Rachel Cohn - Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“She goes by Ginny?”

“You have to stop,” he said, really laughing. “You’re killing me.”

I laughed now, too, still confused. “But who’s Brandy?” I asked.

“I told you – MY MOTHER’S!”

At this point, he was absolutely cracking up, and I found myself laughing right beside him. He was turning bright red, which made me laugh even harder. Anytime it started to subside, he would yell “WHO’S BRANDY?!?” and I would yell “YOUR MOTHER!” and we would break back down into eye-tearing, bladder-threatening snorts and whinnies. I was keeled over, wiping my eyes. He sat down on the couch next to me and laughed and laughed and laughed.

You have to understand: I don’t laugh often. Not out of choice. I just don’t get the opportunity. So when I do, it’s a dam bursting. It’s something opening.

“Knock knock!” I said.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

“Orange!” I said.

“Orange who?” he asked.

“ORANGE YOU GLAD TO SEE ME!” I screamed.

It was the funniest thing either of us had ever heard.

“What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?” he yelled to me.

“YOUR MOTHER!” I yelled back.

“Close the door, I’m dressing!”

We went on like this for at least twenty minutes. Every joke we’d ever heard in third grade was dredged up for a command performance. And if we met a pause, we just yelled “ORANGE!” or “YOUR MOTHER!” until the next joke came.

Finally we needed to catch our breath. We were still on the couch. He was leaning into me. I looked at his bare feet and decided to take off my shoes. As I did, he said, “The other shoe drops.”

And I said, “No – that was just the first.”

He looked at me and it honestly felt like the first time he’d ever seen me.

“I like you,” he said.

“Try not to sound so surprised,” I found myself replying.

He leaned his head so far back that he was looking at me upside down. I actually thought, He’s even attractive upside down. And I couldn’t even feel attractive right-side up.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m surprised or not,” he told me. “It matters that I like you.”

We heard the elevator stop outside. Gingerly, Ely jumped up and looked through the peephole of his front door. I took off my other shoe.

“Just Mr. McAllister,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

I understood the “Don’t worry.” Because I’ll admit: I didn’t want it to be Naomi in the elevator. I wanted to stay like this. I wasn’t just enjoying Ely’s company; I was enjoying my own as well.

“Let’s listen to music,” Ely said.

I said sure, assuming he’d turn on the stereo in the living room. But instead he led me to his room, which was covered with poems he’d xeroxed and photographs of his friends, Naomi especially. He scanned his computer for the album he wanted, then pressed play. I recognized it immediately – Tori Amos, From the Choirgirl Hotel . It seemed to loosen itself from the speakers as it fell into the room. I thought Ely would sit in a chair or lie on the bed, but instead he lowered himself down on the hardwood floor, facing the ceiling as if it was a sky. He didn’t tell me what to do, but I lowered myself next to him, felt the floor beneath my back, felt my breathing, felt . . . happy.

Song followed song. At one point, I realized I’d left my phone in my jacket, which meant I wouldn’t hear it if it rang. I let it go.

There was something about our silence that made me feel comfortable. He wasn’t talking to me, but I didn’t feel ignored. I felt we were part of the same moment, and it didn’t need to be defined.

Finally I said, “Do you think I’m boring?”

He turned his head to me, but I kept looking up.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, a little embarrassed that I’d said anything.

I thought he’d turn back to the ceiling, to the music. But instead he looked at me for almost a minute. Eventually I turned on my side so I could look right back at him.

“No,” he finally said. “I don’t think you’re boring. I do think there are times you don’t allow yourself to be interesting . . . but clearly that can change.”

How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?

We lay there looking at each other. It made both of us smile.

Then, out of the blue – the blue deep within me – I found myself saying, “I like you, too. Really. I like you.”

There is something so intimate about saying the truth out loud. There is something so intimate about hearing the truth said. There is something so intimate about sharing the truth, even if you’re not entirely sure what it means.

And that’s when he leaned in and kissed me once, lightly, on the lips. As if he’d read exactly what I needed.

It broke the spell. It’s not that I stopped being happy. I was still inexplicably, utterly happy. But suddenly the happiness had implications.

My face must have shown it.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Ely said, his voice freaking out a little.

“No,” I told him.

“Really, I shouldn’t have.”

He sat up, and I lay there a few seconds more, staring at the space he’d just left. Then I sat up, too. And stood up. And found myself leaving, without actually deciding to leave.

He stayed where he was, but turned to face me when I got to the doorway. I made noises that sounded like excuses for leaving, and he made noises that sounded like understanding why I had to leave.

But before I could go, he said, simply, “I wanted to.”

And I waited until I had decided to really leave before I told him, “I did, too.”

Then I was gone – out his door, putting my shoes on, grabbing my jacket, then out the front door, past her front door, down the elevator, out of the building, deciding to cross streets, deciding to wait for lights, deciding to put my hands in my pockets. Deciding that none of these things mattered. None of these things involved who I was, only what I did.

The whole night, the whole morning, the whole afternoon now . . . I miss Ely, and I miss Naomi. I miss how much easier life was just twenty-four hours ago.

I think about him a lot.

I think about her a lot.

But I think about him more.

“Really. I like you.”

I decide to take out my phone for the first time since I scared myself away from him. I decide not to check the three new messages. I decide to make a call. To start to wrestle with the implications. To maybe get back closer to the happiness.

I just have to decide who to call.

I’ve tried everything. Ambien, Lunesta, melatonin, counting sheep, The Best of Johnny Carson: The 1970s, Charlie Rose: The Present, Charlie Daniels, MTV2, 976-SLUTS4U, the complete works of Dostoyevsky, the complete works of Nicholas Sparks, completely jacking off, Jack Daniel’s, the Jackie Chan oeuvre. But nothing and no one can get me to sleep at night.

Blame Naomi.

She was seven. I was five. Our mommies had hustled us into the elevator, but in their two-second pause in the hallway to exchange mismatched mail, the elevator door closed and Naomi and I were left unattended. The elevator went up. Naomi said, “Would you like to see my underwear?” I nodded. She lifted her dress to her stomach. She wore the same kind of pink hipster briefs with elastic lace around the waist that my twin sister, Kelly, wore, but on Naomi, the hipster briefs looked entirely different. Bewitching instead of stupid. I can still recall that exact moment when Naomi dropped her dress back down to her knees and stuck her tongue out at me. Because my heart? It actually leaped, and hasn’t returned to me since. Naomi owned it forevermore.