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“I think I’ve reached my limit on the judgment I can take for having a child at a comedy show featuring you giving a QVC-worthy presentation on your sex toy collection, Jonesy.” “That bit is a long-winded public service announcement. I’m using my platform wisely.” “I’ve been threatened with CPS twice.” “Only before you explained that she couldn’t actually hear anything I was saying.” I hold my hands up in placation. “Which, as you’ll recall, only had them judging harder.”
“Well, how interesting. Men are afraid of women being funnier than them, and women are afraid of, oh, I don’t know, being oppressed, beaten, raped, or killed by men. But look out! Funny chick here might follow you down an alley and make you chuckle without consent!”
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He’s a mile away, and you’ve got his shoes.
I’ve conquered too much to get to this point, mastered too much doubt to make it here. Only a little left to go. The least I can do is pretend to date the man I’m probably in love with but keep at arm’s length because of the combination of my emotional stuntedness and my respect for our friendship.
“That’s very … considerate of you.” Thank God we are both wearing sunglasses now. Otherwise I’m certain he could see the back of my skull through my eyes because my brain has vacated the premises.
Sushi arrives, and it’s not until halfway through the meal that I notice him using his fork to eat instead of the chopsticks. It’s also when I notice that he uses that fork with his opposite hand, so he can keep hold of mine with the other. It’s the best lunch of my life.
“Don’t worry. I covered for you. I backpedaled and told them all that I’m secretly in unrequited, passionate, bittersweet love with you and they shut up real quick.” God, Fee, what in good fuck possessed you to say that?!!! I laugh awkwardly behind the goblin face. I hate it here.
“Sure,” I say breathily. Marry me, while you’re at it. Let me bake something for you. Give me a pet name and let me massage your palms when you’re tense. He laughs again. “Having this entire conversation with you in a goblin mask was surprisingly productive.”
“Okay. Don’t take this as me being dismissive, but, when’s the last time you got some?” “Myself and I had a beautiful time together just this morning, thank you.” An elderly man frowns at me in the produce aisle before I turn away.
And, just like a date with any other man, I act certifiable from the moment Meyer shows up on my doorstep. “Hello, sir,” I say when I open the door. I polish off the weird greeting with a little half butler bow. “Uh—hey? You having that mental breakdown you promised me you wouldn’t have?”
I’m suddenly overcome with the realization that I don’t know what his feet look like. What if he has hairy hobbit feet? Or even a millimeter-too-long toenail? I know he’s been barefoot around me before because we’ve all been to the beach and swimming plenty of times. Maybe that’s a good sign that there’s nothing overly strange about them since I can’t bring them to mind? But I’ve never seen the man wear a flip-flop. Is Meyer a flip-flop man? Why does that idea kind of gross me out? Am I discovering a shallow prejudice of mine? An anti-foot fetish, if you will? “Jones. Blink, please. You have
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“Have you even seen it? They don’t have accents at all. It’s set in Idaho.” “I don’t need to see it to know that when those guys say ‘boy’ it sounds like it ends in an extra syllable.” “What the hell are you talking about, Meyer?” “BOWAH!”
“You need some friends your own age. Or therapy,” Lance says tiredly as he massages his temples behind the bar. “I’ve seen a therapist biweekly for eight years, Lance, and I have friends.” “Then why aren’t you going to them with this Gossip Girl shit? I’m tired, Meyer. I’m sixty-three. I can’t pretend to give a shit,” he groans. “I thought you being older and wiser might offer some insight here.” Also, I don’t know that I can admit this entire thing to my therapist yet. Dr. Dale would have a field day.
My doctor said, “You’re crazy.” I said, “I want a second opinion.” He said, “You’re ugly, too.”
“Well, you’re kind of unfunny for a comedian,” I retort primly. His palms go to his heart in mock horror. “Just wait until I tell you about your meeting with a financial advisor and how I plan to make you set up a 401k.” “Lovely. Do you jerk off to Dave Ramsey, too?” “No, but I did find a podcast of women who talk about NFTs and sometimes I’ll have a go at myself to that.”
“I officially have a crush on Meyer,” I admit. “Like, a harmless, ‘ha-ha’ silly little flirtatious crush, like you’ve always had?” I turn to her. “Like a heated, vividly-pictured-him-naked, sharp-longing-from-my-vaginal-soul crush. Throat-thickening desire and pining. Distracting, life-altering. I’ve kept it under control, but then he sends me to one therapy session and I’m suddenly a little too in touch with my feelings if you know what I mean.”
Marissa presses a tequila drink into my hand because she knows what tonight is about, and because she is a good and supportive wingwoman. She is a wingwoman who is being diverted over to a man at the end of the bar smiling her way. She is a wingwoman who appears to be ditching me.… Marissa is a shit wingwoman, apparently.
“Do you want to kiss me?” “Yes,” leaves my mouth. “I mean, I think it’s a good idea. For the reasons previously mentioned.” She takes a step and so do I. I’m mentally mining for the justification in this, but coming up empty. Do I care? She seems to think she needs this. I do like to think I’m a helpful guy.
