“I want to fly, Paul! I think I can fly!”
I dashed a few steps forward, and he raced to catch up with me and grabbed at my arm, swinging me around.
“Please don’t,” he said. “My heart can’t take it. I’m a schoolteacher. I spend too much time around kids who might actually do it.”
“What about following your impulses? Isn’t that big in improv comedy?”
“This is why we don’t do improv next to a cliff. Lisette would go right over, but it would get a big laugh.”
“Audience engagement would reach an all-time high.”
“This is the New York cynicism I was expecting.”
“I’m always New York cynical,” I replied. “It’s why I’m thirty-seven and alone.”
He raised his eyebrows and said nothing. Now he knew my age, so that should put some distance between us. Thirty-seven was the age at which you really did start to wonder if you were broken, and if you didn’t wonder, the men around you did, pointing it out to you on first dates. I looked away from his gaze and toward the water, thinking that this was where the first ships would have come across the ocean from Europe. The day was clear, and the ocean was frilled with white-capped waves that crashed onto some unseen shore below us. When the wind died down for a moment, we could hear seagulls in the distance. I caught his eye, feeling briefly like we were in a movie together.
“So, Newfoundland,” I said. “You do a nice job hiding this place.”
“Wait until winter. That’s when you’ll find out what it’s really like here.”
“If I stay that long.”
He nodded to himself.
On the drive back, I was silent for a long time, waiting for him to say something, watching the flicker of thoughts crossing his face. I kept making the same mistake, I thought. I kept thinking I could read him.
“So why improv comedy?” I said at last, managing to make my voice sound more cheerful than I felt.
He glanced at me and shrugged. “I did improv a bit in college, a couple of classes,” he said. “And then when I met Lisette…she came to work in this restaurant I was working at over the summer. I usually work a summer job, but this year I’ve been dealing with some divorce stuff, but anyway. Lisette worked with me for a few weeks, and we really clicked, but she had trouble keeping track of her schedule and the manager eventually fired her. But we stayed in touch, and I thought—I guess I thought it would be good for her. And me. I missed acting. I was afraid I would turn into one of those middle school teachers who acts out historical events for their students just so I can have an audience.”
“Your students would love it if you brought in a sword.”
“They do enough damage to each other with pencils. Anyway, I hoped it would give Lisette somewhere to channel her energy, and it seems to have worked. She hasn’t lost another job since we started the Newfingers.”
“You really care about her.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do.”
“So the two of you…if you hadn’t been married at the time, would you have…”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t date Lisette. I don’t think that’s what she needs right now, anyway. I think she needs people who want her to be healthy and safe.”
“You’re a really good person,” I said.
“Oh, no,” he said, grimacing. “The death sentence.”
“I’m saying you’re amazing and you’re turning it into an insult?”
He shrugged. “I’m just like everybody else, only secretly much, much better.” He was smiling.
“I think you may be, though. You took me on a boat trip, and you definitely didn’t have to do that.”
“That’s a prank we play on visitors to see if we can make them sick.”
“To keep them from falling in love with this place?”
“Exactly right. Have to keep those property values low.” He looked out of the car window and didn’t say anything for a moment.
