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“Nicole, he’s bombing out there. You’re up in two. Quick transition.”
“Told you he would. Prop comedy requires tact and charm and that guy has neither.” Nicole didn’t look up from her scrawled notepad. “Rough crowds are more fun, anyway.”
Nicole had never had stage fright. She’d never been afraid of public speaking. She hadn’t even been afraid of death or dying for about half of her life. Spiders were nothing. Heights didn’t matter. Flying was annoying, but it wasn’t scary. Sunflowers were stupid. Rats were a sign you needed a cat. Nuclear annihilation was her dad’s thing to be scared of, not her.
Doctors and medical procedures, though, yeah, those scared Nicole. They always had. Just getting shots or a physical was an exercise in not having a panic attack, and she was not ever going to have any kind of elective surgery if she could help it. So far, she had.
So, it was more than a little concerning that her brain was blaring the ‘doctor’ alarm in her skull while she was preparing for her next set.
She frantically checked her cell, and quickly confirmed that, yes, she had taken her meds that morning like she had for the past three-thousand-two-hundred-twelve days in a row. Had the picture with the date and time of her sink. Okay, that wasn’t what was going on.
What was it? Why was she suddenly getting hit with a massive spike of anxiety? Whatever, she didn’t have time to interrogate it. Just another irritating horde of cats clawing at her face and jumping on her lungs while she tried to sleep. Accept that they’re there, and they’ll go away eventually.
Nicole waited very briefly off stage, all but marveling at just how terrible an amateur prop comic could be, before his time was up and he dragged his feet past her, the heckling and old fashioned booing more than a little amusing to hear. He had it all wrong, anyway.
It wasn’t about making people laugh; that was the top layer shit. It was about brutal honesty.
“Good evening!” boomed Nicole, stepping out onto the stage, casually sliding up to the microphone stand and adjusting it, even as the audience continued to grumble and murmur. “That’s a promise, not a statement of fact.” She adjusted her hair and stared out into the crowd, towards the guy who had just asked some variation of ‘who the hell are you’. “Excellent question. I don’t like to be announced or introduced. Think it’s more than a little pretentious. You see, I put a lot of stock in first impressions, and I wanted to make absolutely certain that mine to all of you was exactly what I wanted it to be.”
She waited for the crowd to settle down a little more, sitting down on her stool and making note of as many individuals in the audience as she could. Most of them looked somewhat willing to participate, if she chose to go a few routes in the set, but even then, it wouldn’t be an issue.
“I’m Nicole Yu.” Nicole flashed her sweetest smile possible. “And straight guys are so fucking bad at sucking dick.” She didn’t react immediately to the combination of yelling and sudden laughter, simply appearing as if her mind was elsewhere. As if nothing she said was unusual, until she perked up and stood, waving her palm around, as if to placate everything. “Woah! Woah. I didn’t realize I had so many prideful cocksuckers in the audience.”
Balance of laughter to grumbling and snapping tilted further towards humorous acceptance. Yup, she’d got ‘em. She smiled into a grin, chuckling herself. They always liked it, always listened more, always bought in more, when you participated in your own shit.
“My bad, my fault; should’ve double checked the census data on that!” soothed Nicole, snickering like she’d just accidentally grabbed someone else’s lunch from the fridge. “Normally, there’s a very accurate poll on head quality. To be clear! To be very clear, and this is so important, so very important—” She paused, tapped the microphone, and whispered into it. “I never said anyone was better at it.”
Aaaaand there it is; false equivalency and equity. Pivot right, or left? Right or left. She looked out into the crowd again—women were typically more willing to engage, but wow that pretty blonde with glasses was either high, drunk, or the most enthusiastic plant for laughter Nicole had ever seen. Wait, but nobody was a plant, since the last guy bombed.
How wonderful it must be to be able to laugh that hard at anything. Deep, guttural, and nearly out of control. Refreshing to hear, even if they were tripping or drunk.
“Maybe my standards are too high. Maybe I expect too much.” Nicole set her hand on her heart and shrugged, disconnecting the microphone from the chord and approaching the edge of the stage. “I could be the problem!” She shrugged and, after a few seconds, chewed on her cheek. “But, I gotta tell you, folks, I don’t think I am. Because the best first impressions I’ve ever had and given?” She threw up her hand. “They’ve been suckin’ dick.”
Laughter built again, and she could only hear a few grumbling murmurs. Even gender split, it seemed like, which was better than normal. It was a stupid thing to notice or care about, but it felt like it mattered. Emblematic of something else. Hopefully.
