just_displaced | Open Post

"You psychoanalyze people through pie? Okay, I can see it. Makes about as much sense as any other way of doing it. What does it say about me that I ordered peach pie? Is that a good sign or a bad one? It must be an okay one, at least a neutral one, or you wouldn't be talking to me. Unless you have the habit of hanging around with terrible people. That's always possible."

He wonders if he should be noticing that he likes Ned's smile, and especially likes that it's not a mocking smile. He's been the recipient of enough mocking smiles in his life that he's learned to differentiate between genuine ones and teasing ones, and Ned's is definitely genuine. He likes that -- people are generally so damn disingenuous, he's never quite sure how to speak to them without offending them or making them uncomfortable.

He doesn't go to bars much, so he's never been to this one, but he's willing to follow Ned inside, looking around curiously. Of course, he immediately has to look at the TV and ascertain what program it's playing, and whether it'll be likely to be playing any of the ads he's had a part in. Wouldn't that be great, he thinks, if he could show Ned one of his ads on TV? That'd be impressive, right?

And why, exactly, does he want to impress this guy, anyway?

"It's my favorite," he admits, casually, picking a likely looking booth and heading over to take a seat. Ned notices that Ginsberg's attention flicks over to the TV, and he chooses the side that will allow him to continue looking at it, if he wants to. "That's, uh- why I invited you." Well, and other reasons.

Another wave of nervous, awkward energy sweeps over Ned. Maybe he's reading it wrong, but he gets the feeling that they might not be on the same page here. That maybe he should have been a little clearer from the get-go that he was inviting Ginsberg out on another date, since the first had gone so badly. Had he gotten that? He'd said that if it went badly he'd be two-for-two for the night, but still, something about his demeanor makes Ned think he's assuming this is merely a friendly gesture.

The question is, should he leave it that way, or do or say something that would clue him in? Stomach churning with indecision he asks, tightly, "Can I... get you something to drink? What are you having?"

"I don't really drink that much, so I don't know what people order. I mean, I know the basics, I've had alcohol before, I just don't know what's..."

What'll impress Ned as much as the choice of peach pie had, apparently. He trails off into indecisive silence for a moment, trying to figure out whether or not Ned's been flirting with him this whole time. It's kind of an egotistical assumption to make, and if he assumes that Ned's attempting to take him on a date and he's wrong about the assumption, well, to say that things would be awkward would be putting it mildly. That kind of wrong assumption could end up in something a lot worse than having pie thrown at him.

"I'll have vodka and cranberry juice, I guess. Is that something that only girls drink? Like I said, I don't know anything about alcohol. Are you a homosexual?"

He hadn't meant to blurt out that last part. Dammit. Looks like he's sitting at another table he wants to slide right under and hide.

Ned had every intention of getting up to get him that vodka and cranberry juice, but Ginsberg's subsequent question freezes him in place. He doesn't see any art behind it: it really seems as if it were a slip of the tongue. All the same, it's a hell of a thing to be asked in such a blunt way. Confrontational, even. Ned's not good with confrontational. He doesn't like either option. He could try lying, but he knows he's terrible at that, and it would really eliminate any possibility of this being a proper date. But he can't just say yes either, can he?

He looks around, surreptitiously, seeing if their conversation has caught anyone's attention. No one seems to have heard, or be looking in their direction. All the same, every bit of Ned's body language screams discomfort. Not the kind of discomfort that a straight man feels when being asked about his sexuality, either. He's certain that for anyone mildly clever, his reaction is answer enough.

There's an edge of fear to his voice when he asks, quietly, "Should I go?"

Ginsberg may be socially obtuse, to put it mildly, but even he can't miss a reaction like that one. It might as well be an answer of affirmation, even if nothing actually comes out of Ned's mouth. He recognizes that his own question had been a little blunt, completely artless, completely without any forethought, but he hadn't intend to scare Ned. It had just been a question. He immediately feels guilty for having given Ned that reaction, for Ned even having to ask that question.

He shakes his head. "No, no, I was trying to... I mean, I was just wondering because I wouldn't have a problem if you were. Because this..."

