Act I, Scene I: The Start of Something New
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘wait, what? I just had the most romantic night of my life with Max Hunter??? (derogatory).”
— Nancy
“I am a frog. Nancy has been turning up the heat slowly but surely and, without fail, I am now boiling in this hot water bath of marriage. And it’s delightful.”
— Max
Nancy’s Version
Max and I met on February 9th, 2019, when I entered a room on the third floor of Shaffer Hall, extremely confident and prepared to land the role of Sally Bowles in my college theater group’s spring musical, Cabaret. He sat at a desk wearing some old ratty t-shirt he’d had since he was 15 and horrendous black and white checkered Vans, all with his signature smug look. I was the very last to audition so I had already been prepped on what to expect: “He gives off asshole vibes,” “He didn’t really look at me at all,” “He only really said ‘hey” at the beginning and ‘thanks so much’ at the end.”
So of course when he took the time to strike up a conversation with me, where I was from, my theater history, how I looked like Sierra Boggess because of my red hair (still don’t really see it…?) I thought I had one of my dream roles in the bag. Not to mention I had one of the best callbacks of my life - but that’s not really relevant to this particular story.
Fast forward 2 days later. “Hi Nancy, we’d like to offer you the role of Texas. Do you accept?” LIVID.
I spent the next 2 months of rehearsal shooting death glares and snarky comments his way and left rehearsal each night crying to my mother about how much I hated him. Welp.
During the run, our musical director Matt asked if I was staying in Baltimore over the summer and if I had any interest in auditioning for a local production of Newsies that he was also music directing. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the two of them had apparently had somewhat extensive conversations about me during Cabaret, so Matt spent the entire summer attempting to play matchmaker, bringing Max up in conversation whenever he could.
It’s important to call out here, Max and I weren’t very close at this point. We had exchanged a few DMs back and forth, mostly just about Newsies, but we weren’t like regularly talking or interacting. So when he told me he had bought tickets to one of the shows and then proceeded to drive 5 hours and stay the night on a mutual connect’s couch, all while sending me texts about how excited he was to see me and go out after the show, some flags started going up.
That night, the three of us went out, again not thinking much of it, until Matt very much not subtly stands up only about 40 minutes into the night, says he’s tired and is going home. But Max and I had just ordered another round of drinks so there we are, sitting in Frederick, Maryland until around 2:30 or 3am, just talking. And when we parted for the night, I left thinking, “should we have just kissed... like what was that?” I only found out later, he was thinking the same thing.
A few weeks go by and some of my friends and I decided to go out in NYC so we had some tall boys on the train in and ended up at a bar that solely served a million different kinds of shots. After a number, I remembered that Max had told me to hit him up if I was ever out drinking in NYC so what does my dumbass do but text him and tell him to meet us out. 45-minutes later, I get a text. “Hey, sorry just got out of the Transformers movie. Where am I meeting you?”
Long story short, we end up at the Copacabana. After sneaking our way past the bouncers asking for a $25 cover charge, my two friends were like, “we’re tired and there’s a train home in 15 minutes let’s go.” But I wasn’t ready to leave. 20-minutes later, we had our first kiss up on the third floor of the Copacabana in the hallway by the bathrooms. How romantic.
But the ridiculous thing is, it really was! The whole rest of the night, from dancing in the Copa, to walking hand in hand through an empty Times Square, sitting at one of the red metal tables talking for hours, the stroll all the way back to the train station and the kiss goodbye, all I could think was “wait, what? I just had the most romantic night of my life with Max Hunter??” (derogatory).
Skipping ahead through months of mixed signal messaging all day every day from Mr. I’m Single and Don’t Want a Relationship, gets us to March of 2020. Once the world shut down, the two of us spent our days together through texts that turned into late night movies, that turned into daily facetimes, that turned into some super top-secret hiking dates (sorry, Hunters!).
We spent that summer spending as much time together as possible, met each other’s friends, families, and started integrating each other into our lives.
Then, on October 29th, 2020, I get the dreaded text. “Can we talk later?”
Over the course of over 2-hours via facetime, we broke up. This mans CRIED THE WHOLE TIME, and later told me he had to drink a 6-pack just to be able to get on the call. “This will never go anywhere. I don’t see a future for us. We’ll never be more than just this.” HA JOKES ON HIM SINCE THIS IS OUR STORY ON OUR WEDDING WEBSITE.
But my scheming had only just begun. I convinced him, (although it didn’t take much convincing, he didn’t really want to break up in the first place he was just being dumb), to allow me to come say goodbye to the dog and have one final weekend together.
A week after that, I’m back in NYC celebrating the 2020 election results with the same 2 friends from the Copa night. So me, playing up my buzz, sent the text “hey since we’re friends now let’s just get drinks it’ll be fun, come celebrate!” Guess who rolled up once again.
After an hour sitting across the table, really bringing that original Cabaret death glare energy into the conversation, he broke. “That was the worst mistake of my life. I won’t ever do that again. Please can we just go home.”
3 weeks later on November 20th, 2020, we went on our first “official” date to a restaurant on the Upper West Side, Tasca. Sitting at a table right when you walk in the front door, he says “So, do you think you should be my girlfriend?” I told him, “No.”
We’ve gone to Tasca every year on our anniversary for dinner, where this past year, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. This time, I said, “Yes.”
Max’s Version
We meet up (I’m weak) and, as I walk her to an early train the next morning (HECK YEAH BROTHER), I tell her that “I’ve deleted all my dating apps!” This was a big deal. Maybe there was some time as we exclusively hung out or whatever but at some point (the 20th of November), I decided we should just name it and take that scary step and I nervously asked “so do you want to be my … girlfriend?” She said yes! (Duh, who wouldn’t).
