Chapter 2 - The Woman Behind the Jokes
A week later, I found Julian Romano standing between classical music and used vinyl in a cramped bookstore three neighborhoods from where someone like him should reasonably have existed.
I stopped.
He looked up.
Neither of us spoke.
I glanced at the shelves beside him.
“Oh, good.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Did you buy the two shelves next to you so nobody else could browse?”
“I considered it.”
“Growth.”
I walked closer.
“What are you doing here?”
“Buying music.”
“That explanation is almost insulting.”
He looked at the record in my hand.
“Arthur Bell?”
I showed him.
The same piece.
“I wanted a recording.”
Julian took the album from me.
“Not this one.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Too fast.”
“You know that from the cover?”
“I know the recording.”
“You said you were terrible at piano.”
“I was.”
“But you know recordings.”
“Being bad at playing something doesn’t prevent you from listening.”
I stared at him.
“That was annoyingly profound.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Worse.”
He pulled another version from the shelf.
“This one.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What if I hate it?”
“Then your taste is the problem.”
I smiled.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man who bought three seats to avoid humanity.”
He looked at me.
“Coffee?”
I blinked.
“That was abrupt.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want coffee?”
I studied him.
“Is this a date?”
His answer came without hesitation.
“Do you want it to be?”
That stopped me.
“That was annoyingly well handled.”
“I have people who prepare me for coffee.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No.”
“Then we’re in dangerous territory.”
The bookstore had a café in the back.
He carried his own cup.
I watched him.
“You’re allowed to do that?”
“What?”
“Carry things?”
“I’ve been trained.”
“By Arthur Bell?”
“He gave up.”
We sat.
No security at the table.
No three-seat barrier.
Just two cups and an old record between us.
“Why did your father never learn the rest?” Julian asked.
I traced the rim of my tea.
“He kept saying he would.”
Julian waited.
“He thought he had time.”
The sentence came out quieter than I intended.
I looked at him.
“Your turn.”
“For what?”
“You went to your terrible piano teacher’s concert and bought enough seats to establish a small sovereign nation. Why?”
He stared into his coffee.
Then said, “Arthur knew me before people cared about my last name.”
I didn’t joke.
“He taught you as a kid?”
“Yes.”
“What was he like?”
“He hit my fingers with a pencil.”
I stared.
“I’m beginning to love this man.”
“I was nine.”
“You probably deserved it.”
“I did.”
“That is disturbingly emotionally healthy.”
Julian’s eyes met mine.
For the first time, neither of us seemed aware of how long we had been sitting there.
When we finally stood, he held out his phone.
“Sophie.”
“Yes?”
“Your number.”
I looked at him.
“That sounded suspiciously like an order.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Give me your number.”
“Worse.”
Silence.
Then, carefully, “May I have your number?”
I smiled.
“See? Arthur Bell’s lessons were not completely wasted.”
I entered it.
Two days later Julian sent me a photograph.
A cough drop.
No text.
I replied.
Careful. They’re aggressive.
His answer came almost immediately.
I’ve been warned.
Three days after that, coffee became breakfast.
Breakfast became occasional messages.
Messages became late-night phone calls.
A terrible movie became a forty-minute argument about whether the ending was intentionally bad.
One bookstore visit became another.
None of it looked important.
That was probably why it became important.
I learned Julian hated people singing “Happy Birthday” to him.
He liked old jazz.
He owned a piano he hadn’t touched in years.
He ate sandwich crusts first.
He had exactly three jokes, all terrible, and repeated them as though scarcity increased value.
Julian learned I hated raisins in baked goods, read the final page of novels before finishing them, called my mother every Sunday, and ordered tea while repeatedly stealing his coffee.
“You have your own drink,” he said one morning.
“Yours tastes better.”
“They came from the same machine.”
“Yours has experienced a richer emotional life.”
He slid the cup toward me.
I took it.
Neither of us mentioned that he had started ordering a larger one.
I was thirty-two, a music teacher at Franklin Elementary, permanently five pounds away from whatever strangers on the internet believed women should weigh, and entirely accustomed to making myself entertaining before anyone else had the opportunity to decide whether I belonged in a room.
Julian moved through rooms differently.
Rooms changed for him.
Hosts straightened.
Waiters remembered.
Men who normally interrupted suddenly developed patience.
That difference between us seemed funny until the night it stopped being funny.
Julian invited me to dinner with four people he knew through business.
The restaurant had a private room and enough silverware to perform minor surgery.
I stared at the table.
“There is an alarming amount of equipment.”
“Start outside.”
“What happens if I start inside?”
“Civilization ends.”
“I knew rich people were fragile.”
He pulled out my chair.