“I, of course, am not excluding cunnilingus—we’re talking about head as a comprehensive act. No, really, can you think of a more effective way of communicating basically everything about yourself to somebody?” asked Nicole, smiling wide, circling the edge of the stage. “I’ve spent my entire adult life—and way earlier, but don’t tell anyone how much sex your kids are having with each other—searching for a better way and—wow, lots of what I hope are parents here, I see.”
She paused, twirling the microphone and snickering, as the laughter rose to its peak again. Wait for it to fall back, just a bit more, on the down swing. No reason to pivot to the bit about registered pedophiles and underage kids with fake I.D.s sneaking into bars causing a conflict of interest. Not the right crowd.
“You’ve got sexuality, gender roles, romantic history, general life experience,” counted off Nicole, sitting back down on the stool, folding one leg over the other. “Diseases, net worth, opinions on Baseball, personality, political affiliation—” She pointed out into the crowd, at the pretty blonde with glasses who was all but falling over herself. “Don’t even try to tell me that’s not a factor. If your dick tilts to the left, you think a right-wing little bitch is going to do anything but give you friction burn? Even the choice, saying ‘no, I don’t do that’, that tells you so much!”
No pushback. Interesting. Pretty blonde with the glasses was likely overpowering the party poopers, because that laugh was only getting louder. Had she just not laughed in a decade or something? Or was she always this loud? Didn’t matter; still cool and a nice change of pace.
“Reciprocity, people. Do unto others? That’s probably what Jesus meant, and I’m not talking about Mary Magdalene, no, I’m talking about how he was a virgin birth!” stressed Nicole, snapping her fingers. “I mean, how do you forget to fuck your wife for that long? She did it all on her own, even getting knocked up!” She tsked. “All because her husband, the trooper, was probably just that socially anxious.” She grinned, right as the laughter started up again. “Take it from me. No matter how amazing you are at giving head? You can’t retry a first impression.”
She made a big show of sipping at the glass of water that was always there. She wasn’t thirsty. But the physicality of it, as if creating a wave of laughter wasn’t difficult, as if it were as simple as breathing, yeah, people ate that up all over. Hell, Nicole did, too, even though she knew how it worked. Some stuff just played.
“Okay, okay, let’s take a minute, let’s get serious. The same principle applies both in theoretical and applied contexts—yes, this is a lecture.” Nicole hopped off the stool and perfected her posture, marching towards the edge of the stage and staring directly at the pretty blonde with glasses. “I’m shocked you didn’t see the sign on the door! And this isn’t Healing Society with Head 101, this is 504. You’re all just that talented and knowledgeable, I can tell.”
Somebody asked, very snarkily, ‘what’s the final’, and Nicole jumped on it. Sure, keep it shorter, why not? She was kinda hungry, anyway. Oh, yeah, move fast, since they’re already moving to ‘is it sucking your dick?’.
“The final? Good God, no!” gasped Nicole, in actual shock and horror, which the rest of the audience mimicked. “Sucking my dick; are you out of your mind?!” She scowled out into the crowd. “The relationship between teacher and student is a sacred bond. That’s a line you don’t ever cross—beyond disgusting and vile.” She crossed her arms and shook her head, the crowd quieting down to absolute silence. Even the pretty blonde with glasses stopped. “Take a step back and reevaluate your life if that’s what you jumped to, and after you’re done with that, take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back…” She cleared her throat. “And then go down on the stranger to your left because that’s the final.”
She’d have had a tiny bit of doubt left about how the set would go if not for the pretty blonde with glasses literally falling out of her chair from laughing too hard. Amazing how strong a force one person could be in the right place and right time. Nobody was going to boo or heckle or not go along for the ride as long as that lady was still laughing her lungs out.
“I’m Nicole Yu, have a great night, and remember that head is a privilege, and not a right!” boomed Nicole, setting the microphone back on the stand and walking off the stage, the laughter and cheers more…well, it went fine. A superstar, she was not, and never would be. Not really the goal or the point. She could still hear that same pretty blonde with glasses laughing, though, so that was cool.
What was less cool was that the spike of anxiety came back, and she still couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was about. Drown it in alcohol, or go home and sleep? Or do both, which was the most depressing thing ever and never a good idea. Maybe she was just anxious because nothing was obviously wrong and that meant something was wrong in a way she couldn’t notice.
Which typically meant Nicole had gone an indeterminate amount of time without having sex and her brain had defaulted to the conclusion that she must be severely depressed and thus suicidal, as there was no way that someone who got laid regularly could ever be both of those things.
What a fun game she played with her fucked up dumbass brain.
