A Comedy of Nobodies, page 2
I wait under a starlit sky outside Felipe’s, the restaurant where my couple is to enhance the chemical process of releasing dopamine and endorphins. An accordionist plays an obscure Dutch song. A grumpy pipe-smoking man sits in an office chair in front of the train station with an Allow Smoking petition sign. I don’t see many signatures.
Clipboard in hand, I adjust my “observer” lanyard so it doesn’t look so obvious.
I spot the royal couple. She wears a beige coat and scarf. He wears a leather jacket. His legs bulge in his calf-hugging pants. They look nervous—first-date jitters. As they step into the restaurant, I approach from behind and clear my throat.
Camilla turns to me. “Hi.”
I show my lanyard, as if begging for money.
“Oh, you’re the guy,” she says.
“No way, this is the dude recording us?” Wade asks. “Rock on, man.”
He offers a fist bump. I accidentally high-five it.
Felipe’s is a well-known hangout for dates. Everyone has someone to laugh with, so I’m clearly out of place here: a single guy dressed like a 1983 CNN news anchor in the most unsingle place in Cambridge. This damned clipboard, I think that’s the problem.
Wade and Camilla chat about their day. I stand behind them in line. He gets a burrito bowl, and she gets fish tacos. I get a bottle of Mexican Coke and put it on Wade’s tab.
We sit at a table for three upstairs, and I quickly see that my presence makes things uncomfortable. Camilla and Wade are stilted for the first five minutes, commenting on the interior of the restaurant. I make no movements. I just sit there like a good boy and observe—a fly on the wall.
They make light of the situation.
“Would you like something else to drink?” Wade asks her. “Tea, coffee . . . ?”
I grin at him and make an obvious show of taking notes.
“So, what’d you study in college?” Wade starts. The guy is a real firecracker with the openers.
“I majored in literature and minored in music.”
“Nice. That must be really interesting.”
They go on a long run of “nice” and “oh wow.” Camilla asks more questions than Wade does. He offers a few nuggets of an interesting past, and she explores them, though he tells her nonchalantly, like he doesn’t care who hears his secrets.
I’m guessing my facial expressions are obvious. I often squint at the saltshaker after an inane comment by Wade. He quit the piano after two years because it was “pretty annoying.” But he found it “neat” that she plays.
“What’s your favorite book?” Camilla asks.
She glances at me because I keep giving her the eye, but she tries to ignore me.
“I mean I’m mostly into baseball stuff, but I liked this one book called The 4-Hour Workweek. Do you know it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“It was pretty good. That, and Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
“What’s your music, what do you listen to?” she asks.
“Trap.” Wade makes his favorite “rock on” gesture. “You?”
“Oldies. Jazz,” she says. “This one jazz number I love—nuts, what’s it called . . .”
I stop writing.
“Ugh, I hate when I forget it. It was in a Betty Boop cartoon . . .”
It’s “Minnie the Moocher.” Cab Calloway. I twist a napkin in self-restraint.
“I don’t really know,” Wade laughs. She laughs with him, to make things easy. My empty stare fills with a moody glaze. Wade pretends he doesn’t notice.
Wade invites Camilla for “wine” back at his place. This shocks her. I lower my glasses at him, attempting the best parent face I can muster.
“I live in Seaport,” he says. “I have a sick view of the ocean.”
“Oh, Seaport.” Camilla glances in my direction. I raise an eyebrow as if to say, Can you believe this guy? “I don’t know. I have an early morning.”
“Where do you live?”
“Here, about ten minutes away.”
“Oh cool, let’s go to your place then.”
My neck juts forward. I can’t believe the gall of this guy.
“I mean . . .” She fidgets with a napkin and then gestures to me. “He has to stay with us, you know. Those are the rules.”
I throw my hands up as if to say Sorry, the higher powers write the rules.
“Let’s bring him along. You down, man?” I shake my head.
Wade doesn’t expect my answer, but he recovers quickly. “Oh. Well, okay. It’s a free country, so I guess if you’re not down, that’s kind of on you.”
“Don’t do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable,” Camilla tells me.
This is unbelievable.
“We’ll get an Uber.” Wade hands her his phone. “Punch in your address and let’s get out of here.”
I can’t help but laugh at this strategy. Nice try, Wade, but you’re going to have to do better than Spartan biceps and enough confidence to light up a cave. He clearly doesn’t understand the female psyche.
In the Uber I anxiously reserve the middle seat, forcing a barrier between the two. Wade asks if I can scoot a little so he can put on his seatbelt. I shrug. I don’t know, Wade, can I?
The driver plays Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” and Wade attempts to make this a moment. He grabs for Camilla’s hand, crossing over my lap, and lip-syncs the song with an imaginary microphone. She laughs and plays along. Damn it, she laughed. It’s over. What does she see in this bozo, unbelievably good looks?
She’ll probably call it a night the second she gets out of the car.
In the elevator, Camilla fidgets with her keys. The cogs squeak, and the buttons are faded. The doors open to a barren hallway with a few welcome mats and the smell of curry fumigating. Our steps are awkwardly quiet.