We keep bopping along and start to spend more of our time together as she moves into the city about twenty blocks south of me in Harlem. While she technically has a room – and roommates – in that apartment, she starts to spend most nights at my place, slowly building a sign that reads WE SHOULD MOVE IN TOGETHER in vibrant yellow neon. I’m still like yeah yeah let’s relax here and she is very insistent that life won’t really change if we live together … we basically already live together. And isn’t it great! It’s great, right? So wouldn’t it be great to just be that happy always? Right, you see there’s a logic right? Right?
See, despite my growing adoration for Nancy, I’m still very squeamish on the idea of permanence. I pitch her – this is 100% true – a schedule wherein we move in together but she takes sporadic trips out to Long Island. Like, maybe every fourth night she goes home to Long Island. Or something. Whenever I feel like it. You know, as a break from her.
That’s immediately vetoed.
She taps the sign that says WE SHOULD MOVE IN TOGETHER and now we’re moving in together.
It starts as a brief overlap between leases (a trial run, goes great) and then a move to Bedstuy. We find we share certain design sensibilities (white walls, nothing gets hung, real sociopath stuff) and really begin to take our hosting game to the next level (Nancy always needs to prepare ten appetizers; I start watching grilling videos on TikTok). We make annual pilgrimages back to the restaurant Tasca on the Upper West Side where we first defined the relationship and the love sure is blossoming. Frankie makes it abundantly clear that he doesn’t enjoy pooping on Herkimer Street so we move – I am more willing this time – to South Slope. We’re living above the BQE and life is groovy and I can’t help but notice that Nancy has started talking about marriage. Just “talking.” Just “throwing it out” there.
She workshops a few phrases and ultimately settles on “This is our year.” That becomes a motif … all short and longterm plans are now accented with and remember, this is our year. So it’s the beginning of 2024 and I have been well taught that this. is. our. year.
I begin to engage in the hypothetical scenario of marriage as we start throwing out ideas about small and big plans, future goals, an idea of what the actual longterm vision of a relationship could entail … and I start to enjoy that vision. I allow myself to lean into the idea of a foundational partner in life – specifically a partner who burps like Nancy. I start going with the flow and asking her questions about the ring and asking them again when I forgot the answers and then I’m texting Paul to set up the ring appointment and then I’m in the diamond district in a scene straight out of ‘Uncut Gems’ and before I know it, I have a ring in my backpack.
I am a frog. Nancy has been turning up the heat slowly but surely and, without fail, I am now boiling in this hot water bath of marriage. And it’s delightful. This firepot crank sweetheart from Long Island is bossing me around and nipping at my heels and I am absolutely obsessed with her. Every step of our relationship has been her guiding me into the next step, brushing aside my fears with an equal mix of tenderness and… I am thrilled that she has me beat, handily.
“You hear? Not even married yet and already she is in charge. And it is pleasant! At last, someone who cares if I am foolish.” - CABARET
I can’t imagine my life without the angry little redhead I met at Johns Hopkins.
—
Woof, she HATES me.
At our first music rehearsal, the redheaded girl in the front row wouldn’t even make eye contact with me … almost performatively pissed at not getting a lead role in the Johns Hopkins Barnstormers’ production of “Cabaret.” Throughout the course of a production riddled with idiot children telling me how to do my job (ok, so they may cure cancer one day but how about everyone stays in their lane), Nancy had a preternatural grasp on the assignment: show up, sing well, kick her face, shoot a glare, and leave rehearsal for the night. Her passion for performing was only rivaled by her passion to make clear to me, at every opportunity, how badly I had failed in any and all responsibilities: hiding absolutely none of her disdain at some of the staging and choreography being designed for engineering students whose previous experience consisted of playing ‘Whoville Mayor’s Wife’ in a high school production of “Seussical Jr.” Despite her best efforts, I started to find ways to connect with her and by the end of the process we had at least moved into “frenemies” territory.
The show ended up being great (she’ll say it wasn’t as good as it could have been), and we kept in touch through the cast party – she was the only person I told that I threw up in a sink aww – and into the summer as I came to visit her in Maryland where she was starring in a production of “Newsies.” After getting drinks, we did that thing where two people ostensibly are trying to say goodbye to each other but just keep lingering and lingering and lingering underneath a lamp post, neither being the first to want to actually part ways.
SMASH CUT to later and it’s New York City and Nancy texts me saying that she and some friends are going out on the town for a night and that I should swing by. I meet her and a crew of Lawng Island ladies and we make our way to the famed Copacabana and, as the night goes on and the tequila sprites keep pouring, Nancy’s friends take their leave to Penn Station but Nancy stays out … and we smooch!! WE SMOOCH FOLKS! Ever the proper young lady (Pam and Jamie didn’t raise no hussie unfortunately), she is determined to return home that night on the latest train possible, and we walk through Times Square to Penn in the twlight of the early morning.
A new school year begins for Nancy, and I make periodic pilgrimages to see her perform. I am skittish about any sort of firm commitments – especially with someone who is still in school lol – but we keep smooching and talking about theatre. My mail-order pangolin meat arrives from the Wuhan wet markets which causes a whole lot of commotion so Nancy and I retreat to our respective family compounds on Long Island and in Westchester. Daily texting leads to long Facetimes and Netflix watch parties which leads to secret illicit hikes “Um, I’m just taking a walk with a friend!”
Things start to heat up which freaks me out so we break up for a week … Nancy was despondant while saying goodbye to Frankie (inadvertently making me swoon with her dedication to the idiot dog) but was less willing to polietely agree to the terms of our breakup. “I’m in the city with friends … let’s just get one drink!”