Especially since it had been only two weeks. Was it the ‘lonely’ time of year again? Was Nicole lonely? Yes, clearly, since she had already somehow made her way to the bar behind the audience and started drinking alone. Well, it was just the one. One beer. Relax, listen to some music, go home, get to bed early, realize you were full of shit, and pass out watching something stupid and mind numbing before insomnia catches up to you, and hope and pray that work tomorrow doesn’t make you want to kill yourself!
It wouldn't. It won’t. It’ll just suck.
On that thought, Nicole reflexively texted her dad, just the usual check-in to make sure he hadn’t killed himself, and thankfully he immediately responded with a gif of an elephant falling over, which Nicole instantly started snickering at.
“I have got to know what has you giggling after an act like that.”
“Large animals falling over.” Nicole looked up right as she was about to take another drink and—oh, it was the pretty blonde with glasses. Who was probably the single most gorgeous person Nicole had ever seen. Cool. “You’re the lady who was laughing her heart out. Thanks for that. Made the whole thing much smoother.”
“No, thank you. That was all sincere, and I desperately needed a good laugh.” Pretty Blonde With Glasses smiled, and it was basically like looking at the sun except her eyes didn’t hurt. Weird, normally half-assed poetic descriptions didn’t bleed out into her brain. “Are you here with someone or, waiting for somebody?”
“I was about to take off, but, no, sure.” Nicole shrugged and pivoted away from the stool beside her. Ask and ye shall receive? Possibly? Maybe. “Go ahead. I’m Nicole, by the way.”
“I remember,” chuckled Pretty Blonde with Glasses, taking the offered seat. “Jessica Miller. I wanted to—” She grumbled something under her breath. “Actually, it’s Jecka, sorry. My work day ended about an hour ago, so I’m still a little stuck there.”
“I get it. It takes me a bit to wind down from that, too.” Nicole sipped at her beer. “What’re you drinking, what do you do, and who gave you that nickname?”
“I’m actually four years sober.” Jecka cleared her throat as Nicole set her beer down and slid it away from both of them. “No! No, it’s fine. I wouldn’t be anywhere that serves alcohol if I was concerned.”
“Yeah, but c’mon, it’s still super crappy if I kept drinking in front of a recovering alcoholic.”
“Recovered, though, yes, that would be among the trashier things one could do.”
“Does it work like that?” asked Nicole. “I thought you never fully recover from addiction.”
“I just say it like that because it sounds more final. As if it were a genuine accomplishment.”
“Four years isn’t an accomplishment?”
“It’s four years of not putting something into my body—wait.” Jecka adjusted her glasses. “Okay, the whole reason I came over here was to compliment you for somehow doing an entire stand-up comedy routine on oral sex and its relevance to deconstructing toxic masculinity along with—”
“I don’t need you to explain my own work,” snipped Nicole, instantly regretting it because why can’t she just shut the fuck up for once? “That was harsh, I—look, the more you break it down in clear terms, the less people will actually take it seriously. That’s part of the magic.” She tapped the side of her head. “People laugh, they don’t think, it gets lodged in their brains without them realizing it, and eventually, hopefully, processed.”
“Oh, wow, I hadn’t considered that. So, the act of analysis for your work is actually detrimental to it being understood and internalized.” Jecka raised her brows. “Well, as backwards and extremely intriguing as that is, my point was that what you did was more coherent and probably more helpful than any professor of gender studies I’ve ever had the misfortune of listening to.”
“I knew I was funnier than a bunch of dusty old hags in flannel blazers, but smarter and a better educator?” Nicole grinned. “Now, I’d say thank you wholeheartedly, but…” She furrowed her brow. “I’m not entirely sure how thankful I should be. Since I still don’t know what you do, or who gave you that nickname, because I’m thinking academic, but you are way too pretty and patient for that.”
“Do not get me started on academia. Higher ed is purely self-fellating nonsense where they can’t even choke on themselves since it’s just all chodes.” Jecka rolled her eyes. “I gave myself that name. I kind of don’t even remember why, but ten-year-old me was pretty hardcore, clearly.”
“Wow. Just totally blew right past it.” Nicole nodded. “You know exactly how pretty you are.”
“I do. Though, that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the sentiment.”
“Don’t you mean compliment?”
“I haven’t misspoken since 2020.”
“I have no idea how you said that without a trace of arrogance.”
“Many years of diligent practice.” Jecka smiled again, leaning closer. “I’m shocked you don’t do the same; you’re absolutely in the top three of ‘most confident people’ I’ve ever met.”
