The Nose Knows, part 2

It knows, and sometimes it butts in

Note for listeners: I've had a flu for over a week, and I've been hoping it would abate enough, so I don't sound sick in the recording, but it's a very persistent flu. Since I wanted to get this posted, I went ahead and recorded it scratchy throat, stuffed sinuses, and all.

This is part 2, so, you know, read or listen to part one first. Comments and feedback are more than welcome. In fact, feel free to take a guess at where this is going and who Perfect-Nose-Woman is. The first person to get it right, gets two months of paid subscription, which grants access to articles older than three months.

The Nose Knows, part 2

“Okay... yeah...” I drew the syllables out in an inane play for time. “I noticed your breasts and butt first. But when I got close enough to see your nose… well I’m weird about details. But your breasts and butt are bigger, so I saw them—” I stopped and tried to count how many word-steps I was into the minefield.

“I mean than your nose! Your butt’s not big!” Oh, look, in the middle of the minefield a yawning shame-chasm, and I was stepping into it. Unfortunately, staring into this abyss had left my mouth running. “But it’d be okay if you did! It’s a nice size! Your boobs too—” I wondered how long it would take me to hit the bottom.

Mercifully, she saved me by interjecting, in that preternaturally unreadable tone of hers, “I see. Makes sense.”

I agreed it made sense. Obviously, it had just been a matter of scale and distance. I was, nevertheless, baffled that my embarrassed presentation of it hadn’t offended her or made her laugh.

She looked at me appraisingly, like an engineer assessing the soundness of a bridge. “You’re a friend of Daniel’s.”

I blinked, taken aback by the conversational swerve. Did I know her? From where? When? Her face rang no bells, and I felt like I would have remembered her for, well, obvious enough reasons, I suppose.

“Uh, yeah. Have we met?” If we had, then maybe this really had all been her fucking with me to see if I remembered her. Damned weird sense of humor though.

She nodded but did not explain, instead asking, “So, what do you want to do now?” What the hell? This careening conversation was exhausting me.

I wanted to ask when and where we’d met, but I had the distinct sense she had been including herself in that question. Heading that off seemed more urgent. I could live without knowing how we’d met. After all, I could just ask Daniel.

“I, unh,” I started over, so I could put some emphasis on the ‘I’: “I’m going to the hardware store. I need some paint.”

“Sounds fun. Let’s go.”

“What?” Though, I’d half-expect this, it still surprised me, to say nothing of just wanting, needing, to be alone, even if it was the aloneness of anonymously buying paint. Also, Fun?

“I’m coming with you.”

“What? Why?? You can’t!”

“Sure I can. Or is it a private paint store?” Inscrutably delivered as usual, both in voice and gaze. Was she joking or did she think it might actually be private, that private paint stores existed? (Which, okay, sure probably somewhere there are some, but I’d sure as hell never heard of one and was pretty sure I couldn’t afford to buy paint at one.)

I stared up at the partly-cloudy sky. What was with this girl? I wasn’t worried my exasperation would irritate her. In fact, part of me hoped it would and that would convince her to go find someone else to bother. But, in truth, I doubted I’d be so lucky.

Except for our initial encounter (and I was more and more convinced that had been an act), she seemed kind of impervious to... well, I wasn’t even sure how to put it. Not offense, though partly that too, but... just basic social ‘leave people to their own devices’ sort of stuff. Sure, yell at me for ogling or whatever, but after that normal people, or even somewhat abnormal ones like me, would just go their separate ways. Stuff to do, lives to get on with, and all that.

“Okay, no, of course not,” I conceded before looking back down. I considered sardonically adding, ‘Do I look like a guy who would have a private paint store membership?’ but it seemed pointless for reasons just given. Still, I was sorely tempted.

Instead, I searched her face for some clue as to what she was up to. No luck. In a way, once I’d accepted it, her inscrutability made it easier to look her in the face. There was no point in sweating trying to read her.

“But why?”

“To get to know you.”

Another ‘why?’ verged upon my lips, but I was starting to understand the futility: an endless procession of wh-questions with non-answer answers that went nowhere.

It seemed clear she wasn’t going to rant at me in the middle of the street, and I was calming down, even while remaining perplexed as hell. As I worked on shaking off the dregs of the tension, breathing deliberately and rolling my shoulders a little, I tried to think of something else to ask. After a second, I knew what.

“Are you for real?” Surely she was just messing with me. Who the hell decides to go paint shopping with some stranger who’d just been ogling them? Technically, apparently, I wasn’t a stranger, but that I felt like that made it worse. Unless of course, she was into me, which seemed... well, no way was this flirtatious. It was mostly annoying.

I could be wrong. On more than one occasion after having a conversation with a girl, a friend had asked oblivious me why I hadn’t hooked up with her and didn’t I like her. So, maybe I’m just oblivious and this is how kids today do it? I’d spent most of my life wishing girls wouldn’t always wait for guys to make the first move. But, who, guy, girl, non-binary, whatever, would use this tactic? No. No one was picking up anyone here.

