"Wait you're trying to tell me that both Beyonce and Katy Perry have signature scents?" Danny barks gripping the glass display case in frustration. The salesgirl behind the counter merely gives him a curt nod and an eye roll that could rival even Mindy's herself.
When he'd first pulled her from the bedpan Betsy'd improvised to hold their names, he'd been pleased. In fact he'd spent a good week carrying around the paper scrap with her 'Mindy' written in her neat script in his coat pocket. He'd covertly taken to rubbing it between his fingers on the subway on his way to work, all the while feeling somehow him pulling her name must be some kind of sign, a holiday miracle specially designed to give him a way to let Mindy know what he was feeling. This was the crap her rom-coms were filled with after all.
But now, standing at the perfume counter of Macy's he wasn't so sure. It is starting to feel like a curse.
"Fine, fine," he sputters in frustration. "I'll take them both."
Back at his apartment they join the other gifts he's been accumulating all week. Lip balms scented with unnatural or completely imaginary fruit combinations (Was razzleberry even a thing?); glittery lotions that actually seemed like they'd be pretty painful to apply; an iPhone case featuring Justin Timberlake's face. He hadn't been keeping track of what the gifts had cost him, afraid to give a monetary value to what he felt for Mindy, but he knew it was getting ridiculous. And still none of them seemed right.
The night before the first gift exchange he lays them all out on his coffee table and spends a good hour assessing the pros and cons of each gift. 'Think Castellano,' he tells himself. 'What do you want to accomplish here? What are you trying to convey to her?' Sure she'd like all the crap he'd assembled, but none of it seemed very special. None of it seemed very him, and what he wanted more than anything with this gift was to give her a piece of himself. After an hour of careful consideration, he still doesn't know what to give her, but he knows none of this garbage is going to cut it. He puts it all into a cardboard box to store in his closet, in a moment of extreme wishful thinking that maybe he can use them as gifts for her later on down the line.
'What would Springsteen do?' he asks himself, because really if the Boss can't help him woo a woman, who can? Probably write her a song. For a minute he allows himself to imagine her sitting beside him on his piano bench as he pounds out the opening bars of Moonlight Sonata. Even in his imagination where he can somewhat exaggerate his piano skills this scenario seems unlikely to have the desired effect. 'C'mon Danny,' he thinks. 'There must be something you're good at.' He vaguely recalls she was impressed with his dancing that night they'd all gone clubbing.
Now he imagines a scenario where he is dancing for her and while it still seems like it will be immensely embarrassing, he feels like maybe she'll enjoy it as well. But even as he's warming to the idea, something still feels off. Dancing would certainly be giving her a piece of himself, probably too big a piece (God, was he really going to go through with this?), but how can he make the gift about her too? Inspiration strikes in the form of an earworm. What was that song she kept playing over and over again when she first came to Shulman's?
He pulls his laptop onto his knees and searches for the now familiar tune. A few watches of the youtube video and he can already sort of feel how he could incorporate the choreography into a routine to do for her. He's filled with a nervous energy as he watches the video again and again, making careful notes along the way. Part of him knows this is a really bad idea. He's nervous she'll laugh at him and even more nervous she won't, that she'll see the dance for what it really is. And what then? God, he is so far out of his comfort zone right now. But that's what Mindy does to him, pushes him and needles him, without even trying sometimes, to want more, to be more. He knows this is a bad idea, but he also knows he's going to do this thing regardless. And he thinks maybe that's what love is.