“It’s all an act, I promise. Except this part, I’m good at this part. And a few other things, but, mostly, nowhere near your apparent level,“ chuckled Nicole, noting that Jecka had again dodged around the subject of her occupation. Alright, won’t push it. “Who’re the other two?”
“Me and Julia Louis-Dreyfus,” answered Jecka, as if that were the single most universally obvious fact in human history. “It used to be me and Emily Haines, but Veep was just that great and prophetic.”
“Talking me and yourself up—okay, I am loving this philosophy you’ve got. Are you taking on disciples?”
“As I’m not yet old nor all that wise, no, I’m not.” Jecka crossed one leg over the other. “For you, though, Miss Yu, I do oh so humbly offer a free consultation.”
“Satisfaction guaranteed?” Nicole found her cheeks just a bit red. That was fine. Totally fine. “Or my time and attention back?”
“Guarantees are for people who aren’t positive they can deliver.” Jecka smirked. “I don’t need the fine print to promise I’m good for it. That’s simply implicit.”
“Jesus, you could win an election single-handedly like this.”
“I’ve never tried that; it never seemed worth the effort.” Jecka shrugged. “So, interested?”
“I mean—” Nicole sat up a little straighter. “What does a consultation entail?”
“I’ve never been much of a grifter, so unfortunately you’ve called my very well crafted bluff.”
“Small world, I used to be a massive grifter.” Nicole snickered along with Jecka. “Want me to bail you out? Phone a friend?”
“Oh, yes, I’m drowning out here, Nicole.” Jecka’s laugh was oddly relaxing. Wasn’t the same as the raucous guttural one she’d had during the show, but it was still a force of nature that somehow remained soothing. “Jaws-of-life, pull the ripcord, launch the escape pods!”
“Jecka, from what I can gather, your best way out would be to double, triple, and quadruple down on talking yourself and me up as much as you possibly can.” Nicole mimed holding a balloon in her hands, which she slowly expanded. “Make our egos pop.”
“That sounds like a psychological catastrophe begging to be made reality.”
“Not if it’s anywhere close to sincere.”
“True! Very true.” Jecka took off her glasses and hung them from her collared shirt. “I’ll need to know much more about you before I make another claim, of course.”
“Of course.” Nicole nodded and did her absolute best not to let her eyes wander to Jecka’s glasses, since they were basically hanging from her chest. Not fair. “Ask away.”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Jecka castled her hands in her lap, her brow cocking a teensy bit. “That’s not nearly as fun as discovering what you choose to tell me and how.”
“I like that.” Nicole ran a hand through her hair and hummed. “God, if I were in my twenties, I’d already be talking a mile a minute.”
“About what in particular?”
“Things that make for terrible first impressions.” Nicole chewed on her cheek. Oversharing was both a learned and unlearned trait. “I’ve had fifteen different careers in about as many years, and the only one I’ve ever been good at is the one that I hate the most.”
“You’re a jack-of-all-trades Swiss Army knife who refuses to be tied down by a singular passion; I can relate to that,” replied Jecka, nearly instantly, even if that sounded a little far-fetched. “I’m exceptional at quite a few things, but choosing one was torture.” She sighed. Wow, that was somehow true. “I envy you more than a little. I’m all but sure I didn’t choose wrong, but you just never know for sure.”
“Your confidence is slipping.”
“Yours in me, yes. Not mine in myself.” Jecka crossed her arms. “I’m confident I’m amazing at what I do; I’m not one-hundred percent positive it’s what I’m the most amazing at.”
“And what is it, precisely, that Jecka Miller does?”
“Innumerable things, such as waiting for Nicole Yu to elaborate on what career they excel in despite their hatred of it.”
“Sales.” Nicole snickered into a little laugh as Jecka blinked at that. “I sell insurance to big companies. It’s actually the same job my dad had before he retired.” She shrugged. “I make a decent commission, but it’s really just—there’s no joy in it. Remote work made it better, but it’s still terrible.”
“That sounds awful, but, well, you are persuasive.”
“Don’t say it like that; you sound like my boss and every other boss and half the people I’ve ever met.” Nicole rested her arm on the bar. “I know I’m persuasive. It’s not a special skill or a super power. It’s not a party trick. I just am.”
“It is absolutely a super power, but that’s a different conversation, I think.” Jecka crossed her arms. “Comic-by-night is not what I took you for.”
“What was your guess? I really want to live in whatever reality you dreamt up.”
“Journalist.” Jecka smiled wide as Nicole’s eyes widened. “And that was one of the remaining fourteen, wasn’t it?”
“It was. Back in college. I worked for the school paper. That’s the one I miss the most.”
“Didn’t switch your major to it?”
