Chapter 10 Where Could We Have Gone Further? #2
“Thanks, babe.” I thought about telling her that I was in the process of getting my heart broken, but what was the point? She would just tell me that I would find someone else. That was what we were always telling each other in New York. Maybe that was part of our problem.
Paul texted me a few hours before we were supposed to meet on Wednesday. Hey, I have an urgent family thing that’s come up and my mother needs to stay at my place for a few days, so I can’t go out tonight. Any chance you’d be willing to host the improv practice tomorrow night at your place?
Sure, I replied. I hope your mother is ok.
I’m so sorry about our date tonight, he wrote back. I will make it up to you.
He was already pulling away, I thought. Maybe that was just as well. Less pain for everyone involved. Less pain for him, anyway.
I sat alone at my window, looking out at the city. It was a beautiful day, breezy and warm, and there were flowers growing on windowsills and people laughing as they passed each other on my street.
And I was leaving.
I decided that I wasn’t going to tell Laura about the Paul situation.
If nothing else happened with Paul, it was too embarrassing.
Not as bad as Colin, but still another humiliation in a long list. She had enough of a romantic saga going on, especially if things didn’t work out with Nick.
How would I compare Paul’s friendship of a few weeks to her years of marriage?
I was probably just taking it all too seriously.
I spent Thursday readying my place to host improv practice, and I decided to use it as an excuse to reach out to Mrs. Mahoney one more time.
I knocked on her door on Thursday afternoon, and she opened it, looking at me cautiously.
“Hi,” I said. “I am having a couple of friends over tonight—”
“Parties aren’t allowed.”
“It’s three people. But I was just wondering if you knew of any good local Newfoundland recipes I could make for them. Cookies, or dessert, anything nice like that? They are locals and I’m trying to show them that I like it here, even though I’m from the States.”
She hesitated, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I don’t think I know any recipes just for Newfoundland.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said. “Well, if you think of anything…”
I waved and turned to go. “No parties,” she repeated again, but she wasn’t entirely frowning when she closed the door. I considered that a parade-worthy victory.
I made chocolate chip cookies from a recipe on the bag, bought some chips and salsa, and provided four bottles of wine, which is as domestic as I get.
I hadn’t really wanted to cook a Newfoundland specialty; I just wanted to try one last time to warm up Mrs. Mahoney before I left the country.
Somebody needed to. She was a version of what I feared I’d become as I grew older: alone, grumpy, resentful of everyone because no one ever seemed excited to see her.
Lisette and Mark arrived on time, chatting and speculating about what was happening with Paul’s mother and then evaluating my cookies with an appraising air.
“Could use a little burning,” Lisette said, “but I guess they’re edible.”
“I’ll make a note on the recipe,” I replied.
“Mark can cook everything,” Lisette said. “But he never brings us any of it. He always talks about how he was trying out some new Thai recipe, or some new hummus recipe, but does he bring us a sample?”
“They never turn out well enough to share,” Mark said.
“I don’t believe it,” Lisette said. “I think you’re running a small restaurant out of your home and refusing to give us a reservation.”
Mark gave her a small frown. “My house is tiny. Not good for entertaining.”
“I live in a dungeon, Mark. You have to have us over sooner or later.”
Half an hour passed, and then an hour, before Paul finally arrived. When he stepped into the room, his eyes were missing the spark that they usually had. He looked at me and forced a smile, which was more painful to watch than if he hadn’t made the effort.
“Hey,” he said, and held up a bottle of wine.
“You made it!” Lisette shouted. “You escaped the house of horrors.”
“Barely,” he said, sounded exhausted.
I walked up to him to take the wine. “You okay?” I asked him quietly.
He nodded slowly. “Wine would be nice.”
I squeezed his hand once before I moved to the table to pour him a glass.
“Really, though, what happened with your mom this time?” Lisette asked.
He shrugged. “She’s fine. She just starts fights with her neighbors over nothing.
This time it was potted plants she put on her front step that she’s convinced they stole, even though I’m sure they didn’t.
It was really windy, and I think her plants blew away.
But then she escalated the situation by trying to get revenge on them.
I’ll let her calm down again and then smooth it out with the neighbors. ”
Now I could feel Mark’s eyes on me. ‘You see?’ he seemed to be saying.
