Romantic Comedy, page 18
Where’d you go?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 25, 2020, 11:19 PM
subject: Actually
Wrong answer, huh?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:25 AM
subject: Actually
Okay, here’s the story of my marriage: As a middle class white girl, I can’t claim I was out of place at Duke from a socioeconomic standpoint (this is how all juicy and romantic stories begin, right?), but I was a bad fit for the fraternity-sorority/country club vibe of the campus. I almost never went to parties and barely had friends until I joined the staff of the student newspaper my sophomore year. First I was one of the copy editors, and eventually I was the copy chief. This meant I stayed late, read practically every article that was filed, and was fairly invisible in a way that suited me. (Nigel says that TNO isn’t a place for perfectionists or lone wolves, and because I’m naturally both, working there has taught me to fight those tendencies.)
Anyway, the sports editor of the newspaper my senior year was a guy named Mike. He’d also worked his way up, so we’d interacted tons of times (while I copyedited his articles about, say, men’s tennis) without really getting to know each other. At a staff happy hour on Halloween, a columnist named Derrick got falling down drunk, and Mike and I ended up walking him back to his dorm room and putting him to bed. It was only maybe eight o’clock on a Friday, and campus was filled with people in all kinds of crazy costumes planning all kinds of wild nights, but both Mike and I were worried that Derrick was going to throw up, choke on it, and die, so we parked ourselves in his room, with the lights low, to keep an eye on him. We sat on the floor and talked for a few hours, until we decided it was safe to leave. I honestly don’t think we’d have gotten together if not for babysitting Derrick (though I think this is true for plenty of relationships, that they’re random at least as often as they’re inevitable), but we quickly became a serious couple (in every sense). Mike was applying to law schools then, and he ended up deciding on Chapel Hill, which is just 20 minutes from Duke. He was (is? Because he’s still alive, if not still part of my life) from Charlotte, NC, and it was already understood that when he finished law school, he’d go back there.
In the spring of our senior year, we decided to get married. Neither of us was being pressured by our parents—his parents actually were religious, but not in a way where they’d have been upset if we lived together without getting married. My mom said that she had concerns because people can change a lot in their twenties and Mike and I might evolve out of wanting to be a couple, but that she also thought I had the right to make my own decisions. We got married at the Durham County Courthouse the Friday after our graduation, in front of Mike’s parents and brother, my mom and Jerry, and two of our friends from the newspaper. That Monday, I started my job as a writer at an in-house newsletter for a gigantic medical device company (AdlerWilliams).
When I look back, I simultaneously think it’s fine that Mike and I got married, no animals were injured, etc., AND it seems like we did it for terrible reasons—at best, in order to cross off what we perceived as the biggest item on the to-do list of adulthood, at worst, because we were scared of life after college. Or maybe those are the same thing, or maybe I just mean I was scared. In theory, I wanted to move to New York or LA and write for TV, but I didn’t know anyone in the industry and I was too chicken to go to one of those cities alone. I suppose I wanted to absolve myself of responsibility for my own happiness—I could blame Mike for trapping me in NC.
Every July, while working at AdlerWilliams, as a secret annual rite that no one besides Mike knew about, I submitted a sketch packet to TNO. The first time I ever did this, the head writer, who was then Ollie Toubey, called me eight weeks later and said something like “We can’t make you an offer right now, but you’re talented and we encourage you to apply again.” It was a three-minute conversation that was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I kept applying and being rejected for the next few years (and not hearing directly from anyone again), during which time Mike graduated from law school, we moved to Charlotte, and I got a new job as a writer at a magazine for a high-end credit card (Luxuries Monthly? Perhaps you subscribe? Against your will?). And then in late September 2009, on a Monday, I got a call from Ollie saying, “Can you come to the TNO office tomorrow to interview?” And I said, “Oh, wow, this is amazing, but I live in North Carolina.” And Ollie said, “Cool, can you come to the TNO office tomorrow to interview?” I spent $880 on the ticket, which was the most I’d ever spent on anything. And I made a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express at the Newark airport, but I went straight from getting off the plane to the 66 building, so I was dragging my suitcase. I interviewed with Ollie and his deputy, Ursula, and they were the smartest and funniest people I’d ever met, then they told me to wait outside Nigel’s office to meet him. I waited for seven hours, which as you might know is unremarkable—Henrietta had to wait outside his office for three days (the day I was there, he was taking a helicopter in from the Hamptons). I finally met him at ten o’clock at night, we had a very anodyne exchange that felt like it was over before it began, and I spent most of it describing working for Luxuries and for AdlerWilliams’s newsletter (which was called Heartbeats). I assumed that he couldn’t have found me more boring. I left his office after about eight minutes and sat in the hall again, and Ollie and Ursula went into his office for an even shorter time than I’d been in there then came back out, led me to Ollie’s office, and said, “Can you start tomorrow?” Even now, I don’t have the words to express how shocked and thrilled and overwhelmed and disbelieving I was. It was like swimming in the ocean and feeling something shift under you and the next thing you know, a gigantic magical sea creature that you never knew existed is rising out of the water with you on its back.