“No, I did.” Nicole shook her head. “Just couldn’t land anything stable for it, and scrambling as a freelancer for the rest of my life was—it made things harder than they needed to be.” She furrowed her brow. “How’d you even guess that?”
“Trade secret, unfortunately, though anyone who can read people particularly well would pick up on how focused your act is on the truth,” explained Jecka. “It’s a very dangerous thing to try and draw out the unexpected from reality in a way that doesn’t dilute or even diminish the weight of what’s being said.”
“You are giving me way too much credit.”
“I’m not. Your set actually meant something; not a single empty word within it, same as mine about it. About you.” Jecka blinked a few times and slipped her glasses back on. “Society, the world, basically everything, really would be so much better if giving head was a purely neutral act.”
“I said I didn’t want you to pick it apart.”
“Your audience is very small, and even if it wasn’t, I’m not going to share my thoughts with them. I’m telling you what I got from it. And I got a lot. From amateur stand-up comedy.” Jecka smiled. “I wasn’t going to let myself leave until I knew that you knew that.”
“Okay, well, now I know it.” Nicole frowned. “You’re not really the kind of person I hope hears me, though. You get that, right?”
“Not entirely.”
“You clearly already agree with me. Before you even walked in here, you agreed. Maybe not in the same words, but you didn’t need convincing.”
“You’re discounting how important it is to have so many different kinds of ways of explaining complex topics, let alone your own feelings about them,” countered Jecka. “I’ve thought a lot about the individual pieces of what you were saying. I never connected them in the same way I saw you do it, and never anywhere near as effectively.”
“That’s a very good series of points.” Nicole leaned back against the bar. “And you’re just so taken and impressed by my rambling on about oral sex for twenty minutes, that you needed to chat me up?”
“Honestly? Yes. Well—” Jecka tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know about ‘chat up’ exactly. More converse.” She cleared her throat. “So, where are you from?”
“Wh—how did you even land there?” Nicole snickered. “This is starting to feel like a job interview for a position I don’t even know the title of.”
“The salary is competitive and the benefits are stellar.” Jecka smiled again. “Where are you from, Nicole?”
“You’re lucky you’re fun to talk to.”
“It’s not luck, trust me.”
“Right, natural born charisma to match with that perfected confidence.” Nicole chuckled again, smiling a little. “I’m from everywhere.” She flicked her hand about. “Nowhere.”
“No one’s actually from everywhere or nowhere, Nicole. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say you’d rather not get into it.”
“No, I mean, I moved every year and a half until I was like, fourteen,” explained Nicole, taking a tiny breath as she recalled, involuntarily, why that had happened. “Most of the time I was in or near—”
“L.A., right?”
“Not even close.” Nicole scoffed. “We can’t all be as lucky as you, valley girl.”
“I’m not—wait.” Jecka raised her brows and looked at her very closely. “Are you from NoVa, too?”
“How did you even guess that?” Nicole sat up. “Ohhhhhhh, the accent thing!”
“Yeah!” beamed Jecka. “Yeah, exactly! It’s that specific off-brand SoCal dialect from T.V.!”
“Crazy.” Nicole whistled. “Where specifically?”
“Burke.”
“That sounds so familiar.” Nicole screwed up her face. Court proceedings, rent payments, and change of address forms. She’d seen that written on so many things almost twenty years ago. “Oh my God. That’s where my mom was going to move.”
“Small world.”
“Yeah. What’s your graduating class?”
“Very backwards way of getting my age, but somehow that doesn’t seem your angle, so 2009.”
“Me too.” Nicole paused, connecting a very obvious dot. “We were almost classmates.”
“We were.” Jecka stared at her for a few seconds. “That is bizarre. Why didn’t she move there?”
“She, uh…” Nicole chewed on her cheek. “She died right before we did.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Nicole shrugged. Just back off and don’t dig into that. “You give off ‘only child’ energy.”
“I am one, and I have been told that before.” Jecka nodded. “You, however, are absolutely a younger sister.”
“Technically, yeah.”
“Adopted? Step-brother? Foster kid that kept passing through?”
“Half-brother. He’s a decade older and we have different dads.” Nicole crossed her arms. Don’t dig into that either. “It’s a whole thing. Very messy. Not worth discussing.”
“I believe it. Older brothers are a crapshoot from what I’ve seen. You can get everything from a second dad you didn’t want to a huge swath of things that are also better left unsaid.”
“Definitely that giant umbrella of other things for him.” Nicole raised a brow. “How many older brothers do you know?”
“Quite a few more than anyone ever should. Enough to make me wish I wasn’t an only child, and also be thankful that I am all at the same time.”
