The Good Place: Booping Tahani Al-Jamil

Chidi knew better than to let himself get sidetracked or distracted when it came to Eleanor. Nonetheless, his first thought when he saw her in her customary pose on the couch—one that could comfortably encompass both watching TV and being passed out—was “When did we get shrimp?”

“Huh? Oh, these, from that party Tahani threw.” Eleanor pounded her next shrimp into a dollop of cocktail sauce that was, thank God, on a plate and not directly on her belly.

“That was our first day here.”

“Yup. I guess they caused that near-apocalypse or whatever, so I figure can’t let ‘em go to waste…”

“It’s been weeks. Those cannot possibly still be good.”

“It’s the Good Place, Chidi. Why would anything spoil in the Good Place?”

Chidi hated when she had a point. She seemed to only do that when it would be vexing to him.

“I was thinking of Tahani. She’s in the exact same position as I am, with Jason being mistaken for her soulmate, but she doesn’t even know about the mistake!”

With a huff, Eleanor hefted herself upright, scattering shrimp tails around. She picked up a few. “Are you a hundred percent sure that I have to be a good person all the time? Can’t I just be really good some of the time and then take a few siestas off?” she groaned.

Chidi ignored her. “She has no way to make peace with her situation except to grin and bear it!”

“Okay, but she loves smiling. It lets us know how much she flosses.”

“So what I was thinking—since you’re her new best friend—“

“A threesome?” Eleanor demanded. “Because I’m honestly not sure you could handle one of us. Or are you just going to watch…?”

“Eleanor, since you’ve met me, how many things that I have said have you assumed to be about sex and then proven to be about sex?”

“That thing with the butter.”

“That was a lucky guess.”

“Luck is a word people use when they can’t admit skillz.” Eleanor bobbed her head, raising one fist slowly into the air and mouthing a roaring crowd noise.

“Stop that,” Chidi said simply. “You see, one of the things good people do is worry about others. They consider what’s going on in other people’s lives, and how it’s affecting them, and if it might affect them negatively, that’s a source of concern.”

“That sounds a lot like stress.”

“So then they check up on the person they’re worried about, they touch base, they take them out for lunch or go shopping with them…”

“Chidi, do you think I got this complexion from stressing out?” Eleanor’s hand circled her face. “Look at me. Look at my complexion. I have the skin of Kate Upton’s boobs but all over.”

“Do something nice for Tahani,” Chidi ordered her. “I asked around to see how she was doing during the curfew and she seemed really frayed, by Tahani standards.”

Eleanor moaned unhappily. “I have more shrimp to eat,” she pouted.

“It’s the Good Place. There are infinite shrimp.”

“See? Much more shrimp to eat. And do you want me to bring her a present? I have to bring her a present, and that means being thoughtful, and I already complimented five people on their hair today! Only two of them deserved it!”

“I already picked out a gift.” Chidi held up a gift-wrapped box. “Have you seriously not noticed that I’ve been holding this the entire time?”

“I did, but it was at groin-level… did you get Saturday Night Live in Africa, because there was this one skit with Justin Timberlake…”

“Take the box to Tahani,” Chidi said firmly.

“Do they have Justin Timberlake in Africa?”

“Go now. With the box.”

***

If there was an emo way to fold linen napkins into swans, Tahani had definitely found it. Maybe Chidi was right—there seemed to be a lot less nitrous oxide in her bloodstream than usual today.

Tahani scented blood. Wheeling on Eleanor, she smiled, hoping to blind her prey with the glare. “Eleanor, you doll, how lovely of you to stop by! And have you brought a present? For me? You shouldn’t have!”

Lady, you’ve got no idea. “Well, y’know, I saw it and it just screamed Tahani.”

Tahani took the present from her as if it were a mountain of cocaine and she were Tony Montana. “And so finely wrapped, too! Eleanor, you are the most considerate, the most!”