Camilla lives in a studio across from the Business School, overlooking the Charles River. I know this apartment complex. Grad students live here.
“Would you like some coffee?” she offers both of us.
Her place smells like jasmine.
“Yeah, cool.” Wade takes off his jacket.
I offer Camilla an apologetic look. She grins back, recognizing the humor of the situation. My urge to speak, regulated by guilt. I want to tell her so much, to tell her this guy isn’t worth it. But Wade will surely be sore at me for that, and he’ll no doubt snitch and derail the whole study.
Wade and I take seats on the sofa. We don’t look at each other. Camilla’s room is lined with café lights. I can’t believe what I see on her bookshelf: Catch-22, West with the Night, Testament of Youth, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s like our taste buds were copied and pasted from the same DNA. She owns a record player. Some vinyl records lay around: Ray Conniff Singers, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone—this is killing me.
Without asking, Wade turns on the news. A former bank robber in Malden wrote a children’s book and now wants to run for city council.
“Here you go.” She gives us our coffee and in a final blow, the mugs she serves are decorated with famous lines in cinema. She sits between us on the sofa. We sip our coffee, watching the news.
“I had a really good time tonight,” Wade says.
She turns to him. “Likewise.”
He gives her a hug. I clear my throat. He strategically opens one button of his shirt. In his white shirt, without a sweater, I see the full perfection of his pectoral muscles.
“I think we’re really good together, you know?” Wade puts his arm around her shoulder. His tactlessness comes off as genuine, but if he were uglier, it’d be awkward.
“I mean, yeah, I like where this is going.” Camilla offers a nervous giggle.
“I feel like I can talk to you for hours.”
“Yeah,” she agrees reluctantly. I make note of how pungent his cologne is.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asks him.
“Yeah, I think so. But, you know, my last girlfriend really hurt me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He puts on a sympathetic tone. “She was crazy. She cheated on me with the janitor at her office.”
Very original, Wade.
“Oh my God, Wade. Really?”
“Yeah. She just ripped my heart right out of my chest. Then she threw it on the ground, stomped on it with her high heels, and played soccer with it before lighting it on fire and throwing it in the recycling bin.”
Yes, thank you for that, Wade.
“Jesus . . .”
“I never thought I could feel again . . .” He hugs her, and she hugs back, moaning a motherly hum.
I write in my notes: What the hell, Wade?
This last hug doesn’t end. His arms find their way down her waist. Her hands crawl up to his hair. I clear my throat again. She kisses his neck.
I try to keep my eyes on the TV. The Roxbury School District is petitioning the city of Boston to change the Slow Children at Play sign, as it is offensive to the disabled and, frankly, bad grammar. Wade groans, and his shirt takes a vacation from his body. In other news, it sounds like broccoli is still good for you. After much speculation over its health benefits, the FDA has unofficially classified it as a superfood. However, top nutritionists are still looking into whether steaming or boiling affects the nutrients. Camilla’s hair whips me in the face. Another UFO has been spotted in Florida, during the day, this time hovering over a nude beach in Miami. Officials are not releasing footage of the unidentified object until further investigation is completed and all genitalia can be blurred. Camilla and Wade gasp for air. A new species of tree kangaroo has been discovered in the Philippines today. Wade tugs her hair. Biologists claim the new species might reveal how the animal evolved in the region and its relationship to prehistoric dinosaurs. They’re rolling around on the sofa. Some paleontologists disagree with these findings, pending further evidence.
I stand up and carry my coffee mug to the sink. I open Camilla’s door and leave. Before I shut it, I hear, “Oh, he’s leaving,” but I don’t know who whispers it. The hallway is a dense kind of quiet. I can almost hear my pulse. I lean against a wall, staring at my reflection in a framed picture of fruit.
A familiar feeling arrives. I knew it was coming. The idea spreads through me—the idea that perhaps I am someone I don’t like. I’ve become the nice-guy trope. Duckie from Pretty in Pink. A Ross Geller, a Ted Mosby. I’ve become that guy who tries to nice his way into a girl’s bedroom. I hate this guy as much as anyone, and I’m him. Delicate, moral-posturing, Wade-hating, resentful him.
I’ve become a cliché.
I want to die, but I’m so unlucky that if I were reincarnated, I’d probably just come back as myself.
On Friday I go to Lamont to give my report to Nora.
In the café, she mingles over Mike’s and Ted’s reports over a café au lait that does not emit steam. When she sees me, she gives me a hug to relieve her stress, which I flinch at, distressed by the idea of hugs since the other night. Nora apologizes, and I tell her not to worry, it’s no big deal. She says no, that I shouldn’t repress my feelings. I say you’re right, back off.
“What’s this?” I pick out an index card with a list of questions.
“Oh, the ‘falling in love’ questions.” Nora takes a sip of her cold coffee.
“Huh. So, Nora, how have you grown emotionally this year?” I read from the card.
“You can have it if you want.”
“I’ll try it on my History of Agnosticism TA.” I slip the card into a pocket. “So that’s it. It’s over. We’re done, right?”
“We’re done.” Nora closes her eyes. All anxiety seems to have left her face.
“What’s this experiment supposed to prove, anyway? I mean, who cares if people fall in love that quick?”