“How many ‘eyes of the beholder’ are we talking? Ten? Twenty?”
“Closer to two thousand, if I had to make a rough estimate.”
“Wow. What’re the odds of one of them being good?”
“I’ve actually never done that math,” chuckled Jecka. “I’d probably lean close to one-in-three.”
“That seems super high.”
“They often are, yes.”
“The good ones?”
“Half of them.”
“Alright, that I’ll buy.” Nicole held her gaze for a few seconds before they both started snickering. “We may as well have a staring contest. Or arm wrestle.”
“We could. I’m undefeated in both.” Jecka grinned and rolled out her shoulder. “Wanna try your luck, Nicole? See if you can’t win the truth?”
“Maybe. What do you get if you win?” Nicole smirked and cocked a brow. “Me?”
“Absolutely not. You are clearly someone worth much more than a spur-of-the-moment bet with a stranger.”
“Not exactly a stranger if you’re that confident I’m worth anything.”
“Oh, that’s true. Alright.” Jecka gestured her forth. “Ask.”
“No.” Nicole set her chin in her hand and smiled even wider. “Tell.”
“Hiding the charm until you need it most. Well, it worked.” Jecka sighed into a dry chuckle. “I’m a psychologist. I mostly work with kids, teenagers, and families.” She shrugged. “I try to get as far into a conversation with new people as possible without letting that slip. For what I sincerely hope are obvious reasons, considering how patient you’ve been with that.”
“My guess was social worker, or maybe lawyer, but, yeah, I get it.” Nicole chewed on her lip. “I dated a therapist before. They tried to be mine, too.” She grumbled and shook her head. “You do not need to worry about me ever wanting that ever again.”
“I don’t recall saying anything about a date.”
“Food for thought.”
“It seems to be more food for consideration.”
“Which is a form of thought.” Nicole furrowed her brow. “Why the hesitation? Are you taken, or are you suddenly just not taken with me?”
“Confident and charming; you’re moving up in the world, Nicole. No, I’m not dating anyone,” explained Jecka, to Nicole’s inaudible and non-visible relief. “In a manner of speaking. Essentially.” Goddammit. “The kids call it a ‘situationship’.”
“Do they now?”
“They do. Between ‘friends with benefits’ and ‘dating’.”
“Isn’t that just—”
“Yes, it’s just also dating by many definitions, I know.” Jecka huffed and rolled her eyes. “Regardless of the term, and ignoring how long this one has gone on in particular.”
“Wow, either super long or super short.” Nicole raised her brows. “Which direction?”
“It’d probably have been uninterrupted for about fifteen years if I hadn’t gotten married for two of them.”
“You do not strike me as someone who’s been married.”
“It’s been several hot minutes.” Jecka scoffed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, though.”
“Good. It’s supposed to be.”
“What about you? Divorcee or sworn off of the concept at birth?”
“Are those the only two options?”
“If there’s a third, I’ve yet to meet an example.”
“Being a widow doesn’t count?”
“Death, and possibly murder, are absolutely grounds for divorce.”
“Yeah.” Nicole snorted into a laugh. “Okay, it used to be ‘sworn off from birth’, but after Obergefell v. Hodges, it kinda put a lot into perspective.”
“I’m not used to being the lesser read one in the room, so that is disorienting. You said that like I should absolutely know what it is.”
“It’s the court case that made same-sex marriage legal, Jecka. In 2015? With the guy on his deathbed? Or, already dead?”
“I completely forgot what the case was called.” Jecka blushed and cleared her throat. “Alright, why did that change anything for you?”
“How could it not for everyone? Most of the people I’ve met do not have the best relationship with their parents, and mine with my dad isn’t terrible, but it’s not the best.” Nicole sighed. “If I get that sick, I don’t want the only person who is legally guaranteed to be able to be with me when I die to be my dad. I don’t think he’d block other people from showing up, but why risk it?”
“Oh my God, I do not want my parents cutting me off from whoever the hell I end up with just because their junk is ‘wrong’.” Jecka paled. “I never thought about it like that before. That is horrifying.”
“It’s only scary if you’re too stubborn to go to a courthouse and fix the problem before it becomes one.” Nicole shrugged. “Not that I’ve ever done that. Honestly, never got far enough with anyone where I thought ‘I want this person to be with me when I die’.”
“It’s a very bittersweet thing to experience. Especially when it could crumble just like that.” Jecka snapped her fingers. “The guy I married was someone I thought was my best friend, and he was. For a while.”
“And then he cheated on you.”
