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“Sang, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“What do you think… is the thing… a woman wants most from her man?”
“Well I imagine it’s different for each woman, but in general, I think what women want most is to feel safe. That the man they’re with can give them that.”
“Hmmmmm…”
“So how did I do on this pop-quiz?”
“Perfect answer, Sang. Perfect answer.”
I smile.
“You’d be surprised how many men would answer that differently,” she says.
Once in a while she asks me questions about what kind of man I am; how I see the world; what I see in her; what kind of soul I carry.
She’s not testing me. She’s not looking to trip me up for that “ah-ha” moment. She just wants to know that all the time she’s spent on the phone, all the thoughts, emotions and desires she’s invested in me, hasn’t been an illusion. A lie. A fool’s errand.
“It’s strange…” she says softly.
“What is?”
“We’re almost strangers, Sang. Beside the fact that we haven’t been in the same room… the way we met… it’s strange.”
“We’re not strangers. No, I don’t know what you smell like, what you feel like, but I don’t think we’re strangers. We’ve been on the phone every night, hours at a time, for over a month now. I like that we started this way.”
She wants to know that she can trust this. Trust herself that this, what we’ve started together, won’t hurt either of us. That it won’t turn both of us into fools. We’ve both been there. We all have.
When you come across a stray dollar on the sidewalk, you pick it up and go about your day. When you find a suitcase full of money you look around to see if anyone’s watching. You check for dye-packs and FBI surveillance, drug dealers, hidden cameras, the mob. You don’t just pick it up and head for the nearest Ferrari dealer.
I found a scratch-off lottery ticket on the floor of a bakery once. “Match All 5!” it read. The fields had been scratched away to reveal five dancing girls. For a second, I thought I had a winning ticket. It turned out to be promotional debris for a local strip club.
I felt like such an idiot for getting my hopes up at all. I should have known better than to think I could get something for nothing. The world just doesn’t work that way.
“What would make you feel better at the end of a bad day?” she asks.
“Coming home, lounging on the couch with my girl. She doesn’t have to listen to anything I say. I probably wouldn’t say much. All she’d have to do is let me use her lap as a pillow – play with my hair. Just her being there, like that, would make that day a whole lot better.”
“That’s sweet… But I’d probably need a little more than that after a bad day, Sang. I’m just being honest, here.”
“Can I guess what it might take?”
“Sure.”
“I’d know if you were having a bad day, by the way. I can tell on the phone when you’ve had a bad day, I think I’ll be able to spot it in person. Anyway, I’d let you rant and complain and get it out of your system.
“I’d keep a respectful distance and just listen. And I’d really listen, not just nod my head. Then, just when you calmed down enough, I’d ask you what you wanted for dinner. I’d make it, pick it up, go seek it out, whatever. And then I…
“Oh, oh, no… you need to stop talking right now, Sang…”
“What… did I get that right too?” I asked innocently.
I did get it right. I could tell by her reaction that I couldn’t have been more right.
“Mmmmph, that part about asking me about dinner… oh my God, Sang…”
I listen to her on the phone. I listen to things said and things unsaid. I don’t listen to score points. Not with her. I listen because her voice soothes me. Because after a long and shitty day, she’s on the phone with me.
She whines to me. I love it when she whines. She does it in a way that makes me want to be closer to her. She whines to show me what an average day will be for us; what the majority of our days will look like – if we could, have days at all.
She warns me all the time. Moody bitch; selfish and whiny; stupid and clumsy; stressed and cranky are words she’s used to describe her many facets to me. She expects me to flinch.
I think she’s relieved when I don’t.
“What would make you feel better at the end of a bad day?” No one asked me that question before. Not the way she was asking. She didn’t ask how I handled a bad day. She asked what would make me feel better.
All I need, right now, is her voice on the phone. All I need to make a day better is for her to say my name, just right.
At the end of a bad day, all I need is for her to be curious enough – to ask about bad days ahead.
Well I’m having a bad day now, Sang…a few of them actually. I need to rant and complain today. But this distance is a bit too “respectful”. I was thinking a trip to the bathroom or a moment at your desk. But this? I’m having a bad day, Sang. You owe me dinner.