Kinda Nervous

Andrew (sometimes Andy, but never Drew) looked into a mirror and adjusted a jean jacket. He liked how it filled out his shoulders, he liked the cut, he liked how it slimmed him out. He sucked in his gut and held a pose and bobbed his head with approval.

Emma (Em to her friends) shifted in a mirror and checked the highlighting on her cheeks. She liked how it lightened her up, she liked the color, she liked how it narrowed her face. She pursed her lips and gave herself a reassuring glance in the reflection.

Andrew checked the screen of his phone, he winced slightly when he saw the crack still forming in the corner, an easy fix soon. He opened her texts, read and reread the address, and checked to see that his maps app was able to get him to the coffee shop with time to spare. He always felt nervous about being late.

Emma checked the cracked screen of her phone, she shuffled it out of her nicest bag, which she could only carry with this dress. She opened his texts, read and reread the “Hellos” the “Heys” and the tentative “Would you like to get coffee sometime?”. She knew the place, she could be there in 20, give or take.

15 minute drive, I should probably leave now, he thought.

20 minute drive, I can leave in 10, she thought.

In the car, Andrew tousled his hair in the rearview, moved it from side to side and eventually let it stay in it’s initial mop. He could never get it right. The scruff looked good today though. No complaints.

At home, Emma thought of all the bad first dates, and a nervous lump formed in her throat, like congealed trauma. She could never pick them right. Andrew seemed good though. No complaints. Not like Dan, Dan tried so hard to be cool that he forgot to be excited to see her. Dan did not get a second date.

Andrew’s pulse quickened as he moved slowly down the city streets in his pieced-together coup. Emma seemed perfect, if almost intimidating. She was just so funny. He had always found it hard to be funny while texting. She had this way of double texting where the punchline would hit right as it landed in your inbox. It was almost superhuman, like she could time the transfer of radio waves. 5 more minutes and I should be there, ahead of schedule, even with traffic. He figured that was his own superhuman ability, the ability to arrive early. Bad joke, but he made himself laugh.

Emma began collecting her things, best not to keep him waiting. She looked again at his profile, looked at the pictures that she had interrogated to know his life. So many people on this app are assholes. At least he’s smiling in this one. She breathed deeply. He was also a funny guy. If she had a type, she figured that would be it. He did have a habit of being self deprecating, which felt like fishing for compliments at times, but not the reddest flag ever flown. If she left now she should still be early. Good.

Andrew parked in parallel and stepped out onto the cool concrete sidewalk. Overflow was painted on the sign. It was his favorite place. He thought she might like it. She liked tea more than coffee, but he was pretty sure they had a good tea selection. He pulled open the door and walked inside to feel the warm energy of an old coffeeshop. He walked to the counter and stood in line, three people back.

Emma drove leisurely. Her hatchback passed a sea of coffeeshops and she recognized most. Overflow was the high-priced place you go late at night if you don’t want to drink. It’s where you take your friends after a movie. It didn’t even occur to her that it might be open in the middle of the day. Good time for tea though. She pulled up to a red light, stopped dead behind a small traffic jam ahead. The city felt cold, and she was stuck three cars behind the intersection.

“What teas do you have?” “What kind do you like?” What kind of tea does Emma like, he thought. “Um I guess I just need a list?” “Yeah well there’s the menu.” The barista motioned up to the sign behind her. The tea list was massive, so Andrew stepped aside and let the others place their orders. He tried to get out of the way.

Emma parked in parallel and stepped out onto the cool concrete sidewalk. The sign jostled lightly in the wind. The place looked different in the day, hopeful, she thought. She pulled open the door and walked inside. She spotted his form from across the room, he was blankly staring at the menu, shifting his weight from side to side. She walked over, “Andrew?”

His attention broke, and he looked down, instantly his eyes lit up, and a smile flew frictionless across his face. “Oh, hi Emma!” His arms flew out to either side instinctively, he wondered whether that was the right move.

He smiled so wide, she thought, and a smile crept across her face too. She opened her arms and went in to embrace him. She felt his arms fold around her tighly, and he gave a quick squeeze, she did the same back. “Hi! Wow it’s great to meet you, at least in real life.”

“Yeah it’s always hard to save whether you’re meeting someone for the first time, the apps and the texting felt like an introduction.” He let her go and looked into her eyes, and he felt like it was his first time seeing them. “Wow, you look… great.”

