Crying Laughing

by Lance Rubin

  “Yes. Today’s the day.”

  “Good,” Azadeh says, forking some salad into her mouth.

  “I really miss her.”

  “And she misses you! This is so stupid!”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’m done talking about this.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “New topic: Did you see SNL last weekend?”

  “I did, but—”

  “Today. Is. The. Day.”

  I sigh. “Today’s the day.”

  * * *

  —

  I can’t stop looking at Leili’s face.

  We’re doing a couple of practice Harolds this afternoon at improv, and I’ve been trying to get Leili’s attention all rehearsal—I really do want this to be the day—but it hasn’t worked. Evan’s not here—he’s clearly avoiding me at every turn, which makes me feel simultaneously terrible and powerful—but I’m still so in my head after his and Leili’s comments.

  Thus far in rehearsal I’ve been trying to stick with what’s worked, using my go-to characters and bits, like I need to prove to Leili that she’s wrong. But it hasn’t felt exactly right. It’s like I’m trying too hard to be funny instead of living in the moments of what’s happening.

  Leili gets up to do a scene, and I realize if I want my best friend’s attention so badly, there’s an easy way to get it.

  I jump up into the playing space. It’s the third beat of the Harold, so Leili’s already established her character in two earlier scenes: a park ranger with the supernatural ability to talk to trees, which confounds all her coworkers. I decide I’ll play a loudmouthed tree. It’s not a character I’ve ever done before, so it will count as real improv.

  As I make my arms into branches and stare at Leili, about to speak, it occurs to me that this is the first scene we’ve done together since I joined Improv Troupe. How is that possible? She’s my best friend and we haven’t even performed together in a single scene? “Hey, lady,” I say, in my most gregarious tree voice.

  “Oh, hello,” Leili says. She looks right at me, and it’s with none of the baggage of our past week. I don’t know how she does that. She’s just so in it, as if we’re meeting for the first time. As if I’m actually a tree.

  “I’m lonely,” I say, the thought forming and leaving my mouth simultaneously. “I’m the loneliest tree in the forest.”

  “I’ve heard about you,” Leili says, without missing a beat. “The other trees are worried about you.”

  It feels so nice to be talking to Leili again, even though it’s in this supremely weird way. “If they’re so worried,” I say, “why don’t they come talk to me directly?”

  “Well, I guess maybe…It’s because they’re rooted to the ground.”

  Everyone laughs, and I pout and say, “Well, they could try,” and I am, for the billionth time, in awe of my best friend. How does she come up with lines like that? I want to do what she does, and I can’t!

  Oh man.

  The scene continues, and I try to respond in cogent ways, but the truth is, I can barely focus. Because I’m seeing it now:

  I am jealous of Leili.

  I’ve been jealous of her since the first day of rehearsal. Has some part of me been shutting her out the same way Evan shut me out? Because she’s better at improv? Is it so hard to let her be the funny one sometimes?

  Finally, the Harold ends and so does rehearsal. Leili speeds toward her backpack as soon as Mr. Martinez dismisses us, but I’m ready for it. I jump off the stage into the aisle to block her. I kind of twist my ankle in the process, but I don’t care.

  “Lay, wait,” I say, grimacing.

  She doesn’t.

  “I’m so sorry, Leili.”

  She stops walking and looks at me. I’m glad because my last resort was to start blasting Enya from my phone.

  People are all around us getting their stuff, but I don’t even care. I want them to hear this. “I’ve been a shitty friend, and I’m so sorry.”

  Leili looks at our feet. “You haven’t been a shi—”

  “I totally have. Just let me say it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m not going to be a shitty friend anymore.”

  “Well, I was shitty to you on the phone, so—”

  “Yeah, but I deserved it! You’re so amazing, Leili. You’re the most amazing. Honestly, I think, like…” It’s hard to get the words out. “I’m jealous of you.”

  “What?” Leili looks confused, like this never would have occurred to her in a million years. “Why?”

  “Uh…Because you’re good at everything, including improv. And I think of myself as so funny, so I thought this would be the one area where I could, like…But you’re way better than me at this, too.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are. You’re smart and funny in every scene you do, and you’re so good at listening, and I just think you’re incredible. And I don’t know why I don’t tell you that more. I know that everything…like, Azadeh being with Roxanne, and me with what’s-his-face, has been hard. And I’m sorry I haven’t been better about being there for you.”

  Now people are kind of staring and listening, which feels more awkward than triumphant. “Thank you for that,” Leili says. “But here, let’s…” She gestures to the far wall of the auditorium.

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  We walk over there. I sort of limp, actually.

  “Is your ankle okay?” Leili asks.

  “I dunno. But we’re talking again, and not just in an improv scene, so yes, definitely. This feels really good.”

  “It does.” Leili smiles.

  “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  Leili sighs. “Not yet. But I will be. It’s really not your fault. It was mainly the stuff with Azadeh, how she’s, you know, got a new person now. And how she’s been around so much less. But also…”

  “Also what?”