It was Mark who clapped his hands this time, finishing up the discussion of Paul’s mother. “Alright, we have to whip this one into shape,” Mark said with a gesture toward me, “if she’s going to be on stage with us for her last hurrah.”
“Hopefully not a last hurrah,” Lisette said. “Hopefully she finds a Canadian to marry and moves here permanently. So that is one of your jobs,” she added, pointing between Paul and Mark. “Marry Abigail.”
“I’ll bring a justice of the peace to our next improv practice, and we can flip a coin,” I replied lightly.
It was almost as hard for me to force cheer as it seemed to be for Paul.
Kedar hadn’t sent me the update he promised, and I might have to leave within a few days.
I could feel Paul’s warm gaze, like I was his port in the storm.
When I sat next to him on the sofa, our knees brushed against each other and neither of us moved them away.
He took my hand and squeezed it once, out of sight of Mark and Lisette. My heart sped up.
“So let’s jump in,” Lisette cried. “I made a pick-out-of-a-hat warm-up,” and she held up one of her knit caps with papers in it.
“What is this one?” I asked.
“It’s simple. Each of us takes a turn. Act out what you get.”
I glanced at Paul, and his affectionate look seemed to include everything: that we needed to talk, that we couldn’t talk, that we were doing silly games instead, and that it was still better than nothing.
Or maybe that was just what I was thinking.
“Come on, come on,” Lisette said, shaking her cap. “Paul, you first.”
Paul walked forward and reached into the hat. He handed a paper to Lisette, who read aloud to him the words: “A student who desperately has to use the toilet but is too shy to ask.”
“Alright,” Paul said. “Fair enough. I have a lot of material to draw from at work.” He pulled up one of his low armchairs and clutched the sides of the chair. He raised his hand and then shoved it down again, panting, and then raised it again.
He grabbed a book from a shelf and held it in front of his stomach, then twisted himself sideways, and tapped one foot desperately, higher and higher, his legs twisting across each other.
The very picture of desperation to go. It was hilarious but oddly touching, too, his absolute commitment to a ten-year-old child who just couldn’t bring himself to say anything, until suddenly:
“Miss! Oh no,” he cried, “oh no…” And then he slumped down, with a mournful look of pure relief on his face. “Miss,” he said at last, his voice desperate, “can I get a mop?”
Lisette began applauding. Even Mark clapped, slowly, glancing between Paul and me.
All I could think was that this was the real Paul. The one who was silly, the one who could find joy no matter what kind of week he’d had. I wondered what version of Paul his mother saw. No wonder he had wanted to be an actor.
“Mark, you’re next,” Lisette said.
Mark stood up and took a slip of paper.
Lisette read out, “A person who has never eaten yogurt before and falls completely in love with it.”
Mark stepped up and pretended to open a refrigerator, poking around. He was also very funny, but in a darker way. His relationship with the yogurt container took on a sexual component.
“I said love,” Lisette cried. “You fall in love with yogurt! Love isn’t lust!”
“They are one and the same to me,” Mark replied, his tongue licking at an imaginary container.
“Alright, I’m calling time on Mark’s porno,” Lisette said. “Abby, you’re up!”
I stood up, fizzing with nerves that came from nowhere, and pulled a slip of paper from Lisette’s cap.
Her handknit hat was warm and fuzzy inside, and I felt a strong pull of affection for her.
I handed a paper to her, and she read aloud.
“A social media influencer doing a paid post for the world’s worst hotel. ”
I nodded, grabbed my cell phone, and pointed it at myself.
“Hey guys,” I said, “so this week I got a complimentary stay at the hashtag paid post—Puffin Hut Hotel, right inside what used to be the bathroom stalls of this adorable club in downtown St. John’s, and it is so incredibly original here, like instead of beds, they have this glamping situation with mattresses on the floor, and porcelain flowerpots that used to be toilets.
I’m seriously doing that at my wedding, I’m telling you. ”
The weirdest part of my whole little speech was that I didn’t plan any of it. I was just picking something I knew would make Paul laugh, and when I caught his eye as I finished, he was giving me a look of adoration.
How was I supposed to live without him?
Lisette was up next, and she took a sheet of paper out for herself. “A cow that has found its way among a herd of deer.” She immediately got on all fours.
After we had run through all of Lisette’s hat ideas, Mark, Paul, Lisette and I wrote a few ideas and put them all into separate piles on the table. We were now going to practice the “storytelling improv” that I had seen them do at their first show.