After this, outside 66, my suitcase and I got in a cab to the Holiday Inn Express, and I was shaking with excitement as I called Mike and told him the news. In this very subdued voice, he says, “It’s too bad you can’t do it,” and I’m like, “Why can’t I do it?” and he says, “Because we live in Charlotte.”
Me: Why can’t we move?
Mike: Because I’m licensed to be a lawyer here.
Me: Then why can’t I commute?
Mike: Because what’s the point of being married if we don’t live in the same place?
(Long silence.)
Me: If you aren’t willing to move to New York, why didn’t you ever say that while I was submitting packets to TNO for the last five years?
Mike (matter-of-factly): Because I never thought they’d hire you.
I could say a lot of other things about this, but the salient ones are that 1) Mike did have a sense of humor and actively liked comedy. We went to see stand-up together, and we watched TNO and comedy specials. 2) He read my submission packets every year.
Although I realized somewhat belatedly that he didn’t think I was funny or talented, Mike wasn’t a jerk. He was a very calm, responsible, quiet person who believed he’d married another calm, responsible, quiet person. And, as my cab entered the Lincoln Tunnel, I thought to myself, Thank god we don’t have kids because that will make our divorce much less messy. Sidenote: He still lives in North Carolina, is married, and is now a father of two.
My narrative instincts tell me I should take a breather here, that we should have some kind of palate-cleansing epistolary sorbet, or at least I should give you the chance to respond, but my wish for resolution propels me forward, to Part 2: The Mindfucker, which at least is far more succinct than Part 1: The Husband.
As you and I have already partially covered, in my second year at TNO, I developed a raging crush on a fellow writer (spoiler: It was your buddy Elliot). I half convinced myself he had a raging crush on me, in part because he wasn’t especially hot. That is, to my eye, he wasn’t out of my league. At the season finale after-party, I told him (in a way that deserves a solid 9 out of 10 on the Martin Biersch Awkwardness Scale) that I was in love with him and he said, “Sally, you’ve confused the romance of comedy with the romance of romance.”
I’m still not sure if this was a brilliant or supremely douchey thing to say. Maybe both? Certainly he was within his rights in not reciprocating my interest, and I soon concluded that if we’d dated and broken up, it could have ruined TNO for me, and if we’d gotten together and married and had kids, that could have ruined TNO for me in a different way. I decided I’d never again try to date anyone at TNO, which admittedly might have been a bit of a tree falling in the forest situation.
This is all a (very very) long way of saying that after being married to a guy who didn’t like what made me me, and then being friends with a guy who adored me but didn’t want to make out with me, I don’t trust my own instincts. Both those situations scrambled my brain, and I know it’s a small sample size, but I decided to be done with that shit. And now our emails are scrambling me again.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:41 AM
subject: Actually
This might sound corny, but thank you for telling me all of that. I’m glad I know it.
There are tons of things I want to respond to, but the one that feels the most urgent now is why are our emails scrambling your brain?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:43 AM
subject: Actually
At the risk of destroying my favorite hobby of quarantine, because I’m in danger of confusing the romance of emailing with the romance of romance.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:44 AM
subject: Actually
Why wouldn’t this be the romance of romance?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:45 AM
subject: Actually
Because of the Danny Horst Rule?
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:46 AM
subject: Actually
Didn’t I tell you in 2018 I don’t believe in that?
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:49 AM
subject: Actually
I actually don’t think I’m particularly insecure about my appearance. For both our sakes, I’ll refrain from inventorying my face and body and just say that while of course I have some criticisms of myself, I feel lucky to be healthy, and never more so than now.
I’m also pretty sure it would disrupt the space-time continuum for a world-famous singer who looks like you to get involved with a TV writer who looks like me.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:51 AM
subject: Actually
Sometimes, and this is one of your charms, it’s hard for me to tell how much you’re kidding. But I’m really attracted to you, and I have been since that pitch meeting in Nigel’s office.
from: Sally Milz
to: Noah Brewster
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:52 AM
subject: Actually
Sometimes it’s also hard for me to tell how much I’m kidding. But you didn’t look so bad at that pitch meeting, either.
from: Noah Brewster
to: Sally Milz
date: Jul 26, 2020, 12:52 AM
subject: Actually
I realize this also might disrupt the space-time continuum but can I just call you right now?