  “I don’t know.” Leili looks at her Chuck Taylors again. Almost everyone has filed out of the auditorium. “You think I’m good at everything, but I’m not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, people just gravitate to Azadeh in every room she’s in. It’s always been that way. We’re almost identical, yet people never want to…”

  “You are so gravitational,” I say. “You totally are.”

  “You know what I mean, though. She’s the fun one. So she attracts people, like Roxanne, and then you’re so funny, and you attract Ev— I mean what’s-his-face, and I’m like…” She starts to quietly cry. “The closest thing I have to anything like that is my pathetic crush.” She side-glances at Mr. Martinez, who’s trying to untangle the strap on his messenger bag. “And obviously I’m so happy for Oz, and I was for you, too, but what about me? Will I ever have that? So I threw myself even more into everything else I have going on. Because that’s my thing. I’m the driven one. But, ohmigod, Winnie, it’s so exhausting.”

  Now I’m crying too. “I’m really, really sorry. I want you to know: you are so fun and so pretty and so smart and so wonderful, and people are and will be attracted to you. And I won’t ever drop the friendship ball again. Can I hug you?”

  “Of course.” We hug. It’s such a relief.

  “Can we keep hugging forever?”

  “No. But I could probably go for a few more minutes.”

  “Deal!” I shout.

  Our laughter fills the auditorium, which we now have all to ourselves.

  30

  I’m home from school, running the same drill I’ve run every day—scouring the cupboards for a snack to bring up to my room so I can avoid seeing Dad—when I hear him behind me.

  “We’re gonna have to talk sometime, Banana.” He somehow managed to sneak up behind me, which is notable, as his aggressive
cane maneuvering usually announces him half a minute before he appears.

  “I know,” I say, my back still to him as I snatch a bag of Goldfish.

  “Please,” he says. “This is killing me. Pun completely intended.”

  I turn around, careful not to display anything resembling a smile. He got my laughs for fifteen years. He doesn’t get them now.

  At the same time, though, I’m tired of avoiding him, of running from this. It’s painful. He’s still my dad. And in a few hours we’ll have hit the one-week mark. So.

  “Well, it really kills me that you cheated on Mom.”

  He winces. “I know.”

  “And then lied to me about it at dinner.”

  “I’m sorry, I was completely caught off guard. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “The truth is generally a good response.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Winnie. I wish I could take it all back.”

  It might be the most sincere I’ve ever seen him, and it crushes me. I hate this, and I’m probably ready to forgive him, but I figure I’ll make him squirm on the line a bit longer.

  “Well, you can’t,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says, staring at the kitchen counter, where his bottle of Riluzole is lined up next to his various supplements and vitamins. “I know.”

  “If quitting comedy was going to be so devastating for you that you had to have sex with some other woman, you shouldn’t have quit.” I suddenly understand why Mom wanted to push Dad back into comedy. It was her final attempt at getting him to open up, at trying to save him. And it didn’t work. Nothing had. So she left.

  “It was— That’s not exactly right.”

  “Oh no? You guys had me, and you had to stop doing what you loved. I ruined your life.”

  “You did not r—” He wobbles back and forth, and my heart skips a beat. “Hey,” he says once he’s regained his balance, “can we sit down at the table? It’s tiring for me to stand this long.”

  “Oh, of course,” I say, the angry daughter act sloughing off me like skin off a snake as I walk my father over to the table and help him into one of the chairs.

  “Thanks,” he says. If I were him, I’d totally be using my condition to gain sympathy/forgiveness, but the heartbreaking part is, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing.

  I sit next to him, our chairs angled toward each other. Our knees are nearly touching.

  “So?” I ask. “You were saying?” I’m trying to get my infuriated skin back on, but it doesn’t quite fit anymore.

  He smiles at me, like he’s experiencing some inside joke I’m not privy to.

  “What?”

  “It’s good to be talking to you,” he says.

  And then his smile wavers and crumples, and my father is crying in front of me.

  “I miss you and Mom,” he says, rubbing his thumb in one eye, index finger in the other.

  It’s a shocking sight. I think maybe he’s doing a bit.

  But it keeps going, and pretty soon my eyes are swelling too.

  “I really…I screwed up back then,” he says. “And again now. I don’t do well with fear.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” I wish Mom were here for this.

  “I’m just— This is scary. What’s happening.”

  I don’t know what to do, but I want to do something, so I stand and give Dad a hug in his chair, like Mom did to me. I think part of me is still waiting for him to look up at me with a smile and say, “Gotcha, sucker.” But it doesn’t happen.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “And Mom isn’t either.” I don’t know that for sure, but I say it anyway.

  “Thanks, Win,” Dad says, patting my arm before giving his face one final wipe with his whole hand. “I hate for you to see me like this.”

  I don’t say anything as I sit back down in my chair, though I realize I don’t hate it. I mean, I don’t want to see Dad cry on, like, a daily basis or anything, but it feels…real.

  “What happened with…,” Dad says. “It was such a mistake. I won’t ever forgive myself.”

  Not sure how to respond, so, again, I say nothing.

