Last Thursday, Beetle and I were sitting outside a restaurant in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood, watching the work day winding down. Weary men and women impatiently tapped their feet at the crosswalk, waiting for the traffic light to change, eager to get home to their loved ones. A young mother pushed her plump baby in a plastic stroller towards the direction of an old-fashioned ice cream shop, where, according to our helpful waitress, the owner still churned his creamy concoctions by hand. A few couples loitered, trying to decide if they should have Thai, Indian, or Italian, all located within the same two-block radius. Beyond us rose the sunset sky, drenched in streaks of russet light.
While waiting for our dessert (fried banana and vanilla ice cream), we decided to play an improvisation game. It's based on a form of exercise commonly used by theater actors to sharpen their reflexes. The idea is to agree on an imaginary scenario, then behave accordingly.
"How about this? We're high school buddies," I suggested. "And we're saying goodbye to each other because you're about to go off to California."
This wasn't a far-fetched scenario. In her teens, Beetle did leave her home town in the Pacific Northwest, following a less treacherous route than the ill-fated Lewis and Clark expedition to arrive in the Bay Area. She probably said a few teary goodbyes to her intimate friends, the snow-sprinkled mountain ranges, and the frozen lakes and rivers from her childhood.
I pitched my opening line for the fictional dialog: "Do you know that I've always had a crush on you?"
I should have warned her the game had begun, but I didn't. Inevitably, confusion followed.
"I know," Beetle said, with a sympathetic sigh. "I read your blog."
"No, I mean, that's what I would say to you if we were high school buddies and you were about to go away," I hastily explained.
"Oh," she uttered.
There was an awkward pause.
"I did fall for you," I blurted out.
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," I said. "It's water under the bridge now."
We made another attempt at the game.
"I've always had a crush on you," I said.
"OK, stop it now," she admonished, rather sternly.
This time, I paused, taken aback.
"Do you ... want to stop playing? Was it a bit too much?" I asked.
"No, no," she giggled. "That how I would respond to your line."
"Gosh, we suck at improv," I declared.
We waited while the waitress refilled our water glasses. Then Beetle resumed her role.
"Why are you telling me this now?" she asked, wearing a convincing look of distress.
"Because if I don't tell you this now, I may never get to," I replied.
"What am I suppose to do with this?" she asked.
"Stay," I proposed. "Don't go."
The thrill--and the danger--of this game is this: At some point, it becomes impossible to distinguish the part you're playing and your true self.
"So you want me to just stay?" she asked. "Just live and die here, in this dumpy little place with nothing for my future, like those people over there?"
I looked across the street, noting the foot traffic from the nearby coffee shop, flower stand, and bike repair shop. But I think I was supposed to see the Main Street of a sleepy town, where an idle barbershop owner dozed off in a rocking chair, out-of-work men in faded denim shirts hung their heads (and hopes) on termite-infested bar counters, and resentful looking high school kids drank whiskey out of a brown bag. Now and then, an elongated Chevy Bel Air with winged taillights might pass like a hearse, while the icy wind hummed a funeral dirge. The nights were probably long too, spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table, prepped for the inevitable, languishing in the terminal ward.
But being a romantic, I imagined instead a cast of quirky characters similar to the Northern Exposure ensemble: Ruth-Anne Miller, the charming 90-something widow running the town's only general store; Maggie O'Connell, the adorable short-haired pilot girl with a dimpled smile; Maurice, the former astronaut and eccentric millionaire; and the rest of Cicily, Alaska. In the fictional universe of mine, the dumpy little place resembled a Norman Rockwell neighborhood.
"Look at these people," I said. "They're happy. Doesn't that count for something?" (In Cicily, most characters seemed quite content with their lot.)
"What are you trying to say?" she asked.
"I'm saying, please don't go," I said. "You and me, we should give it a shot."
"I don't know," she wavered.
Then she threw a curved ball.
"You ... could come with me," she suggested.
"What are you saying now?" I asked.
"Come to California with me," she repeated.
Before I could take her up on it, she called a timeout.
"We're supposed to be constantly wrestling with some kind of conflict in improv," she explained. So by asking me to come along, she had effectively removed the dilemma from our fictional situation. The exercise had lost its purpose.
"Here, draw something," I said, offering my arm with the sleeve pushed up.
"What do you want me to draw?" she asked.
"Draw your happy place," I recommended, "the place you think of whenever you're sad."
"That's too abstract," she said, lowering her head to consider what to put on the human canvas before her.
This little ritual has become a regular feature of our times together. Whenever we meet, I'd let her scribble something on me, directly on my skin. The first time, it was Spikee, a smiling character with pointy hair; the second time, it was Beeuler, a mischievous bee; this time, it was the diagram of her bike path.
"This is me," she explained, pointing at a little stick figure on a two-wheel bike with a fluttering flag on its back. "And this is the bush that I pass by when I ride."
"What is this?" I asked her about the mysterious blotch behind the bush.
"A witch," she said. "So I take a quick peek, then ride away before she can get to me."
"What about this?" I pointed at the tree on the opposite end of her sketch.
"It's the cherry tree," she said. "It's my safe spot. When I get there, I'm safe."
"Then what happen?" I asked.
"Then I eat the cherries," she said with a giddy grin.
I'm beginning to realize this ill-defined friendship we've fashioned for ourselves is, in fact, a dumpy little place, a ghost town, with a total population of 2. Self-contained and immune from the devastating blows of the dating world, it can be incredibly seductive. The comfort it offers can be bewitching. If she's not careful, she can be stuck here for a long time. We both can, for that matter.
What will I say when she reveals she's ready to move on? Will I plead, like I did in our improv exercise, "Don't go"? Or will I have the strength of character to see her off to the train station, help her load her luggage, and watch her board without protest? I suspect that's the dilemma I'll have to face, sooner than later. Come to California with me, she said. But I'm already there. That tells me we are not going to the same place.
I need to learn to let her go now. There's a cherry tree she needs to get to. Should she ever want to visit a buddy for old time's sake, she'll find him in the dumpy little place, welcoming her with open arms.
She holds the key to Cicily; she can come back anytime.
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