At least he has the good sense to lean a little closer, so that they won't be overheard, although nobody's paying attention to them anyway. "This kind of feels like a date. Not that I know a lot about dates, either. But this is what I imagine they're like, when they actually work out, and I don't get things thrown at me. But I wanted to make sure."

"I don't know a lot about them either, but... that was the intention. Since your last one didn't turn out so well."

Ned gives a hesitant, small smile, relaxing ever so slightly, from frozen terror back to his normal level of mild discomfort and tension. Because... Ginsberg said he didn't have a problem with that. Not just in an abstract, we-can-still-talk-civilly way, either. But after that initial confusion, Ned wants to be absolutely sure.

"So you're okay with, um. With this?" Ginsberg had been at the pie shop with a girl, after all. And something about the way he asked makes Ned wonder, "I should've been clearer when I asked you, but, y'know, a guy's got to be careful about this kind of thing."

Edited 2013-10-14 05:21 (UTC)

"I'm okay with this. I mean, I didn't expect this. I didn't go on a blind date thinking that it'd turn out this way. But I'm definitely okay with it. Somehow I have a hard time believing you don't know a lot about dates, though."

Shit. Did that sound way over the top in terms of flirtation? Now he has to figure out how to navigate that, too, and if casual chatter is hard enough, intentional flirtation is completely beyond him. The last time he'd tried to flirt with someone, well, they hadn't thrown pie at him, but they hadn't exactly reciprocated, either.

"All I mean is that it seems like you know what you're doing. That's a good thing, if you're wondering. Even if it's not true and you just know what you're doing as compared to me, because I have no idea."

"Lotta couples come into the Pie Hole. I've had plenty of opportunity to take notes." Which is true, in one way, but it's also not the whole truth. Now that the whole date foundation has been established, Ned feels as if a weight has been taken off his shoulders. He admits, "I've had girlfriends, now and then, but... it never really worked out." He smiles again, bright and shy and lopsided.

"I'll go get that drink," he says, because he needs a moment to get a grip of himself, to get over that flustered feeling. Ned goes to the bar, thinks he can feel Ginsberg watching him as he goes, but he doesn't look over his shoulder to check. A few quick words to the bartender and he's coming back with two identical glasses of dark red liquid.

"Sounded good," he says, giving Ginsberg his and resuming his seat. There's a faint blush on his cheeks that doesn't seem to want to go away, but he resolutely ignores it, asks, "So who set up the blind date?"

"Yeah, it never worked out for me, either. Except that I haven't really had girlfriends so much as a progression of increasingly awful first dates."

He's definitely watching when Ned walks away. Maybe a little too intently. Maybe he should stop staring at the back of Ned's head, because if Ned turns around and notices him, that's going to be kind of weird, no matter if this is a date or not. He's pretty sure you aren't supposed to stare at the back of your date's head, even if they have pretty nice looking hair.

As soon as Ned comes back, he takes his drink, mostly to have something to do with his hands. He's not actually sure what vodka and cranberry tastes like, but he gives it an experimental sip and finds it pleasant enough. It's a lot better than some of the stuff the guys around the office drink. He can't understand how they can tolerate alcohol that strong, but then, they like a lot of things he'll never understand.

"One of my coworkers set it up. I'm pretty sure he was playing a trick on me, now that I think of it. It's like he picked the perfectly wrong person. That can't just be a coincidence. Or I'm paranoid about the intentions of my coworkers and he actually meant well. Either way, I'm glad it's over with, and I'm glad I'm here instead."

"Yeah, me too," Ned murmurs, grinning against his glass as he takes a sip. The stuff only tastes okay to him, but he's hoping it will loosen him up a little - not too much, but enough that he isn't doing his habitual routine of overanalyzing everything he says and does, wondering what kind of impression he'll give.

"So..." he begins, searching for a topic that will ease them back into the flow of conversation before things got a but peculiar, "You said you did an ad for that carpet even though it was ugly - does that sort of thing happen often? You have to do an ad for something you think is actually terrible? Wouldn't that make it harder?"

"Yeah, there're a lot of things I have to do ads for that I don't like. I mean, whether it's aesthetically objectionable, morally objectionable, or just plain stupid, I can't turn down a campaign my bosses tell me to do unless there's a really good reason not to do it. I argue about some of them, but it doesn't make much of a difference. Don't you ever make pies with flavors you don't like? It's kind of the same thing. You do the best you can to present something you're proud of, even if the finished product isn't something you'd ever dignify with your own consumption."