  “And yes, it was a tough transition for me, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right transition.” Dad’s looking at the table, gliding the pepper shaker around. “You have to know, Win, you absolutely didn’t ruin my life. I don’t care that I never had a comedy career. Cory tells me all the time how hard it still is, even with the success he’s had. The constant uncertainty, going gig to gig, always auditioning, having to prove yourself over and over again. I hated that.

  “It really hit home at that open mic. You know, after my ego took a day to recover. I realized, I have been able to spend my life doing the thing I love more than anything.”

  I try to form the words What’s that? but I can’t, so I ask with my eyes.

  “Raising you.”

  I’m a mess again.

  “Being your dad has brought me a billion times more joy than standing on a stage ever did.” Dad finally finds the nerve to look up from the table, straight at me. “I really believe it’s what I was meant to do. Which is why that thing in my past has always haunted me. I almost threw it all away.”

  “I’m glad Mom forgave you,” I whisper.

  “Oh man, me too. She’s…She’s the best person I know.” Dad is crying again. “So, look, Win, if…I know I said we don’t know how my ALS will manifest, but…”

  “Please don’t—”

  “I know, but we have to start talking like this, Mom is right. And I definitely am getting worse. So…when I’m…less capable, you have to be there for Mom as much as you can.”

  I was not prepared for this, and I don’t feel quite up to the task of handling it. I don’t know how to talk to this vulnerable version of my father.

  “Really, the thing that bums me out the most is the idea that…that I might not get to see the rest of what happens to you.” Dad’s making no attempt to hold back his tears, like rain on a windowpane. “You know that Aerosmith song? ‘I don’t want to close my eyes, I don’t want to fall asleep’?” He sings the lyric. He really isn’t a singer.

  “I don’t know, but you sound very bad,” I say through sniffles.

  “ ‘And I don’t want to miss a thi-ing.’ That really is how I feel.”

  “You’re not going anywhere yet, Dad,” I say, though it sounds more like “Yernahgoonennewehyeh, Dah.”

  “I know, which is why you have to tell me about your life while I’m still here. Like, all the details, the stupid details. I’ve felt you holding back sometimes, and I don’t like it.”

  “Well, I don’t want to burden you with my…You’re dealing with way more important stuff.”

  “Your life is the important stuff!” Dad gracelessly lowers his face to wipe it on the collar of his T-shirt. “It’s the most important. Promise me you’ll keep talking to me about every mundane thing, Win. Like if you’re frustrated because your shirt gets a hole in it from the dryer. Or you lose one of your favorite socks. Or, I don’t know…For some reason I can only think of clothing-related examples. You get what I’m saying. I want to hear it all. Even when I’m getting worse and the shit’s hitting the fan. Especially then.”

  I wipe my nose. “I promise.”

  “Good.” Dad takes a deep breath. “You are an amazing person, Winifred. And a hilarious person. And a smart person. And whatever it is you go on to do, whether it’s comedy or something else, you’re going to kick serious ass. And if it is comedy, promise me you won’t let the miserable, lonely guys get in your head. There’s a lot of them out there. There’s good ones, too, but…And if any comedian masturbates in front of you, you call the cops, you tell the papers, you shout it from the freaking rooftops—”

  “Dad, Dad, okay, I get it,” I say.


  “Sorry. Went off the rails a bit there. My point is, you’re a force, Winnie. Remember that.”

  I nod. “I will.”

  “Good.”

  I grab my phone off the kitchen counter and quickly text Mom, Dad crying, misses you.

  The three dots pop up instantly, followed by Leaving work now, see you in a bit.

  “I think Mom’s coming home tonight,” I say.

  “What?” Dad looks like a five-year-old who’s just been informed Santa’s showing up early this year.

  * * *

  —

  Dad insists we make dinner for Mom, but there’s no time to go out for groceries, so we throw together this stir-fry with chicken and peppers and onions and some white rice and some brown rice. Dad is adorably nervous, and he keeps dropping things. I keep scolding him to be more careful, but in a funny way. I just don’t want him to fall before Mom shows up.

  When she finally does, it’s less triumphant and more awkward and tentative. It’s like we temporarily forgot how to speak to each other in a natural way. But as the meal progresses, it gets better.

  It’s only later that evening, once I’ve said good night to them both, that I eavesdrop on them talking in the bedroom and know they’re going to be all right. They’re both crying, and Dad is saying he thinks Mom is right, that he should start going to the ALS support group, and he’ll call first thing in the morning, and it’s all so moving that I start crying too, out there in the hallway.

  I didn’t know my parents were capable of speaking to each other that way, but then I remember there’s a lot I don’t know about them.

  31

  “My hands are literally shaking,” I say as my mascara undershoots my eye by about an inch. “I’m so nervous.”

  “Leaving it like that could be a cool statement,” Leili says.

  We’re side by side at the harshly lit mirrors in the girls’ bathroom, frantically putting on makeup before the performance. Both of us were sporting almost none when we got here, but then we saw that Jess, Rashanda, Nicole, and Molly were all rocking smoky eye shadow, striking red lipstick, and other stuff I don’t know the name of.