“Really? Look at me.” Jecka gave her a knowing smirk. “Who would ever be unfaithful?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t be. Some people are just that stupid and blind.”
“They are. He wasn’t.” Jecka shook her head. “He was lying about something else. So, I divorced him.”
“You make that sound so easy.”
“Then I either spoke poorly, or you weren’t listening closely. It was sincerely the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I hope I ever have to do. Most people aren’t actually friends with their partners, Nicole. I was.” Jecka grew a small, sad smile. “He thought he could convince me along the way, and I figured he’d give up on something I’d really believed he wasn’t that serious about.”
“What, like a threesome?”
“That wouldn’t have been an issue; he never asked about that, though.” Jecka ran her fingers through her hair. “I will never have kids. Foster kids, maybe, I don’t know, but adoption or, ew, natural birth? No. Never.”
“Was he super religious?”
“Not even remotely. He just really wanted to be a dad.”
“Wow.” Nicole scoffed. “Even more than he wanted you.”
“Why are you leaning so hard into that angle?” Jecka frowned and Nicole instantly regretted going on automatic. “No. He wanted to do that with me. I didn’t and wouldn’t.”
“I’m not leaning; I’m playing the odds here!”
“And that means you should default to cynicism for somebody you just met?” Jecka crossed her arms and sighed. “Then again, that’s more than fair. I wish I could say he wasn’t like all the rest, except he did lie to me. About one of the most important and early conversations you can have in any relationship.”
“Maybe he changed his mind along the way?” offered Nicole, very awkwardly. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“You wanted to defuse what isn’t even a bomb.” Jecka smiled again. “It was sweet.” She wrinkled her nose and sat up, glancing around the comedy club as the crowd started disperse. “I didn’t realize there were other sets—I tuned them out completely. Good God, how long have we been sitting here talking?”
“I dunno, an hour, maybe? Got somewhere to be?”
“Not really, I just—” Jecka chuckled into a wider smile. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a conversation half this easy and, honestly, fun.”
“There’s no way people walk away from you that fast.”
“No, typically they get closer faster.” Jecka bit her lip. “Maybe they’re impatient. Maybe they’re nervous. Maybe I’m impatient, or I just don’t care. With you, though…” She smirked. “You are so easy to talk to.”
“I am?” Nicole snorted into a single laugh. “You are quite literally the first person to ever say that, and probably think it.”
“Who do you think is more right? History, or me?”
“I’m not a student of either, and not for lack of trying. You just won’t take on an apprentice.”
“Then me, clearly.” Jecka leaned a little closer. “You know, my ex-husband was handsome, and he was pretty. You, though, without a doubt, are much more handsome, and far prettier.”
“I don’t know how much I believe that.”
“You should. Completely. I’m an authority on these things.”
“How so?”
“Well, I have been with every kind of person. I think.” Jecka tapped her lips and hummed. “Maybe I missed a few varieties. All in all, the people I’ve clicked with the most were all like you.”
“Like me?”
“Confident, brash, unapologetic, and sharp as the devil’s tongue they stole. The only real exception being my ex-husband, though he was still handsome and pretty.”
“What about your ‘situatonship’?”
“No, they’re like you, too.” Jecka rolled her eyes. “My technically not long-term girlfriend. I don’t even know where she is on the planet, but for all I know she’s around every corner.”
“Okay.” Nicole tried to not look concerned about that. “That doesn’t great. You hear that, right?”
“I do. I promise, it’s just part of how she’s affectionate. She’s the kind of person who will always surprise you, for better or worse, and you just do not know which it will be until after it happens.”
“You say that like she’s some kinda urban legend.”
“If you met Emily, you’d get why I do. She basically is.” Jecka stood from her stool. “Coffee?”
“Yeah! Yes.” Nicole smiled. “That sounds great.”
For the next five hours, all they did was talk. And talk. And talk, and talk, and talk, and the only reason Nicole even knew it was that long was because they kept finding clocks everywhere they went. On the sides of banks and inside restaurants. All over.
And also on Nicole’s phone since she kept checking to see if her dad had texted her. Just in case. Never know when something could happen. Hadn’t silenced her cell in a decade, and that did not help with insomnia, but that was fine.
Whatever, the night was amazing. Not a single real hiccup and it was just so easy, and refreshing and nice and bizarrely simple.
Coffee turned into karaoke where they sang like one song and then spent an hour laughing their asses off to random shit, which turned into ‘midnight snack’ at a crappy twenty-four hour diner, which turned into more and more and more and more talking at that same diner until the sun started to literally rise.