So, if she wasn’t messing with me and wasn’t trying to, unh, pick me up, what was left? Nothing sane. Like spy or espionage stuff. But who the hell would be spying on me? Or targeting me. I had no access to anything interesting let alone sensitive. I was a graphic designer with a minimal social life.

“Absolutely.” Well, okay then. I didn't quite believe her, though that's not the right way to put it. It was more that I wasn't sure if she really understood what I was asking. For all I knew, she'd taken it literally, and simply not made any of the obvious jokes about such an inane question.

I only realized she'd been holding my arm this whole time when she let go of it. Despite having forgotten about it, it brought immediate relief. To relax myself more, I closed my eyes and took a few deliberate breaths while clenching and unclenching my hands. This little physical ritual did its usual trick: I could feel myself relaxing more.

I opened my eyes to her giving me her usual frank look. “Ready? Or do you need to meditate some more?”

Again, she asked this in her strange, matter-of-fact way where most anyone else would've teased or even been sarcastic; or, if meant seriously, showed some concern. ‘Deadpan’ wasn’t the right word, since she hadn't been going for humor. Nor did she lack affect, it was more that she had the ‘wrong’ affect. But, in a weird way, her neutrality, I guess I'll call it, was almost comforting, would have been, if it weren’t so disconcerting.

“Unh, no. I’m fine,” I said slowly, disoriented from the entire exchange despite having managed to relax some. Also, I was distracted by trying to decide whether what I’d been doing qualified as meditation. I supposed it did.

I should admit a few things at this point. Annoyed and anxious as I was, this woman’s weird and unnerving manner had piqued my curiosity. It was a mosquito bite I couldn’t stop scratching. It itched with a desire to figure out what her deal was, to say nothing of how she knew me and Daniel. And that was gradually eroding my urge to get away and be alone. My mind wrestled with her peculiarity like a tongue probing a chip in a tooth over and over, long past the point where its contours had been memorized.

Still, it was an impersonal curiousness. I didn’t want to get to know her; I wanted to know about her, just as anyone might want to learn about any novel or unusual thing.

As such, take my protests below with a pinch of salt. They were not ingenious — I really did want to be alone (I almost always do) — but if her tagging along led to some answers, that might make it worthwhile. Call them three-quarters-hearted, give or take.

“Good. Let’s go pick out some paint.”

“What? No. I mean, okay, yes, I can’t stop you. But!” I waggled my hand between us. “We are not picking out paint. I am.” Having calmed down, and given her unflappability, I felt more confident, which let me be more open. Plus, maybe if she saw how annoyed I was, she'd lose interest. My clarification about there not being any us-ness completed, I stalked off toward the hardware store.

She seemed unperturbed as she fell in beside me, which did not raise my hopes of her losing interest soon. As we walked, I debated the merits of not finding out what I wanted to know versus acting like enough of an asshole (which I was not at all comfortable doing) to drive her off. I felt sure simply telling her I wanted to be left alone wouldn’t help. She knew that already and yet, here she was.

I also didn’t think I could be that mean. I’m not a mean person; something has to really set me off to provoke meanness, but she wasn’t doing anything wrong, just unexpected. If anything, I’d been in the wrong, at least initially.

I could try ignoring her; I'm pretty good at ignoring people. Maybe that would bore her into going home or to lunch or whatever. Or maybe I could ditch her in the hardware store. Even if it meant getting the paint another day, that could work. It’s not like I couldn’t paint some other weekend. Having options buoyed me, made me optimistic that I could avoid her following me home, which I sure as hell didn’t want happening.

“Tell me what your apartment’s like.”

“No.” I wasn't able to make myself completely ignore her, but monosyllables were almost as good.

“You’re going to need help picking out the colors; there are a lot of paint colors. I can help if you tell me.”

“Do you do a lot of interior decorating?” Mildly sarcastic and out before I could stop it. So much for monosyllablism and being nice, though it was pretty mild sarcasm, and I was pretty sure that even if she caught it, she'd ignore it.

She considered my question a lot longer than seemed normal to me, which I took as confirmation that the sarcasm hadn't registered. “Not a lot, no. But some.”

“Do you not have sarcasm where you’re from?” I was remembering a line from a Steve Martin film, Roxanne. Darryl Hannah's character asks his character the same question, to which he replies something like, ‘Not anymore, I was the last practitioner but gave it up.’ Who could blame him? Unappreciated sarcasm is no fun.

“We do.”

No wry smile, sideways glance, hint of humor. Either she’d given up the practice as well, or never taken it up to begin with. I considered asking if they had rhetorical questions where she was from, mostly to be perverse. But as I expected a similar answer, getting back to monosyllables seemed likely to be less frustrating.

“Right,” I muttered, and off the unwanted we went. She was like a third wheel who never got the hint, only there was no second wheel.

Despite the adage that a picture's worth a thousand words, rather than describe my living room, I showed her the few pictures taken in it I had on my phone. I should have known better, because next she was asking me about the stuff and people in the pictures. I answered as monosyllabically as possible: yes, no, Grant and Lisa, the NBA finals, years — you get the idea. This seemed to satisfy her.

Stay tuned for the next part. It should be out in a week or two.