I waited. His eyes were full of something that I couldn’t read. He took another breath. “What Lisette said about me dating again, I’m not sure if?—”
“We can just be friends.” I cut him off as quickly as I could. I didn’t need him to let me down easy, if that’s how this was going to go.
“Okay.” He smiled, the rueful look appearing just for a moment. “Okay, sure.”
There. That had saved us both from a lot of suffering. I got out of the car and walked to the door, telling myself I was happy that things were settled.
Good for him, to be that healthy. Good for him to be able to set boundaries that a therapist would approve of. Good for him that he knew he needed more time to process his divorce. Good for him that as soon as he met a woman he actually liked, all of that would go out the window.
7
“WILD ENTHUSIASM”
A coupleof days after that, at the next improv practice, I learned that I clicked surprisingly with Mark when we did improv together. Paul had set up a simple game based on one of his improv books. The goal was for us to do a scene in which one of us acted high status (and belittled the other person) and the other acted low status (and belittled themselves)…and then over the course of the scene, things slowly switched, so that both people were acting high status, and then eventually the person who started out ‘high status’ turned into the ‘low status’ person. Paul pointed to Mark and me and said, with his schoolteacher’s authority: “Are you two ready to give it a go?”
Mark began the scene in full high-status mode. “So,” he said, “you’re back again. I’m impressed you had the courage to show your face.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, in low-status mode. “I probably shouldn’t be here. Everyone is much more talented than I am. I can’t believe I even got into college.”
“I could help you to study,” Mark said, “but I’m not sure you’d be able to follow what I’m saying.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “My mother used to say I was the stupidest of all her children.”
“Well, I’m sure she was just being honest.”
Then our status was supposed to start to shift. “I imagine your mother must have said something similar to you,” I said.
“Not really,” he replied. “She was too busy driving me to all the schools that were begging me to attend.”
“That’s nice of them,” I said, “given that you weren’t taking the most difficult classes.”
“Nothing is really difficult for me,” he replied.
“I imagine it feels like that to everyone sometimes, when they are new to a subject.” Being passive-aggressive was surprisingly cathartic.
We went on like that for a while, cutting each other down until finally Mark switched to treating himself as low status. When we were done, Mark leaned back, looking amused as Paul and Lisette applauded.
“She’s brutal,” he said. “That was fun.”
“I think we were both a little too good at that one,” I said. “I don’t know what that says about us.”
“It says that I am witty and sophisticated,” Mark replied. “And you are from New York.”
“I’m terrified of both of you now,” Paul said.
“My mother was the queen of passive-aggressiveness growing up,” I said. “I learned from the best.”
“My mother was just aggressive,” Paul replied.
At the end of the practice, Lisette waved everyone to silence. “I have a suggestion. Abigail here doesn’t know if she’s staying here past the summer, but we have that show on August 17th. What do you say we let her join in until then?”
“And be in a show?” Paul asked, considering.
I was already frantically waving away the idea. “I’m definitely not ready.”
“No one,” Lisette said, “is ever ready. Mark, Paul, what do you say? It’ll either be her going away gift, or the way we convince her to stay in the country.”
“Sure,” Paul said, giving me a little smile.
