Text from Taller Joan:Hello, my love. Me and Joan were talking about you today! We want to say that we really hope your mission is going well and that you are finding time to HAVE SOME FUN!!!! We are so jealous of you being in New York New York! Make the most of it. Love Joan and Joan of Joan’s FreshFishx
‘Noooo, you’re getting it wrong!’I scold Seth for the gazillionth time. ‘You jump on theOi. HeeeeeyMacarena,Oi!’
‘Isn’t that whatIdid?’
‘No, you jumped on the Macarena. Totally out of time. How are you notgettingthis?’
‘The Macarena is hard,’ Seth grumbles. ‘And I don’t think you’re teaching itcorrectly.
‘I’m a great teacher.’ I put my hands on my hips. ‘You just have a terrible sense ofrhythm.’
‘I’ve never had any complaints,’ Seth says, his eyesglinting.
God. What is happening? We are totally, totally flirting. How have we ended up flirting? I haven’t flirted in years. Maybe I have never even flirted at all? Even my conversations with Colin at the airport were all pretty polite and proper. We’ve flirted a little by text, but mostly we’ve been swapping information about the weather in our respective locales and asking questions like ‘if you were an animal what kind of animal would you be?’ and ‘what’s your favourite smell?’ And while I do love a good chat about the weather, and one of my favourite things is finding out what kind of animal a person would be, it’s notreallyflirting.
What I’m doing with Seth right now is one hundred per cent, completely and utterly flirting. Seth has touched me on the arm three times. I have nudged him once with my elbow and touched his arm twice! I know this because Icounted.
Over the past hour or so I’ve found that I’m acting completely unlike my usual self around him. I’m laughing and quipping and flicking my hair and being daft like I usually only am with Birdie. Seth seems to find me genuinely funny. I told him about Donna’s candle business earlier, doing the impression of her I did for Birdie at the hospital and he clutched his stomach he was laughing so hard. I even did a sexy wiggle when I taught him theMacarena.
Hmmm. Maybe I’m acting so out of character because the storm has been raging on for the past three hours and there’s an energy of panic and dark excitement in the bar. Maybe the danger of it turns me on.Maybeall this time, my lack of sexual feelings was nothing to do with the breakdown of my family or my need for control, but because I can only get the horn in a storm? It must be a thing. Storm horn. I wonder if there is storm porn for people who have the storm horn… I will do an incognito Google search when my phone reception returns and see what I canfindout.
I can’t even blame this behaviour on booze. Unlike everyone else in the bar who is now completely sozzled, Seth and I stopped drinking beer after our first two bottles and now I’m sipping water and Seth is onrootbeer.
After a game of pool in which Seth won, mostly because we had to get it over and done quickly because a couple of the other bar attendees were giving us the daggers, we ate some peanuts and Seth taught me how to throw them up in the air and catch them every single time. The trick is to aim to where you think the nut is going to hit your nose and it will always land in your mouth. Such a pointless exercise,butfun.
And then we got onto the topic of Seth’s audition tomorrow. I asked him to show me his routine, which he did. And it was brilliant! When he’s not stealing my likeness for sketch material, he is actually very, very funny. I can see why it’s his job. He told me he needed to do an impression as part of the audition and that he had settled on John Malkovich because it was the only one he could do. I asked him to show me and he did this whole bit where he was John Malkovich doing a red carpet interview. As he was talking, a little thought popped up in my head and really made melaugh.
‘It’s terrible isn’t it?’ Seth said as I giggled, his face flushingslightlypink.
‘No! It’s a really good John Malkovich. I just… An idea just burst into my head and it made melaugh.’
‘Oh, well you have to tellmenow.’
‘It’sdaft.’
‘Goon!’
I rolled my eyes. ‘All right. I just thought that it might be funnier if, instead of having John Malkovich do a red carpet interview, he would maybe be…’ I trailed off, feeling embarrassed. I had no right telling a comedy writer what might be a funnier thingtodo.
‘Yes?’ Seth said. He looked genuinelyinterested.
So I carried on. ‘So, like, John Malkovich could be teaching his friend the Macarena. I don’t know why he would, but it justmademe—’
‘I love it!’ Seth said immediately, with a big bark of laughter. ‘It’s ridiculous. Iloveit.’
‘Really?’ I beamed with pleasure. ‘Haha!’
And so for the past forty minutes I’ve been teaching Seth the Macarena and making suggestions to the rest of his routine, most of which he’s actually taken on. And to my great astonishment I am having the most fun I’ve had in years. The last time I laughed this much was when Donna tripped over a toddler in Asda and flailed forward, headbutting the toddler’s dad in his goolies. She was not impressed when I suggested that she’d legit just cheatedonAlex.
‘Are you sure you’ve never written funny stuff before?’ Seth says, shaking his head, after I suggest that John Malkovich dramatically recites the words to the Macarena, rather thansingthem.
‘God, no!’ I say, embarrassed and pleased in a silly, vain kindofway.
‘You’re anatural.’
I feel my cheeks stretch into a gigantic smile. Maybe he’s just being flirty. But I don’t care. It’s nice to feel like I might be good at something beyond filleting cod and noticing where all potential hazards within a five-metre radiusmightbe.
After we’ve perfected the impression and the Macarena routine, much to the amusement of Phyllis, Sonny and a few of the other patrons, we take a seat back in our booth and order anotherpizza.
