Yeah, yeah. I rolled my eyes.
“Anyway, Talon was a bank teller, but I only found that out later, because he said he worked ‘in finance.’ Now, I have exactly zero problem dating a bank teller. I do, however, have a problem dating liars. But anyway, when this came out, I somehow talked myself into giving him another chance. So we’re on date number three. And, incidentally, we’re at a sushi restaurant, which I always avoid because I have a shellfish allergy, and even if you don’t order anything with shellfish, I find there’s often cross contamination. Anyway, having had enough bad reactions, I steer clear of the sushi category entirely—alas. He knew all this. But he really wanted to try this new place, and he gave me the puppy-dog eyes, so I agreed. No, actually, I faked enthusiasm.” She did the nose scrunch, but this time itlooked like she’d smelled something bad. “I faked enthusiasm over miso soup and seaweed salad, which was all I felt I could safely have. Why did I do that?”
I had no idea. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who fakes anything.”
“Right?” She seemed cheered by my assessment. “I’m not. Or at least I didn’t used to be. Which is exactly why I’m here. Having the reset. Anyway, after dinner Talon ‘invites me back to his place.’” She paused and gave me an exaggerated wink. “Do you know what that means?”
I chuckled. “I know what that means.” Drunk Sourplum was cute.
“Well, for all I know, famous people have a different code.”
“If they do, they haven’t told me about it.”
“I wasn’t really feeling it, but at some point you have to fish or cut bait or you lose them. So we’re at his place, and things got…” She rotated her wrist in a way I took to indicate that things got heated between them. “Do you know what that means?” She rotated again.
“I know what that means.”
“So fine, we’re kissing. But then he starts pushing my head into his lap.”
“Wait. What?”
“Yeah, not that unusual.” She was on a roll with her story now, and I had to make a concerted effort to keep up, to not remain mentally snagged on the idea of a dude named Talon pushing Gretchen’s head into his lap. “And honestly, usually you’re going to get there eventually. Unless you want to give up on the prospect. Which is what I generally told myself, anyway. I’m a pragmatist.”
Well, shit. “That’s just—”
She cut me off. “Butthisguy.” She snorted. “He said, ‘Polish my talon, babe.’” She burst out laughing. I chuckled along with her, but inside I was unsettled.
“So I had to call it. Couldn’t do it. I got up, wished him well, and left. I could hardly keep a straight face, and that was my mistake. When I got home, I had seventeen text messages telling me I was a frigid bitch, a talentless whore who deserved to be—”
“I get it.” I couldn’t hear any more.
“I wanted to be like,Which is it? Am I frigid or a whore? I think you have to pick a lane there, dude.But you have to give Talon credit for his vocabulary skills. Most of them are…” She trailed off, and she was back to looking at me strangely.
“Most of them are what?” I prompted.
“Most of them are more succinct. They might just call you a bitch, for example, without the adjectives. There’s something about all this Andrew Tate ‘men’s rights’ bullshit that I honestly think is poisoning an entire generation of men. Though to be fair, some of the Andrew Tate crew aren’t throwing the wordbitcharound necessarily, but they’re looking for a ‘high-value female.’ Apparently that isn’t me. I also had one guy tell me I wasn’t ‘obedient.’”
What. The actual. Fuck. I was dumbfounded.
She was silent a long time, and just as I was coming around to the idea that I had to let the evening wind down, she said, “Sothenwhat happened is my best friend fell in love. Like, real, cinematic, happily-ever-after shit.”
“That must be hard for you.”
“Yes and no. I’m over the moon for her. She’s expecting a baby. She’s younger than I am, and I used to give her dating advice. She used to have this crappy boyfriend, before PrinceCharming—who’s a retired NHL player, by the way—and I was always on her case about settling and all that. But really, what was I doing but exactly the same thing? It maybe looked different because I was always on to the next guy. So it seemed like I was picky, or had high standards, or whatever. But really, I was making myself small to please men, same as she was. Only I couldn’t even hold on to one for more than a couple weeks at a time, even with all that shrinking.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” I said softly. But I did admire the fearless way she confronted her perceived shortcomings.
“I’m not, though,” she insisted. “I’m beinggoodto myself. By making myself face the truth. I don’t want half relationships. I don’t want to sleep with people who don’t care about me as a person. I’m tired of twisting myself into something I’m not to please other people—to pleasemen.” Her voice had risen, and she seemed to realize it. “So I’m not going to do that anymore,” she finished quietly. Almost primly. “I know you think that’s dumb, but I don’t care.”
“I don’t think it’s dumb.” I didn’t like the way she kept prefacing what she was saying with declarations about how she knew I was going to think it was dumb, or pathetic, or naive—what did it say about me that those were the vibes I was giving off? Her little speech had been oddly moving, actually. Gretchen and I were different sorts of people, and we’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but authenticity was something I dug. And Sourplum, she was very much herself.
And her thing about coming to the woods for a reset—it was a nice idea. It was basically what I was trying to do, too, though I hadn’t given it a name.
“It sounds like you know literature,” I said, thinking abouthow she’d known that stupid “Better to have loved…” line came from Tennyson. “You know Thoreau?Walden?”
“Never read it, but yeah, I’m familiar.”
“‘I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,’” I quoted.