She rolled her eyes, and smirked. “Ya know Andrew, you don’t look so bad yourself.” She let her arms fall off his frame like he had done. “So, looks like you’re strongly considering tea.”

“Oh, always considering it, but never getting it.” He admitted, holding his arms up in mock-defense. “Not my thing, personally, but I wanted to make sure there were enough options for you.” The menu, created with chalk markers, crept down the slate walls, and the teas alone took up nearly 10 feet of real-estate.

“Oh, I think I’ll be fine!” She motioned to the menu and traced down the list from a distance with her finger, carefully considering each one, she stood close to Andrew, and she kept his beaming face in her peripheral. “Peach green tea?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Really?”

“Oh… um I mean I can get it for you. If you’d like.”

“Um, yeah thank you!” She hadn’t heard someone ask to foot the bill before. They either did, or didn’t, they never really asked. “What are you getting?”

“What I always get.” He paused, trying to read her reaction. She didn’t seem judgmental at the decision. “It’s a specialty latte they make here. It’s called the Cloud 9, it has vanilla, caramel, and marshmallow. It’s sweet, but I treat myself.”

She looked up to his eyes, and saw that he was looking to her for some response, like he almost felt guilty. “That sounds really good! I’ll have to try it sometime.” She touched his arm and led him back into the line with her.

“You can have some of mine when we get it.”

“Would you like to try some of my green tea?”

“I’ve had green tea and personally, I haven’t really liked it.”

“Well maybe with a drop of honey we can get it up to your discerning tastes.” She laughed.

He faked a wound. “Ah, I don’t think I can take anything without enough sugar to kill the average diabetic!” He laughed.

She eyed him with faux-judgment, as they stepped a step up in line again. The barista darted about behind the counter and mixed a million drinks a minute. The whole place was warm. It pulsed with a pleasant energy. He radiated some of the energy himself. Something felt right, and she was determined to identify it. “Why do you like this place?”

He was locked into prepping himself for the ordering process. I’ll have a large Cloud 9, iced, and she will have the peach green tea he practiced, but did she want it hot or cold? He registered her question, and finally responded, “Oh, it’s just calming, I think. I’ll be real, sometimes my mind is a little all over the place, but twice a week I come here, and everything slows way down.”

“Twice a week you get to relax?” She didn’t think he seemed terribly high-strung. “How are you feeling right now?”

Andrew froze. “I’m alright, obviously kind of nervous, first date and all, but I’m really happy to be here, and to finally meet you” He beamed again.

“I’m happy too.” Emma smiled back. She walked to the counter, still towing the frozen Andrew. The barista flew to the counter in a huff, “What can I get you?”. She pointed to Andrew, “Tea?”

“Oh um…”

“Yeah I’ll take a medium peach green tea please” Emma responded while Andrew collected himself. “Hot or iced?” “Hot please” The barista looked back to Andrew.

“Yeah and I’ll take a Cloud 9, iced, please” Andrew pulled his wallet out and thumbed about for bills. “Size?” “Oh shit, um…large please” The barista’s fingers tapped out the order into a screen, and she spun it about for the two to check. Andrew handed over the money, too much for two drinks, but a good price for good company, plus tip.

Emma stepped out of line while Andrew paid and made her way to a collection of formica tables. She sat at one with crooked chairs, two, facing one another. “Andrew, I grabbed us a table.”

“Oh you can call me Andy by the way.” Andrew said over his shoulder. He finished paying, and followed Emma’s voice to the table.

“Not Drew?”

“Oh, never Drew!” He laughed.

She laughed. “Well why not?”

He sat. “Don’t know, never met a Drew I liked I guess.”

“Well my friends call me Em sometimes.”

“Not Ma?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. I could pull it off though.” She lengthened her face until her face became bejowled. “Ay, sonny?”

He lengthened his face to mirror. “What? What did ya say, Ma?” He held his hand cupped behind his ear and leaned in close. He was happy, and they were laughing.

She returned her cheeks to their proper position and she leaned in too and whispered, in deadpan “Um excuse me, I said not to call me that.” She was happy and they were laughing.

Andrew heard from behind him, “Large Cloud 9, medium iced green.” And he stood to fetch the drinks off the counter. The light hit the clear mug of tea and sparkled out in rose-pink. The milky glass of coffee swirled, and when he grabbed them both he was filled with joy at the 9 written in cocoa powder above the thin foam. He set the drinks down and slid the glass mug of tea toward Emma. “These smell really good.”

