There are all kinds of ways to force yourself to decide. We do it all the time, make decisions. If we actually thought about every decision we made, we’d be paralyzed. Which word to say next. Which way to turn. What to look at. Which number to dial. You have to decide which decisions you’re actually going to make, and then you have to let the rest of them go. It’s the places where you think you have a choice that can really mess you up.
She wasn’t home. That’s the first factor. The doorman let me up, I rang the bell, and she wasn’t there, where she said she would be. Two months ago this would have surprised me, but now it just annoyed me. You know that feeling of waiting for someone. I mean really waiting for someone—standing in front of a restaurant in the cold and having hundreds of people pass you on the sidewalk. And you don’t want to do anything else, because you’re afraid you might miss something—that somehow if you don’t spot her right away, she’ll walk right by. So you stand there and you don’t do anything except think about how you’re standing there. Occasionally you might look at your watch, or check your cell phone to see if it’s accidentally on silent, even though you already checked for that a minute ago.
That’s what dating Naomi was starting to feel like.
I called her and hung up when it answered without ringing, because what good would it be to leave a third voice mail message? What good is it ever to leave a third voice mail message? I was just standing there, trying to figure out how long I should wait. Then Ely’s door opened and he came out in his bare feet, carrying a garbage bag to the chute. He took one look at me, smiled, and said, “Let me guess.”
We’d never really made it past comes with the territory territory. He wasn’t really into me, because he thought I was boring, and I wasn’t really into him, because he thought I was boring. But when Naomi wanted us to hang out together, we were fine. I got to be the innocent bystander. I wasn’t jealous of him—how could I be, when he was gay? No, I was jealous of them—the way it was like they had grown up watching all the same TV shows, only the TV show they always kept referring to was their own life together, and each episode was funnier than the last. Every now and then, Naomi (and even Ely) would make the effort to explain one of their references to me, but the act of explaining made it even more awkward, even more obvious. My only comfort was that eventually the night would end and Naomi would go home with me, not him. I knew Ely didn’t think I was worthy, but I had a feeling he’d never think anyone was worthy of Naomi. Just like she’d never be happy if he was with anyone else. In old-movie terms, you had to think of it like this: Fred Astaire had a wife who wasn’t Ginger Rogers, and Ginger Rogers had a husband (actually, a few of them, I think) who wasn’t Fred Astaire. But was there ever any doubt who their true dance partners were? I could be Naomi’s boyfriend, sure. I could be the one she slept with (or didn’t). But I was pretty certain I’d never be her dance partner.
Ely asked me if I wanted to come inside, and I figured why not. I mean, I figured this would give me a reason to leave a third message, and would give Naomi a place to find me when she showed up. It was much better than waiting in the hallway.
No one else was home. I was curious to meet his parents; Naomi had alluded to them enough for me to put the story together. I know it’s wrong, but I always pictured his mother, the one Naomi’s father had the affair with, to be attractive. It made more sense that way, at least to me. And Ely was attractive, too. It’s not like I didn’t know that, although I really didn’t think it meant anything to me. It wasn’t like I felt it, the way I felt it when there was a hot girl around. Like Naomi, who was not only hot but actually happened to like having thoughts. I’d found, in my very limited dating and only-slightly-less-limited friendship experience, that there were a lot of people who treated thoughts like they were a nuisance. They weren’t intrigued by them. They didn’t go out of their way to prolong them. But Naomi valued the fine art of thinking. The only hitch was that I didn’t know what she was thinking. I imagined Ely would have a better idea.
We went into one of those rooms that’s lined floor-to-ceiling with bookcases, where the books have been sitting on the shelves together for so long that they look like they’ve merged into one multispined line.
“Can I take your coat?” Ely asked. I handed it over and he threw it on a chair. Which should have been obnoxious, but the way he did it—like he was laughing at himself more than me—made it almost charming. I sat down on the couch and he hovered in front of me.
“Can I offer you a drink?”
It would make more sense, perhaps, if I’d decided yes. But I said no.
He said, “Good. Brandy can get you in trouble, I hear.”
“Who’s Brandy?” I asked.
“My mother’s brandy,” he said.
I was confused. “I didn’t think you had a mom named Brandy,” I said.
Now he looked confused. “I don’t.”
“But you just said she’s Brandy?”
He laughed. “She’s more ginny than that.”
“She goes by Ginny?”
“You have to stop,” he said, really laughing. “You’re killing me.”
I laughed now, too, still confused. “But who’s Brandy?” I asked.
“I told you—MY MOTHER’S!”
At this point, he was absolutely cracking up, and I found myself laughing right beside him. He was turning bright red, which made me laugh even harder. Anytime it started to subside, he would yell “WHO’S BRANDY?!?” and I would yell “YOUR MOTHER!” and we would break back down into eye-tearing, bladder-threatening snorts and whinnies. I was keeled over, wiping my eyes. He sat down on the couch next to me and laughed and laughed and laughed.
