Chapter 14 #3
I wrote back to her quickly. what’s going on?
Lisette texted, people are freaking out over mark I swear he slept with half the city
I wonder if his wife will find out, I texted back, standing in the middle of a sidewalk. People were giving me irritated looks, so I moved to one side and leaned against a wall, just avoiding the dripping from an air conditioner above me.
Paul wants to tell her. He says it’s what Mark deserves, Lisette replied. I ached, looking at Paul’s name, wondering if I could ask how he was doing. He still hadn’t answered me.
anyway we asked Raahid if he wanted to join the Newfingers and he said no but then guess who did?
I grinned and wrote, please say lachlan please say lachlan
Lolololol, she wrote. No that would have been even better, but ellen! the manager of the puffin. So we’re trying her out next week. And four other people. And amber did you meet her?
who writes the sad songs about her boyfriend? I wrote.
The same.
I sighed. I felt jealous of these new people. I wanted to be up there, watching the auditions, listening to Paul give an impassioned lecture about long-form comedy.
My phone buzzed again.
paul isn’t sure about the new people. He really misses you, I stared at the words. If he missed me, why didn’t he just say so? I think he wants you to come back so he doesn’t want anyone else to take your place
After a moment, I wrote, I will come back to visit as soon as I get my sister set up with a new apartment. I miss you all so much.
Don’t forget me, Lisette wrote.
Never. I just mailed you something for your apartment.
It better have porcupines on it, Lisette wrote. I have a strict theme.
I walked along afterwards, feeling jealous that there might be a new person joining their improv group instead of me. Did I miss improv, now? What had become of me?
As if in answer, my friend Jasmine called.
“You, me, and Lucas. Dinner tonight. New gastropub Lucas found called the Bone and Whistle.”
“Let me guess. Lower East Side.”
She cackled. “Worse, babe. Williamsburg. Expect unicycles parked outside.”
We met up at close to 8 p.m., which in itself amused me. Half the restaurant kitchens would be shutting down in St. John’s by now.
“What is even happening with this place?” Jasmine demanded of Lucas, looking skeptically at the rough-hewn wood doors and post-industrial furniture visible through the darkened windows. “This is very 2010. There better not be Edison lightbulbs inside.”
“There are, but you’ll love it,” Lucas said. “It’s a giant throwback.”
“You can’t have a throwback to thirteen years ago.”
“Nostalgia cycles happen in ten-year cycles now, not twenty. We’ll be transported back to our mid-twenties instantly.
” Lucas was a short, dark-haired California transplant who worked in public relations, while Jasmine was a tall Dominican-American whose fashion choices were deceptively cozy and hand-knit, making her look like a giant fuzzy blanket while she used her razor-sharp wit to tease people.
They both gave me kisses that landed somewhere north of my ears and then took my arms to lead me inside like a prisoner.
When we were finally seated at a table, having placed an order for unnaturally large burgers and unnaturally tiny string fries, Lucas turned to me and carefully looked me over.
“So,” he said, “I approve of the northern glow up.”
“I look exactly the same.”
“No way. You’ve got a color in your face. Don’t tell me you’ve been hiking. Did somebody kidnap you and force you to do a trendy maple syrup diet?”
“There was some hiking. I made a couple of friends there,” I said.
“How dare you.”
“Male friends?” Jasmine asked.
“One, and I was madly in love with him,” I said.
Jasmine and Lucas stared at me for a moment. “And…?” Jasmine asked.
I took a deep breath. This was not the way things usually went between us.
I was usually joking about my horrible love life, but never meaning much of it.
Maybe after my honesty with Laura, I couldn’t stop it from gushing forth everywhere.
“He’s sweet, and I miss him. And Kedar said I could work from home again, so technically I could go back to live in Newfoundland for a few more weeks, but Laura needs me right now, and I don’t know if I have the courage to go back because I don’t think I could handle leaving him twice. ”
“Jasmine,” Lucas said, “our little cynic has fallen in love.”
I shook my head. “But it doesn’t matter, because it’s impossible.” My eyes were welling with tears, which was definitely a sign that I no longer knew how to behave in New York.
“Maybe he could come here?” Jasmine was not usually this hopeful. I appreciated the effort she was making to avoid her usual snark, but I shrugged. Paul coming to New York felt impossible, too.
“So tell us about your soulmate,” Jasmine said.
“He’s cute and sarcastic, and he’s a schoolteacher who knows a lot about Canadian history.”
“So Gilbert Blythe?” Jasmine said. “You’re dating Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables.”
