Funny Feelings (16)

I decide to experiment and lay my own forearm down so my hand sits just on the inside of his. We’re both still wearing our sunglasses so I can’t see his eyes to determine whether he’s noticed.

When he doesn’t move again, I hold my breath and graze my fingertips along his palm, which he unfurls instantly. I peek at him through my lenses, seeing his throat work and his nostrils flare slightly. His fingertips rise up just so, smoothing along the underside of my wrist.

I physically feel myself wanting to ruin this moment with a dumb remark or— God forbid— a sound effect. Rather than chance it, I shovel back some edamame with my free hand, silently begging for him to be the one to speak first.

“So… anything new you plan to add in tomorrow’s set?” he asks.

When I lick the spicy garlicky remnants from a finger, his thumb wraps around to push my palm into his. A million synapses begin to buzz, and I will that hand not to sweat.

I search my brain, ping-ponging around in my head. “Um… Nothing profound. But I did decide to start trying natural deodorant this week. You know, because the regular stuff just has all kinds of chemicals and is actually pretty toxic. And then it didn’t take long for me to decide that I’d just rather die a little bit sooner with some of that crap in my system than gain a few extra years having to smell that toxic.”

“Always love a good public service announcement.”

“Except my sex toy one, of course.”

He laughs through his nose as his thumb continues its circles across the top of my hand.

Sushi arrives, and it’s not until halfway through the meal that I notice him using his fork to eat instead of the chopsticks. It’s also when I notice that he uses that fork with his opposite hand, so he can keep hold of mine with the other.

It’s the best lunch of my life.





34 MONTHS AGO





“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone.” - Robin Williams





MEYER


You wouldn’t think that many people would spend Christmas Eve out at a comedy club, but you’d be wrong.

It’s packed, overheated, and overflowing with the drunk and jolly. Hazel and I agreed to spend this Christmas Eve with Farley who has ferreted her way into our lives and asserted herself as a regular fixture.

I don’t know how to define our relationship. Friends? I give her occasional advice on her stand-up, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m mentoring her. Friends is accurate, I suppose. The amount of space she takes up in my brain certainly feels friendly.

She and Hazel have a unique bond, and in spite of Farley constantly making jokes about how she should not be allowed to be an influence, I do think she’s good for Hazel. She makes her laugh, at least. And, more than that, she helps handle some of the stuff that I muck up—like issues with friend groups, a boy that shoved her down in some game called wall-ball—and she handles it with productive advice. I, on the other hand, was ready to yank her out of school entirely and find a private tutor and not let her out of the house ever again.

Instead, per Fee’s instruction, we all met at a park three nights a week and practiced until Hazel kicked the kid’s ass handily in wall-ball. He completely avoids her now.

She helps Hazel with her dance routines—which, I might add, is a highly specialized skill. Not being able to hear a rhythm requires a different kind of memorization and feel. I’d been extremely wary—angry, even—when Farley pushed me to let her join. But the brat has proven me wrong again.

“Just because she can’t hear the music doesn’t mean she can’t feel it, Meyer. She likes to move, and is begging to do this. It’s good for her. Let her try,” Farley had said.

I’d felt powerless and immediately tired by the mere idea of arguing about it, so I did let her try.

Watching her learn a dance… God, it makes me sick with pride. Fee makes Hazel want to be brave, and then she follows that up with helping her apply it. They memorize a succession of gestures to indicate the start of a song and then Hazel takes it from there. It’s not lost on me that Farley ends up having to memorize the dances herself in order to help Hazel in certain sticky spots.

So, when my parents told me they were headed to Hawaii for Christmas, Hazel asked if we could go to Lance’s club and see Farley’s last show of the year, and I agreed. Although as I watch what appears to be a group of frat guys in from out of town, greeting each other with varying degrees of chest bumps and yelling about “Shots!” I wince and wonder if we should have just met up with her afterwards.

Farley gets up to do her set and the part of my brain that I usually donkey-kick into submission rears up and catches me off guard when she sidles out under the lights.

She’s… she’s beautiful.

It’s not as if I haven’t noticed that she’s attractive all this time, but there’s some force that opens my eyes fully in this moment. Maybe it’s the sum of Hazel’s recital yesterday, ice skating the day before, and that whole Christmas spirit thing. Whatever it is, I take her in and feel like she’s in focus. Like one of those pictures that starts out looking like a multitude of different tiny photos but turns into a portrait when you back away from it.