Yes Man (52 page)

“There’s one thing I need to know, though …,” she said, tracing a short line on the table with her finger. “Me coming here and staying with you …”

“No. That’s not part of it. That’s a Yes I would
always
have said.”

“Because I understand the Edinburgh ticket…. Things were different then, but now, if I felt that you …”

“No. Lizzie. Honestly.”

“Cool.”

But I didn’t want her to think I was just being polite.

“Seriously,” I said, “I never …”

“Shh. I believe you.”

And from the way she looked at me, I think she really did.

The next few days flew by just as they’d done in Edinburgh. Lizzie attended her meetings, and I picked her up afterward, and we ran around town together. We met Ian for lunch—he had never before met the mystical Lizzie—and she said all the right things and made all the right noises.

Ian had come clean and admitted his part in the whole Challenger debacle the moment I’d confronted him about it. He’d tried to persuade me that it was for my own good; that he’d been worried I’d get bored; that he thought it best if I said no, anyway; that as I hadn’t technically said no yet, I was still winning. I was stern with him, but the truth was, it was fair enough. There was nothing in the Yes Manifesto which expressly forbade him from confirming Hanne’s suspicions. So I told him I forgave him. But only—and this is between you and me—because I had something rather special planned for him.

Anyway, Lizzie had treated the two of us to an ice cream afterward, and laughed graciously at all of Ian’s jokes. I think she felt sorry for him because of the whole Amazing Penis Patch thing.

“She’s fantastic,” he said, when she’d popped to the bathroom, and I nodded, because she was.

We piled into my little car and drove to the cinema near Canary Wharf that night, the three of us, and despite Ian’s protests, we agreed to go to the first film the man behind the counter recommended. Afterward we sat in a Docklands pub, and Lizzie chastised Ian for taking such pleasure in my trials and tribulations, for encouraging Hanne, and for keeping his mysterious punishment a mystery.

“The punishment still stands, by the way,” he said. “You may have won the battle, but you haven’t won the war. You can still fail. And I can still unleash my punishment.”

“So what
is
the ‘punishment’?” asked Lizzie for probably the third time that night. “You can’t just keep it a secret. You have to tell him. It’ll be good motivation for him.”

“I am not at liberty to divulge it,” said Ian. “But rest assured, it’s a good one.”

“What
is
it?” she said. “You haven’t got one, have you? There
is
no punishment. You thought by helping the Challenger, he’d never succeed!”

“No. There is. But I am not telling. That’s how good it is.”

She had an idea.

“It’s only fair to punish Danny if
you
experience life as a Yes Man …,” she said. “So you know what you’re talking about and can tailor the punishment accordingly.”

I smiled. I knew what she was up to.

“That way you can come up with a really
suitable
punishment.”

“I’m
not bloody saying yes to everything!” said Ian. “Talk to the Yes Man over
there! I’m not the one spending all my money on degrees and potions from the Internet.”

Lizzie and I exchanged a conspiratorial glance. We knew
exactly
what he was buying from the Internet.

But she charmed him and charmed him, and eventually he agreed to say yes—if only for the rest of tonight. He ended up buying drinks for the three guys behind the bar, texting yes to an eminently dull colleague who wanted to have dinner the following night, and having a lovely conversation with a blonde girl at the next table. At one point we had to rescue him from the arcade machine in the corner. Every time he finished a game, it read
PLAY AGAIN?,
and it was forty minutes before we noticed.

The next morning Lizzie drove back with me to Bath to see the city and meet my parents and Sammy the cat. And back in London one rainy Saturday afternoon, I took her for a curry of chicken dansak at the Madras Valley, and then on to spend a few hours on Great Portland Street, where she sat and laughed with me and a few hundred of my very closest friends.

We were …
becoming
something, her and me. No. Scratch that. We
were
something. And that was great.

But it was sad, too.

One afternoon she came back to the flat with a small gift.

“I found this on the Tube. I thought you might like it.”

It was a flyer. I read the top line.

“An Invitation to Tim Miller’s Gay Men’s Performance Workshop.”

“It’s a chance for gay men to express their personal stories through performance and dance,” she said. “I know you’re not gay, but that’s an invitation, and anyway, I imagine you like dancing, don’t you?”

I laughed. She was into this. She didn’t think it was stupid.

“Also,” she said. “I thought
I
might try it.”

“Try what? Expressing your personal stories through dance?”

“No. Saying yes. So I went into a travel agency. I asked them where would be a good place to spend Friday night. They said Prague. So I got us two tickets.”

“You did
what?”

“I got us two tickets to Prague. So what d’you say? Do you want to go with me to Prague on Friday night?”

“You …
wow …”
It was the first time a girl had done something like that for me. I didn’t know they
could
. I’d found a Yes Girl! I wanted to tell her she was
brilliant, that
this
was brilliant, that
Prague
would be brilliant, but all I could manage was “Yes!”

It was an incredible trip. Spontaneous, carefree, fast, and fun. We’d flown out for one night in the late afternoon, and by nine o’clock we were walking through the Old Town Square. It was a bitterly cold December night, but crisp and fresh, and we bought hot chocolates to keep our hands warm. We walked to St. Nicholas Cathedral, and we kissed on Charles Bridge. And just after ten o’clock, we looked up at the sky, because instinctively we knew that something was changing. I couldn’t tell exactly what at first, but then, slowly and gently, it started to snow. We laughed, but there was something different about Lizzie’s laugh. And then I realised—this was the first time Lizzie had ever even
seen
snow. Here. Now. This. I was amazed. Saying yes had done this for her; given her a present. In the prettiest city in the world.

You’ll have to forgive me, when I tell you that it was
perfect
.