She pulled on the ribbon, unraveling the bow, then slit the wrapping paper with a fingernail, neatly peeled it from atop the box, and pulled off the lid.

Christ, did the woman tie her cherry stems into little hearts before she fed them to her cloned dinosaur too?

“A sfaslkfh asflkhsflkh!” Tahani cheered, taking it out of the box. Eleanor shook her head. No way that had been English. And looking at the thing, which appeared to be an oversized set of dice with animal faces carved into each side, was not giving her any insight into what the hell it was called. “Eleanor, how’d you get one? Even here, I haven’t been able to figure out how to even ask for it!”

“Well, that is my little secret.” Eleanor crossed her arms happily. “But I just thought you might need one around the house.”

“I would certainly rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it!” Tahani said gaily, which wasn’t even an adjective anymore really. “Have you come by to see Jianyu, because he’s currently meditating, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, that’s what my little brother called it too,” Eleanor muttered, before quickly recouping. “What?”

“What?” Tahani asked.

“I thought you said something.”

“No, you were just—“

“So you didn’t say—“

“No, not at all.”

“Oh,” Eleanor said. “That was weird. Anyway, I was worried you were taking the whole Jianyu thing a leetle hard, but since you’re not, I will just be on my way to see if yogurt has anything new to tell me—“

“Yes, that’s right, Jianyu and I are fine!” Tahani nodded desperately. “He hasn’t spoken again since the sinkhole opened, but then, that was a rather traumatic incident, and it’s good to have a man who will redouble his convictions under these circumstances, instead of abandoning his deeply held personal beliefs and letting his soulmate know what his voice sounds like, or what he said that one time because she forgot it, as well as what his voice sounded like.” Tahani finally took a breath. “It was quite deep, wasn’t it? His voice? A bit brooding, one would say, but not moody. Rather, carefully considered in phrasing and effect—“

Oh dear God, she was listening to Tahani talk about jerking off imagining a man’s voice? She was.

“Hey, talking—talking’s overrated, Tahani, seriously. Chidi and I hardly ever talk. It’s like whaaaat? ‘What do you want to know?’ We’re all talked out in a pretty big hurry.”

“Oh yes, I imagine not much talking gets done,” Tahani agreed. “Over in your little ‘love nest’. Your ‘passion pit.’” Agreed really too much.

“Oh, no, noooo. I mean, I barely know the guy.” The last thing she needed was to aim a horny Tahani at Jason. That was a hari-kari to the self-esteem that no woman needed. “But hey, we have all the time in the world for, like, intimacy and all that stupid stuff. You know what’s good though? Board games. You can learn so much more about a guy from playing Boggle than having sex. Like, what’s to know? They make a stupid face, you get spanked a few times, you wash off the whipped cream…”

“Yes, yes, indeed,” Tahani nodded enthusiastically. “But still, it will be nice once the awkwardness is over and done with and the physical intimacy sets in, don’t you think? All that physical intimacy, you know? With my soulmate, the one person my life was destined to be shared with, as the passionate manservant of my sensual desires.”

“If you’re into that. Some people aren’t. Many people, who I have met, who would otherwise be wonderful care-givers and breadwinners, if they’d just…” Eleanor moved her fist slowly forward. She wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. How did you talk to people when you couldn’t sucker them into talking about how weird Rene Russo’s nips looked or something? “Maybe Jianyu is just into relaxing massage therapy. That’s good fun too!”

Tahani’s lips quirked. “You don’t think he’d… want me?”

“Sure he’d want you. Of course. You’re, uh… you’re tall. You have legs that are taller than me. And your breasts are bigger than mine and you have an ass that both white people and black people would like. Your hair looks like it came from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I want to eat it. It looks so good!”

“Oh, Eleanor, how ‘sweet’ of you to say!” Tahani giggled at her own bon mot, like an asshole, and pinched her lips over a lock of her hair with a mock-growl. “But I mustn’t let your flattery swell my head. But theoretically, do you think my genes could possibly have been combined a little bit better? Like if my nose were a bit slimmer—“

“No, it’s perfect. If someone hacked your nudes, I would take the bad karma of looking at them, because I would need to see dem things that bad.”

