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I sit back and close my eyes for a moment, and if I give myself just a second, I can almost hear my audience’s laugh. I let that audible memory wash over me. “What is it about laughs that are so... so...”
“Delicious?”
“Yes, that’s the perfect word.”
“I don’t know. I think we’re just born craving them,” Nick says.
“Mm-hmm. Bless our hearts.”
Dylan’s song concludes with the piano melody outro and then the Jeep is silent. For the first time since we’ve been on the road, nothing’s playing on the radio and neither of us does anything about it.
“Can I ask you something personal?” I say.
“Only if I can ask you something personal too.”
Of course this is a quid-pro-quo situation. “All right,” I say. “But me first. If you believe our job is to tap into our pain, then how come you never talk about your divorce onstage?”
He lets out a sigh and settles his wrist at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel. “You know how we comedians find humor in everything?”
“Yeah.” It’s true. When you’re a comedian everything is funny ha-ha, even really inappropriate things. Humor provides us humans a way to cope with hard things. Comedians are just experts at it.
“Well,” he continues, “I haven’t exactly been able to find the humor in the ending of my marriage.”
His confession makes me wonder if that’s why I never make jokes about my dad kicking the bucket. How funny can death be anyway? Then again, I’ve seen George Carlin pull it off so... “That’s understandable,” I say. “How long were you married?”
“Five years.”
“Wow!” I jerk back in my seat.
“What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t really see you as the commitment type.”
“That’s because I’m not... anymore.” Of course. All the hot ones are commitment-phobes.
“Do you miss her?” I ask, then realize it’s a stupid question. Of course he misses her. Why else would he keep his wedding ring with him?
“I don’t know if I miss her as much as I miss what we had. When it was good anyway.”
“Is that why you keep your wedding ring?” I ask, gripping the edge of my seat. Why did I ask that? Of course I want to know (I’m sure you do too), but I don’t ever actually ask these kinds of questions. Now it’s too late to take it back.
He looks my way like he’s surprised I’m this nosy after everything that’s happened. “No,” he says, and I feel the door of that subject close, lock, and nail shut. “Enough about me,” he says, breaking the silence. “Let’s talk about you.”
“Me? I’ve never been married. Never even been a bridesmaid.”
“You sound bitter about that,” he says.
“You try spending your adolescence watching ’90s rom- coms. I just want to see what all the fuss is about.”
Nick chuckles at me, shaking his head. He’d probably advise me to skip it. “I have a question for you now.” I brace myself for whatever intrusive inquiry is coming. “Did you really fake it the other night or did you just say that because you thought I made you the other woman?”
Why did I not see this coming?
“No, I really faked it,” I admit.
“Oh, did I do something wrong?” The poor guy sounds discouraged.
“Try not to take it personally. I just can’t get there.” This is a painful truth. Wonder if it’d make a good joke.