You have to understand: I don’t laugh often. Not out of choice. I just don’t get the opportunity. So when I do, it’s a dam bursting. It’s something opening.
“Knock knock!” I said.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Orange!” I said.
“Orange who?” he asked.
“ORANGE YOU GLAD TO SEE ME!” I screamed.
It was the funniest thing either of us had ever heard.
“What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?” he yelled to me.
“YOUR MOTHER!” I yelled back.
“Close the door, I’m dressing!”
We went on like this for at least twenty minutes. Every joke we’d ever heard in third grade was dredged up for a command performance. And if we met a pause, we just yelled “ORANGE!” or “YOUR MOTHER!” until the next joke came.
Finally we needed to catch our breath. We were still on the couch. He was leaning into me. I looked at his bare feet and decided to take off my shoes. As I did, he said, “The other shoe drops.”
And I said, “No—that was just the first.”
He looked at me and it honestly felt like the first time he’d ever seen me.
“I like you,” he said.
“Try not to sound so surprised,” I found myself replying.
He leaned his head so far back that he was looking at me upside down. I actually thought, He’s even attractive upside down. And I couldn’t even feel attractive right-side up.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m surprised or not,” he told me. “It matters that I like you.”
We heard the elevator stop outside. Gingerly, Ely jumped up and looked through the peephole of his front door. I took off my other shoe.
“Just Mr. McAllister,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
I understood the “Don’t worry.” Because I’ll admit: I didn’t want it to be Naomi in the elevator. I wanted to stay like this. I wasn’t just enjoying Ely’s company; I was enjoying my own as well.
“Let’s listen to music,” Ely said.
I said sure, assuming he’d turn on the stereo in the living room. But instead he led me to his room, which was covered with poems he’d xeroxed and photographs of his friends, Naomi especially. He scanned his computer for the album he wanted, then pressed play. I recognized it immediately—Tori Amos, From the Choirgirl Hotel. It seemed to loosen itself from the speakers as it fell into the room. I thought Ely would sit in a chair or lie on the bed, but instead he lowered himself down on the hardwood floor, facing the ceiling as if it was a sky. He didn’t tell me what to do, but I lowered myself next to him, felt the floor beneath my back, felt my breathing, felt . . . happy.
Song followed song. At one point, I realized I’d left my phone in my jacket, which meant I wouldn’t hear it if it rang. I let it go.
There was something about our silence that made me feel comfortable. He wasn’t talking to me, but I didn’t feel ignored. I felt we were part of the same moment, and it didn’t need to be defined.
Finally I said, “Do you think I’m boring?”
He turned his head to me, but I kept looking up.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, a little embarrassed that I’d said anything.
I thought he’d turn back to the ceiling, to the music. But instead he looked at me for almost a minute. Eventually I turned on my side so I could look right back at him.
“No,” he finally said. “I don’t think you’re boring. I do think there are times you don’t allow yourself to be interesting . . . but clearly that can change.”
How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?
We lay there looking at each other. It made both of us smile.
Then, out of the blue—the blue deep within me—I found myself saying, “I like you, too. Really. I like you.”
There is something so intimate about saying the truth out loud. There is something so intimate about hearing the truth said. There is something so intimate about sharing the truth, even if you’re not entirely sure what it means.
And that’s when he leaned in and kissed me once, lightly, on the lips. As if he’d read exactly what I needed.
It broke the spell. It’s not that I stopped being happy. I was still inexplicably, utterly happy. But suddenly the happiness had implications.
My face must have shown it.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Ely said, his voice freaking out a little.
“No,” I told him.
“Really, I shouldn’t have.”
He sat up, and I lay there a few seconds more, staring at the space he’d just left. Then I sat up, too. And stood up. And found myself leaving, without actually deciding to leave.
He stayed where he was, but turned to face me when I got to the doorway. I made noises that sounded like excuses for leaving, and he made noises that sounded like understanding why I had to leave.
But before I could go, he said, simply, “I wanted to.”
And I waited until I had decided to really leave before I told him, “I did, too.”
Then I was gone—out his door, putting my shoes on, grabbing my jacket, then out the front door, past her front door, down the elevator, out of the building, deciding to cross streets, deciding to wait for lights, deciding to put my hands in my pockets. Deciding that none of these things mattered. None of these things involved who I was, only what I did.
The whole night, the whole morning, the whole afternoon now . . . I miss Ely, and I miss Naomi. I miss how much easier life was just twenty-four hours ago.
I think about him a lot.
I think about her a lot.
But I think about him more.
“Really. I like you.”
I decide to take out my phone for the first time since I scared myself away from him. I decide not to check the three new messages. I decide to make a call. To start to wrestle with the implications. To maybe get back closer to the happiness.
I just have to decide who to call.