“Oh, goodness! That is positively offensive!” Tahani waved a chiding hand at Eleanor. “But who else would you do that for? Angelina Jolie?”

“I don’t need a computer to see her naked, just a Netflix account. No, you are worth my feminism to see naked. I’d see your ass and it would be immediately worth it.”

“Eleanor, what a caution you are!” She swung her hips a little, turning a quarter and lifting her ass a little, before sweeping it back behind her body. “Oh, I’d better keep that turned away from you! Wouldn’t want you ‘giving into temptation!’”

This was why Eleanor got along better with men. Being friends with women was like verbally dry-humping them. And why did Tahani have to say everything like she was making air quotes? It was even more annoying than actually making air quotes!

So why was it that Eleanor found herself saying “Oh, you know you would!”

Oh, you know you would.

Yes, she was picking good things to say to the handsy supermodel whose attitude has a two-drink minimum.

Tahani’s eyes lit up. “I have a brilliant idea!”

“I had that idea in college, did not work out.”

“You’re having difficulties with Chidi, I’m having difficulties with Jianyu… sure, once we’re all ‘used to each other,’ there’ll be the eternal bliss and all that, but while we’re waiting, we need to keep our spirits up!”

“I absolutely agree, so I am gonna go see if the ice cream pit is full or not…”

Tahani barreled forward, taking a few steps to grandly sweep her arm through the air. “I think we should be each other’s ‘practice soulmates.’”

“Oh… oh… oh God,” Eleanor said, trying to figure out how many exclamations that called for.

“It will be perfect! Chidi, Jianyu, we’re stuck with them for life! Well, not stuck, and not life, but we don’t want to mess things up with them by being too needy while we’re getting our new lives sorted out!”

“Yes! We definitely should not be needy!”

Tahani took Eleanor’s hands. “I’m so glad you agree, thank you so much for agreeing with me—we have all these complicated, emotional needs that our soulmates are going to meet, but we have to break the ice first! We have to take care of our needs while the ice breaks!”

A thought struck Eleanor: “Does this have anything to do with butter?”

“An odd question, Eleanor, but I’m glad you’re being thorough. No, it does not.” Tahani actually clapped Eleanor’s hands together for her. “What I think we should do is spend more time together, fulfilling each other’s needs, until our soulmates are comfortable enough with us to fulfill our needs for us.”

“Okay, I didn’t do that in college, but I saw a video of it on the internet once—“

“Oh, really? You must share sometime.” Tahani shook Eleanor’s hands happily. “See! That’s something else we can do as practice soulmates! And you, you need approval and validation! I can give you that!”

“Now you just sound like my stepdad.”

“And I need physical affection! Jianyu isn’t yet comfortable with giving that to me, but I know you would just love giving me a nice long hug!”

“You’re very confident in that!” Eleanor said, matching Tahani’s soaring tone. “Just… so, so confident there.”

Their hands were joined between them, and now Tahani released them, puckishly wiggling her hands up Eleanor’s forearms, up to her shoulders, then gripping them to pull Eleanor into a hug.

It wasn’t that bad, despite the fact that Tahani was, like, insufferably taller than her, so she had to scrunch and curl around Eleanor to hug her, and Eleanor still got a titty on her cheek. But Tahani smelled like peaches and children’s dreams, and for being so thin and high-cheekboned, she was surprisingly soft. And her hands were practically doing a shiatsu massage as they patted Eleanor’s back.

“This is a bit bad on one’s spinal column,” Tahani said with a little self-deprecatory laugh, then straightened some in Eleanor’s arms. “Here, perhaps if I were to lift you somewhat… stay on your toes, dearie, ha ha, it’s a double entendre!”