“Ugh oh my—Meyer!! ACK! Where the hell are you?! God, my eyes!!” she wails, and I turn to see what looks like a frog in a human suit, standing on its hind legs. A naked old man with an indent where his ass should be—fuck—yep, my eyes sadly went there. The man turns and Fee’s screams echo through the room. “MEYER WHY!!!!” “Shit, I’m sorry, sir,” I say to the man before I scoop my belongings out of the locker and bolt, he and his naked-old-man-clan shouting expletives behind me. “Why did you apologize to him?! Jesus Christ, apologize to me!”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” I pick up the brush to occupy my hands and limit myself from saying anything further. “I’m Deaf. Not blind,” she manages to deadpan in ASL and I clamp my lips together, refusing to laugh, trying to look stern even as a snort escapes. “That joke is inappropriate, Hazel.” “You can’t be funny if you don’t take risks. It would have been bad if you said it. It’s okay if I do.”
Fee gasps, then, pointing to the twenty-four-hour restaurant sign. “I require a BURGER. Tallyho!” I nod my agreement silently and follow behind, throwing glares at the dudes whose eyes peruse her too comfortably, or for too long. Oh yeah, man. I’m sure you’re menacing as fuck in the balloon hat.
He slides his thumb across my nipple before he dips down, nibbles it through the thin material of my top. “My—I want—” I don’t know what I want, though. More? Less? To go back in time and slap the shit out of Eve for cursing us all with menstruation?
“God, you’re pretty like this, Fee.” She opens heavy lids and smiles drowsily at me. “What? Topless and quiet?” “No. Satisfied and on top of me.”
Something catches the corner of my eye and I turn to see Kara and Shauna staring at us, both sipping from the little red straws in their drinks. “That looked very intimate!” Shauna yells across the table in a decidedly un-intimate way. “My nipples feel all tingly!”
I recognize that Dr. Deb and I need to continue patching up my mental umbrella, so that love and confidence comes from within, so that I can protect myself from the thoughts that want to surge and drown me. But these are my puddle people, the ones who will go splash around with me, even when I can’t.
“I mean it. I didn’t think. I didn’t even want to stay long and I think I assume that everyone else is miserable at those things like I am. I should’ve invited you, and I promise I will next time. Maybe then I won’t be so miserable. I’m sorry, Farley Amalie Jones.” I make a sound in the back of my throat. “Don’t use my middle name, that’s cheating.” It makes me feel all feminine and lovely, which makes the reptilian part of my brain want to follow it up with a burp.
grapple for a segue, any segue. “Uhhh, I’ll only make the s’mores if you cut a deal, though,” is what I come up with. He’s frozen, we’re frozen like this, his arms crossed and resting just above my very clenched behind. Ovaries can’t make sounds internally, right? Like how a stomach growls? His ear is pressed so close to them. I can practically feel my eggs screaming in tiny cartoon voices, “We’re in here, sweet virile man! Save us from this would-be spinster she-devil! Let us not waste in vain!”
grab a healthy-sized pinch before I close the cupboard and start to sprinkle. “What the hell is that?” his voice sounds, inches from my ear. In my panic, I throw the salt over my shoulder. “Fee?” he growls. I turn around slowly. There’re flakes of salt stuck in his beard and the front of his hair. “What. Is. That?” My jig is up. “It’s just salt, okay?” “You never included that on the ingredients list.” “No?” “No!” he parrots. “Well you’d think you would have seen it on the bars themselves, Meyer, it’s not exactly hidden,” I say with an undignified eye roll. “You’ve been keeping this from me!”
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“Alright, Liam. Now that you’ve managed to hotbox my room, why don’t you go see if Nana needs help with dinner.” “Alright. What’s hotboxing?” “Ask your mom. Also ask her where babies come from, and how the garage door really got that dent in it while you’re at it.” He throws me a quizzical look before he shuffles away.
“What’s WHAT?!” I hear my sister yelp from downstairs. “MEYER! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TELL HIM TO ASK ME?!!”
I distinctly register when this particular woman’s expression pinches into one of disgust and loathing tonight, because it’s also the moment that I tell everyone how I completely snapped to Meyer (in the joke, to a teacher) later and called this little girl “—an evil little cunt creature who will grow up into some equally mean-spirited boss babe twat who produces another crotch goblin that she acts like is Jesus incarnate.”
God is not a woman, I think. At least not a sympathetic one tonight. Because the feel of his warm, hard body against mine is almost enough to make me forget my better judgment.
“It’s the tattoo you gave Hazel the first time we met. That little temporary one? I only had a picture of it on my phone, so I don’t know if it’s exact or not. I got it in … Vegas. I got it for you.” He swipes his thumb across my bottom lip. “Fee, I was so fucking lonely before you found us.”
He lies on his stomach, tucking a pillow and his forearms under his head and treating me to an unobstructed view of his strong back, the perfect mound of his ass. I indulge myself with something I’ve thought about doing countless times and bite the apple, drawing a quick yelp out of him. “Sorry, sorry. Had to be done. For science.”
Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say “no.” But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow.
I press my forehead into Hazel’s—a gesture made marginally awkward since she just recently surpassed me in height. “I love you too.” I hold the sign against her collarbone. When she pulls away, she replies, “Want to practice your vows one more time?” “My vows to you or to him?” I reply with a laugh and she rolls her eyes in teenage perfection. “I didn’t demand vows. I politely requested a sibling as soon as possible. I’ve waited long enough.”