I smiled sadly. “It doesn’t matter, because unless I get a visa, I can’t go back.”
Lucas sighed and put one hand on mine. “At least you’re finally over the last one. What was his name? The one who quoted The New York Review of Books to me in an argument about Marvel movies?” Lucas meant Farid, of course.
“So where is the photo?” Jasmine pointed to my cell phone.
I flipped through my camera roll and found one of me, Paul, and Lisette hiking. “There’s a moose in the lake behind us, but it’s so far away that it looks like a speck.”
Lucas examined the photo carefully. “Not bad. He’s giving me actor-waiter vibes, like he’s a Broadway understudy for a 1960s musical. And the manic pixie dream girl is…?”
“Lisette from Quebec. She’s a good friend, too.”
“Look at how he’s looking at you.” Jasmine smiled knowingly. “You’re going to have one of those destination weddings in a barn in Newfoundland. And I’m going to have to go.”
“He’s probably getting back together with his ex-wife as we speak.”
“If I go to any event involving farm animals, you’re buying me new shoes.”
My heart sunk a little at her teasing. They were still my closest New York friends, but Lucas was right, too. I was different.
Paul wrote me back on the way home from dinner: I miss you too, Abby.
My breath caught. I didn’t move from the sidewalk until someone muttered a swear at me and I managed to get out of their way. Hope isn’t dead in New York, I thought, but it better not take up any sidewalk space.
Some of the more famous improv theaters I’d heard about in New York were defunct when I tried to look them up, but I did some digging online and found a little black box space in the Lower East Side that had a biweekly improv show. They had a show the next day, so I decided to go.
It was in a brick building with a couple of small theaters inside and an exhibit in the lobby by a local artist. The lobby art consisted of mouths painted in bright colors, rows upon rows of teeth in blue and purple and yellow.
I stood before them for a moment, trying to decide if they were interesting or embarrassing, like I did with a lot of modern art. They felt very improv-appropriate.
Inside, the theater held about one hundred seats and had an audience of about sixty, half of whom would eventually appear in the show.
The atmosphere was fun and cheerful, and large groups of people seemed to know each other.
A young woman with purple-black hair got up and pitched the theater group’s improv classes to the crowd, and then the show began.
“We are asking for help from the audience. Tell me the last time you felt afraid.”
I considered it. I could think of a dozen times I’d been afraid recently, but none that I wanted to see performed.
“Almost got hit by a bus!” someone shouted.
“Going to the dentist.”
“A porcupine in a tree!” I called.
The woman on stage smiled. “A porcupine in a tree.”
The performers were skilled. They were wild.
They were loose and funny. They did long-form sets and playful sets and an improv I’d never seen before based around casting a magical spell on the characters to transform them from genre to genre, so that they had to continue the scene they’d started as a romantic comedy, and then as an action film, and then a Wes Anderson movie.
I immediately wanted to try the improv with Paul and Lisette.
The performers were great. What they weren’t, I realized, was any better than my friends in St. John’s. I had not been wrong in my first impression. The Newfingers had been really, really good.
Afterwards, I decided to approach the young woman who seemed to be organizing the event. She was chatting with an earnest-looking young man, but she smiled when I stepped forward.
“Hey, so, how does someone join one of these groups?” I asked.
“Yeah, you should definitely try out!” she said. She seemed nice and warm, her dark eyes twinkling beneath her purple hair. “Just be aware that we don’t let people audition for a group without at least a year of classes.”
“That makes sense,” I said. I briefly wanted to pout and leave, but instead I said, “Sure,” and the young woman handed me a sheet of paper with a QR code on it.
Maybe I would sign up for a class.
As soon as I was outside the theater, I wrote a text to Paul.
Hey, I said. I went to an improv show here and they were great, but the Newfingers were even better, and I wanted to tell you that.
The whole time I was watching I felt so grateful for all the times you let me into your group when I didn’t really have any right to be there, just to play.
And I think improv helped me be more brave, and I think I may try it again back in NY.
But more than that, I’m grateful for all the times you took me hiking and showed me how beautiful the world is and made me feel like I was worth spending time with.
And I wish things had worked out differently or that I knew how to make things work.
But you deserve the best of everything. And you made me a better, braver person just by knowing you.
And I wanted you to know that I love you, and I’m grateful that I know you. Whatever happens next.
I took a breath and sent it.
Then I watched as the ellipses of his response hovered for a long time. Then, nothing.
My heart hurt, but I couldn’t be sad that I’d sent it. Sometimes, you were brave just for yourself, not because you were going to get any response at all.