That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You
54 pages • 1-hour read
Elyse MyersThat's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You
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Parts 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, ableism, sexual content, sexual harassment, bullying, and emotional abuse.
Part 2: “The Elevator to Paris” - Part 3: “The Window Back to California”
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “There’s Been a Misunderstanding”
In college, Elyse studies abroad in France. One day, she and her friends visit a dance club in Paris after first drinking alcohol in their dorm in order to save money at the bar. Because she does not have much cash, she plans to have one drink at the club while her friends dance. As she lingers at the bar, a beautiful French man approaches. She reflects that Parisians always make her wish she “had one of those Tiny Museum Headsets” (78) that explain the art one is looking at. She feels that she needs something similar to explain the context and culture around her because she cannot read social cues and does not always understand what is happening.
The beautiful French man asks if she would like company. When she hesitates, he says that he is “cheap” (79), which she interprets as a self-deprecating joke. She invites him to sit with her, and he buys her a drink.
From the dance floor, one of her friends gives her several significant glances, and Elyse responds with more glances. In a drawing, Elyse explains the shape and meaning of each of her friend’s expressions, which are meant to ask Elyse if she is safe or if she needs to be rescued from an uncomfortable situation. Elyse indicates that she is fine where she is, and her friend returns to dancing.
Eventually, her friend group decides to leave to find food, and Elyse invites the beautiful French man to join her. They all find a street vendor selling pizza, but Elyse does not have any more money, so she hovers at the back. When the French man offers to buy her pizza, she accepts, saying that she has money back at her room and can pay him back. She notices that several of her friends keep glancing her way with confused looks.
They talk while they eat, and Elyse awkwardly rambles about how handsome the man is. He holds her hand, and as her friends continue to watch her, she wonders if they are angry at her about something. Finally, the group heads back to the dorm. Elyse invites the French man along with a vague idea that they will drink and talk together. She reiterates her promise to pay him back for the pizza, and he asks if she also has enough “to pay [him] for the sex” (95).
Elyse freezes. Two pages fill with the words “oh my god” in repetition, the text growing larger and larger across the page. Finally, she tells him that there has been a misunderstanding. With horror, she realizes that he did not sit with her or hold her hand because he liked her but because he expects to be paid for his time. She explains that she did not know he was a sex worker. He yells at her and walks away.
Her friend approaches and admits that they all thought she was aware of the situation. Elyse vomits on her friend’s shoes. Later, she and her friend “update the list of glances” (100).
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary: “Two Truths and a Lie”
This chapter is split into three numbered sections. In the first, the narrator describes the sky, which is sometimes blue and sometimes a range of brilliant colors “just before the sun kisses the horizon” (103). Sometimes the sky turns gray and it rains, and at other times, a tornado siren rings out. When that happens, it is important to worry “The Perfect Amount” (103), because sometimes a tornado comes and sometimes it does not.
In the second section, a boy from Elyse’s past, Terence, invites her to drive to the beach. She drives, borrowing her mother’s car for the trip. On the way, the boy asks her if she is still a virgin. The question shocks her, and she asks why it matters. As they walk along the beach in the cold, he explains why her virginity matters to him “and also to every boy and man and boy-man and guyish guy-man-boy on the planet and, because of this, […] it should matter to [her]” (104).
Terence uses a metaphor, describing girls as roses and their virginity as petals. Elyse begs him to stop calling her a rose. Meanwhile, she slips on some rocks, and her shoes and socks get wet. He remarks that she looks cold. He takes off his jacket, and she thinks he might give it to her, but instead he ties it around his waist as he continues talking about a girl’s metaphorical “petals”; he says they fall off every time she “give[s] [her] body to someone” (105).
Elyse retorts that she might not want to marry a man or marry at all, and she does not care what anyone thinks about her “petals.” She considers offering to have sex with him just to see how he might twist his logic in order to justify sleeping with her after his speech about virginity. They walk back to her car.
Terence asks her for a secret in exchange for one of his. He then asks if she knows what a fleshlight is, adding that his secret is that he owns one. Elyse explodes with laughter, finding it funny that he should end his speech about sexual purity with a confession that he masturbates with a fleshlight. She says, “I hope that if you ever think of me while using it, you immediately go soft and lose your ability to finish” (112); she also hopes that he will someday tell his wife all about his fleshlight.
In an aside to the reader, Myers adds that Terence is now married; she hopes that he, his wife, and his fleshlight are all happy together.
In the third section, she states that her blood has been replaced with apple juice. Then she asks which is the lie.
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary: “Have You Ever Wondered What It’s Like to Date a Poet?”
Using the third person, the narrator of this section describes a date between a woman and a man who is a poet. The woman makes a joke about not eating garlic. The man jokes about the restaurant’s endless bread refills. She thinks the date is going well. Then the man’s joke stretches on too long. He imagines increasingly detailed scenarios about the endless bread, loudly declaring that “the idea of endless anything, especially bread, is absolutely absurd. Endless anything doesn’t exist! Nothing is Endless!” (114). She reflects that the date is no longer going well. When the date ends, she tries to split the bill, but he refuses.
Two years later, she receives an email from a friend she knew before she moved to Seattle. The email includes a link that takes her to a collection of poems “by a man whose name sounds like someone else she went on a date with” (117). The poems sound nothing like the date she went on. In the poems, the woman loves garlic and her breath smells, and she rambles about bread and forces the man to pay before fleeing.