“You’ll adjust.”
“Your confidence in me is reckless.”
Dinner went better than expected.
Then I met Vanessa Cole.
Vanessa had perfect posture, perfect hair, and the specialized talent of making an insult sound like concern.
“So, Sophie,” she said. “How did you and Julian meet?”
“I stole his seat.”
She laughed.
I didn’t.
“No, literally.”
Across the table Julian glanced at me.
“She’s leaving out the part where I owned three.”
Vanessa blinked.
“Three seats?”
“He was avoiding humanity.”
“It was working,” Julian said.
“Until I arrived.”
“Yes.”
I smiled at him.
“Beautiful beginning.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
Something in his voice made my chest tighten.
Vanessa saw it.
Later, Julian was pulled into a conversation across the room.
Vanessa moved into the chair beside me.
“You’re very different from the women Julian normally knows.”
“I hope some of them understand the forks.”
She smiled.
“I mean uncomplicated.”
The word landed softly.
That made it hurt more.
“You’ve known me forty minutes.”
“I mean it as a compliment. Men with lives like Julian’s deal with so much pressure. So many demanding people.”
I took a sip of water.
“It must be relaxing for him,” Vanessa continued, “to spend time with someone who doesn’t expect much.”
There it was.
Small.
Polite.
Perfectly aimed.
I smiled.
“Wonderful.”
Vanessa relaxed.
“I’m glad you understand.”
“I’ve always wanted to be emotionally low-maintenance luggage.”
Her smile faltered.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Good. Luggage gets terrible seating.”
She laughed uncertainly.
And then I did what I always did.
I rescued her.
I changed the subject.
Made a joke.
Told a story about a second grader who had forged his mother’s signature in green crayon.
Everybody laughed.
So I told another.
And another.
By the end of dinner, even the waiter was laughing.
Julian wasn’t.
In the car, I kept going.
“So apparently there are six forks but only one emotional-support spoon.”
Nothing.
“I think restaurants should label them. Soup. Salad. Tiny fork reserved for intimidating women named Vanessa.”
“Sophie.”
I looked at him.
“Yes?”
“Something happened.”
“Several things happened. Dinner. Dessert. I committed crimes against silverware.”
“Something else.”
“No.”
He waited.
I looked through the window.
“Your face is doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Knowing.”
He said nothing.
I sighed.
“A woman explained my personality to me.”
“Who?”
I turned toward him.
“No.”
Something shifted in his expression.
I could almost watch his first instinct happen.
Find the person.
Find the problem.
Make it disappear.
Then he stopped.
“Do you want to tell me?”
My prepared joke vanished.
“Not yet.”
“Okay.”
That one word unsettled me more than pressure would have.
We stopped at the diner we had somehow started calling ours.
Julian ordered fries.
I stole two.
Then a third.
Finally I said, “You probably like me because I’m uncomplicated.”
He looked at me.
“Apparently men like you need women who don’t expect much.”
He stayed quiet.
I laughed softly.
“Which is impressive, because I’ve spent years developing a personality only to discover it can be summarized as convenient.”
“You aren’t convenient.”
I looked at him.
“That may be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Terrifying.”
“I don’t think you’re uncomplicated.”
“Continue. I’m feeling cherished.”
“I think you make things look uncomplicated.”
My smile weakened.
“Julian.”
“You joke before anyone else can decide something matters.”
I stopped moving.
“You noticed that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“Why?”
“Now I’ll need a new personality.”
“I like this one.”
Silence.
Normally, I would have filled it.
I didn’t.
“If something matters,” I said, “and I make it small first, nobody else gets to.”
“Gets to what?”
“Make it small.”
Julian watched me.
I shrugged.
“Efficient.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Safe.”
That landed harder.
“My father used to say I could joke my way through a house fire.”
“Could you?”
“Depends on the house.”
Julian almost smiled.
I didn’t.
And for the first time I understood there were two versions of my humor.
One opened the door.
The other kept people exactly where I needed them.
“You’re doing the face again,” I said.
“I know.”
“Very intrusive.”
“I know.”
“You should work on that.”
“No.”
A real laugh escaped me.
When it faded, Julian asked, “Can I kiss you?”
I stared at him.
No joke arrived for almost three seconds.
That might have been a personal record.
Then instinct won.
“Are you sure? I may have the wrong seat.”
He glanced at the booth beneath me.
“I checked.”
I smiled.
A real one.
“Then yes.”
Julian kissed me.
No dramatic music.
No audience.
No applause.
Just a diner, cooling fries, and an empty coffee cup between us.
When we separated, I looked at him.
“Your face finally did something useful.”
“What?”
May you like
“Never mind.”
This time Julian smiled first.
