“What are you talking about? I’m not stuck in neutral. I’m in overdrive.”
“Yeah, right. Did you at least try to talk to her?”
“Sure, I explained the whole thing. I mean, she didn’t answer the phone or anything, but I left a long message that very night—completely detailed—and on top of that I e-mailed her. I got nothing back. Zero. The big platypus egg. I mean, at school she walks right past me like I’m the original invisible man.”
“Did you follow after her?”
“No, I’m not a puppy dog.”
“Did you apologize?”
“Not really. I just explained how I was only doing Ricky a favor—which has worked out splendidly, by the way, since he’s going out with Bethany on Friday. The way I see it I don’t really have anything to apologize for. It’s just a misunderstanding.”
Bob waggles his hand at me. “Doesn’t matter. It never hurts to apologize. I don’t care if she’s the one who did something you didn’t like—go ahead and apologize. It’s the sacrifice of it. That’s what shows you love her.”
“Yeah,” I say, “but then she’s going to have a leash around my neck.”
“You have to stop thinking that way. Don’t worry about who has the power in the relationship all the time. If you make her happy, then that’s the biggest power you can have.”
“Hmm,” I say. “I never thought of it that way.”
Bob really does make a lot of good points. I don’t know how effective he’d be at motivating babies, but he’d do a tremendous job with an advice-to-the-lovelorn column for teenagers.
“My advice,” he says, “is to go over this evening. Don’t call or text her. Don’t e-mail. Just go over there in person. What’s her favorite kind of flower?”
“I don’t know.”
He gives me the tsk-tsk headshake. “Just bring some roses, then. Tell her you were wrong. But don’t go into all sorts of promises about how you’ll never do it again. Instead, tell her you’ve been thinking about how she must have felt when she saw that other girl hugging you. That way you can start her talking about her feelings. Then you’ve got to listen, hard. Let her know that her feelings are important to you. That’s all she wanted from you in the first place.”
“Damn, Bob,” I say. “That is good. That is really good. You ought to be on Oprah. I’m not kidding.”
“I’ve thought about writing a book about this kind of stuff,” he says. “I might have to get a doctorate in human relations first.”
Chapter 10
Good old Bob. For a guy with hair growing out of his ears, he sure seems to be in touch with how women feel. Too bad I can’t get him to come along and do the Cyrano de Bergerac thing for me.
See, this is my problem with following Cassidy’s rule about putting her feelings first. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, but I don’t have the least grasp on what’s going on inside a girl once she becomes my girlfriend. Just plain girls, now, I can read like a toaster-oven manual, but let me start dating one and it’s like they reach up and slam that manual shut right in front of my nose. No more toast for me.
Take my girlfriend before Cassidy, Kimberly Kerns. Back in the flirty-flirty stage when we were first getting to know each other, she thought I was the funniest guy in the world. I’d do this gangsta-rapper routine that she loved:
I’m grand and I’m glorious
I’m semi-notorious
I’m a real instigator
And a mammary navigator
Listen up, ’cause I’m serious
I drive the girls delirious
I’m the master fornicator
I’m the king copulator
Down below or up above
I’m the Sultan of Love
Yeah, the Sultan of Love
Yeah, the Sultan of Love.
She’d laugh till she got cramps. But after dating for a couple of months, I couldn’t hardly get a sentence out of my mouth without her telling me I was gross or immature or some such routine. She used to tell me I wasn’t like anyone else and then, all of a sudden, she’s all about wanting to change me into her idea of what a guy should be. Why can’t you talk about something serious? Why can’t you wear nicer shirts? Why do you have to party with your buddies so much? She even mentioned something about how I ought to grow out my hair a little and put highlights in it. Can you believe that? Me, with f**king highlights?
Before Kimberly, there was Lisa Crespo and before her there was Angela Diaz and before her there was Shawnie Brown and before her—going back into junior high—there was Morgan McDonald and Mandy Stansberry and Caitlin Casey. They were all confident, heads-up-and-look-you-in-the-eye girls in their own ways, but I always seemed to let them down for one of two reasons:
Because I didn’t quite stack up as impressive enough to their friends in some way that was beyond my comprehension.
Because—and this is more confusing yet—they expected me to shift into some gear that my love mobile just couldn’t seem to reach.
When Lisa broke up with me, she said she felt like we never had a real relationship.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “We do something together almost every Saturday night. Do you expect me to ask you to get married or something? We’re sixteen, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not talking about marriage,” she said, all pouty-faced.
“Then what is it?”
She crossed her arms. “If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”