Not For Nothing, But It Is What It Is
Coming across Jen was an entirely coincidental occurrence. Well, maybe not entirely coincidental; they were a mere few blocks away from Danny's apartment. But it wasn't like they were searching her out or anything, or lingering on the front stoop. It was sort of one of those things where you come across someone and seconds later register who they are, whipping your head back and yelling after them an unsure hello.
That's exactly what happened with Danny and Jen. Mindy had been with Danny that evening, walking back to Danny's apartment with a brown paper bag of leftover Indian food. Admittedly, Mindy knew that her being with Danny that Thursday evening didn't look platonic. It was rooted in neutrality though. Mindy assured herself of this.
They'd been at work, nothing special, both mentioned hunger, left at the same time, and very seamlessly agreed that dal makhani and samosas sounded perfect to them right at the moment. So they'd ended up eating dinner together and she and Danny ambled in the direction of his neighbourhood, just a few blocks away from the restaurant they'd dined at.
Their shared dinner was not truly that unusual. In the past dozen or so months, food had been an anchor in their continually advancing friendship. Lunches together, quick jaunts out to get two coffees instead of one, friendship cakes. These were all things that, as time went by, no longer felt weird to Mindy. In fact, they were nice.
So, when they'd run into Jen that evening, aimlessly toting leftovers to Danny's apartment, surprise and suspicion caught Mindy off guard. Even more, she was surprised to learn that this voluptuous blond woman had been dating Danny for the past few months. The number of months was not named, but it was several. And to that information, Mindy surged with a pang of irrational jealousy and acted impulsively.
The three of them stopped on the streets and Mindy watched as Danny and Jen almost immediately fell into a stiff conversation, sort of awkwardly parsing over what seemed like a bad ending to their relationship.
Was it over? Mindy couldn't glean that from their back and forth. Jen, barely registering Mindy behind the grease-stained food bag, mentioned that Danny hadn't returned her last few calls. She was wondering if she'd seen her texts, too.
Mindy watched Danny sweat at this. God, he was a horrible liar. As he had been with Christina, Danny's horribly limited knowledge of electronics was used as a crutch for his transparent bluffs. He was attempting to tell Jen that the server was down on his cell phone, intercepting his texts.
No logic. What an awful liar.
Mindy assessed the situation. She was surprised, slightly hurt, in fact, that they way that she found out that Danny had been seeing someone was from a painful run-in on the street. Perhaps relying on a too-commonly used tactic of the fake girlfriend to deter the shoddy break up, Mindy slipped her free arm through Danny's, waiting for Jen to notice.
It took her one beat to notice. Likely her attention was shifted, not because of what Mindy considered a sly maneuver to save this situation, but because of Danny's reaction.
He was not cool about it. Dammit, man. Danny interrupted his own speech on AT&T to look over at Mindy and their linked arms and give her a blatantly "what the hell?" look.
Mindy nudged him in the ribs. The conversation between Jen and Danny stopped; Mindy took this opportunity to acknowledge her attachment to Danny. "That's right, Jen." Mindy said confidently, tugging Danny in closer to her. "This guy found another lady. A multicultural gynecological goddess." She gestured to herself.
Silence.
To Danny, Mindy said: "She knows you're an OB-GYN, right?"
Danny nodded.
Mindy filled the silence with further description of her imagined relationship. "Yup, quite a love story. You know, classic story of office rivals turned soul mates. So… sorry, babe."
Jen crossed her arms over her chest. She was hardly believing the story, Mindy knew it. She looked skeptically at Danny and Mindy, shrugging. "Soul mates? Danny, we had sex in our building's elevator three weeks ago."
Ugh.
Mindy forced a bright smile. "Ha-ha. I know, right?" Mindy shrugged back at Jen. "But I mean, can't argue with the fates. So, anyway, we should be going." Mindy waited for Danny to offer some sort of confirmation of their pretend relationship; something to legitimize it to Jen.
He said nothing, only looking back and forth between Mindy and Jen with wide eyes.
"Alright, cool, well, we've got to get this food home. Boring couples' night in, am I right, Danny?"
Danny offered a weak, unconvincing "right".
"So… sorry for the bad break-up, godspeed to you, and um, see ya!" Mindy pulled Danny ahead on the sidewalk toward his apartment.
.
Mindy and Danny held off on their impending argument until they passed the doorman of Danny's apartment. The first half of their heated conversation was laced with such lines as: "You really think she believed that?" and "Who has sex in an elevator, Danny? What is that, like fifteen seconds? God! What if there were other passengers?"
They continued on, arguing, aggravating one another further until Mindy, with renewed jealousy, demanded: "Why didn't you tell me you were seeing someone?"
Danny balked at this. He was mad, too. How they'd come to be so mad was a little bit beyond Mindy. She'd started the conversation merely inquiring about who Jen was and awaiting thanks from Danny for her help in getting him out of that encounter.
He'd told her that they'd been together, casually, for about four months. "It wasn't anything, really! She lives in my building, we went out for drinks maybe twice. It was mostly just…" He looked up at Mindy, letting his trailing off stand for what he meant the end of his sentence to be. Mostly just having sex.
Danny explained that he wasn't sure why Jen was so mad, Mindy asked about the way he'd ended it; Danny told Mindy that he'd basically just started avoiding Jen, Mindy told him duh, that's why, you heartless idiot.
Anyway, they'd gotten to the point where Mindy was standing directly in front of Danny, accidentally letting her jealousy show: "Why didn't you tell me you were seeing someone?"
"What are you talking about? It's none of your business!"
"Sure it's my business!"
"How?"
Mindy didn't know how to answer this. She really didn't. In her mind, Danny's girlfriends were her business because they made her feel something. Yes, it was self-centered and Mindy knew that it was not a reasonable response to Danny's question.