He doesn't know why he keeps insisting on saying so much. Surely Ned's going to get sick of hearing his voice eventually and decide that this was all a terrible idea. That he's stuck it out for so long is impressive, but there's no way he'll stick it out much longer, right? Is it too much to hope that maybe he doesn't actually find Ginsberg a hideous irritation?

"I don't think it's quite the same. For one thing, I don't have any bosses, which is... a nice change. And for another, there aren't any flavors of pie I don't like."

He pauses after saying that, a little curl of a smile at the corner of his mouth, leans in as he amends, "Actually, I'm not wild about pumpkin, but that doesn't really matter. The fact that it's not to my taste isn't quite the same as it being... aesthetically and morally objectionable"

Ned keeps sipping at the drink; to tell the truth, he likes that Ginsberg is so talkative. His face is remarkably animated, and the rapidity of his words seems to Ned somehow more passionate than when he goes on one of his own rambles. Those are often out of nerves and sheer awkwardness, rather than... enthusiasm, and eloquence.

"Well, pumpkin pie's pretty questionable, anyway. I've never understood why everyone's so crazy about it. I guess there's nothing morally objectionable about it, but I can see why you're not wild about it."

Is he drinking this drink too fast? He's pretty sure he is. To be fair, it tastes good, and he's taking a sip every time he pauses for breath, which is pretty frequently -- that's the thing about talking fast, he's found: it can really wear you out. And how strong are these drinks, anyway? Will he know when this one's starting to affect him? Is it starting to already? Better drink some more and find out.

"What's it like, being your own boss? I can imagine it being really fun, because you can do whatever you want, and nobody can yell at you, but I can also imagine it being really frustrating, because you don't have anyone to blame except yourself if bad decisions get made. I mean, if something gets screwed up around my office, I can always blame it on the powers that be, by which I mean the entire executive team, and believe me, they screw things up regularly. Being your own executive team puts a lot of responsibility on you. You must be stressed out a lot."

At least, he'd be stressed out, if he had to run a pie shop, but then, pie is, apparently, Ned's passion, so maybe he's not.

"Not unduly," he says, and thinks to himself that Ginsberg seems like the kind of guy who is often stressed about one thing or another. Ned knows he is the same, but for the most part it has nothing to do with his career. His sources of stress are entirely different, and entirely off-limits for conversation. "Things were a bit hard when I first opened up, but after a few months everything fell into place. Not a whole lot of decisions that need to be made, running a pie shop. Besides, when I'm stressed, I deal with it by baking pies, so it's a win-win situation."

Ned notices with a faint moment of alarm that Ginsberg's nearly finished his drink, and he's barely sipped his. He ought to try to catch up, drinks a few gulps before he goes on, "I like it. I've never been great at working with other people, so it's ideal. It's not like I do everything on my own. I tried to do the budget and the taxes at first and that was a complete disaster, so I got an accountant. And there's a waitress - she wasn't in today, but she's there most of the time, and that makes things easier."

When he sees that Ginsberg's glass is empty he - with a moment of hesitation and a questioning raise of his eyebrows, takes it and his own and heads up the bar to get another of the same. He returns with them and a question at the ready. "So from what you tell me, your job consists of... writing slogans for products, sometimes morally questionable, getting sent on blind dates by coworkers with questionable intentions, and getting yelled at by, what, ten bosses?"

"When I'm stressed, I deal with it by writing. Not always ads, but mostly. So I know what you mean. It's nice to be able to do what you're good at. It'd be nicer if it paid more, but that's probably everyone's complaint, even the guys who make big bucks."

If he could get out of his father's apartment, for one thing. Sure, he might be able to afford it now, but he's pretty sure his dad isn't going to let him leave until he finds a much better place, finds a girlfriend, gets his life 'in order', whatever that means. As far as he's concerned, having a steady job and a reliable paycheck counts as having his life in order, even if his personal life is in a state of disrepair.

He's not exactly sure he should have another drink, but Ned's up and fetching them before he has time to ponder it over, and once the drink is on the table, he can't turn it down. This one he'll try to take slower. Pacing himself is important. He has no intention of getting drunk and embarrassing after just barely meeting the guy.

