Funny Feelings (29)
“You were dating down, Jones. He was small-minded compared to you. That’s all that I meant by that.”
I adjust my purse on my shoulder, wondering how to put this to him honestly while saving face.
In the end, I’d read Joe wrong. I thought he was as invested as I was, which, if I was to quantify it, would probably have been about fifty percent. We wouldn’t talk every day, but we weren’t sleeping with other people or anything, either. We certainly weren’t making declarations of love, but I did see him at least once a week for about five months.
But, then there was his birthday. I’d felt terrible that I didn’t realize it sooner, but Meyer and I had a seven day trip scheduled up in San Francisco to do a series of shows. It was to start in S.F., immediately followed by Oakland, and San Jose. And, we’d worked it out for Marissa (who was working out amazingly as his new tutor and quasi-nanny) to fly up with Hazel halfway through so that we could go to Alcatraz, as well as a play for her early birthday gift. The Cursed Child was playing, and the translators were incredible… I’d scoped it out myself to make sure.
I could tell that Joe was already a little perturbed to come second so easily, but he didn’t make a fuss over it, so I just figured it wasn’t worth hashing out…
Until Hazel got a nasty flu two days into us being away. Meyer flew back immediately, and I came as soon as my last show was done two days after.
I walked through the front door of the condo he’d been packing up to sell, to the faint smell of bleach and sickness. He and Hazel were convalescing in separate rooms, but Haze was already through the worst of it. She was tired and living on whatever Marissa would drop off on the doorstep (sporting no less than a hazmat suit), but, she had her TV and Netflix with subtitles in her room.
Meyer, on the other hand, was ill.
I am all for poking fun at the man flu, but this man was truly sick. 103 degree fevers that I could only get to break by alternating Motrin and Tylenol, and even then would only get down to 100, for over three days straight. He could hardly keep down water, to the point that I was one foot out the door away from dragging his ass to the emergency room, before he finally turned the corner.
He’d only ever had a goatee or nothing before then, but the days of barely coming to life, only to move from the bed to the bathroom, had given him enough stubble to pass for a beard.
I propped him up in bed, a freshly cleaned sheet tucked around his bare, clammy shoulders, and started spoon feeding him broth.
“I’m surprised you’re not complaining about this,” I said to him with a frown. He just looked at me with sad, bloodshot eyes.
“You’ve already heard the sound that comes out of me when I vomit. I can give you this,” he’d croaked, his deep voice made even deeper by hoarseness.
And that was Meyer at his most vulnerable, I realized.
He’d made himself into a man that really didn’t use humor or sarcasm to shield himself anymore, unless it was for my benefit. He’d worked tirelessly to be a better version of himself for his daughter, to constantly take care of everyone who mattered to him. But he’d slipped just a little in that moment with me. It made me realize what a gift I’d been given in him allowing me— in all my sarcastic, bawdy, glory— into the steel bubble that he’d built around himself and Hazel.
For some inexplicable reason, he’d let me knock on the secret door and waltz right in from the moment he met me. That was a small moment, when he was feeling incredibly weak and probably deeply embarrassed, where I could see him figuratively trying to tidy up, trying to keep me at the threshold.
I chose to shove past it. I put my palm to his cheek and ran my thumb against the new stubble there. “I like you with the beard.”
Once he’d kept the broth and some crackers down for over six hours, I decided to head home, indescribably worn out from days of worry and little sleep. When I showed up to the rental, Joe was there, sitting on my front step.
“Joe… hey.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t take up any of your time.”
“What? What do you—“
“I was at Lance’s last night, with my buddies, for my birthday.” He looked at me and let that realization set in.
Fuck. I hadn’t even texted him.
“He told me you’ve been home for four days, Farley. I thought you were still in San Francisco this entire time, and you couldn’t even give me the heads up that you were coming home.”
“Joe. Shit, I’m— I’m sorry.” I’m also just so very tired and would like to get past you and get into my bed, I’d thought.
“It’s… Well, I’d love to say it’s alright, but you know what? It’s not. I’ve tried to be whatever it is that works for you. I’ve tried to just fit, in whatever capacity you’ll have me. I’ve been extremely respectful of the fact that you are passionate about your career, and have supported you putting it first. But, Farley, I think it’s to the point that you’d put your career—that version of you that lives on stage—above every other part of yourself. It’s like it’s this whole separate you, and you’re willing to actually set aside your own happiness, and every other part of your life, in order for that one part of you to thrive. You can’t make it through a meal without having to write some bit down. You can’t go to a restaurant without having to watch other couples and what they’re doing so you can invent some joke about it. You couldn’t even fucking call me on my birthday,” he sighed, and I was overcome with the realization that Joe was actually not unaffected, and that everything Joe was saying was true.