Mindy cowered behind the truth: that she wanted it to be her business.
To Mindy's lack of rebuttal, Danny calmed down. Shaking his head in what seemed like exhaustion, Danny said: "Look, we need to talk about this thing. Me and you."
Mindy said nothing. She suddenly felt timid, like her boisterous demand to be a part of Danny's life had been taken a little too far. All that she could think to say was "What do you mean?"
"I mean this. This fake girlfriend thing, all this with who I'm seeing. All of it. Why does it all matter to you?"
Danny looked sincerely confused. Clearly, for the first time, Mindy recognized Danny's distraught state. His tone had shifted from accusatory to earnest wondering. He looked truly troubled.
Nervously, almost bashful, Mindy looked down at her feet. "I care." She kept her head tilted downward, avoiding Danny's reaction to her confession.
She heard him inhale and exhale loudly. When Mindy looked up, Danny sort of pacing, visibly frustrated. She was thinking about some way to break this strange, tense moment, when Danny snapped at her: "You got engaged."
Startled, Mindy closed her mouth.
Danny was flustered. "You moved to Haiti for months and got engaged to your boyfriend. What was I supposed to do?"
What was he supposed to do?
He continued: "I thought you had made your decision pretty clear."
Mindy straightened, holding her hands in front of her, her head bowed. Danny tone wasn't mean, she knew. He wasn't blaming her. He was simply being upfront about how her behavior confused him. This was the first time that Mindy understood the effect her confusing behaviour had on Danny; he had been looking for an indication from Mindy that she shared the same romantic feelings that he did.
She waited a few seconds, allowing Danny to calm down. "I know."
"You can't just expect me to wait around forever."
.
Had she? Danny's words made her feel slightly light-headed. All the avoidance of feelings that had been a trademark of her friendship with Danny seemed so trite now. He'd had feelings for her and they'd both chosen to never really act on them. Danny wiped a smudge off of her glasses before she'd moved to Haiti and Mindy never allowed that to mean anything. She'd corresponded with only Danny throughout her stay in Haiti and hadn't let that mean anything.
Josh told her. Jason told her. And now Danny told her that the window had expired and he was back to having sex with his neighbours and guests at his ex-wife's art exhibits.
"You're right." Mindy nodded. She waited a few seconds, looking up at Danny's pained face, and then slung her purse onto her shoulder. "I'm going to go. Put that food into your fridge. Indian food reeks if it spoils."
.
He went back for her, obviously.
She'd walked out of his apartment. Danny followed her. Not immediately, though. He'd thought about it for about a minute: were his feelings for Mindy something that he, literally, wanted to let go of like that?
At the recognition that he'd had Mindy standing in front of him, telling him that she wanted him to care about her and then let her walk away at his rejection, Danny ran to his front door.
In the few minutes that had passed he'd expected Mindy to have at least made it outside. She was right outside the door, leaning against the wall of the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest.
Danny couldn't stand that. It was so perfectly Mindy: standing in the hallway, looking so openly upset, but still behaving with her hallmark mix of deluded confidence. It drove him insane, but he relief of her being there was more than enough to compensate.
"Thank God." She lifted herself from the wall, walking back toward Danny.
"Oh, you're still here."
"I was holding out for the chase sequence. You know, hoping for the delayed reaction where everyone has a last-minute change of heart and sprint through the city."
"You're in my hallway."
Mindy shrugged. "Less running."
"Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"
Mindy held out her hand to silence Danny. "Danny, I'm sorry. You're right, I should've have just expected you to –"
Danny held out his hand to silence Mindy. "I did anyway."
Mindy smiled, her heart picking up speed, blood and adrenaline warming her body. "And you and Jen are…not together? I mean, presently, as man and woman?"
"No." Danny looked up at Mindy, mirroring her slow, inquisitive tone. "And you're not… seeing anybody?"
"No."
"Okay. Good."
"Good."
It took a couple of seconds for the two of them to take their respective steps towards one another, both with surprising apprehension.
.
They'd kissed like that in the hallway for less time than any respectable romantic comedy would have dictated before they both gravitated back through Danny's door, blindly walking each other to his bedroom. They were adults, for godsake.
Danny had already rid Mindy of her purse and tweed jacket, and she'd slipped off her own shoes and had undone the first few buttons of Danny's brown button up when they'd reached Danny's bed.
"Wait, wait, wait." Danny turned his head away from Mindy, letting her steady stream of affection fall to his cheek and down his neck. "Wait."
"What is it?" She clicked her tongue slightly, nodding. "Oh, do you some help? You know, like pills?"
"What? No."
"We're medical professionals; we both know that the stigma is totally un-"
"Stop! I don't need anything, thank you." Danny looked around his room and back at Mindy, sitting quietly, in the beginning stages of undress. "I just… don't you think that this should be…" Danny paused, waiting for Mindy to pick up on the rest of his sentence. "You don't think that this should happen differently? Shouldn't we go on a date first or something?"
"Says the guy that has sex in a communal elevator."
Danny grumbled at this, frowning. "Hey, I made her breakfast first." His frowned deepened at his own mentioning of another woman with Mindy on his bed next to him. "I just mean that… you're Mindy, you know? I think it should be different."
Neither knew what to say to this, but basked in the total freedom it allowed their long-concealed relationship to have.
Both Danny and Mindy mentioned the idea that maybe going to dinner or a movie would be the socially sanctioned way to do this. They'd separated a bit on the bed, keeping the same amount of distance between them that had been present their entire friendship. But now, things were different. There existed between them the mutually open desire to reduce that space that kept them apart. Finally.
Neither wanted to maintain the space between them just to see the new Sandra Bullock movie.
They didn't.
Finish.