"Seven bosses. Well, eight, I guess, if you count Peggy, and I do, mostly because she's perfectly capable of yelling at me, and often does. To be fair, she usually has pretty good reasons for it. And then there're... yeah, I guess ten is about right. My job also occasionally consists of sleeping at the office, and being the only sober one in the whole building. Which is about as fun as you can imagine."

Ned makes a small noise of agreement when Ginsberg says what he does about wishing his job paid a bit more. He's making enough now to keep his head above water, but things were bad for the first year or so, and he doesn't want to think how much worse it would be if he didn't save money using rotten fruit, and if he wasn't able to make large amounts of cash on the side with... less savory endeavors.

"I don't drink much, myself. Don't know why I suggested coming here, of all places. I guess I just figured that's what people do, when they- " he hesitates, redirects his words from his intended 'when they're attracted to someone' "-when they meet someone interesting. They buy them a drink."

He bites the inside of his lip, feeling the heat spreading across his face again, but he pretends he can't and hopes Ginsberg doesn't notice. He can always blame it on the alcohol. Rolling the glass between his palms, he asks, "Why's everyone so drunk at the office? Or is that... normal, for advertising agencies?"

"It is what people do. I mean, I think it's what people do. I don't think anyone's ever bought me a drink before."

And it's kind of a nice feeling, actually. He could take or leave the alcohol -- although at the moment, he seems to be taking it, albeit slower than he was with the first drink -- but the sense of having someone around interested enough in him to actually buy him a drink is unique and not at all unpleasant. He could get used to this.

He notices that Ned's a little pinker in the cheeks than he had been moments before, but he's just as likely to chalk it up to the alcohol as he is to anything else. Somehow, despite the fact that Ned has essentially verified that this very much counts as a date, he's not quite consciously aware of the fact that this probably means Ned is attracted to him.

"Everyone's drunk at the office -- or high at the office, there's a lot of that, too -- because everyone's miserable at the office. They think I don't see it, because I'm not drunk with them, or high with them, but I do. They're all trying to escape from something. That's why they work so much. That's why they drink so much. I think that's normal, for advertising agencies. Every place I've ever worked has been like that."

"That's horrible," Ned says, leaning forward with his arms resting on the table. There's a faint voice, somewhere in the back of his mind, saying that it's not just advertising agencies where people go to escape from things. Some people cope with it by drinking and getting high and working all the time, some cope by baking pies and living quietly in ways that don't draw attention to themselves.

"So why are you different?"

He realizes after the fact that, in some ways, it might be a very intimate question. If he were entirely sober, he might regret saying it in silence, but there's a pleasant buzzing in his head, loosening his lips, "Is that a rude question to ask? It probably is. Nevermind. Forget I said anything."

"I've just always been different. I can't escape from my own mind no matter how hard I try, and sometimes trying just makes it worse. The first time I ever got high, I thought I was going to die. It really makes you crazy. Well, it makes me crazy. There're people that I'm sure it's great for. I'm not one of them. I was paranoid for days."

And he's already paranoid by nature. Drugs didn't help that tendency, not one bit. He obviously doesn't mind that it's an intimate question, since he's answering it -- it's just that he's not entirely sure what the answer is.

"I'm not saying that I'm not miserable or that I'm not trying to escape. I just don't do it the way they do. Which is probably hard to believe since you see me sitting here with a drink in my hand, but it's true. This is the first drink I've had in months."

"It's not hard to believe. I'm the one who put the drink in your hand, after all." Interesting, though that Ginsberg doesn't claim to not be miserable or not be trying to escape. Ned files that information away as he prattles on, "Can't say I've ever tried anything outlandish, in terms of mind-altering substances. I'm not very adventurous. Or... at all adventurous." He gives a nervous little smile, sips at his drink. "I've never been a big fan of taking risks, which is probably hard to believe since I asked you here, but that's actually quite a departure from the usual for me." He smiles faintly at his echo of Ginsberg's own line.

It was a gamble, after all. Asking a strange man he'd never seen before if he wanted to get a drink. Flirting with him. "Not sure what's gotten into me today," he admits.

