Funny Feelings (40)

He’d been wearing a simple black t-shirt, a dish towel slung over his shoulder and a toothpick in his teeth, and kept right on singing into a turkey baster microphone.

I’ll start working on a vaguely food-related bit and my mind will veer off to the way the tendons and muscles in his forearms worked as he chopped the celery, onions, and apples for stuffing that day. Or to the way he’d roll the toothpick to the other side of his mouth with his tongue occasionally as he spoke. To the way he stood behind me at the sink as I struggled to peel a potato, wrapped his palms around mine to demonstrate “it’s just a matter of applying the right pressure, and then it slides easily, see?”

I’ll be attempting to write a joke on how men are babies, but then Meyer’s concerned face will project itself in my brain. The way he’d jumped up when I clumsily grazed my wrist against the hot burner on the stove. I can still feel the way he blew on the burn, the way he applied a bandaid with a feather-light touch.

Then there are some things I find I can work with, but in their inception they’re a tiny grain of truth that I’m then forced to embellish based on my observations of other people’s relationships and conversations. Like how I start an entire piece on being suspicious of your significant other’s happiness—all based on how even Marissa is picking up on the changes in his demeanor, and how she goes on high alert because of it. Some hug, or a few extra grins slide out of him and I’ll catch her squinted, smug gaze as she mouths what the fuck at me from behind his back. Granted, her suspicions lean toward him wanting more from our arrangement than him hiding something bad, but still.

It makes me think about normal, real relationships and people wondering if their partners have some other motivation when they seem extra attentive. Perhaps they’re amping up to ask about butt stuff, or planning a trip with their parents? Maybe they took out a credit card and racked up some debt they neglected to share?

It’s the hardest I’ve ever had to work to try and be funny, and ironically, it’s the depth of that endeavor that has me questioning if it’s even any good or not. Like if I dig too far, or just a foot off of where I need to, I’ll find shit instead of treasure.

This is just the beginning of where I start to unravel.



It’s officially the day of the football game, the first scheduled “event” where all three of us— Kara, Shauna, and I— will be together prior to the pre-tour-tour. I’d flown in last night, fully prepared for a night on the town, three funny females taking San Francisco by storm… and ended up in the hotel alone and asleep before seven PM. Shauna was with Tyson, and Kara was at home. Meyer flew in this morning, not wanting to be gone from Hazel any more than necessary before the extended trip.

When he emerges from his Uber at the curb, his breath curls in the chilly air, stern face held tight. An angry dragon forced from his lair.

“Was your driver rude or something?” I call out, and the change in his expression when he finds me has my ears pulling back, has me swallowing a stupid chuckle.

In just a few of his long strides he’s there, less than a foot from me. “It was the opposite, actually,” he says. “She talked the entire time. We took a selfie for her niece, Willow, who’s an undergrad at Cal Berkeley, with a roommate named Kale. She told me she asked Kale if he liked spinach and I had to pretend to laugh at that, Fee.” His chin dips meaningfully and I snort. “She kept trying to maintain eye contact through the mirror while she spoke instead of focusing on the road. Her brother, Raul—Willow’s Dad, in case you were wondering—is getting married for the fourth time next Summer and Marcia, my driver, has a lot of feelings about it.”

I snort. “Oh my god. It was your actual nightmare,” I smile so hard my vision is obscured.

“Nightmare,” he smiles back, searching my eyes. “Riveting stuff, really. I felt like I was being poisoned. The only thing that could have made it worse would’ve been talking about the weather.” The grin grows.

“God, you’re such an asshole,” I give a little punch to his chest “but I know you were polite still.”

“Of course. Took a lot out of me though. I’m weak and famished.” He grabs my wrist and plants a chaste kiss on my knuckles before scooping me into his side.

We eat outside, the steam from our drinks and breath mingling in the December air. I’m grateful for the sun warming my face and giving me an excuse to wear sunglasses again, so I can surreptitiously steal glances at him. The chill paints his cheeks with a rosy bloom above his beard, legs akimbo with one palm braced on a sturdy thigh. His own sunglasses fog occasionally when he brings his drink to his lips. This whole image is explicit, somehow. Feels even more so when he snatches the leg of my chair suddenly and pulls it—including me— over to him, to his side of the little bistro table. I drape an arm around his middle, palm falling to his chest in the abrupt movement— to catch myself, of course, not to feel the mound of a hard pec beneath my palm. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and kisses my temple before dipping down to my ear. “Photographers. Eleven o’clock.” I let my eyes dart that direction, where I spot two leaning over a car.

We sit this way for awhile, eyes closed to the sun and limbs draped over one another like vines.

It isn’t until later that I realize just how comfortable this has started to become—the touching. There’s still a jolt to my system, but it’s one I relax into now. Like slipping into warm water after being submerged in cold, or vice versa. Just feels like a refreshing surge each time.