The day that Lizzie had to go, neither of us wanted to talk about the future.

We skirted around it. We’d had two great weeks together. One in Edinburgh. And now one in London. That’s what I tried to focus on.

I’d woken early and watched her sleep, and although I felt calm, I felt uneasy, too. I knew she was going. And I knew something inside me was going to have to change.

I cooked breakfast while Lizzie ordered her cab to the airport. When she’d finished packing, she came into the living room, where I was sitting quietly with a carton of juice.

“I’ve got a Yes for you,” she said quietly

“How do you mean?”

“Something for you to say yes to.”

“What is it?”

She smiled.

“How about you come out to Australia for Christmas? Meet everyone? You could spend New Year’s there. With me.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was a lovely idea. But my head felt heavy. I mean, technically, yes, I could clear it with my parents and sort out a flight and spend Christmas in a country I’d never even come close to before. But was it the right thing to do? This wasn’t a normal Yes. This was a
big
Yes. Because it was a Yes that could and probably would end up hurting me.

“Look … let’s say I did come out. What would happen afterward?”

“Afterward? Well … I guess we’d see.”

Yeah. We’d see. But I could already see it. Afterward, I’d come home to London. And I’d be here alone. On my own again. Back in precisely the same situation that I’d been in exactly one year before, effectively throwing all my good work away. If I got any closer to Lizzie than I was already, I’d be setting myself up for the biggest fall of my life. And I was scared.

“Well, if you can’t make it out at Christmas,” she said, “how about January? Or February?”

“I’m starting that new job in January,” I said, slightly more coldly than I’d meant. “I’m not going to be able to do the things I did anymore. I’ve got to move on from all of that. Get responsible. Make sensible choices. And anyway, I don’t think they’d give me time off so soon just so I could fly out to Australia and see you.”

“Oh. Right. So … it’s kind of now or never, then?”

I shrugged and looked at my feet, feeling terrible. Don’t get me wrong: I wanted to go. I really, truly did. But I just couldn’t.

If I allowed myself to hope that this could work, that we had a future, that somehow distance didn’t matter … then I’d be making the inevitable far worse. The fact was this
couldn’t
work, and the longer this went on, the deeper it would cut me. It was a part of my Yes life, and my Yes life was almost over. To drag it into the
next
life would be unfair. Sometimes you have to make a decision to protect yourself. Sometimes it’s better to lose a foot than risk a leg.

“I can’t …,” I said before realising that there was something else I could say. Something that might make all this so much easier. “The other thing is … I kind of recently met someone. And … I don’t know, maybe it’ll lead nowhere, but you know … at least she’s in England, and …”

Lizzie looked hurt, and I hated myself, but she nodded. I avoided her eyes.

“So, thank you, Lizzie,” I said. “But it’s a No.”

She touched my arm and said she understood.

“A pity your first No had to be to me,” she said, and I smiled sadly.

And an hour later I carried her bags to the cab, and she left.

Two nights later in the Yorkshire Grey, Ian seemed nearly as upset as I was that Lizzie had gone. Far more upset than when I’d told him the grand Yes adventure was over. I was stopping. That was it. I’d said no
.

“I just can’t believe she’s gone,” he said, shaking his head. “Why does it have to be like this?”

I nodded, but the truth was, I was getting a little annoyed by lan’s outpourings of grief. I wanted sympathy, not empathy.

“She really livened up the place, didn’t she?” he said. “Such a
special
girl. And funny, too. And down-to-earth. And with a really cool accent.”

He really wasn’t helping matters. But I nodded along.

“Well … here’s to Lizzie …”

He raised his pint and took a sip. We sat for a few moments in silence.

“I did the right thing, didn’t I?” I said.

“Oh, absolutely. Definitely. You did the right thing, yes.”

“In saying no to Australia, I mean.”

“Yes. You did. No doubt about that. Remind me why you said no again?”

“Because sooner or later we’d have to say good-bye again. And if it’s sooner, I’ll be less hurt than if it’s later. Sometimes it’s better to lose a foot than risk a leg. And she lives in
Australia
, for Christ’s sake. Australia! That’s, like, twice as far as
Singapore!”

“Ah. Yes. You did the right thing. You can’t be going over to Australia every weekend just because your girlfriend lives there.”

Girlfriend. It was the first time anyone had called her my girlfriend.

“But you know … it’s not too late,” he said. “I mean, technically, you
could
still go. It wouldn’t be a No, then. It would be a Yes. Which would mean you were still in the game.”

“Ian …”

“No, you’re right. About that whole foot thing in particular. Taking a risk is definitely overrated. I remember thinking that when you said ‘sometimes the biggest risk is never taking one.’ I remember thinking, ‘No. What about
kayaking?’ You’re
right
not to take the risk. It
is
better to be safe than sorry.”

“Yes. Because I wasn’t just saying yes to a trip to Australia, was I? I was saying yes to letting myself get possibly very hurt. That must be, like, a level seven or something. Totally unacceptable.”

“Totally
unacceptable, yes. But you know … still
possible
. All I’m saying is you haven’t definitely said no until you definitely haven’t done something. And you haven’t definitely not gone to Australia yet. Your No to Lizzie is still in the Maybe stages. It could still be a Yes, it depends how it evolves. You’ve still said yes to everything else so far …”

And as if on cue, the barmaid was suddenly by our table.

“Hello, lads,” she said, picking up our empty glasses. “Another pint?”

Ian smiled, but then saw the look on my face. He stared at me, wide-eyed.

I stared back at him. He knew what was going to happen next. I opened my mouth to speak, and Ian raised his hand, trying to stop me … trying to stop me from saying …