"So what way do you do it? Just writing?" he asks, less worried this time about the intimacy of the question, since Ginsberg had answered the first one without complaint.

"I'm not very adventurous, either. Mentally, maybe. I think about a lot of stuff people don't wanna think about. But in terms of what I actually do? I'm the least exciting person you'll ever meet. I still live at home with my father, for Christ's sake."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that. That makes him sound both very young and extremely uncool. He takes a sip of his drink to disguise his sudden nerves. Will he ever stop blundering through conversations and just have them without concern of sounding ridiculous?

"Whatever's gotten into you, I like it," he hurries to say, trying to redeem his previous statement by sounding a little flirtatious, although even that's a gamble. "And yeah, mostly writing. I stay at the office late. And when I'm all alone, and I'm writing by myself, my brain feels a lot less cluttered. You do it by making pies, right? That's what keeps you sane. Relatively sane. I don't know that any of us are entirely sane."

Ned flushes a little more with pleasure at Ginsberg's remark about liking whatever's gotten into him, biting the inside of his lip to keep from grinning too much.

For all that Ginsberg seems to expect the detail about living with his father will make him seem young or uncool, it doesn't seem to deter Ned one bit. "Why would make you unexciting?" Ned asks. "I've only known you for half an hour but you already seem like a very interesting person to me. I'm a baker, and you're a writer at some fancy ad agency. Doesn't that automatically make me the less intriguing one?"

He grins a little, liking the idea of making it a competition, which of them is the least interesting. "You write ads for an airline company, and I've never even been in an airplane."

"Think about it this way -- I go home tonight, right? And my dad's waiting up for me, because of course he is, and he asks me how my date goes, and what am I supposed to say? That it went terribly, but that I ended up having drinks with a really sexy piemaker? His reaction would be both terrifying and hilarious, and personally, I prefer reactions that aren't terrifying at all."

If he notices at all that he'd referred to Ned as sexy, it's only notable in the sense that his voice got a little quieter when he said it, so that no one could overhear. Otherwise, he's just his animated self, shaking his head when Ned insists that he's the less interesting one.

"Just because I work for a fancy ad agency doesn't make me a fancy guy. You make pies. You make people happy all day. I make ads, and I convince people that they're unhappy so that they can buy a product that'll make them happy. Besides, I've only ever been on an airplane once, and I don't remember it, so we're even there."

A look of genuine surprise flickers across Ned's face for just a moment, because 'a really sexy piemaker' isn't exactly how he was expecting to be described. It's not that he's unaware of the fact that certain people seem to find him attractive, but sadly they are often not the sort of people he wants to spend time with, not the sort of people he's this (relatively) comfortable speaking to.

He supposes that the whole scenario he's supposed to be picturing, with Ginsberg's dad interrogating him, is meant to seem unpleasant. "You could always tell him that you had a good date, right? He doesn't need to know it was your second one. Or that it was with... someone like me."

Even though he's only been sipping at it, Ned finds that his glass is empty again. He feels that characteristic loosening of his muscles and his thoughts, making him bold.

"Lemme guess, if you didn't come home until morning, he'd already be putting up missing posters?" From the sound of it, the man is a bit protective. Ned thinks that sounds rather nice, actually, but Ginsberg doesn't look like he agrees. There's also a hint of suggestiveness, to that question. Testing the ground, at least.

"Actually, if I didn't come home till morning, he'd be overjoyed. He'd've assumed I spent the night with my date. I'd hear a whole lot of congratulations, mazel tov, blah blah, you're a man now, Michael." He slips into a thick accent to imitate his father's voice, and then laughs, shaking his head and switching back to his own voice. "He'd think I was finally doing what he's been telling me to do all along, and meet someone nice. So yeah, I'd tell him I had a good date. And I wouldn't tell him who it was with. No reason for him to know, anyway, since he's so nosy."

That's a pretty roundabout way of noting that he's noticed the hint of suggestiveness, and that he appreciates it. No, he doesn't care for his father's overprotective nature, but he's been used to it just about his whole life, and it's not going to change any time soon.

Maybe it's bold of him to be flirting so much, too, as clumsily as it's been, but why the hell not, right? He's already had a pie thrown at him. The night can only get better from here.

Edited 2013-10-15 21:01 (UTC)

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