“Okay, okay! You ran me all over the city, so sure, here’s the unfiltered version.” Nicole chuckled and rubbed her eye, fighting back a yawn. “You ever get that urge to say just, everything that’s on your mind, all at once? The kind of stuff you know people will think you’re insane for vocalizing, or yell at you for, call you dramatic, cut you out of their lives, even though it’s all totally true?”
“Not constantly, no,” said Jecka, sipping at what was probably the most watered down coffee ever, her once very straight hair rather wavy and pulled back into a messy bun. “Well, that’s not totally true. As a teenager, and in college, yeah, I’d say every other day I had that urge deep in my gut.”
“To just start screaming until people heard you?”
“Yes, that’s exactly how I remember thinking about it. Louder and louder and louder until their ears bleed. And then louder, still.”
“You get it, yeah. I have that urge all the time. Always have. Age seven, or something, to right now. Tried activism, and they draw the line way earlier than you’d think.” Nicole threw up her hand. “Tried journalism, but they draw the line about two feet from the door. But if you hide it, if you bury it, even with the tiniest bit of grime and dirt, people do listen.”
“Bury it in humor.” Jecka brightened up. “I expected something a lot more tragically complex, but honestly, this is way better. More uplifting, too.”
“You make a joke about men being idiots and terrible at sucking dick, a good joke, and then, suddenly, everyone’s so much more open to the truth behind all of it. And it’s all so insane that it’s also funny, so the more they laugh, the more they remember it.”
“You’re doing all of that unsung and thankless work.” Jecka hummed and downed the rest of her shitty coffee. “Kind of like a teacher, except you don’t have to deal with any kids, or parents, or kids with kids, or other teachers.”
“This is the second time tonight you’ve compared me to an educator.”
“It’s been a very long night; law of averages, Nicole. The great equalizer.” Jecka checked her phone. “This was the most fun and irresponsible night I’ve had in years. No. Ever.”
“Irresponsible? What, is coffee a narcotic now? We were totally sober.”
“It technically always was, yes, but I meant more ‘I have clients in two hours’.” Jecka snorted into a dry laugh and wiped her glasses. “This is the most unprofessional I’ve been in my entire life. You are a bad influence.”
“Yeah, blame it on me, that’s fair.” Nicole rolled her eyes. “I asked you every hour about work, and you told me not to worry about it.”
“I was being selfish, clearly. It was sweet that you cared, that you do.” Jecka took a very deep breath. “Was this even a date?”
“No way. Dates suck, and this was awesome.”
“I admire that outlook.” Jecka sat up straight, her eyes sinking into her head. “So, this is the part where—”
“I swear to God, if you tell me you’re ‘too busy’ for anything—” Nicole grimaced. “Come on.”
“I am!” stressed Jecka, looking just as hurt as Nicole felt. “I really, really am. I don’t—it’s been a really long time since I’ve dated anyone, and this was not a good example of how that would go with me. I don’t stay up all night before a ten-hour docket of people who really need my help.” She frowned. “Or, at least, have paid for it.”
“Jecka, fate is a fucking stupid concept, but we’re from the same area, we almost went to the same school, and you are quite literally the easiest person to talk to I’ve ever met. You are also the most fun person to talk to.” Nicole blushed but did not blink. “You’re also, yeah, the single most gorgeous person I’ve ever met. This was six hours of nothing but yakking. And you’re too busy?”
“You think I’m happy about this? I’m devastated! I—”
“Oh my God, fine, here, I’ll make this super easy for you.” Nicole stared her down. “I really, really want to talk to you again. Everything else? If it happens, it does. Mostly, though I just—God, I need to talk to you again. I’m not letting that go without some kind of a fight, alright?”
“That’s probably the most romantic yet also platonic thing anyone has ever said to me.” Jecka pinched her brow. “Fuck it. Yeah, you’re right. I really want to talk to you again, too.” She unlocked her phone and slid it across the counter. “I assume you still use your phone as a phone.”
“I’m over thirty, so, yeah.” Nicole unlocked her phone and did the same, quickly adding herself as a contact to Jecka’s. “I wanna make a crack about oral sex and talking, but I am so tired. Let’s just pretend I did.”
“We could do that.” Jecka smirked, typing away at Nicole’s phone. “Then again, isn’t talking each other up all night long not basically the same thing as going down on each other for just as long?”
“Wow.” Nicole snickered, despite herself, sliding Jecka’s phone back to her as she caught her own. “That was terrible.”
“I’m not the comedian between us, Nicole.” Jecka quickly snapped a picture of her, winking from behind the camera. “Though, I wouldn’t say no to an apprenticeship.”