Chapter 7 Wild Enthusiasm
“WILD ENTHUSIASM”
A couple of days after that, at the next improv practice, I learned that I clicked surprisingly with Mark when we did improv together.
Paul had set up a simple game based on one of his improv books.
The goal was for us to do a scene in which one of us acted high status (and belittled the other person) and the other acted low status (and belittled themselves)…
and then over the course of the scene, things slowly switched, so that both people were acting high status, and then eventually the person who started out ‘high status’ turned into the ‘low status’ person.
Paul pointed to Mark and me and said, with his schoolteacher’s authority: “Are you two ready to give it a go?”
Mark began the scene in full high-status mode. “So,” he said, “you’re back again. I’m impressed you had the courage to show your face.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, in low-status mode. “I probably shouldn’t be here. Everyone is much more talented than I am. I can’t believe I even got into college.”
“I could help you to study,” Mark said, “but I’m not sure you’d be able to follow what I’m saying.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “My mother used to say I was the stupidest of all her children.”
“Well, I’m sure she was just being honest.”
Then our status was supposed to start to shift. “I imagine your mother must have said something similar to you,” I said.
“Not really,” he replied. “She was too busy driving me to all the schools that were begging me to attend.”
“That’s nice of them,” I said, “given that you weren’t taking the most difficult classes.”
“Nothing is really difficult for me,” he replied.
“I imagine it feels like that to everyone sometimes, when they are new to a subject.” Being passive-aggressive was surprisingly cathartic.
We went on like that for a while, cutting each other down until finally Mark switched to treating himself as low status. When we were done, Mark leaned back, looking amused as Paul and Lisette applauded.
“She’s brutal,” he said. “That was fun.”
“I think we were both a little too good at that one,” I said. “I don’t know what that says about us.”
“It says that I am witty and sophisticated,” Mark replied. “And you are from New York.”
“I’m terrified of both of you now,” Paul said.
“My mother was the queen of passive-aggressiveness growing up,” I said. “I learned from the best.”
“My mother was just aggressive,” Paul replied.
At the end of the practice, Lisette waved everyone to silence. “I have a suggestion. Abigail here doesn’t know if she’s staying here past the summer, but we have that show on August 17th. What do you say we let her join in until then?”
“And be in a show?” Paul asked, considering.
I was already frantically waving away the idea. “I’m definitely not ready.”
“No one,” Lisette said, “is ever ready. Mark, Paul, what do you say? It’ll either be her going away gift, or the way we convince her to stay in the country.”
“Sure,” Paul said, giving me a little smile.
“Why not,” Mark said with a shrug.
I glanced between them.
“Don’t worry,” Lisette said. “That’s Mark’s version of wild enthusiasm.”
Buoyed by the elation of being invited into the Newfingers on a temporary basis, I found myself setting up a meeting with an immigration lawyer the next day.
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to do improv; it was that Lisette had signaled that I actually belonged in their strange little group. I had people here, now.
The immigration attorney, Dave Bui, had a shabby little office in a converted storage building near the main port, but he was friendly and efficient when he waved me inside.
He was in his fifties and wore a dark, tweedy suit, and he offered me a lollypop like I was a kid at the bank before sitting me down to give me a frank take on my situation.
Unsurprisingly, he informed me that there was a lot to arrange if I actually wanted to move to Canada and work from home, even if I was still working for an American company.
I might have to set up my U.S. address with my sister, for example, assuming she didn’t hate me.
Or I might have to find a job with a company here.
I asked him whether I had any chance of moving here permanently, getting a job, and becoming a permanent resident.
Dave considered this as he leaned back in his squeaky office degree.
“You have a degree and some useful skills, but they’re not in high demand.
So you would need to apply for a work visa,” he said.
“And if they decide you have skills they need, you may be able to stay up here. But in the meantime, if I can put this as bluntly as possible, don’t quit your day job in the U.S. , know what I mean?”
This made sense, of course. A final answer from the Canadian government could take months. It also meant that I had absolutely no way of planning my future. I was going to have to wing it.
“So how can I start the application?”
When I walked out of the building, I felt brave.
Free. Excited. What if I was the kind of person who moved to another country?
What if I was the kind of person who followed their dreams, skipping with joy through the endless bureaucracy of a visa process, to end up a sexy ex-patriate in another country, offering respite to my friends and family when they needed a place to escape?
