Friends Without Benefits
“But if . . .” I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the cool cotton blanket. “But if you believe there is more than one right person for you, then why not just move on to girl C?”
“Come on, Elizabeth. Finding girl C, being who I am, what I do . . .” He sighed, “I guess it’s possible.” I almost threw the phone, but then he continued. “But honestly, I don’t really want to.”
“Why not?” I held my breath.
“Because one of the reasons girl B and boy A would never have worked is because I’m—he’s still in love with girl A.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and felt a burst of something potently warm spread through my limbs. But then a sudden thought halted the delightful feeling. “Is he still in love with girl B?”
“No.”
“But he is with girl A? Still loves her? That seems strange.”
“I don’t think so. You should know better than anyone how hard it is to let go of someone when you’ve loved them most of your life.”
“But I did. I let Garrett go.”
“Have you?”
Had I?
Had I really?
I waited for a stab of pain or an ache. Again, I felt only a numbness where something used to be. I answered honestly, “Yes. I have. I’ll always love him, but I’m not carrying a torch for him like I used to, like I did for years. I don’t think about him hourly or even daily, not any more. I don’t pine for him.” Like I do for you.
GAH!
I hoped he didn’t detect my unspoken words because I wasn’t quite ready to admit them to myself let alone to him. I needed to spend more time in my petri dish, more time to culture in the bacteria of possibility. Or, in Star Trek Borg terms, I need a cycle in a maturation chamber.
We were silent for a moment. I was about to ask him if he believed me, but Nico surprised me by continuing his story. “So, back to boy A and girl A. I haven’t told you the end of the story.”
“There is an end?”
“Technically not an end, just a final statement. Boy A, although he’s pretty sure girl A is for him, isn’t certain that he is for her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, if he were for her, wouldn’t she have already done something about it?”
“Maybe she needs time.” Stop speaking. Stop talking right now.
“Maybe . . .” He didn’t sound certain, and I was feeling borderline mortified and completely confused. I was worried any additional conversation might cause me to lead him on. I didn’t want to lead him anywhere false, especially to hope.
I shifted on my bed, abruptly sat up. “Well. Thanks for telling your story and the take-home message here, I’m surmising, is that you like to tell math problems disguised as stories.”
“No. The take home message is that your dad is allowed to have a girl A and a girl B. In fact, he’s allowed to have a girl C, D, E, F. He’s allowed to have an alphabet of women. And so are you.”
“Oh, I bet you’d like it if I had an alphabet of women.”
“I’m not going to lie, it’s something I may warm up to on a cold night. But you know I meant that you have an entire alphabet of people for you—and not people who you can use. People out there who want to share a life with you. Maybe not what you and Garrett had, but something new. Something great. Don’t give up on your alphabet.” I could hear the teasing in his voice, which had grown raspy and sleepy during our long conversation.
“Don’t give up on my alphabet . . .” I smiled. “I will keep that in mind.”
“Life is alphabet soup, Elizabeth. Eat that soup.”
~*~
We spoke again on Saturday—three times in fact. I didn’t have much time to think about our discussion before we were on the phone with each other again. The calls also had the maddening effect of placing a virtually permanent, ridiculous, goofy grin on my face. I didn’t even see Meg. She may have been working, she may even have talked to me at one point, but my good mood was impenetrable.
I kept meaning to bring up the mixtape, but would get sidetracked by something he said. It always felt like we never had enough time to talk. Therefore, when Nico brought it up during our Sunday lunch conversation, I was a little blindsided.
“You haven’t mentioned anything about the mixtape.”
“Oh!” I jumped then fidgeted in my seat. “Yes. The tape.”
“Did you listen to it yet?”
“Yes. I listened . . .to it.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“I think . . .” I paused to gather a breath and also to stall. If the ladies were right, and I was one-hundred-and-ten-percent positive that they were, then what was I supposed to say about the tape? What right answer could I give?
I settled for honest and benign. “I think that it is full of some really good music.”
He was very quiet for a long moment then he said, “I feel like this is a huge step forward for you, to have admitted that.”
I released a breath. “I never said I didn’t like good music, I just said I preferred boy band music.”
“Which song did you like the most—wait, actually, which songs did you not like?”
“Um . . .”
“Were there any songs that you didn’t like?”
“I don’t know that I didn’t like them so much as . . . This is hard to talk about.”
“Yeah. I thought it might be.”
“Well the song, I guess, that was the most difficult to listen to, even though I recognize that it’s a really good song, is the one about someone dying by Death Cab for Cutie.”
“Ah, yeah. I thought that might be the one that you were going to say, I was hoping you were going to mention a different one; but, yeah. That’s a really good song.”
“It is.”
“It actually helped me. When it came out, it helped me work through some issues.”
“You use music to work through issues?”
“Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Help them feel things they’re not ready to feel? Or maybe they’re blind to?”
I decided to avoid the implications of his last statement in favor of the simple truth about me and music. “No. I don’t use music for that.”
“Right. Obviously. Because nobody is using boy bands to work through issues unless it’s how to feel about copping your first feel or dealing with morning wood.”
“Nico!”
“Because what issues could boy bands help you work through? Lingering questions about how to remove a bra . . . When did the boy with a premature ejaculation problem arrive to the party? I’ll give you a hint, he came too early.”
I barked a laugh, and I knew he was also smiling as he continued. “You listen to boy bands to avoid issues.”
He was right, of course. The fact that he knew me so well didn’t at all surprise me although it did make me uncomfortable. I didn’t have anything to say in response to his probing so I decided on the silent approach.
I should have known him better.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes.”
“Are you being quiet because I’m right?”
I squirmed a little. “Yes.”
“Is there any possibility that over the course of this conversation you will actually say the words: ‘Nico, you are right?’”
“No. That’s not going to happen.”
“Even though I’m right?”
“I’m always right. You don’t see me going around ordering people to tell me so.”
“Almost always right.”
His teasing rejoinder made me smile, melt a little. “Fine. I’ll admit that what you said was true.”
“So you’re fine with saying, ‘Yes Nico’ and you’re good with saying, ‘That’s true, Nico’, but you are physically incapable of saying, ‘Nico Manganiello, you are right?’ Is that correct?”
“That is correct.” God help me, I was giggling. “First of all, you know I’ve never been able to pronounce your last name.”
“If you’d let me touch your tongue while you tried to say it I bet we could fix that problem—”
I decided to pretend he hadn’t spoken although my body was having difficulty ignoring what he’d said. “And secondly, I could maybe say a word that rhymes with right, like: Nico, you are light or blight or sight or bite.”
“Nico, you are bite? That doesn’t make any sense. How about, Nico you are bright?”
I was laughing as I said, “I don’t think I can say that either.”
He was laughing as he asked, “Why?”
“Because it’s a compliment.”
“So now you’re incapable of complimenting me?”
“No, I’ve complimented you, I told you that one time that you are funny.”
“Mmm-hmm, why is it so hard for you to say nice things to me about me?”
“Because I’m so used to saying mean things about you to you.” I glanced around the doctors’ lounge; no one seemed to be paying me any attention. Regardless, just in case, I lowered my voice. “Call it sixteen years of it being drilled in my head—by you—that you are the Romulan to my Vulcan.”