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“It’s not a problem,” he tells her. “My place is fine. But first—”
“First what?”
“First you have to answer the question.”
She rolls her eyes and then signals Barbie for pie and the check. “Fine.” She leans in and lowers her voice. “You want to know whatreallygives me pleasure?”
“Yes.”
“I’m trying to show you and you want me to put it in words?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do. And notwhatgives you pleasure. You said that. I want to know what about your job you enjoy. Forgive me. I’m a fan of specifics.”
“Clearly.” Ali ponders his question while picking slivers of ham off his plate. “In my work, I don’t study what people say. I study what they do.”
“And that tells you what?”
“It tells me whether I can help them. It tells me if they even want help to begin with.”
“And you help them how?” He leans forward resting his elbows on the table. “Considering they want it.”
“Well, if you find what makes a person tick—whattrulymakes them tick, beyond surface level stuff—and you can provide that, then the rest is easy. But people don’t always want to give up their wants and desires so easily.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Hell, half the time they don’t even know what they are themselves. And let me tell you something, Mark. Most people who are looking for love, or for marriage, or even a one-night stand, they’re only doing it hoping it will make them feel better. So when I can cut through all of that—when we cut through the bullshit—and get to the core, that’s when my work pleases me.”
“And what is it that most people want?” Barbie places a slice of pie in front of him and hands him the check. He looks up at her and smiles and then slides a fork to Ali. “When you cut through the bullshit?”
“Besides pie?” Ali shifts back in her seat. “That’s easy. What I just said. They want to feel better.”
“And they expectyouto make that happen?”
“That’s what they pay me for, yes.”
“And all you’re doing is talking.”
“I listen.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Not always. But most people aren’t as different as they think they are.”
“It doesn’t stop there, though, does it?”
“What do you mean?”I don’t sleep with my clients, except for the one. And that was a mistake.
“I mean, you have to keep trying to make them feel better. Keep coming up with things that surprise them, until the inevitable day comes, which is really a very sad day, really. The day they learn that no one else can truly make them happy. They have to do that for themselves. Of course, by that point they will believe it’syou. They’ll make sure you know it’s you. That’s the source of their unhappiness. It will be something that you’ve done, something that you changed, or started, and this is the beginning of the end. From there it’s a downhill snowball.”
Her eyes widen. “That’s exactly how it is. How’d you know?”
“Call it a good guess.”
“No, really.” She pulls the pie a little closer to her side of the table and pinches off a piece of the crust.
He shrugs. “It sounds a lot like love.”
Chapter Nineteen
