“Isn’t Paul the best?” she said as she set the table; she still knew more about where to find the various forks and glasses than I did.
“He’s really nice.”
“You should marry Paul,” she said, “and get your Canadian green card, and stay here forever.”
“So the two of you never dated?”
“Oh, no. He’s like a brother to me. Except my actual brothers would knock out Paul in a fistfight. Two of them are wrestlers, and Paul’s not really a fighter. Not that I’ve seen Paul fight, but I can’t see him breaking a beer bottle against a brick wall, you know?”
“Have you seen someone do that often?”
“At least twice.” Something in her tone made me leave the comment without pursuing it.
“Paul’s lovely,” I said. “But it seems like he’s still getting over his divorce so maybe no green card weddings yet.”
“Trish was awful to him,” Lisette said. “The worst part about her was that she seemed so nice. But you could tell she wasn’t. She was one of those people who has a soft, gentle voice,” Lisette adopted a breathy, kindergarten teacher tone as she spoke, “andeveryonelikes her but she’s notactuallygoing to do anything that will bedifficultfor her. Because she doesn’tlikethings that arehard.” Lisette rolled her eyes, dropping the voice. “She wouldn’t go out of her way for anyone, you know what I mean? And Paul’s so nice that he’s easy to take advantage of. When he falls for someone, he goes full on, head-over-heels, you know?” My breath caught painfully at the words as I imagined what Paul would look like if he were head-over-heels in love with someone. “So he let her push him around. And then she announced she was leaving him one day. Without warning. He was completely shattered.”
“Has he dated since then?”
Lisette leaned forward. “I knew it. You like him!”
“No, I just wondered.” Was I blushing? I hoped not. I shrugged one shoulder lightly, doing my best casual,Sex and the Cityromantic sangfroid.
Lisette considered the question. “He hasn’t dated that I know of. One time he took a woman to dinner, and afterwards he told me he wasn’t ready. But you may be right. He may be obsessed with Trish. I think for a while he was hoping she’d come crawling back. But that’s why I want him to date you. Have a fling with the lady from Brooklyn who’s only here for a couple of months.”
“The Lady from Brooklynsounds like the name of a scandalous 1940s movie.”
“That would be a good comedy sketch.The Lady from Brooklyn.A musical.”
“With songs like Pizza Rat and Rent Control and Fear of Intimacy,” I offered.
“See,” Lisette said with a knowing grin, “that was improv. You’re one of us already.”
I grinned, wishing it was true, wishing I could be a carefree improv comedy person. What would that be like? Dashing up on stage in overalls and shouting, ‘Who here has had an embarrassing sexual experience they want to share?’
“So what’s the status with your housing?” I asked her, carefully steering the subject away from romance.
“Oh, good news! I successfully did the church rounds with my sad story and one of the families is letting me rent out their basement, so I will be out of Paul’s by the weekend!”
“That’s wonderful!”
“It’s such a good deal,” she said. “They’re only charging me two hundred dollars’ rent, and all I have to do is watch their kids once in a while so they can go to dinner and a movie. It’s in their basement, and the ceiling isn’t finished, but there is a toilet in the corner and a shower. It’s gonna be perfect. I can save up for my own place.”
It sounded appalling, even by my own low standards from the cheap-rent trenches of the outer boroughs, but I could tell she was relieved not to be relying on Paul or me anymore. I had a sense of fellow feeling with her desire to be independent. I remembered once at my liberal arts college—I had gone to Bard on scholarship and spent four years in rolling green fields among wealthy animation and social justice majors—a much wealthier classmate found out about my neglectful upbringing. I considered her a friend and had been telling an amusing anecdote about my mother forgetting our existence for a weekend and Laura and I surviving on three different brands of sugary cereal. Suddenly, her eyes welled with tears, and she clutched my hand with blue-painted nails and said that she wasso sorrythat happened to me, and if Ieverneeded anything, I could come to her. I extracted myself from the room and her friendship as fast as I could. Nothing makes you feel worse about your life than genuine pity.
“Well, it may not be perfect, but I’m glad you found somewhere,” I said briskly.
“So are you excited about improv practice on Thursday?” Lisette asked.
“I have no idea what I’m walking into, to be honest.”
“Okay, perfect.” Lisette folded her knees up in her dining chair and set both elbows on the table. “Let me give you the basics.”
While we finished dinner, Lisette gave me a quick talk about improv. It was the first time I’d seen her get deadly serious, even including when she told me about escaping her abusive boyfriend.
“Improv,” Lisette said, “is not just comedy. It’s not—you know—a means to an end. It’s the end. It’s a way of thinking. You have to observe and connect and return back to things and see them in a new way. Those are all the things that are required to live a good life, yeah?”
She told me that the key to improv was to listen to your impulses, to trust your inner gut, and not to push things.