It seemed pretty unlikely, but then again, being in this entire city seemed pretty unlikely. That’s what I loved about it.
I texted Lucas and Jasmine and told them that my negativity cleanse might be extended indefinitely. Lucas replied that if I had decided to become an organic farmer, there were certain crops that were in high demand in his social circle.
Lisette insisted that I hang out again the next Sunday, when she had the day off from the café.
I was happy to do it, since I had started feeling pretty lonely.
Laura and I weren’t ready to stop fighting yet.
It felt strange not to have seen my sister in person in a month, and to know that things weren’t settled between us.
At the last minute, Paul announced that he could join us, this time for a hike into the woods.
It was a sticky day, away from the breezy coastline, and the air felt thick and unusually still.
We were soon batting away tiny flies and peeling off sweatshirts.
It was during this hike that Lisette filled me in about Charlotte and her fisherman boyfriend, and the whole story of my rental apartment.
“If it all works out for Charlie,” Lisette said, “maybe you can move into her place permanently, I mean if you want to stay here. But I don’t know if they’re headed for a big church wedding. Brett, the boyfriend, is one of those guys who talks in grunts. You say, ‘Hello,’ and he says, ‘Mmph. Hmm.’”
“Hey, can I ask a question?” I asked Lisette. “Is her boyfriend dark-haired, kind of scruffy?”
“Yeah, why?”
I did a happy little dance in the middle of the trail, while Paul watched with raised eyebrows. “No, no, no, I’m proud of myself! I’m a great detective!” I cried. I explained how I’d worked that out from the Ben Affleck DVDs. “She definitely has a type.”
“Ooo,” Lisette considered. “I think my type is those nature documentary fellows who are always trying to get you to warm up to deadly snakes.” Lisette adopted a Steve-Irwin-style Australian accent.
“And this little fella has a lot of teeth but ’e’s actually ’armless.
See how ’e’s giving my arm a little cuddle.
” Lisette spun toward Paul. “Do you have a celebrity crush, Paul?”
“Me? Geena Davis. One hundred percent. Cutthroat Island. I always wanted to date a pirate.”
Lisette snorted a little laugh. “Trish looked literally nothing like Geena Davis.”
“That must be why it didn’t work out.” He glanced at me and smiled. “And you, Abby?”
“I had a horrible crush on Mike Myers in Austin Powers. I always liked the witty, clever ones. Then I realized in college that guys who were sarcastic and funny and into comedy did not like girls who were sarcastic and funny and into comedy.”
“That is absolutely not true,” said Paul. “As someone who was into all those things.”
“Trish wasn’t funny, either,” Lisette said.
“Oh,” Paul replied, “she managed some dark humor right at the end.”
“I honestly think you were only with her because she—” Lisette’s eyes widened, and she staggered backwards and screamed. Paul and I glanced at each other for a second before he rushed forward to help her.
“What is it?”
“A porcupine. In a tree.”
Paul glanced up. “Didn’t you grow up in Quebec? They can climb trees.”
“That’s how I know it’s after us!” Lisette hissed, half-joking, half-gripped with a sincere terror.
Paul grinned. “Come on, let’s give it some space.”
We moved a few feet off the trail to make a wide circumference around the porcupine, which was watching us with a blank look.
“It looks angry,” Lisette whispered. “This is the moment in the horror film where it all seems quiet before it leaps into action.”
Paul glanced between us. “I can’t believe the girl from Brooklyn is less scared right now than you are.”
“Technically I’m from Troy, New York,” I offered. “It’s about half the size of St. John’s.”
Lisette glared at me. “You’ve been lying to us this whole time? I thought you were cool.”
“Will it ruin your opinion of me if I tell you that as a girl, I had to chase off feral raccoons in my backyard with my sister’s hairspray bottle?”
“We can never be friends again,” Lisette replied.
There was a noise in the branches. “Paul! It’s moving!” Lisette ducked behind him, leaving Paul as a buffer against the dreaded assassin who was gently chewing on a branch fifteen feet up a conifer tree.
“Pathetic,” Paul said. “That was pathetic of both of you.”
I laughed and ran ahead with Lisette. “We don’t have to outrun the porcupine!” I called. “We just have to outrun you!” Lisette and I began to dash down the trail.