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“You’ve had to stop yourself because she said them to you? Comments that are flirtatious or suggestive?”
“No,” I say. “It’s more like a response to something she said, unintentionally. A trigger, I guess.”
“Have you set clear boundaries with her?” Gloria asks.
“We’ve never had the conversation. But I think she knows this is just a friendly thing.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been careful not to give her any reason to think there’s anything else.”
“That’s good.” She nods while jotting notes down on her pad. “And has she given you any reason to think that she would like more?”
I shake my head. “No, not really.”
Except for the stint in the supply room—which I now know was part of the challenge—nothing she’s done or said has seemed to me like she’d want more out of this. And I’m good at reading that. A specialist, really.
“So, what do you do when the old habits reappear?”
I think about that for a second. “Lately, I just haven’t given into them. I still think them, though.”
I stumbled a bit on Friday night when I helped Lucy out of her coat and saw her wearing something other than scrubs. The way her tight pants showed off her great legs ... well, I’d have to be blind not to notice. I started to tell her she looked beautiful, thought better of it, and finished the sentence with ... different.
I tell Gloria a version of this. “So maybe I’m not as far along as I think I am,” I say at the end.
“Would you tell a guy friend that he looks handsome in his shirt?” she asks.
“I don’t know if I’d say it that way, but sure,” I say.
“So then it wouldn’t be out of character to tell a woman she looks beautiful and simply mean it as that.”
I nod. I may have a doctorate, but I can be pretty thick sometimes. “Right. Of course.”
“Well, I’m pleased with this,” she says, setting her pen down on her pad of paper. “This is above and beyond what I was hoping this assignment would do for you.”
“How’s that?”
“Essentially, I wanted you to practice. To try to be a better listener. To seek out friendship and only that. I figured it might take a bit of practicing before you found someone you actually wanted to talk to. But it looks like you’ve found someone. I’m happy about that.”
“I am too,” I say. It’s not an exaggeration. I haven’t had a friend in a long time. It feels good to be friends with someone like Lucy.
I TAKE IT BACK. IT’S infuriating to be friends with someone like Lucy.
At least right at this moment.
“Graham,” she says, frustration in her tone. “Would you just stay out of the kitchen?”
“I don’t even know what the kitchen is,” I tell her, exasperated, standing in a pickleball court with a paddle in my hand.
Even though the woman is a competitive lunatic, I don’t miss the fact that she looks great in her athletic shorts and tank top. I almost told her that after my conversation with Gloria earlier today, but it felt a little over-the-top to tell someone in workout clothes that they look pretty. I’ve definitely never done that with a guy friend. Those basketball shorts hug you in all the right places, my dude.
No. That’s absolutely not something I’d say.
“You’re in the no-volley zone; it’s also called the kitchen,” Ryan, a.k.a. Little Barky, says from across the net. “You’re too close to the net and you can’t volley from there; the ball has to bounce first.”
“Got it,” I say, wondering how I missed that when they were giving us quick instructions. Why can’t we just play tennis instead of this tennis/badminton/table tennis combination game? What happened to just playing a good old game of tennis?
We’re at an indoor court at the rec center. Ryan and Morgan, who are apparently regular pickleball players, dressed in matching outfits, came along to show us the ropes. This way Morgan gets to decide who wins this challenge. I’m guessing it’s the person who picked up on the game easiest, and that’s certainly not been me.