She calls the man and asks how he could lie about what happened. He says the poems are not about her. He suggests that the poems are about the “universal human experience” (118) and that it is merely her “inflated ego” (118) that causes her to see herself in them. He suggests that she does not understand art.
A hand-drawn illustration of notebook paper answers the question posed in the title. It reads, “I’d imagine it would look something like this. I’ve never dated a poet, though. So I wouldn’t know” (119).
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “His + Hers (140)”
Accompanied by a drawing of a green and blue plaid shirt, a free verse poem from the perspective of the shirt describes being gifted. The shirt recalls the moment when “He” places it in a bag and gives it to “Her.” He pulls the shirt over Her shoulders and buttons it, explaining that it is Hers now. He cries. She cries.
The man tells Her that the shirt belongs to Her now. He wants to belong to Her too, but He cannot, so at least His shirt can stay with Her.
The shirt remains with Her for three years. She pretends that She is just borrowing it and that He will return to claim it. She is angry with Him for leaving and for wanting Him to stay. The shirt believes that it will always belong to them both.
Parts 2-3 Analysis
As these first sections show, the eight parts of the book are not organized in a balanced way. Instead, they each correspond to a time when Elyse moves to a different physical location, and the length of any given part corresponds to the length of time that she spends in that location. Part 2 (“The Elevator to Paris”) is therefore only one chapter long because Elyse travels to Paris briefly during a study abroad program; however, the chapter itself features one of the longer stories in the book. As before, this story simultaneously adopts a humorous tone even as it underscores Elyse’s growing discomfort. As Elyse slowly realizes that she has grossly misinterpreted the sex worker’s actions, the illustrations combine with the typographical layout to contribute to Myers’s wry retrospective and her younger self’s mortification. For instance, the text layout on page 95 depicts Elyse’s dawning realization with the use of capitalization, and the large amount of white space helps to emphasize the internal histrionics of the phrase “oh my god,” which appears in much small text at the bottom of the page. These visual elements are designed to replicate the comedic timing of a long, painful pause in verbal speech. The following pages are then filled with the repeated phrase, “oh my god,” without space or punctuation, to visually represent Elyse’s rising internal panic and horror.
The next part, “The Window Back to California,” also makes use of illustrations and unusual text layouts to create specific tones. Only three chapters long, this part features a story that is organized into three numbered sections, and the unusual structure is meant to replicate the tone of the icebreaker game known as “Two Truths and a Lie,” in which the storyteller shares two true facts and one lie and challenges the listener to identify the falsehood. Much of Part 3 is taken up by a long anecdote about Elyse’s encounter with a “boy from her past” (103) named Terence, and the exchange draws further attention to the Inaccessibility of Social Scripts for Neurodivergent Individuals. Notably, the final section makes the outrageous claim that her blood has been replaced by apple juice, and because this statement is clearly the “lie,” the rest of her narrative thus gains the weight of truth despite the whimsical nature of Myers’s delivery.
The sheer fluidity of Myers’s writing style is fully captured in the fluctuations that take place between Chapters 8 and 9, which differ widely in format; one is a more straightforward prose narrative while the other is a free-verse poem, but they are both told in third person and feature unnamed male and female leads. It is understood that the “she” is Elyse herself, but the “he” remains unidentified throughout the book. The unnamed person is a recurring figure whose true significance will not be clarified until Part 4, but these early anecdotes lay the groundwork for the emotional turmoil that the author experiences in her interactions with him. To acknowledge the more serious tone of these encounters, the illustrations in these two chapters lack the comedic quality as the ones seen in Chapter 6, and as the book unfolds, Myers continues to create layered narratives through the strategic blending of text and visuals.
As Elyse laboriously navigates a barrage of social situations that are impossible to “script” or prepare for, her difficulties once again highlight the inaccessibility of social scripts for neurodivergent individuals. These four chapters contribute to the theme by illustrating how this innate difficulty manifests in different circumstances. For example, Chapter 6 echoes Elyse’s previous concept of unspoken social scripts through the image of the “Tiny Museum Headsets” (78). Her description of a headset with audiotapes to explain contexts and social situations comedically emphasizes Elyse’s inability to innately understand the social scripts that seem to come naturally to others. Meanwhile, Chapter 7 again reveals Elyse’s efforts to properly measure her feelings and actions as she seeks to manage the anxiety that arises from challenges related to her neurodivergence. When she describes her efforts to worry “The Perfect Amount” (103), this passage reveals her belief that if she can find the correct balance between not worrying enough and worrying too much, she will be able to respond to dire situations in socially acceptable ways. This is just one example of the many times Elyse aims for a quantifiable form of perfection in order to cope with her social discomfort, not recognizing that some situations are simply beyond her control. This focus on concrete measurement corresponds with Elyse’s broader desire to balance her conflicting desire for “more” (in this case, more attention, love, and support) with her fear of being “too much” (too anxious, awkward, or needy). Her difficulties with romantic relationships also stem from these basic internal conflicts, and with each misinterpretation or misunderstanding, she keenly feels her inability to find someone who will fulfill The Human Need for Unconditional Acceptance and embrace her just as she is.
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