Funny Feelings (61)

Yeah, I’d call it flirting.

“What do you mean?” A thread of worry tugs when I think of the conversation I know we’ll need to have at some point about our work partnership.

“I mean tell me something I don’t already know about you. An embarrassing dating story, an irrational fear, an oddly specific dream or some niche thing that will be the measure of success and happiness for you.”

“As in…?” I’m struggling not to laugh at the budding annoyance in her voice.

“As in… As in did you know that I’ve been practicing yoga for the last year?”

“Really?”

“Yep. Dr. Deb recommended it. She told me I needed to be able to ‘sit quietly with myself, with my own thoughts and feelings,’” she sighs through a laugh. “It took me an entire month to be able to sit through a whole session without laughing, crying, or leaving. But now I practice daily.”

“Fee, that’s… that’s incredible.” I smile as I picture her sitting peacefully in deference. My pants tighten when that image melts into one of her stretching into a pose, bending and pushing, holding and pulling— concentration laced with bliss. Sweat and breath and…leggings.

“It is, actually. I love it now… Okay your turn.”

I shift in my seat. “Um. I work out a lot.”

“No shit, Meyer. Tell me something I’m not extremely aware of.”

“Extremely aware, huh? Alright, alright.” I think. “Honestly, my story isn’t exactly ‘ha-ha that’s embarrassing but cute’, more like, ‘oof, I don’t know how to respond now’.”

“You can tell me, and I can respond with a really bizarre noise, if you want?”

“Uh, why?”

“Because then whenever it pops into your mind, instead of cringing, you’ll remember that noise and you’ll laugh instead. It’s like electroshock therapy but with laughter.”

God, she’s cute. “I don’t think that’s how that works, Fee.”

“I don’t want to brag or make this about me, My, but I am an expert on handling embarrassment.”

I snort. “Alright, then. Here goes… When I went on a date for the first time after Hazel was born, I, uh… cried.”

The responding sound is a combination of a cartoon villain’s laugh and a trombone, and I tell her as much.

“You know, I’ve often thought of myself as, like, the love child of Pee Wee Herman and Jessica Rabbit.”

That makes me choke on my water. “Nah. Smaller boobs,” I say through a cough.

Laughter tumbles out of her and my grip tightens on the phone, fingertips denting. I’m anxious for that sound in person again.

“Meyer,” she says softly. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“That sound or—?”

“No, My. The crying. Dating is miserable in general, and you’d just gone through a lot and I’m sure it was terrifying getting out there again. Especially with new emotional baggage in tow.”

“It’s alright. I think I just got overwhelmed. I was anxious, drank too much and blubbered,” I groan, remembering against my will.

“I can’t imagine you blubbering.” She sounds mildly delighted by it, though. “But I’m sorry. She make up a family emergency and bail, or was she nice? If she was mean I’ll key her car for you.”

“Uh…”

A stilted pause before a laugh blasts out of her. “Wait… She didn’t…Did she sleep with you?”

“Um.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What’s so unfathomable about someone wanting to sleep with me?”

She scoffs. “It’s that you cried on a first date and her response was to want to fuck you, Meyer. If I did that it would send any man running.”

I wish I could tell her she’s wrong. Instead I try for a subject change.

“What were the other prompts? Irrational fear?”

“Yeah. Like, how I shudder at cotton balls, though, not my fear of inadequacy or daddy issues. Not a deep-seated fear, hit me with something light that makes you illogically anxious.” She replies.

“Bangs.”

“Bangs… As in… Hair?”

“Specifically, long bangs. When they catch on someone’s eyelashes and they’re just constantly in someone’s eyes it fills me with unnatural dread.”

“Okay?” Her voice tilts up at the end, trying, and failing, to sound non judgmental.

“I just don’t know how that wouldn’t drive you insane. Having the blunt ends of a hundred hairs stabbing you in the eyeball.”

“While I do think that’s extreme, I suppose I kinda get it.”

“Also, Hazel cut her own bangs when she was three or four, but they were nowhere near even. She looked like Froggy from Little Rascals. I had to learn to do these little antennae pigtails at the front of her head for like six months. Bangs and I have a complicated history.”

“Oh, god, that’s what’s happening in those pictures,” she cackles. “And you know what, most women and bangs have a complicated history, too.”

“I did my best, Fee,” I sigh, before I admit, “I feel like this question game is counterproductive and with each answer I’m revealing something that makes you like me less.”