CHAPTER 3
August 2020
At the Hampton Inn in Albuquerque, New Mexico, halfway between Kansas City and L.A., I checked in while needing to pee so badly I couldn’t stand up straight. I was the only person in the lobby other than the man behind the desk. He and I both wore cloth masks—mine featured strawberries, his was plain blue—and I said, “How full are you tonight?” and he said, “Not.”
In the room, as I finished washing my hands, my phone vibrated in the side pocket of my leggings, and after I dried my hands (were the towels clean? Was anything?), I pulled it out.
LMK when you’re at hotel, Noah had texted.
Then: Have I mentioned I’m super excited you’re coming here?
Then: I’m super excited you’re coming here!!
I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink and tried to figure out what expression a woman driving 1,600 miles to visit Noah Brewster would make. It would be sultry, right? Which was a problem because with effort, I could do friendly, and I could always do smirky, but I wasn’t sure I was physically capable of sultry.
A week had passed since Noah and I had first spoken on the phone; twelve days had passed since I’d received his first email; and thirteen hours, counting stops to refuel, had passed since I’d pulled out of Jerry’s driveway. I’d borrowed Jerry’s sister’s Hyundai, loaded up with a suitcase, a backpack, a purse, and an open cardboard box containing a water bottle, a twelve-count case of protein bars, four apples, three separate containers of 33.8 fluid ounces of hand sanitizer, and a bunch of masks inside a gallon Ziploc bag. Once I’d decided I was driving rather than flying, I’d calculated that I could make it in two very unpleasantly long days or three moderately unpleasant ones. Because I hoped (but was not sure) that I was on my way to have sex with Noah and because I wanted to have sex with Noah as soon as possible, I’d opted for two.
Presumably, after accepting Noah’s invitation to visit, I ought to have been wonderstruck by the human capacity for connection even during the darkest times. And I was! But also I was preoccupied with how and when to address the disheveled and hairy state into which I’d descended during the pandemic. During our first phone conversation, he’d said that maybe the next day, we could facetime, and the minute we’d hung up, even though it was after three in the morning, I’d zealously tweezed my eyebrows and bleached the hair above my upper lip with the same possibly toxic cream I’d been using since middle school. But the following night, he’d called again rather than facetiming, meaning that I’d been denied the opportunity to pretend I was spontaneous and denuded and spontaneously denuded.
When we’d agreed that I was really, actually going to drive to California, I’d immediately begun strategizing about how I could arrive at his house (at Noah’s house! The house of Noah Brewster!) after two thirteen-hour days on the road looking and smelling as unbeastly as possible. I planned to touch up my eyebrows and shave my legs, armpits, and bikini line in the morning, at the hotel in Albuquerque. And while of course I’d shower before leaving New Mexico, I’d devoted extensive thought to whether, upon reaching Los Angeles, I ought to find a place to shower again before getting to Noah—a truck stop? A hotel room? A friend’s empty apartment?
But I’d decided not to introduce another logistical or social variable; I was telling no one I knew who lived there that I was visiting. Instead, before reaching Noah’s house, I would stop at a gas station, which was just about all that was open in California at this point in the shutdown, to brush my teeth and perhaps apply a fresh coat of deodorant over my flop sweat.
All of which was to say that the sketches I’d written over the years about the absurdity and arbitrariness of beauty standards for women had arisen not from my clear-eyed renunciation of them but from my resentment at their hold on me. But more pronounced than my anxiety about whether Noah would think I was cute enough to smooch—even now, when it was plausible that he was so lonely that all he required was a warm body and a pulse—was my fear that it didn’t matter how I looked because I’d misunderstood and this was not in fact a really, really inconvenient booty call.
I hadn’t yet responded to Noah’s texts from a minute before when another came through: When we talk tonight there’s something we should discuss
Oh shit, I thought, and immediately my brain began supplying possibilities: I’m celibate. I’m gay. I have Covid again. I’ve invited you here to ghostwrite my jokes for an upcoming Zoom appearance on a late-night talk show.
And then one last text that wasn’t exactly reassuring: It’s nothing bad
* * *
—
On the night that I had emailed Noah my number, he’d called a minute later. Perhaps this efficiency shouldn’t have provided enough time for me to get nervous, but my heart was thudding and I wondered as I said “Hi” if that one tiny syllable would reveal that my voice was shaking.
“Hey, Sally.” Noah sounded relaxed and confident, like a man who stood on stages singing to adoring crowds, a man widely agreed upon by the American public to be exceptionally handsome. “Are you in your childhood bedroom right now? With all the Indigo Girls posters?”
