Chapter 10 Where Could We Have Gone Further? #3
The story we picked: “Someone tells their family they are leaving to go to acting school.” The genre: “Science fiction.” And off we went.
I ended up playing an overly encouraging acting teacher, Lisette was the kid announcing her plans, Paul the spaceship captain, and Mark the disappointed father who wanted her to go to Space Academy.
When we were done, Paul stood up.
“Let’s have some wine and dissect that a bit,” he suggested, and then we did, talking about what worked and what didn’t.
It was interesting to hear his analysis of something that seemed so silly on the surface: how we could have committed more, where we could have picked up the pace.
I saw now why they were such a good improv group: it wasn’t just Lisette’s talent or Mark’s dry wit.
It was Paul, pushing them to be just better, sharper, riskier.
“Where could we have gone further?” he asked, looking between us. We all offered ideas, and I enjoyed even that. I was going to miss this. I was going to miss Paul and Lisette and grumpy Mark. I might even miss improv.
At the end of the night, as everyone was getting ready to go, I quietly approached Paul. “Hey, can you stay a minute after this? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Of course,” he said. Mark and Lisette both gave us knowing looks as they headed out, but once they were gone, Paul immediately looked ashamed.
“Abby,” he said, “I’m so sorry about this week.” He leaned against the wall by the door.
“You don’t owe me an apology,” I began, trying to cut him off. I took one of his hands.
“I do, though. This has been such a rough few days. I really wanted to spend time with you, but first there was Trish, and my mother just…She’s awful, honestly. But she needs help.”
“And how are you?” I asked gently. I knew I had to tell him that I might be leaving, but it could wait. He so clearly needed someone to listen to him.
He put one hand over his eyes. “I’m furious, honestly. But I have no right to be.”
“Of course you have a right to be.”
I led us back to the sofa and sat down next to him.
“She really can’t help herself.” He sighed, struggling for words. “But half the time I want to tell her to get out of my life. That it’s not my problem.”
I nodded, and he took my hand and squeezed it, searching for words.
I said quietly, “I told you my mother was an alcoholic, but what I didn’t tell you was that—in the time before she died—she was always calling up Laura and I for a few hundred dollars to get through the month, and the first time she asked us, she felt guilty.
But by the third, fourth, fifth time, she started to insult us if we didn’t help her.
We felt like we were her enablers, and we hated it, but we didn’t know what else to do because she couldn’t hold down a job.
So if you want to talk about how angry you are, it’s okay. You have the right.”
Paul nodded. “My mother is a difficult person. And I’ve thought about cutting her off, or drawing the line, but there’s no one else she has to turn to.
It used to drive Trish crazy. She said my mother was manipulating me, and she absolutely was, I knew that, but if I didn’t step in, my mother would have been homeless.
She burns every single bridge she has. My father used to keep her in check, smooth things over when she got into it with people, but now she has a massive victim complex and no one to stop her.
And she can never see that it’s her own fault. ”
I could see the words hurt him as he said them.
“I understand. Honestly,” I said.
He looked even angrier. “I don’t want you to understand. I want to take you on a date. I haven’t taken anyone on a date in…” He cut himself off. “I still want to take you out, it’s just that my mother is at my house this week and she makes things harder.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“You’re such a saint.”
“Don’t say that. Please. That’s so not sexy.”
He smiled. “Someone told me nice is sexy.” He smiled.
“But this isn’t your job. I’ll sort this out.
It’s like you said. She expects this. She pushes people away, and then she expects to come stay with me.
I think she wants to move in with me, but that’s where I draw the line.
She’s not…I don’t like saying this, but she’s not a very nice person. She doesn’t know how to be.”
“You may need to set more rules if it gets worse. I mean, I know how hard that is.”
“You know when I said I dreamed of moving to the American Southwest? It’s because I knew she couldn’t get herself organized to follow me. That makes me a horrible son, doesn’t it?”
“You’re an amazing son in a horrible position.”
He covered his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not an amazing partner, though. I haven’t been an amazing husband, or—or boyfriend to you.”
I leaned my head against him, and he rubbed my hand, then took it between both of his hands and examined my fingers gently, separating out each one like they all mattered to him.
“Your ex came back.”
He shook his head. “That’s not the point.”
I smiled, and then he turned and kissed me gently. His eyes were very serious afterwards, like he was making a promise.
“My mom—I’m going to tell her this is the last time she can stay with me, and I’m going to stick to it.
I can’t—if there’s any chance you and I, I mean, I know you may be leaving…
” My heart was sinking. “But I can’t let her do again what she did with me and Trish.
I’m not going to let that happen again. Even if it means cutting her off entirely. ”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead, then my lips. His forehead rested against mine as he breathed in and out. I could feel how much he trusted me. I could feel what it would be like to stay with him.
“Paul,” I whispered.
He kissed me again.
“My work says I may have to go back.”
He blinked once, then slid away from me by a few inches. He was just looking at me, waiting, and the vulnerability nearly killed me.
“I just found out, and I don’t know yet if it’s definite. And I really like you, too, so much. But I don’t want you to make decisions based on me being here when I don’t…I don’t even know if…” There were tears in my eyes.
He nodded, his expression turning bleak again. I should have lied, I thought. But I couldn’t lie to him. Not when he was like this.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said quietly. He shifted to move away.
I wanted to take him in my arms, but I could see it on his face. He was already a million miles away.
Trying to distract myself that night, I ended up reading another one of the improv books.
This one talked a lot about impulses…about how to trust them, how you had to let them act through you.
As long as you weren’t molesting your fellow actors, you were allowed to go for it, to try things, to break the rules.
In improv, you could talk about things nobody wants to talk about: masturbation, fear of dying, having a crush on your friend’s spouse.
You could push boundaries, release truths.
It was okay to let that stuff come out, because the harder you worked to repress it, the more it killed your creativity.
It seemed to me, though, that maybe improv was the only safe place for acting on impulses.
My mother had been impulsive. So was Paul’s mom, it sounded like.
Impulses weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
The basic problem was that it was easy to call something ‘trusting your instincts’ when you just did whatever you felt like—whenever you were afraid, or angry, or lonely, or horny. How could you tell the difference?
I missed Laura. She was the one person who I could listen to when my instincts were sending me badly astray. Because right now, my instincts were telling me to quit my job and stay with Paul forever.