Emma pulled her tea close to her by the handle, careful not to singe herself on the pretentious glass mug. She breathed deeply, and the floral, sweet, grassy, tart notes of peach and tea mingled in her nose. She peered over the table to see Andrew’s latte. “Wow. This place is hipster trash, isn’t it?” She teased.

“Yes, yes it is.” Andrew chuckled, and his smile spread again, showing off some slightly crooked teeth, polished carefully for the occasion. “But, hey, smell this too.” He pushed his latte toward her.

Not wanting to be rude, Emma wafted the aroma toward her nose with her hand. The cold made it a little harder to get at the scent, but eventually it hit her. It smelled like a child’s birthday cake. It smelled like Christmas mornings. It smelled like melted ice cream, with some coffee hidden inside. “Your turn.” She pushed the mug toward him.

Not wanting to be rude, Andrew wafted the aroma toward his nose with his hand. The warmth carried the scent straight to him, and it hit him. It smelled like the first bite of fresh fruit out of hand. It smelled like cut grass. It smelled like summer’s final days, with some sweetness hidden inside. “When did you start drinking tea?”

“Pretty young, I’d say. Mom used to make a cup when we would read together.”

“Oh so Ma has a mom? A mom-ma?”

Her eyes narrowed, “That does not even work!” She laughed. “How about you, Drew? How’d you get into the brew, Drew?”

Andrew saw the challenge and searched his brain before answering, “Oh, I, Drew, knew the brew was… guude… since I was two.”

“Is that… true?” Her eyebrows raised, and head tilted.

“No, absolutely not.” He laughed. “I started drinking coffee like 10 years ago, probably had my first one on a date, weirdly.”

“Well, hey, to tradition.” She smirked and raised her mug into the air. He raised his cup. They clinked. A moment passed in pleasant silence, all the bustle of the coffeeshop slid away. “Speaking of dates, we sure are on one, aren’t we, Andy?”

“Yes, Em. I think we are.” He laughed again. He smiled again. “So what do you like to do? What are you passionate about?”

Emma straightened herself out and thought. What was a good answer? What was he looking for, hobbies, pastimes, what? She liked so many things, and she felt it was entirely too broad of a question.

He saw her thinking. “Like, I guess what do you love to do the most?”

Emma paused, and all at once she lit up. “I put a lot of time into my makeup, I like to watch the tutorials, I like to try new things.” She blushed. “Admittedly, I did go a little more… conservative this time, hard to know how someone will react if you show up in blue eyeshadow and a purple lip. It can be a lot for some people, even me sometimes.”

“Well I do like what you have on right now, but that’s really cool!” Andrew could see Emma almost stumbling over herself to answer. He really liked when people got excited by stuff, anything really. He had been on a lot of dates where his date was just so concerned with seeming normal that they never let themselves show off who they were. “How often do you do…like… I’m sorry I don’t know a ton about makeup. How often do you do like… the Whole Shebang?” He waved his hand about his face to indicate totality.

Emma smiled. It was cute. He was trying. He was out on a limb. “I go all out on Fridays. I almost always wear something, but Fridays I try new things.” She thought of wild colors, clashing glosses and eyelashes, and how proud it made her feel when she found something truly new. “It’s just a good way to express yourself.”

“Absolutely. Maybe you can do something a little less… conservative next time then?” He hoped, letting the question be implied. He sipped his sweet drink.

“Absolutely.” She smiled. Her mind raced with all the possibilities for a next time. “Well what about you, what do you like to do?”

Andrew straightened himself and thought. What would she think about his answer? He steeled himself, but to Emma he betrayed some subtle embarrassment. “I like to fix things.” He punctuated with another sip of his latte. “I like to take things apart, but I have a habit of putting them all back together again.” He smirked.

“Like what?”

“Oh, like my car, my phone. Anything.” He pulled his ancient phone from his pocket, and set it like a brick of gold on the table. It’s worn edges were polished, and the back casing looked much newer than the rest of it. “This will need a new screen soon, but I don’t mind.”

“Why not get a new one?” Emma could see the time and effort that kept the phone together. It seemed to be on life support, but Andrew had given time to it, clearly.

“I’m not sure… I guess when I find something I like, I make sure to keep it running.”

“Well I do find that quite respectable, that’s really cool!” Emma could see Andrew centering himself. She really liked when people really gave thought to their craft, whatever it may be. She had been on a lot of dates where her date was so concerned with seeming spotless that they never let themselves show off who they were. “How long have you had it?” She gestured to the phone.

