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When looking at Monica's dating history, a checkered one no doubt, but who's perfect in the end, it's not that she has a type per se. It's more that she doesn't have a type. Monica dates all sorts of men, but there are some she simply doesn't. She doesn't date tall, lanky men. She doesn't date men with sandy hair that's a touch too long. She doesn't date artists with dark eyes and slow smiles. She doesn't date anyone like that.
Monica dates respectable, boring guys, all shapes, colors, and sizes. The only thing they have in common is that after a few months they end up giving her heartfelt speeches about why it's not her, it's them.
Monica's fond of those men. They don't call Video Relay for sex line interpretation at 2 am. They don't sketch portraits of her, wide-eyed and glowing with laughter. They don't sign like they're dancing, wide hands skipping lightly through the air, delivering more nuance than sounds could ever dream of.
So yeah, she doesn't have a type. And that's the way she likes it.
(So yeah, she's been thinking about Sam a little bit these days.)
***
Sam doesn't keep the drawing. That's ridiculous.
Well, maybe not ridiculous. It's a good likeness and one he could use for inspiration later.
Ridiculous would be tearing the page out of his sketchbook and propping it up on his nightstand. Ridiculous would be waking up at 1 in the morning like clockwork and smiling instead of sighing. Ridiculous would be shimmying a hand down his shorts with both eyes fixed on the curve of her half-smile and remember none of the dirty words or stock phrases, but rather the movement of her shoulders as they shook, loose and happy and laughing at him, at them, at the whole bloody mess.
Now if Sam were to do that, and then drift lazily back to sleep, thinking of dark hair and darker eyes, now that would be ridiculous.
(Does Skype user Sam I Am spend way too long searching for user names starting with Monica? Maybe. Insomnia does weird things to a man’s brain.)
***
He’s not a total chump. He calls back. Of course he calls back.
He calls back at the same time every night for two weeks.
***
“Of course, we’re disappointed to see you go, Monica, but full-time interpreting gigs like this are rare. You’d be a fool to pass it up.”
“Thanks, Terrence. And in return, I promise I won’t let the glamorous world of regional television change me.”
***
As she’s weighing Alone Together: Getting to the Root of Intimacy Issues and Single and Uncertain About It: Making Your Peace, it occurs to Monica that it might be healthy to branch out beyond the self-help section. The ratio of relationship improvement books in apartment to, you know, actual books is getting rather high for someone who already owns a cat.
Not that she buys into all that crap about cats and ladies with cat or anything. Although to be fair, she is the one standing in the Love and Intimacy section of the bookshop frowning at dating how-to’s. She puts them both back. Maybe some fiction is in order.
She pokies around the new releases, brushes past mystery and true crime, and is lingering over the only historical novel that doesn’t seem to feature time travel or vampires or, mystifyingly, both when a display catches her eye. Comic books, dozens of them, displayed near the shop window. No, she corrects herself, picking one up and paging through.
Graphic novels.
***
Sam’s one of those coveted rarities in the business, a working artist, which means he doesn’t believe in inspiration. He believes in paying rent on time and not bouncing utilities checks, so inspiration doesn’t factor into his drawing schedule too heavily. Muses, Sam believes, are for amateurs.
He’s got deadlines for two active volumes and a web comic a friend of his is attempting to get launched besides a stack of commissions he’s doing for extra cash, so there’s really no excuse for him to be slaving away at a personal project at 4 AM.
It’s about—well, it’s about something he never really though he’d draw before. It’s about being deaf and beyond that, being Deaf, part of the community, the language, the culture, and all the things he takes for granted, like the taste in his own mouth. It’s tough to illustrate, which is of course why he never drew about it in the first place, but he can’t stop thinking about that girl from Video Relay—
(Monica, he pretends he doesn’t remember, her name is Monica)
-- about how despite her crisp, precise signs, she didn’t quite get the fantastic abruptness of being Deaf, the joy of saying exactly what you what, what you mean. He can’t help but think of her eyes, wide and shocked, over board games with his trash-talking Deaf friends. Of watching her slowly catch on, starting to give as good as she gets—sliding glances toward him, eyes bright and wicked—
What can he say, he’s a sucker for a “fish out of water” protagonist. It’s narrative gold and his agent will love it and it means absolutely nothing at all and damn, if he doesn’t finish the wretched thing in half the time he normally takes.
(He spends entire nights from dusk until dawn with her face under his hands and he cannot emphasize enough how little that means to him.)
