to Mark, who was wearing an oversized checked shirt and holding a pint of beer.
Mark looked me up and down once and raised his eyebrows.
“Where are you from?” he asked brusquely.
“Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn!” he replied. “What the hell are you doing all the way up here?”
“Plotting against the locals,” I replied. Mark gave me a half-smile, but I got the sense that it slipped out of him unwillingly.
“Of course,” he muttered.
Paul’s eyes were on me when I sat down. “The plan is to be our nemesis, then?” he asked. I had that same odd feeling, like I could read him perfectly, like he was an old friend.
“You’ll never be sure. That’s half the fun.”
“It’s all fun and games until we’re going over Reichenbach Falls together,” he replied.
“Whichever one of us crawls back from certain death is the winner.”
“Sounds like your marriage, Paul,” Mark drawled.
Just then, a young man tapped the mic from the stage. He strummed his acoustic guitar and then adjusted the microphone height.
“Here we go,” Paul said drily. “Good old Lachlan.”
I turned to Paul. “You own all his albums, then?”
Paul chuckled. “Just my workout playlist.”
The handsome young singer began speaking. “This is a story about a massacre of miners in 1931 by the Canadian government.”
I met Paul’s eyes, and he grinned again as the earnest young man began to sing about the union-busting Canadian Mounties.
“Bodies falling one by one, Tumbling with the setting sun,” the young man sang, emphasizing the tragedy with each chord.
Poor Newfingers, having to leap to the stage after the world’s most mournful history lesson.
“So that’s a metaphor for getting laid, right?” I whispered.
Mark leaned over. “You think you’re kidding, but he brings down the room and then manages to take home the hottest woman in the room, every time.”
“I’ll get my coat,” I joked.
“Good God,” Mark said to Paul. “Abigail here has a sense of humor. We usually don’t get that in our audience members.”
“It’s a poor performer who blames their audience,” Lisette chided.
“That applies in the bedroom, too, Mark,” Paul added.
“Alright, alright.” Mark waved his hand wearily.
“Excuse me, I’m a tough New York critic,” I replied. “You guys better be good because my standards are extremely high.”
“We’re not afraid,” Paul replied. “Bring on your judgment, Moriarity.” He grinned again as the next song began, and I felt my stomach drop.
Oh, no, I thought to myself. I like him, and I’m about to watch him do improv. At least my crush will die a quick death.
I was probably more nervous than anyone else in the room as Lachlan ended his set.
Paul got up, hopped on stage, clapped his hands together, and thanked Lachlan for making everyone cry, which got a few chuckles from the room.
He quickly introduced their group of three as Lisette bounded onstage and Mark stomped after her.
Then Paul asked for stories from the audience.
“Can someone tell us how you met your best friend?” Paul began.
“Middle school,” someone shouted.
“We were in jail together,” somebody else said.
Paul paused. “What was your crime?”
“Drunk driving.”
“Hmm, what else?”
“We worked together,” someone cried.
“Where’d you work?” Paul asked the last person.
“Tim Horton’s.”
“Tim Horton’s,” Paul said. He glanced at the group. “We’re doing it. Okay, and now we need a movie genre.”
“Action!”
“Romantic comedy.”
“Science fiction.”
“Heist,” I called out.
Paul smiled at me. “Heist movie. I met my best friend at Tim Hortons, the heist movie.”
Lisette jumped onto stage and began to act out that she was making fries.
“We need more fries,” she began, calling out behind her. “We’re running low, and the lunch rush is coming.”
Mark walked onto stage. “There are no fries,” he said. “We’re out.”
It would be impossible to sum up the freeform ridiculousness of the next few minutes: how Lisette and Mark planned a heist together to steal potatoes from the local supermarket, how Paul stepped in as the detective on their trail, complete with some 1940s-style film noir narration, how Lisette imitated a scene from Mission Impossible in her theft, arms swinging out wildly as she leaned her whole body over a stool, how at the end, in jail, Mark and Lisette agreed that they were now best friends.
They might be in prison forever, but the important thing was the journey.
Even the audience member who had met their best friend in jail got a little callback.