“More like one and a half entendres,” Eleanor almost said, breaking off because suddenly Tahani al-Jamil had picked her the fuck up.

“Oh my! How light you are, my bucket!”

“Did you just call me a bucket?” Eleanor asked, wrapping her legs around Tahani strictly for support, because holy crap, Tahani was tall and she didn’t like being supported only from the waist up.

“It’s a French-Pakistani-English term of endearment,” Tahani told her. “Oh! Astounding! Your legs have come around my body!”

“Because if I don’t, you’re going to drop me on my ass and I’ll break my ass!”

“Well, just so long as you’re comfortable. After all, this is the Good Place. There’s nothing untoward about a leg-hug, any more than there is in an arm-hug! Neither of us are… ‘creepers’!”

“Uh-huh,” Eleanor said, thinking about how her boobs had gotten to second base with Tahani’s boobs.

She could tell Tahani wasn’t wearing a bra, which meant her breasts just did that. The bitch.

“What’s great is how you think we’d be done hugging, but nope! Still huggin’.”

For a woman wearing such an elaborate dress, it was really thin too. Light. Eleanor could make out just about all of Tahani’s body by touch. Not that she wanted to or was trying to, she just noticed a lot about Tahani’s body. She couldn’t help but notice it, really. If Tahani didn’t want her to know where her belly button was, why was she making Eleanor give her a mid-air lapdance of a hug?

Finally—like, an ‘oh god’, five minutes later finally—Tahani set Eleanor down. Eleanor staggered, the climate control of the Good Place seeming to be suddenly set on Florida, and then she centered herself and thought there was no reason to be blushing from a hug and then sat down.

“My! This soulmate practice is coming along very well!” Tahani said proudly. “I can’t wait to do that with Jianyu. Do you think that was the optimal length for a soulmate hug?”

“Oh yeah. Perfect amount of hug,” Eleanor said. She just wanted to get home and reward herself with a couple of hours of being a shitty person. Eat donuts. Sleep when it was daylight out.

“I’m so glad! And of course, we can do anything you want to do.”

“Anything?”

“Yes, but of course, you’re my practice soulmate! If there’s anything you would like to open up to your soulmate about, but can’t, you just try it on me! It hardly matters what you say to me. I think we’re such good friends, nothing could shake our relationship!”

“Yeah,” Eleanor agreed robotically. “We are so totally good. I wish I could be this good with Chidi.”

“You’ll get there,” Tahani assured her. “Don’t you worry. Perhaps try giving him, oh, half a hug when you see him next? You’re getting rather good at it!”

“Uh-huh. I’m gonna do that. One-half hug.”

Eleanor padded off, wondering why all of a sudden her stomach was being all grade school. All the talk of soulmates? So she didn’t have a soulmate, big deal, she hadn’t expected one on Earth! And being in the Good Place without a soulmate sure beat the skittles out of being in the Bad Place!

Right?

Maybe her soulmate was in Hell somewhere, and it wouldn’t be so bad if they were just together. Which sounded really dumb, so no, but it would be great if she had a soulmate in the Good Place. Everyone else got them, even if it was cuz they were supposed to be there.

And Tahani. She didn’t get one, even after she’d done everything right. That really bit. Not as hard as going to the Bad Place over a few minor indiscretions and one thing that she hadn’t even been sober for, but still, tough luck. She kinda wished she could do Tahani a solid, before remembering she’d been huglested by her, and that would count as her good deed for the day in any court. People’s Court, Sex Court, food courts…

Oh God, she was going to have to let Tahani give her a massage, wasn’t she?

Thinking about how life—or afterlife—had put her in the precarious situation of being the only therapist who knew what was wrong with Tahani’s otherwise deservedly perfect existence, Eleanor kicked a rock as she shuffled back towards her place.

She was completely oblivious to the fact that it hit a campaign poster advocating Tahani al-Jamil for Mayor, but that was okay. There were hundreds of them appearing around the neighborhood. She was bound to notice one sooner or later.