“I don’t know. It demystifies love, maybe.” She rubs her temples. “If anyone can love anyone, what’s so special about love? Perhaps in the end, it’s just dopamine, oxytocin, and red wine, all occurring at the right time with the right questions. Something like that.”
I take a nibble from her muffin.
“Have you ever been in love?” I ask after a pause. This takes her aback.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t clarify, so I don’t push. My thoughts float away. We talk about topics that don’t matter, like whether broccoli should be boiled or steamed. She tells me how her family is doing and where she wants to travel for winter break.
“How are the shoes?” she asks. I got new shoes before the semester started.
“They still hurt.”
“They hurt me just looking at them.”
We got a failing grade on the assignment. The reasoning went on for three pages in eleven-point font, formally scorning each of us: myself, Mike, Ted, and Nora, individually and collectively. There was apparently an obvious ethical breach in our research method, a lack of written permission from the professor, plagiarism—there have been numerous “falling in love studies,” and our love questions strikingly resembled a 2015 New York Times article called “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love”—and on top of all this, Ted spoke on one of the dates.
I reconsider whether psychology is really for me.
On a Thursday, at 11:39 p.m., I drift down Mt. Auburn Street after seeing a showing of E.T. at Brattle Theater. I come across a group of pigeons congregating near the late-night chess players in front of the train station. I stand in the middle of their assembly as a lonely violinist plays inside the station. His song echoes as if in a cave. The pigeons peck around my stiff shoes in their never-ending search for crumbs. Perhaps they think they will someday find one outstanding breadcrumb that lasts them their entire lives and they would never again search for the pettiness of common crumbs. They would find their one crumb and keep it forever.
As my eyes come back into focus, I see the Girl Named Camilla walking into CVS, alone. I take a deep breath and follow. Her earth-tone sweater flutters up the stairs.
She lands in the oral-hygiene section, where I approach her slowly, my shoes squeaking. My forbidden moment: we are finally alone. I stand there, pretending to browse for a new tongue scraper.
“Oh.” She recognizes me. “Hi.”
“Oh, hey!” I act surprised.
She looks around. “Wow, we haven’t really met, but I guess the experiment is over, so we can talk now?”
“Sure, absolutely.” My fingers nervously writhe into each other. “How are you?”
“I’m good, just working on my thesis, you know how that goes.” Her shoulder cranks up as if whatever trial she is going through is and was always unimportant.
“Are you and Wade . . . ?”
“Oh no, that was just a thing.” With a flick of her hand, Wade never existed.
“By the way, ‘Minnie the Moocher,’” I say. She looks confused. “The song you were trying to remember, the one in the Betty Boop cartoon.”
“Oh, of course!” We walk to the hair products together. “You remember that?”
“Are you kidding, I had so much to say to you.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Just that . . . you know . . .” I’m blanking. “You have great taste in music.”
“Oh, thank you—”
“And books, you have great taste in books as well.”
“You were so quiet I didn’t know you were paying attention.” She checks the back of a bottle of conditioner. “So are you . . .” She searches for the words. “Are you a grad student?”
“Me? No, no. Undergrad.”
“Right,” she says. “What are you studying?”
“Psychology, in theory.” I wring my hands and pick out some makeup removers. I thought the magic would be better than this. What happened to all those great things I had to say to her?
I put a hand in my pocket, and my fingernails wedge into a bent-up, folded index card. The “love questions.” I realize I can ask her one.
We stand in the checkout line, chatting about the other night, exchanging obvious observations about Wade.
“You know, it’s funny,” she tells me. “When Wade was babbling on about . . . God knows what, I just kept thinking to myself: What does falling in love look like? I forgot. You get to a point where you can’t tell anymore if you’re throwing away an opportunity.”
I hold still and listen.
“But then, maybe I never knew what falling in love looked like. Maybe that’s why I’ve always picked the wrong guy, because I always thought it was my loss if I left.”
The line moves forward.
“I guess it looks different for everyone,” I say. “For some it’s wham! First sight. And others, it starts as friends.”
“I certainly know what it doesn’t look like,” she says. “It wasn’t then, with him.”
And neither is it now, with her. I wish it looked like now, but I know it doesn’t. When I was ten, my parents sent me to Dr. Groban for my yearly checkup. At the end of the appointment, he asked if I had any questions. I asked him what an orgasm feels like. I’d been trying to get one for weeks. Uncomfortable as hell, he lowered his glasses and said, “You’ll know when you know.”
And I guess the same goes for caring and being cared about. Everyone wants it; it’s the only thing that makes life tolerable. We keep trying to get it, but in the end, “You’ll know when you know.”
On a Tuesday at 10:51 p.m., I contemplate the could’ve beens over pancakes. Today has just been one of those days. Gray, foggy, imagining what might have happened if only I’d made braver choices. I could have easily run away with the circus. I’d have started off as a tightrope walker and worked my way up to being one of those clowns with trust issues, and after some serious networking, been promoted to a magician who could make anything vanish except his regrets: if only he had asked her out at the senior dance, if only he had caught that ball in the final seconds of the game—maybe life would’ve been different.