***
Monica’s producer gives her a folder on the next day’s interviewee, a local artist who’s made good for himself with a runaway art house best seller. It’s a graphic novel about the Deaf community in Melbourne, niche certainly but deeply relatable according to the reviews. He’s fluent in Auslan, but requested an interpreter to facilitate the interview.
S.P. Jones reads the first page of the folder, no photo included, Monica notes.
The name doesn’t ring a bell.
***
When Sam steps into the room and sees Monica paging through a paperback off to one side, he stops dead, meaning the aide behind him crashes into him and ricochets into a craft services table loaded down with bottled water and fruit platters.
When he looks back, she’s spotted him, mouth open, the paperback discarded on a chair. All he manages to do is sketch a brief hello before the segment’s producer sweeps in and begins speaking.
It takes her a full minute for her interpretations to catch up.
Sam is half-hard after 30 seconds.
***
Monica isn’t freaking out. Monica is a professional. Monica is interpreting quickly and efficiently during this pre-recorded interview on the Melbourne cultural scene for regional television.
Sam is wearing the same plaid shirt he was the night she heard him talk about fucking a woman hard before penciling an outline of her face, soft mouthed and smiling.
He keep stealing glances at her, all bright eyes and bouncing eyebrows. He’s going to ruin the segment if he keeps doing that.
Monica is most definitely not freaking out.
Finally, towards the end of the discussion, the reporter asks about Sam’s inspiration. “Several of the critics remarked,” he says, “ on the detail and care you put into your protagonist, Maureen.” Sam shifts and looks uncomfortable as he signs to Monica.
She interprets, “She was meant to be someone open and curious about Deaf life while still being quirky and fun enough to hold the audience’s interest.” Monica can’t understand why Sam’s fidgeting so much. His signs are half-formed and sloppy, like he’s anxious to change the subject.
The fidgeting only gets worse when the reporter pulls out a blown-up sample of the novel’s cover, saying something about Maureen being a looker, something that Monica completely misses because, well, it’s her.
It’s her face, captured in loving, expressive detail, a pair of headphones slung around her neck, one hand up and at the ready to sign. Monica can’t take her eyes away, her hands stilling and dropping to her sides as she stares, taking in the fall of dark hair, the half-smile—
“Miss?” The reporter sounds irritated and Monica jumps. “If you wouldn’t mind doing your job just now?” Monica swallows and keeps her eyes down as the reporter repeats himself. When she looks up to begin signing, Sam is looking straight at her. And Monica can’t help herself; she smiles, wide and pleased. And God help her, Sam smiles back.
***
After the interview, after the handshakes and exchange of business cards and all that rot, Sam lingers outside the studio, kicking at pebbles with his scuffed Converse. It doesn’t take long for Monica to leave as well, shouldering a messenger bag and frowning at her phone. Sam taps her shoulder and when she spins around, a thousand ideas flood his head and absolutely none of them make it to his fingertips.
Thank God Monica’s ideas do come through. “You’ve been very busy,” she signs. “Looks like your insomnia is paying off.”
Sam has been privately convinced he’s built up how pretty Monica was. It was late. He was horny. There was a moment, sure, but Skype can manufacture all sorts of emotions. There are tons of reasons for Sam’s little infatuation.
She’s twice as luminous in person. It is possible, Sam thinks, that he may be in deep.
“Insomnia has its moments,” he signs back.
Monica smiles, tuckering her hair behind her ear. Sam cannot stand how pretty she looks. “What’s Maureen’s story?” she asks.
Sam shrugs, “You’ll have to read it and see.”
Monica scoffs. “Yeah? You won’t comp me a copy?”
Sam shakes his head, “Nope.”
Monica ducks her eyes down for a moment, then signs, her hands stuttering a bit, “Maybe we could have a coffee and you could tell me all about it?” She looks awkward and unsure in the mid-morning sunlight, and Sam’s fingers twitch for a pencil, some charcoal, anything. All he can do is nod.
She smiles and adds, “As long as you’re not into weird sex stuff.”
Sam’s legs almost go out from under him. Monica’s laughing and it’s the sweetest expression Sam’s ever seen. He steps forward, thinks about touching a stray lock of hair, then stops himself. She looks up at him and Sam could get very used to that face.
“Don’t worry, we’ll start slow,” he says, grinning like a fool. “Someone told me girls like that.”