Chapter 11
“TRY NOT TO GET ATTACHED”
The next day, after not hearing from Paul all day, I finally broke down and called Laura. I picked the evening to call, when I knew Nick would be out playing one of his gigs.
I left a quick message. “Laur? Can you call me?”
Laura called me back a half-hour later, and I wondered if I had interrupted a later-than-usual bedtime routine.
“What’s wrong?” she said. She sounded worried enough that I felt guilty.
“It’s stupid. I just—I like this guy up here.”
“An improv comedy guy?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, honey. Please tell me he doesn’t pretend props on stage are his dick.”
I thought of Paul’s brilliant ‘toilet’ routine and decided not to bring it up.
“So what’s the problem, then?”
“The problem is that I may have to go home. Kedar said the work-from-home policy may be ending, and he’s not sure when, but it may be immediately. Next week, possibly. And I don’t know what to do. I like him so much.”
Laura hesitated before answering. “You could do a long-distance thing.”
“To Newfoundland? Long distance works from Boston to New York, maybe. Newfoundland to New York? Two flights away? It’s impossible.”
“Well, yeah…I couldn’t manage with Nick when he went to L.A., and we were married.” Laura fell silent. Her silence was thick with something unspoken.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Just sorting all this out.”
I could feel my eyes tearing up. I hadn’t cried in months, and now it was coming. “I miss you,” I said. “And I miss Hannah. And I didn’t mean to fight with you.”
“Hey, I’m the one who left you. You were right about that, so I can’t get mad.”
“Are you going to buy a house with him?” I asked.
“No,” Laura said, and sighed. “We’re not going to buy a house. I think even he realized that was crazy. I did find a job, though. It’s less than I was making in New York, but it’s something. And I’ll have to get Hannah a babysitter for the days when Nick can’t get her from school.”
“How are they getting along? Her and Nick?”
“Not that well, actually. He keeps trying to set rules and she doesn’t want to hear it from him. She’s normally such a good kid but it’s like she’s deliberately testing him.”
“Well, he was away a lot. Maybe she wants to see if he’s serious about sticking around.”
“I know, it’s just hard.”
“It may just be a difficult adjustment period. But it will sort itself out.”
“Yeah. It may be that.” Laura sighed again. “So do you love this guy?”
“Maybe. I mean we haven’t even… But I could. I could love him.” I had a horrible feeling that the honest answer was a lot simpler than that.
“Well, don’t decide you’re in love with him before you decide if you’re going to stay.”
“I can’t stay. I can apply for a visa, maybe, but—even under the best of circumstances, I was always going to be a bit of a tourist here unless I got a visa to live here full-time, and…and now it looks like I can’t even be a digital nomad. I’m being dragged back to the office.”
“Then try not to get too emotionally involved, right?”
“Right. I know. That makes sense.”
Laura had given me the practical answer. I knew she would. I just didn’t want to hear it.
Paul called me the next day, a little after noon. His voice sounded hoarse.
“So,” he said. “My mother is gone. I brought her back to her rental apartment. She’s not going to be speaking to me for the next few weeks, but it means that I am free tonight, and I would very much like to take you to dinner.”
I took a deep breath. He was still asking me out, in spite of knowing I might be leaving. I’d grown so pessimistic that I felt a little shocked. “I’d like that.”
“Excellent. Do you have any food preferences at all?”
“I insist on dining on a boat in very choppy water.”
“Didn’t I tell you all the best restaurants in St. John’s are on boats?”
“Perfect.”
“Is 7 p.m. okay?”
“7 p.m. is great.”
I spent the rest of my free time that day going to shops and trying on dresses, having decided that the only dress I’d brought to Canada made me look like the libidinous spinster in a Tennessee Williams play.
I bought a delicate green dress that expressed a lot more optimism than I could muster and put my hair up into something resembling a twist. It felt like I owed it to Paul to suppress my despair until at least the dessert course.
He’s probably just trying to get laid before you go, the pessimistic voice in my head said.
I shook it off. If Paul had really kicked out his mother, it meant he was trying to be better.
So could I. Lucas had teased me about cleansing my negativity, but it made a lot of sense.
Maybe I did need a spiritual Live Laugh Love sign after all.
Maybe I shouldn’t assume the worst quite so consistently.