Andrew smiled. It was cute. She cared. “I’ve had this phone for… going on 5 years now. I keep doing little upgrades, making it a little better each time.” He thought of spiraling wires, solder, and how proud it made him feel when everything clicked and blinked back to life. “It’s really meditative.”

“Absolutely. Maybe you could help me with my own phone sometime.” She put it face-up on the table and showed its spreading cracks, the empty spaces where light couldn’t form anymore.

He reached for the phone to examine it.

Her hand brushed his.

They smiled.

They laughed.

They made more quiet plans for next time, and drank their drinks, they drank each other’s, and talked about themselves and one another.

They were still kinda nervous, but they were hopeful.

---

“Oh my god, VOM. Quinn, try to write something slightly less cringey next time. Oh, and this clearly has nothing to do with the work we have gone over in this class.”

Oh ho ho, Mr. Strawman, you are… actually correct, but please let me defend myself so I can get that greenlight.

The first assertion, that this is kind of cringey, I can agree with. I am not very good at writing romance, and I wanted to test to see if I even could, so consider Kinda Nervous to be some tentative steps into a new genre I haven’t explored yet. What makes this extra bad, however, is the fact that there really isn’t much conflict. Andrew and Emma basically like each other right away, they go on the date, and hit it off immediately, the story only serves to show how much closer they grow over that short time. This is by design.

One problem that I’ve had with reading “romance” in a lot of pieces is that romance is always treated as something large and dramatic, while in my research (which constituted me asking a bunch of people what they thought romance even was) I determined that most people see romance as definitionally small and meaningful. I wanted to play this very close to my chest, few stakes, no big romantic gestures, just two people talking.

There is also an expectation that romance, as a genre, is mostly for women or queer authors. The publications are certainly weighted so. I was curious to see if I there was any hetero romance fiction from a male character perspective, specifically in published novels, and I found some, but I tried really hard to steer away because I didn’t want to accidentally make a Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl type thing with my characters.

I did find that a lot of authors switch perspective by chapter, showing one character’s perspective each time and showing how they came together. I decided to replicate that, because it allowed me to show that romance is slowly building (with the shift over time, showing the characters starting to match up more and more often until they are referred to as “they”) and it allowed me to lightly touch upon some of the things I wanted to address in our class’s readings.

This is admittedly tenuous, but the ways that “romance” (if you can even call it that) is portrayed in Death and The King’s Horseman, Shakuntala, and The Dew Breaker all felt problematic and dangerous at worst, and incomplete at best. In Death and The King’s Horseman we see Elesin pick a wife and shun her as he prepares for his suicide. This is touched on very shortly in the reference to Dan, who was so absorbed in himself that he neglected Emma. In Shakuntala we see the King endlessly pursue Shakuntala, and while they both seem to have fallen for each other, the King does not listen to her pleas to leave her be. I wanted it to be clear in the story that both of my protagonists were excited to be there. They both wanted to see what could happen, and they both pushed the line tentatively while respecting each other’s boundaries.

Things are a little more complicated with The Dew Breaker. Spoilers, by the way. In the book, we eventually find that the titular dew breaker and his wife met almost randomly, and slowly grew together until they couldn’t separate anymore. They became closer in a lot of ways, but I don’t think anyone reading the story would have called it romantic, per se. This is why I suggested this might be incomplete to describe romance. They just kind of need each other, which is not the same thing, but togetherness is certainly part of romance (according to my research).

Also, I tried to write with more poetry in mind. I was really inspired by Joy Harjo’s work, and I wanted to see what I could do with poetic writing in a much longer form. I know this isn’t new, but it was new to me!

But like… why does all this matter? Why did I write a ten-page story with flimsy connections to a bunch of stories from around the world? Well, the not-universal-but-very-common topic of love and romance is clearly all over the world, and how two people end up together for their lives has been talked about since talking and pair-bonding became the hip new thing for two over-evolved chimps to do. I had always loved reading love stories, but I never felt any were really for me, and I get it, the romance stories that are made for people like me are riddled with terrible problems, and I could stand to have one piece of the zeitgeist not tailor-made for me. However, I wanted to see what I could say, and what I could incorporate from the thoughts of people around me. I wanted to tell my own love story. I wanted to join in the conversation that has been going on for thousands of year, and I’m happy that I did. Literature allowed me to.