Yes Man

by Danny Wallace

  “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.

  Chapter 25 In Which Daniel Makes a Terrible Admission, Searches His Soul, and Finally Accepts That He Must Be Punished

  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 …

  “No. Thank you.”

  The barmaid walked off, and Ian looked furious.

  “You fucking idiot!” he said. “You threw it away! You threw the whole thing away! You could have done it! You could have still gone to Australia! But oh, no, Danny doesn’t want another pint, and what Danny doesn’t want, Danny doesn’t get. All that work, Dan! All for nothing!”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Not true at all. Yeah, okay, so I failed. But look at what else happened to me. Look at the difference in me now. I’m alive. I’m having fun again.”

  “Fun? You’re back where you started. In the pub, with me. You don’t have Lizzie anymore, you’re seriously in debt, and you’re about to start a job I’m not certain you truly want.”

  “I do want it. Yes has been good to me. I’m moving on.”

  “And Kristen? Where does Kristen fit into all of this? You can’t just transfer what you feel for Lizzie to some girl you happen to have slept with along the way….”

  I looked Ian in the eye and held his gaze.

  Gradually it dawned on him.

  “Oh, my God … you didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

  I couldn’t look at him, now.

  “You didn’t, did you? You said no! You already said no! This is a travesty! This has been a sham! You said no to a girl, and then no to a pint! You haven’t just broken the Yes Manifesto! You’ve virtually broken the law!”

  He threw his hands up in the air and sat back in his seat with a jolt. He said nothing for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. He went and got himself a pint—but for the first time in our lives, not one for me (I had, after all, said no). Maybe this was his punishment.

  Turns out it wasn’t.

  “Be here on Tuesday night,” he said, “for … the Punishment.”

  And he drained his pint and left.

  I know. I’m sorry. I should have told you. But I was worried you wouldn’t like me as much. I was worried you’d think I was a failure. I hadn’t done anything I shouldn’t have done with Kristen. And that’s precisely why I didn’t want to talk about it. Had I said yes, of course, I’d have been discreet, sparing you the gory details, but I would at least have ticked it off as another fantastic Yes in a very odd period of my life.

  But I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t a tick. It was a big, red cross over my head.

  I’d thought if I ignored it, it would go away. It wouldn’t count. I’d never have to think about the fact that I’d failed. And so I’d kept schtumm, kept it out of my diary, said nothing—not even to myself. Saying yes to Kristen would have been a Yes too far. I didn’t want to do something like that. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have just affected me, but Kristen too, and—if I ever stood a chance of seeing her again—maybe even Lizzie.

  But ironically my No had just made me Yes even harder. It was only then that I truly threw myself into the fight, determined as I was to make up for lost ground. So I jetted off to Barcelona. And then, just when I was starting to remember again, I found a way to push myself farther, and I booked a flight for Singapore. Subconsciously I can’t have just stumbled upon that advert … on some level, I must have been looking for it …

  So that was that. Ian was right. I’d said No to a girl, and No to a pint. Two things that if as a teenager I’d known I would one day do, would have utterly horrified me.

  My Yes adventure was over. I had failed, and Ian knew all about it. I’d never before imagined the moment would be like this. Failure just hadn’t seemed an option. It was only saying yes, after all. I’d wanted to make it all the way to New Year’s Eve and be standing underneath a sky full of fireworks with my friends by my side as I reclaimed my right to say no.

  But tonight the sky was dark and dull. Nothing was lighting it up. Just a clouded moon and the odd passenger jet, flying off to who knew where.

  Ian was right, of course. Sometimes you do have to say no. I knew that now, and I knew it more than anyone. It’s part of the human experience, and I’d been wrong to deny myself of it. But it had been fun, and I’d learnt a lot. And it wasn’t as if I was alone, was it? Not really. All over the world, right now, people were making their decisions. Millions were saying yes to their friends, to new experiences, yes to themselves. And millions more were saying no, too. No to opportunity, to chance, to life.

  Maybe that’s what I needed to do for a while. Just for a while. Start saying no again. Stay in. Rest. Maybe that would be good for me. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.

  I got home to the flat and found my diary. I hadn’t bothered to update it since Lizzie had left. Maybe now was the time. It’s funny, writing a diary. We assume that all the experiences are our own. That we’re unique, and they’re unique to us. But every thought we’ve ever had, everything we’ve ever said, every time we’ve surprised ourselves with a new experience or idea, every memory we’ve made, every story we’ve heard or told or been part of … it’s already happened before. Somewhere and somehow and sometime, someone has shared
our experience without us even knowing.

  Maybe there were other diaries out there, just like mine. People who’d been through things like I’d been through.

  I was on-line, now, but rather than check my e-mails or read up on the news, I headed for Google. I’m not sure why I did it, but I typed the phrase “I wish I had said no” into the search box, and clicked Search.

  I expected to get a million results. But I didn’t. There were very few corporate sites, very few business pages coming back at me. I suppose regret doesn’t sell. But what did come back to me was an Internet we only see when we look for it. The personal side of the Web. The people’s side. The side I suppose I wanted.

  There were blogs and diaries and entries in guestbooks and the odd celebrity interview. But the blogs were the most revealing. The innermost thoughts. The diaries tucked away in Tulsa or Peckham or Moscow, by people who have something personal to say and want to say it to an unseen world. A diary to be read by people they’ll never meet. A way of being brave, sharing every aspect of their daily lives—the dull, the meaningless, and the meaningful.

  I read my way through dozens of different pages that night, searching for God knows what. Advice? Guidance? Instead I found just what you’d expect. People who’d said yes when perhaps they ought to have said no.

  A girl in Oklahoma wished she’d said no when a guy called Ryan asked her out, because he ended up taking Stacey to the party instead.

  A man in France wished he’d said no to playing basketball that night, because he’d sprained his wrist and now couldn’t type “prolpery.”

  A guy called Ken wished he’d said no to bringing inexperienced bird-handlers to a summer falconry event, because it was “just plain embarrassing.”

  And there were many, many others …

  Today, Saturday, I’m at my aunt’s. I wish I had said no, because she’ll want to play rummy all night, and I’ll miss Pop Idol.

  Have said I’ll look after Jon and Carol’s dog this weekend. I wish I had said no. It stinks of s**t.

  I wish I had said no. He turned up and he was wearing his nan’s tea cosy cos he said it made him look like an admiral.