I spent so much time worrying about how I should do my make-up and hair that I entirely forgot that Paul would also be dressed up until he showed up at my front door in a tie and his blue woolen peacoat coat. The sight of him made me shy for a moment.
“You look…”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”
Devastating, I thought. Sexy. “Like a dapper ship captain from the 1860s.”
He laughed. “I was planning to talk like a pirate for the rest of the date, actually.”
“I would hope so.”
“Arrr,” he began, as we walked down the stairs. “I embody anti-imperialist free trade policies but am part of a corrupt labor system that exploits the marginalized through violence.”
“I knew there was a reason I found pirates sexy.”
He paused on the first floor to look at my dress.
“Stop smoldering at me,” I said.
“Canadians do not smolder. That’s strictly an American thing. We apologize profusely while leering at your legs.”
“It’s the subtle cultural differences that are always the hardest to learn.”
I reminded myself on the drive to the restaurant that I was supposed to keep things light, to not get too deep.
But this didn’t feel like a casual date.
When we arrived at the restaurant, which was a beautiful little French spot right near the water, Paul ran a hand along my arm as we waited for a table.
He kissed the back of my neck when the hostess turned to find us a table.
“Are you okay after everything with your mom?” I asked, hoping to distract myself from how much I wanted to throw myself at him.
“Fine. I don’t want to think about it. My mother and my ex have gotten enough of my energy this week.”
“Did you talk to her more? Your ex?” I asked.
“Briefly,” he said. “At a coffee shop. She wants to talk again at some point.”
“It sounds like her jet setting didn’t work out so well.”
He shook his head. “I guess not. Let’s not discuss Trish. I might say something unkind, and I really don’t want to.”
“So Lisette,” I replied, searching for a subject. “Do you think she really needs to change her name?”
“I’m not sure it would help,” Paul said. “She’s not a natural blonde, you know. She does that because she wants to be harder for him to spot in a crowd.”
“That’s so horrible. I wonder if she should go back to Quebec. It seems like he’s only a couple of hours away from her here, and she has lots of big brothers who could beat him up.”
“Oh yeah. They’re all much taller than she is.
You should definitely ask for photos; it looks like she’s the runt of the litter.
But as far as her ex goes, you’re right.
He’s only about a four-hour drive away from here.
But she has a community here. Not just me, but the church and so on, and that’s been helpful. I’m hoping he gets bored and moves on.”
“He’s probably tormenting some new girlfriend,” I said.
He nodded. “I hate the idea that him abusing someone else is the best we can hope for.”
“The best we can hope for is that he’s run over by a bus,” I said. “But in the meantime…if Lisette ever needs a place to stay, and I do end up back in Brooklyn, she can always hide out with me.” Paul glanced away when I mentioned going back to Brooklyn, then looked back with a careful smile.
“I’m going to try not to think about that.” He smiled, looking around the restaurant. There was delicate piano music playing, and the distant sound of the city. “It’s nice to just be here like this. Quiet. It makes me feel human again.”
“You like things calm.”
“In my emotional life? Sometimes. A lot of people think deep passion means yelling at someone, but I think it means choosing not to yell.”
“My mother was dramatic. She was always telling us stories about her own life, and how unlucky she’d been. She needed attention all the time. I learned to keep her happy by laughing at her jokes. And trying to be funny. To entertain her.”
He nodded, slowly. “Things got messy if I stood up for myself as a kid, so I just became quiet. My wife hated that. She was always trying to get me to fight, and I wouldn’t do it.
So she would get louder, and I would shut her out.
She thought it meant I didn’t care. But I just couldn’t have a relationship where everything escalated. ”
“Because your mom made you feel like you had to avoid fights. Because fights got ugly.”
“Fights got very ugly with my mom. She locked me out of the house one night in winter. I don’t know if my father knew. It was below freezing. I slept in the car.”
“Paul. That’s abuse.”
He shrugged. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad,” he deadpanned.
“My mom was neglectful. Not abusive, ever. But she was also avoidant. She didn’t ever want to hear what a mess she had made of our lives.
So she died without us ever confronting her or telling her how much it hurt to grow up that way.
And I think that made it hard to grieve.
Like we had unfinished business. It’s not good to have screaming fights with your parents but it’s also not good never to tell people how you really feel. ”
“I don’t yell at the people I love,” he said. “I don’t yell. It’s probably why I like improv. It lets some of the inner chaos out.”