He is so nice it hurts.
We drive around in silence. Funny how now that we’re both talking, we have nothing to say to each other. Or maybe it’s just habit. As far as silences go, it is pretty comfortable—it’s the kind of quiet shared between two people who don’t feel the desperate need to fill every second with the sound of their own voices.
Eventually I pull down into the park by the lake, take the gear down to First and cut the engine.
“Good,” he says when I set the parking brake. “We don’t need to pull a Risky Business.”
I blink at him. “Huh?”
“You know, the movie? With Tom Cruise? When the Porsche rolls into Lake Michigan?” he says, like I should know this. At my uncomprehending stare, he shakes his head. “We really need to make a list of every classic you haven’t seen and Netflix them all.”
“I can’t look at Tom Cruise the same ever since the Oprah incident,” I say, and he gives me a blank look. I scoff indignantly. “The couch? And the jumping? And the Scientology craziness? Come on, you have to know about that!”
He doesn’t have a clue, of course. I sigh and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.
“We don’t have anything in common, do we?” I say in a small voice.
“That’s not true.”
“It is! I mean, I tried listening to NPR the other night, and my eyes glazed over, like, five seconds in. And you read all these books—” I gesture to the stack between us, the top title staring up at me—Ham on Rye, is that a cookbook or something? “—while I just follow stupid shallow internet blogs mocking celebrity fashions, and I’ve never even been on a skateboard, or in-line skates, for that matter—”
“Whoa, Chelsea, slow down.” He puts his hand on the back of my head, and I stop midsentence. “What about Rosie’s? We have that.”
“I wash dishes. Big whoop. I can’t cook anything—”